Frap… It’s the term my mom always used as a hollow threat when I was a teenager. “Straighten up or I’m gonna frap you!” To my knowledge, she never did frap me, so I am still not sure what it means… Until NOW!

Yet another weird Google beta project is making the rounds. Frappr seems to not much more than a pin map for groups of people. Cuz, of course, everyone wants to have a pin on a map that represents them… *blank stare* …I guess.

For my loyal fans, and anyone else who feels an urgent need to be frapped, you can put your own pin in the SYNS Fans Frappr map. Go on, knock yerself out! It’s free!! (Then again, so are dried leaves in autumn, but I digress.)

So does this mean that all that time, my mom was just threatening to indicate my location on a map somewhere? Jeez, I would have been much more rebellious if that’s all the consequences were.

Let’s liven things up a bit! Whadaya say?

This video has been floating around the net for a couple of weeks now, and it’s just too cool for me not to post.

This is a big file, so you may want to right click and “Save Target As”. (That will save me some bandwidth too! Thanks.)

Amazing Christmas Lights

Merry Christmas!!

In my scripture reading today, God gave me a good laugh and a good lesson. There should be little doubt how I feel about vegetarians. While I admire their self-discipline, I can’t help but think that if God didn’t want us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of such delicious meat.

Today I read Romans 14…

vs. 2 “One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.”

While that verse was good for a laugh (and may well end up on my white board) the next verse stung a little.

vs. 3 “The man who eats everything must not condemn the man who does not, for God has accepted him.”

Oof.

This is a great passage about judgment and as judgment has been a topic of this blog a few times, I’d like to share what this verse taught me.

There are those who would jump on this verse (taking it out of context) and say that it is wrong to judge anyone for anything. That is simply not scriptural. The Bible is very clear that, as Christians, it is our responsibility to lovingly and compassionately help brothers and sisters in Christ to see and overcome their sins. What Romans 14 warns against is petty legalism.

Case in point: There are those in the Church (including the pastor of my church) who believe that alcohol is so dangerous that it should be avoided entirely. The Bible does expressly forbid drunkenness. But Jesus himself drank wine. (Yes, I’ve heard the arguments about how it was only grape juice, not alcohol. Buy some Welch’s, put it in a clay pot and set it out in the sun for a couple of weeks. Then tell me it’s not “strong”.)

So is it wrong to drink wine? Am I sinning if I have a margarita on a hot summer day? The Bible is not clear. What Romans 14 is telling us is that, in such matters, follow your own conscience and don’t judge other Christians for following theirs. If you can not point to a chapter and verse in the New Testament that explicitly forbids or allows something, don’t impose your conviction on others. Simply follow your heart and let others follow theirs.

By the same token, if you are with someone who has a strong conviction which you do not share, be the bigger man and don’t temp your brother to go against his heart. It would be wrong for me to have a margarita while eating lunch with my pastor because he has a strong conviction against alcohol. This is not hypocrisy, rather politeness, showing respect for his convictions. However, if I did not know about his convictions and ordered up a cold one, it would be equally wrong for him to judge me for drinking as I clearly would not have the same conviction he has. Out of respect, he should politely decline to drink without delivering a fiery sermon.

One last thing on Romans 14. (This is the part I struggle with most.)

vs. 22 “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. …”

In other words, if someone has a conviction that you don’t share, don’t strike up a debate on the subject. I loves me some scriptural debate, but in these cases, I must keep it to myself. Aww nuts.

I must apologize to my family and friends who rely on this blog to keep tabs on my well being. I’ve had several folks ask me why I have not yet posted about the status of our move. To be honest, things are pretty crazy around here.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I am thankful for the opportunity to server God by acting in the Christmas musical at church. It’s just that three three-hour rehearsals a week can put a strain on your play time. I can’t even express how blessed we are to have this new apartment. It’s just that moving is tough and (as my wife can attest) I start to get grumpy after several days living with boxes in the house.

So, without further whining, here’s the latest 4-1-1.

Tammy and I are 90% settled into our new apartment. We have all the major furniture in place and most of the essentials (meaning our TV and computers, of course) are set up and on-line. The new place is all we hoped it would be. It’s bigger (for the most part) and newer and it has a garage (which still contains a chaotic tumble of boxes, bicycles, and tools, but I promised no more whining, so…)

There have been a couple of hang-ups, but as moves goes, this has been a good one. We had probably the lowest attrition rate of any of our previous six moves (Yeah, six. I know.) One of Tammy’s Dreamsicles© needs some glue and my old $10 garage sale book shelves have been demoted to garage storage shelves. Probably the biggest disappointment has been that there is no room for our dining table. Of course we’ve had dinner either in front of the TV or computers for years, so it won’t be a big adjustment.

Words can not say how grateful we are to our friends who helped us move everything in record time. There’s not enough pizza in the world to thank you guys enough!

*sigh*

Could someone please tell me when we changed the definition of democracy? I seem to remember a time when it meant majority rules, i.e. the opinion of the majority is of highest precedent.

However, sometime in the last ten years or so someone changed the definition to whiniest rules, e.g. if two atheists are louder than two million Christians then the atheists make the rules. For some odd reason, our culture has decided it is better to offend the majority in order to avoid offending the minority. Where is the logic in that?!

I tend to be a realist. I don’t take to mushy traditions or revisionist history. I am very vocal about the fact that Christ was probably not born on December 25th; that most of our Christmas traditions (including gift giving and tree decorating) are likely derived from pagan rituals (just like Halloween and the Easter bunny). I will not argue that December 25th has any historical, spiritual significance.

However, this is the season in which we observe Christ’s birth. This time of year would have no significance whatsoever if the early Christian Church had not decided to observe Christmas at this time of year. Do you really think that retailers would pull out all the stops to lure in shoppers for “Winter Solstice” or “Yule Feast”? Would there be parades and a national holy day (er… sorry… holiday) for the “Saturnalia” or the rebirth of Sol? (With all due respect to my Hebrew brethren, Hanukkah is a great celebration, but so is Yom Kippur and kids don’t get out of school for that!)

My wife posted a poignant essay on her blog. The summation of this essay is that we, as Christians, should not be surprised when secular America takes Christ out of Christmas.

We can’t blame a world that has rejected God for not doing the job WE have been called by God to do! … If you know Jesus as your Savior, it is YOU who is supposed to say “Merry Christmas”…

While I totally agree that it is not Target’s job to promote Christianity, I think it is totally retarded for anyone to celebrate the “Holiday” season devoid of Christian symbols. If you are offended by the fact that this holly-jolly, gift-giving, peace-on-earth time of year is based entirely on the birth of Christ, then you should try to get yourself elected to the Senate and propose a Constitutional Amendment outlawing Christmas. Otherwise, shut your trap and have a Merry Christmas!!

I am writing this from my Mom’s computer in La Grange, Texas. We are at the ranch for Thanksgiving and things at home have been so crazy lately, I haven’t had time to post.

It seems to be a tradition for Tammy and I to have insanely busy holiday seasons. We have been rehearsing for our church’s Christmas musical three nights a week since the end of October. I still work with the middle school kids every Wednesday nights, and on our few remaining free evenings we’ve been packing up our apartment. We are moving (as I mentioned before) and our move in/out falls on Thanksgiving weekend.

So, we’re at the ranch for today and Thursday. Then Friday morning we hurry back home to sign the new lease and see if we can move all the boxes into the new apartment in one afternoon. Saturday morning, I pick up a rental truck and meet several friends (THANKS GANG!!!) to move the furniture. We hope to have the old apartment cleaned and get the keys turned in Saturday night. *Fingers firmly crossed*

Then we have musical rehearsal on Sunday afternoon. *Whew*

I just wanted you all to know that I’m not lying dead in a ditch. Much to the contrary. I hope to have pics of the new apartment up in a week or so. Until then, say a prayer for us.

My truck, BamBam (What? You don’t name your vehicles? Shame on you!), is famous for it’s many bumper stickers. Not just any bumper sticker has what it takes to make it onto my truck. They must say something important, poignant, or whacky enough to be a WBQotW. Such is the case with this week’s quip.

If you’re living like there is no God, you’d better be right!

photoshop – (fó´tó – shôp) v. To digitally manipulate an image.

I’m one of those geeks that turn cultural trends into verbs. I was one of the first people I know to use “google” as a verb. In the same manner, I have been “photoshopping” images for years and preaching that you can not believe your eyes anymore.

A couple of days ago I posted my first submission on Worth1000. If you have any doubt about the power of digital editing, spend some time over at Worth. You’ll be amazed. (The tutorial about artificial aging is my favorite.)

Now, it’s all well and good to photoshop for silly online contests. It’s another thing entirely to create images for the media that create a story where none exists (also known as lying). This is what you see on all those spurious tabloid covers and it’s called photo-chopping.

photo-chop – (fó´tó – chôp) v. To digitally manipulate an image for malicious or duplicitous purposes.

This is certainly not a new practice among the media’s dirtier dogs, but with the latest technology it’s that much easier and thus that much more tempting for journalists to make news rather than report it. I strongly encourage you to read this article about the history of image tampering. It will open your eyes to some of the things you may have seen but should not have believed.

I have seen so many movies in the last few months! Keep in mind that in the previous two years I had seen exactly five movies in theaters, all of which were part of trilogies. But in the last three months, I’ve seen “Batman Begins”, “March of the Penguins”, “Corpse Bride”, and “Wallace & Gromit” all in the theater. On top of that, we just rented “Herbie: Fully Loaded”, “Robots”, and “Shaun of the Dead” on DVD.

The problem is that I’ve seen so many movies in relatively rapid succession that I can’t remember enough about each movie to do a quality review. I do remember enough to rate them though, so here is my “lite” review of these shows.

I am a huge Batman fan, but I’m a pretty harsh critic when it comes to my favorites. This movie surpassed my expectations. Great show! Batman Begins earns five out of five grins.

Tim Burton is a freakish human being, but one of my favorite film makers. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Burton directed the first couple of Batman movies that made me fall in love with the character.) The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my all time favorites and Corpse Bride had the exact same style. The plot line is not as strong as it could have been, but the art makes up for it. I give it four out of five grins.

I have a soft heart for English humor, from Monty Python to Mr. Bean. Wallace fits nicely in between. If you liked Chicken Run, you’ll love Wallace & Gromit. I give it four grins.

March of the Penguins, in all honesty, is not much more than a National Geographic special with a better script. But between the stunning visuals and beautiful musical score, it’s worth seeing. The narration is brilliant and makes even the steamy sex scene (honest!) kid safe. I was most grateful that the film makers managed to leave Darwin out of the script. I’d say three grins is more than respectable for a documentary.

I remember watching the old Herbie movies at my cousins’ house. They had a satellite dish (the old eight foot SETI style) and could pick up the Disney channel when my house only got four stations. (No, not Fox. PBS!) This new incarnation does fair justice to the 70’s movies. Herbie: Fully Loaded is good, clean fun, garnering three grins.

I’m a sucker for computer animation. As far as the art, Robots is top notch. However, I got the impression that the art was the impetus and the storyline was an after thought. (Watching the DVD extras confirmed it.) Still, it’s a fun show with a good moral. Robots gets three grins.

Even if you’re not big on English humor, Shaun of the Dead is flat out funny. I laughed out loud many times (much to the chagrin of my wife who was trying to sleep in the next room.) Still, this is one of those movies that put me in a hard spot. Much like Office Space, no matter how funny I found it, I have a hard time recommending it to my friends because the language is really bad. Not quite Tarantino bad, but almost. There are more F-bombs in Shaun than in Office Space, but if you can turn on your mental filters for the night, this one is a must see. Oh, and don’t feel bad if you don’t understand every line of dialog. There’s enough UK slang that this movie could well be considered a foreign language film. I would give it four grins, but it gets a one grin penalty for language.

This week’s WBQotW comes from an old bumper sticker I saw in the early 90’s (looong before anyone knew Dr. Atkins).

Eat Rice. Potatoes make your butt big.

Which prompts a quandry. Wouldn’t it make more sense to call it Potato Butt, than Cottage Cheese Thighs?