On blogging sabbatical.

If you haven't noticed I'm on a blogging sabbatical.

but I'll leave you with this:



and this:

Church Sign Fail

*thanks to failblog.org

Chances of getting a tapeworm

(thanks to Marko)

Pure Awesomeness

Toilet Paper your Sr. Pastor's office

Don, a Senior Pastor in No Cal got his office Tee-Peed in retaliation. He knew he deserved it. More church staff team's might think about building relationships that allow for this kind of interaction.

Read the story here.

hmmm....

Fun Music Video

Her Morning Elegance
Directed by: Oren Lavie, Yuval & Merav Nathan
Photography: Eyal Landesman
Featuring: Shir Shomron

Gotta love Austin

Someone reprogrammed two city construction road signs near the University of Texas early Monday morning in an attempt to warn Austin of an imminent zombie attack.

Messages that typically alert Lamar Boulevard drivers to a detour for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard splashed several warnings like “Caution! Zombies Ahead!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!”

How much fun is that!

Have you talked to you kids about this yet?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

For my Fisherman Friends!

fun

Band name meme

Bevan has an entertaining game to come up with your hypothetical Band’s name, album title and cover art for your first album.

You do that by:

1. Band Name: Random Wikipeda Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

2. Album Title: Random quote generator (take the last four words from the quote) Link: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
3. Album Art: Flickr Interesting Photo: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

To cool.
My Band name: Blackwater
My Album Title: except death and taxes
Cover Art:

I'd love to see what the band names and titles might be for other friends of mine.
Marko would be the kind of music you play on a pink guitar,
Dan Mayes would probably be named after Amy Grant,
Todd Littleton would likely be some kind of college music,
and Dan Kimball's band would be a rock a billy band that covers elvis...
I'd also like to see Brandon Grissom's band name. That is if it weren't named after himself. :-)
and though I don't think he reads my blog, I'd love to see what Zach Lind would name his band if it were to be changed from Jimmy Eat World.

Who am I going to be for Halloween? Hint number 1

Bevan and Evie can't guess. :-)

Classic Dave Grohl

Foo Fighters on Craig Kilborne. just good old fun. Dave Grohl hits the solo just about note for note. This is mostly just fun,not beauty.

Stairway to heaven



Then there's this with Will Ferrell. (warning: a bit of language)

Behave Children! Behave!

awesome.
(thanks to Andrew)

Educating my friends

For Bevan and Ryan who haven't heard of Dimitri Martin.
I think of Dimitri as the Sufjan Stevens of comedy.

Uke Shaft

In honor of Marko, who loves uke music.

Bevan on Spiderman 3

Bevan's a new friend who is also part of the eikon community. He loves movies. Today he writes a personal letter to Spiderman 3. Feeling the need to get his feelings off his chest. Freakin hilarious. Read it here.

My personal favorite part:

The problem is that I ended up pretty much liking Black Spiderman about 1000x better than normal Spiderman. Let’s review the major “evil” choices that “evil” Spiderman took:

1. He was mean to his landlord. This seems like fair play to me, that dude was always yelling at him. And while we’re on the topic, why does Spiderman have rent concerns? Doesn’t his inability to make even a small financial arrangement with the New York for his living conditions hinder his ability to fight crime effectively? Isn’t Spiderman just hurting New York due to his love of personal poverty?
2. He jazz danced down Broadway. Don’t even get me started with that damn scene.
3. He ate too many cookies from the landlord’s daughter. Was never quite sure while this was “evil”, she seemed to enjoy the whole thing.
4. He exposed a fraud whose lies endangered their mutual employer. The movie never even touches that it is a just thing to right a wrong, it only deals with emotions. “Oh, you hurt my feelings because you exposed me for the fraud that I am.” Batman wouldn’t deal with that crap.
5. He told whiny Harry the truth about his a-hole dad. Seemed like fair-play to me, the kid needed to know the truth. Especially since enabling his lie made him your mortal enemy and endangered your crime-fighting operation.
6. He was mean to Mary Jane by jazz dancing (again?!?) at her jazz club. This is the Mary Jane who brutally broke his heart by acting like she had an affair with his best friend. Seemed necessarily cathartic to me. She is a selfish girl who can’t sing well. She ain’t the Queen of Sheeba.

Weddings and Church Use

Brant over at Kamp Krusty was on the air for his radio show and had some interesting conversations.

My favorites:

Caller: Well, I'm on staff at our church, and there's a good reason we charge $500 for people to use the building for a wedding.

Me: That's what the church charges members who've actually paid for the building over the years?

Caller: Yes. It's really expensive to run the power and clean up and everything.

Me: Of course it is. So if the pastor wants to have a "Let's Celebrate Our Grads!" night in the sanctuary, do you have to pay $500?

Caller: Well, no, because that would be an official church function.

Me: Okay, I'm just curious: Joining members of your church in holy matrimony in front of witnesses and God isn't an official thing?

Caller: No, that's an extra thing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Next caller: I can speak for our church. If we DIDN'T charge, we'd have people lined up, wanting to use the place every Saturday for years.

Me: But if they're people who are members, and paid for the building, and it's their's, too, shouldn't it be free and celebrated and --

Caller: It would be too crazy if you just let people do that.

Me: But if they paid for it to start with --

Caller: You have to charge a fee to discourage people from using it.

Link

Sad and Funny Videos Part 1

I'm starting a new series named, sad and funny videos. Here's my first installment. Enjoy.



Yes it's for real.

Like playing hockey against Slovkian women

And I thought Oakland got thumped last night.
Slovakia's women's ice hockey team scored 82 goals on Bulgaria. There's only 60 minutes in the event.

Perhaps there's a new term for drumming. It will be my Threepete.
:Last night, it was as if the Oakland Raiders were playing hockey against Slovakian women."
Link

i laughed a lot

To quote Brant,

"This video again demonstrates a Kamp Krusty postulate: There's a fine line between "touching and inspiring" and "this will haunt me the remainder of my days."

Fantasy Football

My starting line up for Game one 2008.

David Garrard - QB
Roy Williams - WR
Santonio Holmles - WR
Brian Westbrook - RB
Frank Gore - RB
Marcedes Lewis TE
Reggie Bush - RB
Josh Brown - K
Baltimore - Defense

Bench
Greg Jennings
Roddy White
Jon Kitna
Felix Jones
Donald Driver
Derrick Mason

Celebrity and position

Zach is quoting Andrew who is quoting Mark DeMoss.

Here’s an interesting excerpt from a post from Steven Waldman, the editor-in-chief of Belief.net:

Mark DeMoss, former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell and now a leading Christian public relations executive, is hoping that Palin turns out well but has been shocked and worried by the reflexive Christian embrace of her.

“Too many evangelicals and religious conservative are too preoccupied with values and faith and pay no attention to competence. We don’t apply this approach to anything else in life, including choosing a pastor.” Imagine, he said, if a church was searching for a pastor and the leadership was brought a candidate with great values but little experience. “They’ve been a pastor for two years at a church with 150 people but he shares our values, so we hired him to be pastor of our 5,000 person church? It wouldn’t happen! We don’t say, ‘He shares our values, so let’s hire him.’ That’s absurd. Yet we apply that to choosing presidents. It blows my mind.”

Does anyone else remember Promise Keepers full on embrace and ordination of this guy at several of their stadium events?

Diddy on McCain

Check this out. P. Diddy on McCain's choice for VP.

Link

Thanks to Bob Hyatt

Mental Health Break

Quote passed on by Daniel King

"A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public eye with his pants down."
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

thanks Daniel!

Jesus Ransom and Weiner Poopie

Very funny

(thanks to Michael)

My Man!

I stumbled across this amazing pic of Scot McKnight and my buddy John Raymond on Scot's blog. yeah baby!



Link

Chiggers

This song is fun. not what i was expecting when he got in the car. He's good.

thanks to Paul

A funny political ad

I laughed out loud.

Photo in need of a caption

Post your caption in the comments.

Jon Stewart weighs in on Obama /Dobson

10 worst products for men...

10 worst products for men ever created. Not for the faint of heart.

Link

I laughed a lot on this site

brilliant!



so true.


I think Jeff Goldblum is a great actor... and this made me laugh.



we are sparta!



I married into a Texas family.. and this is true.

Here's the link for the site.

(thanks to Andrew)

3G iphone

Eugene got to handle the 3G iphone proto-type. He has pictures here.

Just plain fun

Two Videos

This Video reminded me:



of this... classic... the interview with the congressmen is awesome. The end is the best.


Link

Exception: Ballparks

Link

What did you learn today?

All of us are on a journey.
What did you learn today?
Post a comment.

"Red Shirts"

It's a tragic tale that plays out countless times every day on re-runs of classic Star Trek. Captain Kirk & Co. beam down to an alien planet. They come under attack by some malevolent energy being or dudes in rubber suits. Security crewmen wearing red shirts get vaporized, stabbed and poisoned by booby-trapped flowers.

Being a "Red Shirt" on the USS Enterprise is one of the most dangerous jobs in any (imaginary) military. Don't believe me? SiteLogic founder Matt Bailey crunched the numbers: 13.7% of Kirk's crew died during their three-year televised mission. 73% of the deaths were Red Shirts.

What might save Red Shirts' lives?

Link

I'd like one please

In case I haven't mentioned it here, I'd like one of these please.
It's not so much for me as it is the environment.




Link

Whatever Happened to PacMan?

(via Jordon)

Politics and Music Usually don't mix

this is no exception.



(ht: Zach )

For the Dog lovers

(ht: Andrew Sullivan)

March Madness

Final Four:
North Carolina
Kansas
Texas
UCLA

I have Pitt beating Memphis, and Louisville over Tennessee.

Kansas beats Texas in an all Big 12 finale!

We See What We Look For

Watch this Video

We see what we are looking for, don't we. Whether it be in presidential candidates or each other. It's more convenient to see people how we want to, rather than see what's actually there.

Hope but Kinda Different

Don't know if you saw this. It's a parody on the Yes we can for Obama.
This is for McCain

An Artist or an Ape?

I guess I'm in a monkey mood.






Take the test. Can you tell if the painting was created by an artist or a monkey?

I scored an 83%.

Gorilla Collins

(ht to Rustin)

My Prediction - Upset Baby!

New England Patriots 35 - New York Football Giants - 37

I really have no idea what I'm talking about. But I thought I'd take a shot at it.

NYWC - Atlanta

Had a great time in Atlanta this weekend. It was busy.
Thursday night I arrived really really late at the Westin on Peachtree.
Friday I woke up and wrote and went to lunch with David Welch of YS.
I met some new folks and then went go give my seminar (with marko) on expectations. It went great.
Grabbed some dinner and changed my shoes, because my feet were killing me.

Then it was off to the omni to hang out with Chris Folmsbee, Mike King, Ginny Olson, and Jim Hancock. This was our third get together (one in each city). I other cities Kara Powell, Steve, Argue, and Damien O'Farrell all came together to talk about what the future of youth ministry in North America. Pretty great conversation in each city. more to come on this.

Then off to Marko's where I got to talk briefly with Scott Rubin. then to bed.

Saturday
Woke up around 8:00am.
Started consulting at 9:30am and continued until 12:30. Met some great folks.
12:30 I had lunch with Rick Heltne of People Management.
2:00pm I stopped by Chris Folmsbee's Sacred Stories seminar and listened to him for a bit.
Hung out a bit with Brock Morgan who is doing some great stuff in Salem Oregon.
3:00pm - Did more consulting.
Dinner- Went to Fire of Brazil with Folsmbee, Len Evans, Doug Jones and a few other friends. Man dinner was good.

Then we popped up to Scott Kail's suite (and were joined by Rick Heltne again) in the Westin and watch the first half of OU getting crushed by Texas Tech. This is the part of the evening when everyone enjoyed giving me a hard time about being from Oklahoma and my football team.

Then we all walked over the Marko's again and met some great people.

Sunday
8:00 - I woke up and walked a the long road to convention HQ.
9:30 started consulting
12:30 Met Andy Jack for lunch. This was my first time to meet Andy, who I've heard a lot about and was excited to meet. I look forward to future conversations with him.
2:00 - I was consulting again.
4:00 - I had a break. I found a corner to sit in and not talk for a while.
5:00pm I went to dinner with Charley, Bryan, Mark Matlock and several other great folks from IBC and other Irving Texas churches. They were great and are dreaming big, God sized dreams. They bought Folmsbee and I dinner (we both had the Cashew crusted Tilapia with the Jamaican butter sauce!!! wow!)

then Mark Matlock and I went to the 4th Floor of the the Omni that overlooks the park and talked for about 3 hours.

Monday
7: 30 - Woke up
9:30 - Consulting
11:00 - Met up with Matlock, caught a cab and went to the airport.
While we ate, I saw my buddy John Gilstrap having lunch at the On the Border.
Then met up with Charley from IBC, and the Skit guys for a bit.
Then Matlock and I (who were sitting next to each other in the exit row) had an exciting conversation about the future of the world, creative innovation, and halloween.

Got home around 7:00 and grabbed some pizza with the kids.
Put the kids to bed and then I crashed.

It was an amazing weekend. I met some great people that I can't mention, or failed to mention here. It's amazing how each conversation teaches me something. I"m greatful for being a part of what God is doing through his church at NYWC.


See ya next year!

Um..

Driving by a church on a main street in Tulsa I saw a sign that said this.


NOW OFFERING
OUR SERVICES
IN ESPANOL

um...

oh never mind...

Who said this?

"Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist."


A. Bill Gates
B. Rick Warren
C. Bono
D. Bill Hybles

Chipotle Post 2

Did I mention that I can't wait for this?

Observation

Old people especially women over 80, should not wear their hair in pig tails.

- made at Panera Monday Sept. 17th 2007

Unchurched Me

OK. So today I went to a seminar. Reggie McNeal is in town and my friend tells me that he won't say anything revolutionary, but that I might like it. It cost $10 which includes lunch, so I go. I discover this is a "baptist thing" when I hit the parking lot.

I approach the registration table.
Here's how the conversation goes:

Registration Lady (RL): Hi
Me: HI
RL: What's your name? (as she looks down on a list of printed names)
ME: Oh, I didn't register in advance.
RL: It's ok. What's your name?
ME: Mark Riddle
RL: What church are you with?
ME: I'm not with a church.
RL: Oh. You're unchurched.
ME: ?
RL: Do you got to church anywhere?
ME: uh. Sometimes.
RL: Well. With all these pastors here, maybe you can find a church you can go to!
ME: (as I'm walking away) If I was looking to do that.

I should also say that I have some good friends who were there, some southern baptist. we all had a laugh.

Father vs. Son

Fantasy Football begins tonight.
As I've mentioned before part of the people I spend a lot of time with are dads of my kids friends. This year there are six dads and their 4th grade sons in a league. 12 teams.

This weekend I play Zach's team. He's talking trash. But will he win?
You tell me. who do you think will win? Who are you rooting for? Here's our rosters.

ME Zach
QB Jon Kitna (detroit) Chad Pennington (NYJ)
WR Marvin Harrison (INDY) Chad Johnson (CIN)
WR Roy Williams (detroit) Torry Holt (StL)
RB Rudi Johnson (cin) Joseph Addai (Indy)
RB Carnell Williams (tampa) Adrian Peterson (Minn)
TE Jeremy Shockey (NYG) Chris Cooley (was)
W/R Anquan Boldin (ari) Marty Booker (miami)
K Olindo Mare (New Orleans) Nate Keading (San diego)
DEF Miami Chicago


Dang. Am I in trouble?

UPDATE:
Zach wins. man am I hearing about it.

Football Prank

(thanks to Justin)

Fantasy Football

Any one have a team they are proud of?

who do you have?
what are your chances?

zunePhone by Microsoft

Sunday School Class names

According to my analytics there have been a few people who are searching for "sunday school" names for their Sunday School class. I'm not sure why they are here, but I'm going to make some suggestions... I am here to serve.

Abs - olomn - A sunday school class for folks who like step aerobics.

I AMS - Dog lovers class

King "Saw"ls - people who love the movie Saw

Al-Anon - a class for recovering alcoholics.

Onon - a class for recovering porn addicts

BBF's 4 GZUS - For people who would rather text than talk

Oklahoma Meditation

Kamp Krusty does it again. I laughed out loud when I read this.

"Please: Take time today, quietly, and think.

Try to block out the hustle-bustle of modern life.

Be settled. Be silent. And consider this:

1) You are, once again, placed in an arena the size of an NBA court.

2) You have no weapons.

3) You are sprayed down with female deer scent.

4) It's mating season.

How many bucks could you fight off? How long would you survive?

A friend of mine -- a wise, older brother, spiritually, and a deer hunter -- after quiet consideration, turned to me, looked up, tear in eye, and said -- and I'll never, ever forget this: "Zero".

He also shared with me, "About 20 seconds."

I appreciated his vulnerability. But what say you, friend?"

Funny flyer

(thanks to Bob C.)

This made me laugh

If you live in Dorset, this is how you upset the local "pagans".

Link

(thanks to Dave Barry)

iTunes Shuffle

Dan taqged me with the iTunes Shuffle.
Here's how it works.
I'm told to go to iTunes and hit shuffle.
The first 10 on the list.. i put here on the blog.
I love music. I love to hear what others are listening to.

Here are my 10.

It Ain't Me Babe - Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon- Walk the Line Soundtrack


Man did I like that movie. I saw it in Nashville with a bunch of youth
workers from the NYWC.

Place for My Head - Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory

Wow. I haven't listened to this in a long long time. I'm listening to this right now and remember how much I like Linkin Park



Power To the People - John Lennon - The John Lennon Collection

Not my favorite Lennon song by a long ways. I do have 93 John Lennon songs in my iTunes though.

Stalin Malone - Elvis Costello - Spike

I don't think I've ever heard this song honestly. Hmmm. Oh. It's an instrumental.

Unaccompanies Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012: I. Prelude - Yo-Yo Ma - The Bach Cello Suites

Simply incredible. No words for how good this album is.


The Best of Times - Styx - Greatest Hits

My first two albums ever were Disco Duck and Styx (mr. roboto). I have not diea what he's talking about but it's fun to listen to.

Intoxicating - David Crowder Band - Illuminate

What can I say about Crowder other than he's one of my favorite worship lyricists. (is that how you spell it?)

Wicked Web - Waterdeep - Everyone's Beautiful

I haven't heard any thing new about Waterdeep in a few years. I love this band.

Ghost - Indigo Girls - Rites of Passage

No writes and sings like these two do.

Synchronicity II - The Police - Synchronicity

awww. the police. Sting before he was playing odd midevil instruments. This song has the lyric "a humilitiating kick in the crotch" and no ones used it sense with success.

5 things I dig about Jesus

Doug tagged me for a meme.

I'll start by saying, that Doug is borderline cheesy, but I'll do it for you bro.

1. I dig that if you made a list of things I dig about Jesus it would be an impossibly long list. Something akin to a list not being contained in all the books in the world.

2. Facial hair - I've been sporting the goat for about 15 years now.

3. Obedience to the Father - Jesus always did what God wanted which is pretty dang hard and very diggable.

4. Jesus enjoyed a good glass of wine with his meal. I personally don't drink wine because I think it tastes bad, but I've always been a bit jealous of folks who get to broaden their palette during a meal with an appropriate glass of wine.

5. Jesus was wicked smart and super quick with a response to folks. While I'm not sure where to draw the line between his human DNA contributing to his brainpower and his divinity, he was quick minded.

I'm not tagging anyone for this one though. sorry Doug.
Feel free to tag yourself in the comments and I'll add you here to the post.

On Speaking with Authority

I really like this quick routine from Taylor Mali.

(thanks to drew)

Dear Coffee Shop as an Office Guy

Dear Coffee Shop as an Office Guy,

I'm sure you are a good guy doing important things. You and I have the unique privilege of being able to work where and when we want to so when we find ourselves as the local coffee shop sitting across from each other in the comfy leather chairs we should do so knowing that there are a lot of others ways to work, that are not as easy going. I have a few things that I'd hope you would consider and I humbly suggest would make all of our experience a bit better.

You sit there i your cushy chair drinking your coffee with your headphones connected to the notebook in your lap. IBM... you must be in sales.

Here's are a few tip.

1. Putting your bare feet up on the chair you commendeared from the adjacent table is just plain nasty. If for some reason my eyes wander just north of my screen I see your feet, which I refuse to observe long enough to be able to write a description of. Keep your head down Mark. Keep your head down. Mr. Coffee Shop as an Office Guy put your flip-flops on or consider asking your primary care physician about a remedy for your athletes foot.

2. When you have headphones on and you cough I feel the ground shake.

3. When you have headphones on please turn your cell phone on vibrate, it's ringing every 20 minutes and you don't hear it. Oh and you have voice mail.

Just some suggestions to remind you that this isn't your living room, this is a public place where people eat. There are others here who are working too, or pretending to.

Your Officemate,

Mark

I've been tagged

Len Evans tagged me for a meme.

I'm supposed to share 6 strange/weird things about myself.

I suppose strange/weird is relative, but I'll give it a shot.

1. I used to rappel off my 2nd story chimney when I was in high school.
2. I'd rather travel across the country on a tour bus than a plane.
3. I think God speaks to me more clearly in the shower and while I mow the lawn.
4. I shop for clothes once or twice a year, but I give clothes away every chance I get.
5. I love to prune trees.
6. I enjoy making up lyrics to songs and singing them to my kids.

On blogging

Some folks who blog are masters. I know of one guy who posts exactly 3 posts per day which he writes over the weekend. I think his blog is automated and posts them for him. He is a blogging machine.

Some people write a post, but do not publish it immediately. They tuck it way for further editing. These bloggers are meticulous about their blog and what they have to say is often very clear, concise and articulate.

I on the other hand have two different strategies for blogging.
First. My most dominate way of writing a post is this.

- I get a bare bones idea. This is generally a word of phrase that pops into my head.

- I write a title based on what I think the post is going to be about. Since I don't actually know what I'm going to say, my titles are generally not trustworthy.

- I write.

- I publish the post.

- I look at my blog and realize that a few of the words or phrases don't make sense.

- I either ignore that fact or I edit the confusing parts.

Second. I occasionally get too many ideas for posts. So I write a few posts and save them as drafts for the next day. This rarely happens because I might second guess a post and never publish it. or I am simply to impatient to wait til tomorrow.

I totally envy folks who know what they want to say before they start writing. I envy (in a purely healthy and biblical way) people who have time to organize their blog or are able to articulate themselves.

Me, I'm too afraid I'm going to forget to write about the next idea I just had. I feel like I forget way to many as it is.

Guitar Hero

On the Youth worker training retreat I led with WCC last week I was introduced to Guitar Hero. I had never played.

It was fun to play, especially for the songs I knew. I graduated to Intermediate after the first song or two. Way fun. Any other guitar hero's out there?

My favorite song was... Monkey Wrench.

Golden State and the Suns

I'm pulling for Golden State. Frankly, how can you any kind of sports fan at all and NOT root for Golden State. What a great story.

Sure some of you will get caught up in the character issues of a few of the players and their bad attitudes. That and one standing on the hood of a car and squeezing off a few rounds into the air from his 9mm.... outside a strip club. Sure the same guy has been ejected twice this post season. But they took 40 3 point shots and made 15 of them! They weren't supposed to get this far and while they are down two games to the Jazz (quick name one player that plays for the Jazz without looking.... exactly) the did bea the Mavericks.

this team is fun to watch.

I'm also pulling for the Suns.

Operation Turkey Vulture

My friend Fr. Rob Merola is working with his daughter in Northern Virginia in what they have dubbed, Operation Turkey Vulture. It's a hilarious series. Rob is a great writer and an avid outdoorsmen. He's a good friend of Scot McKnight from the old days, before emergent and the blog. I've heard Rob speak at his church a few times and he is a great communicator. This series shows both Rob's sense of humor, his love for his daughter and his enjoyment of life. Can you tell that he used to be a paid youth pastor? After you read the post, add Rob to your Blogroll.

Post 1: Creating a Love of Learning

Post 2: OTV Phase III

Post 3: OTV Proceeds as Planned, sort of

Post 4: Yeah Baby

Post 4: Unintended lessons

UPDATE:
Check it out!!!!
The Eagle has landed!!!

Addicting Game

This game is addicting.