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This is pretty awesome. Joel made a spoof video of my spoof video.
His spoof of my video has better graphics than my video. And his fridge has brillliant artwork, which I'm posting, writ large, below. Joel = Genius.
Sometimes, I come up with my own kitchen creations. This is something I'm kind of proud of. It's like Chex Party Mix, except you make it at home. It's really good.
My friend Paul said I should show my radio listeners how to do it, so we taped it on one of those new "digital" cameras. Then Paul edited it and superimposed text to illustrate what I'm doing.
I'm pretty proud of how helpful this turned out to be. I don't know why everything is squeezed horizontally. You don't have to do that in real life when you make this recipe.
Serve, and enjoy!
Should I be worried?
I kinda like this couch. And it's apparently one of the finalists for World's Ugliest. This lady, Christina, has a matching loveseat/couch combo.
It's birds and flowers. Coolness. I'll take it.
All right, already. Sheesh.
I gave you that picture of a monkey hugging a duck or whatever, and you're never satisfied. Ever.
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* -- A full 64% of the emails were from Nikki.
I've been thinking about making a bracelet for myself -- seriously. It will say, "WWNPD?"
"What Would a Normal Person Do?" I honestly ask myself that a lot. What would a normal person do, in this situation? What should I do to not mess this up, to come across as a human with typical, baseline, everyday, coping skills?
I can't do stuff right. Important, everyday stuff.
I tried to fix a kitchen cabinet door. It had a bad hinge. I went to True Value Hardware and purchased a hinge. I went home and drilled holes for the hinge. It didn't quite fit. I drilled an additional hole, then realized I had the hinge backwards. I drilled more holes, then realized I was installing the hinge upside-down. I drilled some more holes, and then realized I was putting the hinge inside the door when it was supposed to be outside.
Net result: Hinge never fixed, 16 new holes in cabinet. We then moved to Texas.
I can't do normal-person stuff.
I needed a job once, so I applied at this pie restaurant. It was called "Pie-Full Delight", and they needed a waiter. My interview was very impressive. I communicated beautifully, and the owner-lady was taken by my charm and insight, and thrilled to have "such an intelligent young man" on her little wait staff.
I was the worst waiter in the history of pie.
They didn't have the heart to fire me. I left forgotten meals up on the counter. I forgot which tables were mine. I was eventually assigned just one (1) table. I feared messing up again, so I creepily watched them eat until they were sufficiently creeped out to leave.
Within two disturbing weeks, they moved me to a little room in back, where I interfaced with customers no longer. My job? Full-time pie-box folder.
I wasn't very good at that, either.
I took a job at the FootLocker at the mall! At least I'd get a cool ref shirt! They assigned me, as well, to a back room, putting shoe boxes in order. It was tedious, but at least I could tell myself, "Soon, I will be issued a ref's uniform, and that will be cool." And whistle, too.
"Next week, I think," my manager told me, smugly, while he stood there with ref uniform and whistle.
He told me that for four weeks. "Next time -- we'll have your ref's uniform." I asked why they wouldn't move me out onto the sales floor, and he said I needed more Back Room Shoebox Training. I got depressed, and eventually gave up. I never got my ref uniform.
My last day, I used my employee discount to get a super-cool pair of Adidas shoes. My paycheck wasn't that huge, so I think I had to give the manager like six dollars on my way out. We were both kinda sheepish about it.
It started early. In high school, I got a job working at a popcorn factory. "Hutch Big Puffs". They asked me to paint the outside of some metal buildings, but I didn't do a good job. I tried hard, though. They eventually had me sit in a lawn chair, on the factory floord, and scrape moldy labels off popcorn jars. I did this with a putty knife.
It was a 12 hour day. Sometimes, some Harley-dudes would sit with me and we'd all sit and scrape. They talked about motorcycles and guns and stuff. I contributed to the conversation as I could, and, as a flute-player and the President of the Student Librarians Association, I had much to say.
I eventually learned to stop saying it.
Anyway, I'm not very good at much stuff. I'm like a bumbling genius, except for the genius part. The other day I walked home happily from the gym. Then, the next day, my car was gone from in front of our house? Stolen? No -- I left it at the gym, where I had driven it the day before.
I want a bracelet, "What Would a Normal Person Do?", but I'm told a normal person doesn't do that.
Okay, let's see what you got. Take your best shot on this.
Ivy League seniors score, on average, 54% on this thing. I'd think, for the tens of thousands you spend on college, you'd hope for a better education. But that's me, being cantankerous.
Also me being cantakerous: I missed three, but I'd argue with the test-writers that I'm right on each of them. That, my friends, is true nerd-dom.
(Rich Mullins was killed ten years ago in a car accident. Sept 19, 1997.) "So...what artists do YOU listen to? When you and Beaker are traveling, what do you listen to? Do you have influences you like to listen to for songwriting inspiration? Who do you listen to? Just wondering. Who do you like to listen to, you know? I was just wondering." Pause. "I like silence." -------------------- Man, I loved that guy. Didn't know him, really, and the two times I'd talked with him, he was brusque. But once I was talking to him while he was trying to tune his dulcimer, and then there was the "I like silence" episode. Maybe I didn't hold it against him because I wouldn't want to talk to me, either. But mostly, I think, it's because I would've been disappointed if he were anything but interesting, anything but intense, anything but flawed, anything but -- as one Rich-friend put it -- "like us, but moreso." I want me to be quiet, too. He's like me, but moreso. -------------------- I tired of the word, "Christian". It was originally something of a put-down, something applied to followers of The Way by outsiders, now adapted, awkwardly, proudly, by the followers themselves. I confess to wondering sometimes, "Why am I doing this...?" and then I hear the first few notes of "Peace", and I remember. Oh -- yeah. Of course. Jesus. Rich Mullins reminded us that we worship a God who came in the form of a homeless man. I can love a God like that. -------------------- I got the impression the beautiful, righteous-seeming people in the music industry really didn't want him crashing their party. I may be wrong about that. True, he was given a "Best Artist" award in the Christian genre -- eight months after he'd been killed. He was, at times, embarrassing. Wonderfully embarrassing. A friend of mine told me about hosting Rich's band, the Ragamuffin Band, at his home near St. Louis one summer before a concert. He said they got in a fistfight in the swimming pool. I remember thinking, "Now, THAT'S a band." If you can't picture a band getting into a pool fistfight, well, that's not a real rock band. The Police? Yes. Simon and Garfunkel? No. Ragamuffins? Yes. Philips, Craig, and Dean? ...no. The Gaithers? Oh, yeah. Heck, yeah. -------------------- I'm from Illinois, raised in the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, so you know I saw Rich Mullins a lot. First in 1985, when my then youth minister (a very cool Hoosier who reads this blog) just had to take us to see him at Lincoln Christian College, the regional epicenter of our denom -- ahem -- non-denomination. I'd love to say U2 has been my "life's soundtrack", but I won't, because it's kind of indulgent, and it's not true. They're from Ireland. Rich Mullins is it. It was Rich playing in my '81 Ford Mustang, while I sat on the side of the road -- my Mustang's natural habitat -- waiting for a tow truck. It was "If I Stand" that I sang, a cappella and off-key, at my brother's wedding. U2 is the coolest. But Rich? Rich was midwestern, socially awkward, a "born dissenter". Rich was my people. And I don't think I'm special for saying so. I think a lot of people reading this right now would say the same thing. -------------------- My former youth minister, ironically, has changed his views quite a bit. In fact, he says Rich Mullins is practically his only connection to Christianity right now, besides this blog (both terribly honoring and terrifying) and I can sure understand that. Except for the blog part. Lord have mercy. But he's got his doubts, and I've got mine, and, thank God, I know Rich had his. It's a nice little club, the three of us, separated, by culture and miles, and a gulf between us and Rich that we can't traverse for now. I sometimes wonder how we can. But, from what I hear, there's a wideness in God's mercy, I cannot find in my own. 
I was sitting next to Rich Mullins, and so I had to think of something cool to say.
This is you basic monkey-finds-pigeon-now-they're-BFF story. Here's the link.
Please enjoy this monkey-finds-pigeon-now-they're-BFF story. It's my personal favorite monkey-finds-pigeon-now-they're-BFF story.
Thank you.
For whatever reason, "judgmentalism" keeps coming up on the show. Maybe -- just guessin' -- it's because we sure love judging stuff, we humans.
And, by "stuff", of course, I mean "people". And I say, for me, it's time to knock it off.
This said, callers had some great takes this morning on the whole pipe-smoking-radio-preacher thing. Steve Brown is the guy, and here's his very honest take from his very cool personal blog.
People worry that smoking a pipe sets a bad example for the kids, and maybe it does.
As a dad, because of who I am, and how I can be: I'm more concerned about setting an example for my kids of someone who's constantly condemning other people, passing judgment on other people, and acting like I've got my own act completely together. This is because, I confess, I'm very justice-oriented, very by-the-law oriented, and I don't suffer fools gladly, by nature. (Shoot, I even named my son "Justice"...)
I love what our "Mom Coach", Catherine Hickem says: Set that example, and expect your kids to never feel open to talk to you about their own struggles. And expect them to grow up with a judgmental voice in their heads, one that may say, "You'll never measure up..."
We had a winner for our "Secret Sound" thing this week. Tina, from Port St. Lucie, figured out that it was a tennis-ball-thrower-machine-thing-that-projects-tennis-balls-machine or whatever it's called. Tina's smart.
We're doing it again, but you have to listen between 6 and 6:30 for your chance to win WAY-FEST tix. I *think* this one's easier, but Nikki doesn't, and Nikki's usually right about this stuff, she said.
In unrelated news; Did you hear that Nikki's Michigan team got beat by Appalachian State? Mwahahahahaha...snort.
