B

Beautifully buttered burnt bagels brought bizarre but bountiful bliss. Brilliant blunder by baker Bob!

A

Absent aphorisms and axioms acquiesce after an altogether ambitious alliteration aggressively adjures all authority.

The Internal Critic

Since arriving in England I've had the urge to write music again - a passion I seemed to abandon in high school. Coming up with silly songs and faux-showtunes throughout the day is easy to me because I don't take it seriously - even if some of them are actually good. Sitting down and writing a serious rock or pop song? That's another story. The minute I start creating I start critiquing. You could say it's perfectionism, but I think it's really a fear of sounding stupid - even alone in my living room. And fear completely suffocates creativity.

John Mayer's writes in his latest blog entry, "Writing music while also writing a future negative review of the music is a really great way to make slop." Mayer seems to be one of the most talented and prolific songwriters around. I listen to his albums and it's like the lyrics and melodies just flow naturally. It's highly encouraging and inspiring to me to hear that he struggles with an internal critic like the rest of us. Anyway, read his latest blog post. Good stuff.

Sex on Fire

I was having a conversation with a Christian friend recently, and she mentioned that she doesn't listen to much secular (non-Christian) mainstream music. She mentioned that the Kings of Leon song “Sex on Fire” had gotten stuck in her head, and she didn't really want to go around singing the line “yooooooou, your sex is on fi—ire." While I completely understand on one hand, her comment got me thinking (especially because I've had absolutely no personal conviction about having this song in my head since I downloaded the album a couple months ago).

Obviously fleshly lust plagues humankind. Just walk out your front door. Not just sex, but stuff, status. I often wonder if Victoria's Secret isn't as much of a problem as the Apple store it neighbors at the mall. In college, I remember seeing a glazed-eyed student sitting in the computer lab practically drooling as he scrolled and scanned the screen. I walked around behind him—fearing the worst—only to find him looking at high resolution pictures of sports cars. Dozens and dozens of sports cars.

At any rate we are an oversexed culture, especially the Western world. But I'm convinced our desires are too small. Lust simply means “strong desire.” So the problem can't be our desire, maybe just what we desire. I mean, I sure hope I [strongly desire] God. And maybe we desire the wrong things because our desires are weak; we settle too quickly.

C.S. Lewis is often quoted saying, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

So even the greatest pleasures in this world are just pictures—reflections of paradise, heaven, consummation with God.

I heard Tim Keller preach in a sermon that if the world had any idea what God had in mind when He designed sex, it would make the most hardened jaded New Yorker blush. The sex and porn industries would be out of business—no way to compete. Maybe the problem isn't the Kama Sutra so much, but a poor interpretation of Song of Solomon. I think it's safe to say God intended sex to be “on fire,” at least some of the time.

"Why do women hate their bodies?"

First thing I saw when I logged onto the net just new. Not groundbreaking, but a really good article on MSN.

My doppelgänger talks to Playboy

Thought this was quite telling of one our generation's most pervasive infirmities.

New Blog!

I've moved to London for the next year-ish. Check out my new blog: Tea Is For Topher.

Cheers!

"...should always be productive, dynamic, upbeat, and brilliant."

"A friend of mine had reached the top of his profession, but an addiction to prescription drugs forced him to resign his position and enter a period of rehabilitation for substance abuse. He had become addicted in part because of the expectation that he should always be productive, dynamic, upbeat, and brilliant. But he refused to blame other people's demands for his collapse. 'My life was built on two premises,' he said. 'The first was that I could control your opinion and approval of me through my performance. The second was—that was all that mattered in life."

- Timothy Keller, from "Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters"

Think thrice before naming your kid.

Fascinating article.

chills, man. chills.

I was definitely born late.

Chrome for Linux

Thank you, Mother,

for bringing me into the world
Thank you, Google,

for making my life easy

Wise as doves?

I intended to stay and work on my laptop after having coffee at Barnes&Noble with a good friend today, but the place was full (at least the good chairs were taken). So I headed across the street to the gigantic Starbucks where everyone from my church hangs out, only to find it equally packed. "I just need one of those plush chairs vacant if I'm going to get any work done!"

So I head to the much smaller Starbucks (can we get some independent coffee houses in Cumming already?) on the other side of the highway. To my joy and relief, I find four empty plush chairs next to power outlets AND I still have my tea from the B&N so I'm good.

I open my laptop and start procrastinating. I end up on my old college friend Brad Hendrickson's Facebook profile, and I click on his religious views. The link leads me to a passage in Matthew, the one about loving/serving "the least of these."

A half hour later a guy walks in and sits a couple chairs down from me. He's 40ish, scruffy, has long hair, worn clothes, and looks possibly-not-homeless. The older woman he sits next to asks him to move, and he moves to the chair next to me. "Gettin' bumped?" I say. "Yeah..." he replies and cracks open a copy of the Bible.

We start chatting (him mostly, if you can believe that). Half an hour later I hardly know anything about this guy except that he talks a lot for being so quiet (I could barely hear him 30% of the time). He's very vague, but I have a decent feeling about him. He is making his way north to the mountains, and I offer to give him a ride. As I'm packing my laptop and wondering what I just committed to (and if I'm reading scripture wrong), the older woman he was sitting next to before gives me a worried look and shakes her head with concern.

I walk out of the Starbucks and one of my best friends calls. I'm like "Call me back SOON!" (The guy was still inside). We get in my car and hit the road. He talks the whole way and rolls a cigarette. I drop him off at a grocery store a few exits north of where I live. He was thankful, and - now that I'm home safe - I'm glad I helped him out.

So why was this such a big deal? I share the story not because I think I performed some great virtue, but because I was scared straight. It felt like I was taking a big risk. If I had a wife and kids I may not have given the guy a ride.

But it wasn't like he was walking down the highway. & he didn't ask for anything. I offered him a ride. I had trouble finding hitchhiker statistics on the internet, but this guy wasn't even hitchhiking! There are plenty of serial killers who read the Bible and weirdos who know the right lingo to use in the Bible Belt, but this guy seemed legit, and as far as I know (no knife pulled on me), he was.

I wonder often about Matthew 10:16 "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." In my experience it seems many Christians try to be wise as serpents 95% of the time and, on the outside chance that someone meets all their criteria, they will take a risk and help someone in need.

I don't want to be stupid, but I would rather step out in faith and love when I think I should than risk turning away someone genuinely needy because of fear. I don't think I was stupid today.

My Latest Discovery

I love that I can flip on the radio and fall in love with a song I've never heard - a song that's new to me not because it was just released, but because it come out the year before I did! It seems we are expected to only know the music that is currently on the charts, save for a few iconic and legendary songs by The Beatles or Michael Jackson maybe. People are always saying to me, "You're too young to know [insert artist that was around before 1995]." And I'm thinking, "It's not like all the music that was on the radio before I started listening stopped existing."

Anyway, for how much music I know & love from the 50s & 80s, naturally there are thousands of songs I've never heard, artists I don't know of, etc. I can't tell you how exciting it is to flip on a local radio station that's casually playing a retro groove or doing a special 80s weekend for all those Gen-Xer parents in the suburbs and discover an amazing pop song - a quarter-century old single that's totally fresh and new to my pop crazed ears.

WOW! I'm not kidding, this song awesome. It sounds so fresh! I actually like a lot of what's going on in the pop music world right now (Lady Gaga, etc.). There's so many synths and good beats and crazy hair and Michael Jackson/Madonna throwbacks - it's great! But I come across a song like "Cool It Now" by New Edition and it just sounds more fun than almost anything out right now.

Also really into Kate Bush and Echo & The Bunnymen at the moment, but that's more serious stuff. =)

January 22 (Mazda, Inc?)

So the car I'm borrowing is a 1990 Mazda MX-6. It's a 5-speed, which is great. But the shifter is about as limp as a N64 joystick that has seen it's last game of Smash Bros. Bald tires, no air bags, and over 258k miles. Fun to drive though, especially since it feels a little like a time bomb - never know when it's gonna go off!

Just watched Food, Inc. with my brother, Charles. Fascinating documentary. I sensed some bias, but it was eye opening. I heard someone describe it as a horror movie about food. Definitely worth viewing.

Car Loan

A co-worker of mine has generously offered to let me borrow one of his cars until I leave for the UK in June. This is a huge answer to prayer!

Death of the Hamster

My '94 Toyota Tercel was totaled today. The car my friends and I affectionately called the "hamster," has passed away.

You can read about what a blessing this car was, and how much it meant to me, in the post I Love My Car from April.

I can't explain why a wreck bringing an end to a relationship with a vehicle would cause me to finally resume my blog, but it has. More posts to come.

----

A side note: I have argued with many about the color of my car. I think it's green, sort of a teal green. Many say it's blue. I laughed loudly today when I saw the police report say it was blue. =)

Zzz...

The finish line is here! This final post completes the blogathon. I am tired and ready for a break from blogging. Wednesday, I head down to Orlando with my family for an early Summer vacation. I've never been to Disney World; I'm pretty excited. 

The blogathon has been a good experience/exercise. I will probably write an entry reflecting on what I learned in the process sometime next week. Thanks for following my little endeavor. I'll be back soon.

Your feedback is appreciated

This phrase always sounds pregnant to me. When someone tells me that my “feedback is appreciated,” I don't feel appreciated nearly as much as I feel that I am being asked to give feedback. Let me rephrase; the feedback you have given has been appreciated.

You have been good readers. I don't exactly know who you are though. A couple of people have posted comments, others have said things to me in person. I think feedback is necessary for blogging. Not quite as necessary as an audience's laughter and/or jeering is for a stand up comedian, but necessary. Mostly it lets me know people are reading.

X-treme Cheese!

Yuck. Someone ordered one of our “X-treme Cheese” pizzas and then asked for extra, extra cheese. This comes through the computer as cheese times 4. So basically 7 to 8 cups of cheese on a 16” pizza. “Uh...yeah...do you guys have that new 16 inch 'get me backed up for a week' pizza? You know, the one with all the cheese?”

I don't know if it is just in America or a worldwide epidemic, but this obsession with cheese is absolutely disgusting. People just can't get enough of the stuff. “More cheese! Extra cheese!” they chant, and we give it to them. Stuff it in the crust! Melt some more on the top! Put a layer in the dough! Put some under as well as over the toppings! Gross.

I actually quite enjoy cheese. But I usually crave Gouda, Havarti, parmesan, Swiss, Colby, MontereyJack, provolone or cheddar, not pounds of melted mozzarella on starchy bread.    

"What do you do?"

I really don't like this question. It seems like the goto introductory question when there is ice to break with a new acquaintance. I try to put this question off as long as possible. I might start with “Nice to meet you. How do you know so-and-so?” or maybe, “Where are you from/where's home?” This is because I, myself, hate being asked the question “What do you do?”

Like it or not, work is like the caste system in this country, and your occupation puts you in a category in people's minds. Thankfully this is not always the case, but most of the time we link our identity and the identities of others to a job. Never mind that Larry the bank teller may be a fantastic tango dancer, a poet, a tenor, a father. He is a bank teller.

So I often want to reply to “what do you do?” with “I am a direct sales representative for a major international narcotics supplier,” and as they pause to process this, I would reaffirm boldly, “I'm a drug dealer.”

Usually, I simply reply with “you mean, for money?” making the inquisitor feel embarrassed for asking such a rude question. “Pardon me sir, what do you do for money?” Why not be a little more obvious with the query, “Would you consider yourself more bourgeois or bohemian? Are you a 'white collar professional,' intellectual, floating hippie, or simply a working class layman?”

Naturally I have thought about the question more—and it has bothered me more—because I currently work a service industry job that requires little education and training. I also embody a cliché – the liberal arts student who delivers pizza. But most of the time I really just don't care what people think. This is the perfect job for where I am in life right now. I am raising money to go overseas and do mission work with a non-profit organization. I'm only on the States for another year or so, and the job market is pretty lousy right now too. Honestly, right now I am just thankful to have a job.

I do notice a significant difference in tone, however, between conversations where I answer with “I deliver pizza” early on and conversations where what I “do” comes up later, after someone has gotten an idea of who I am and what I am about.