Lost, American Idol, 24. Three Great Tastes that Taste Great Together

So it's been a long week since the Season Finales of the only three shows I watch on television. This is good news because it means that now, I can resume my life and get those three hours of my week back. What will I do for entertainment this summer, you ask? Watch reruns, of course.

I'm kidding. So here are my thoughts.

24 FINALE

I will start here because it's the least interesting. So another season ended, with our hero Jack Bauer once again not getting killed. I hope I haven't given away too much by revealing that plot point. At the end *spoiler alert* Jack is kidnapped by the Chinese Government, but because I haven't seen Season 4, I don't know why, or what he did to anger all the Chinese. I can only imagine it has something to do with Toy Manufacturing and trade embargos. Perhaps the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. That'd be some good TV.

Regardless, I'm still fundamentally unsure what this whole season was about. The President of the US - played by an actor who looked an awful lot like Richard Nixon - invited Russian extremist terrorists to release Sentox Nerve Gas on US soil to ...force the American people to take terrorism more seriously? Well, of course I'm going to take it more seriously if the President is inviting terrorist groups to give their WMDs a free whirl.


Tell me this man isn't Richard Nixon.

Reminds me a bit of that Michael Crichton novel "State of Fear" where passionate, but ill-advised environmentalists engage in eco-terrorism to try to wake up American and the world to the dangers of bad environmental policy. I haven't read the novel, but I guess these eco-terrorists try to steal a nuke to shift a techtonic plate to cause a massive flood/tidal wave that they'll say is the result of Greenhouse Gases and emissions. So, sort of similiar ideas.

At any rate, both plots would undoubtedly anger China.


American Idol Finale


So this is a show I haven't watched much this year, and my wife and I are in utter disagreement about the show thus far. Every week, I have had my Tuesday Night Men's Bible study, and I don't have TiVo - mainly out of principle - so I just download the MP3s each Wednesday morning and listen to the singers sing on the way to work. Saves hours of time. It's been clear since the beginning that Taylor, Chris and Katherine were the three best. I love Elliot, he's got a great voice, but he's boring.

But Chris Daughtry was clearly the most easily marketable singer. His voice is the best, he clearly could fit into a genre, and he'd be pretty easy to market. Proof? His duet with the band Live, which you can hear here. Taylor, though, was the best performer. So he won. And Katherine is utterly forgettable. Really attractive - but forgettable. Apparently, lots of Americans disagree with me.

But the American Idol Finale was pretty amazing. You had the resurrection of Meatloaf, who sang - if you can call it that - with Katherine. He was so awful. And then Dionne Warwick came out, and that was really quite sad. It was like watching Jordan when he played for the Wizards. Once great...but not so much now. And then, of course, there was Prince. I love me some Prince. I don't care if he is less than five-feet tall. Show me another Hobbit that can dance and sing like that.

The whole thing just makes me miss Clay Aiken a lot.

*ran outta time - I'll discuss LOST in a little bit*

You Don't Know Jack

I get these email newsletters in my Yahoo! inbox every couple of days from a wesbite called "The BabyCenter." Nicole and I signed up for it before Justus was born, so I imagine I've been getting these emails for almost two years now. I've read about 5 of them, and just read the headlines on most. I don't much get into it. Most of the time, the headlines are a bit too sensationalist. It'll read
• 10 Things You're Doing Right Now That Could Kill Your Baby
• Are You Ruining Your Child's Potential?
• Five Things You Must Do Or Your Toddler Will Turn Out Like Ted Kaczynski, or Worse, Carrot Top

So I admit, I don't read them too carefully. I figure I have enough anxiety in my life. I don't need more pressure. My friend Ken told me once that when his son was three, he was playfully peacefully outside one summer day and Ken went in to, you know, get a glass of lemonade or something, and came back and Ben was standing over by the back wall and the little garden they had. And Ben had this stuff all over his face. Like slime. And he was chewing. A snail.

Hey, the French do it.

The thing is, I know Ken's kid. He came out okay. So I figure Justus will probably fall off something and break something else and eat something else and he'll turn out okay.

So all this is to say that I got an email newsletter today that sort of interested me. It said, "Check out the top baby names from across the world." Here's what was interesting. In 10 of the 20 or so countries the newsletter listed, the name "Jack" was the top name. In Ireland, Australia, Norway, and England, for example, the top boy baby name is Jack. and in Italy it's "Giuseppe" which I think is Italian for "Jack."

Is this any wonder? I mean, think of all the big heroes today that are named Jack.

Jack Bauer
First off, there's the obvious. Jack Bauer. The man, at one point in season 2, was stipped naked, tortured until he was literally dead, then defibrillated back to life. He then breaks free of his rope, takes his torturer’s gun, gets the information he needs, and then kills all the bad guys. All this happens while he is naked.

That is impressive. Who wouldn't want a son like Jack.

Keifer Sutherland, starring as Jack Bauer in FOX's hit show "24." Here, Bauer poses menacingly against sepia-toned mountains which apparently contain a lethal nerve gas which will destroy the population of LA.


Jack Shepherd
Then, of course, we have Jack Shepherd, the doctor-turned-leader of that unfortunate band of castaways from Oceanic Flight 815. Jack has not only saved everyone's life on the island with his medical knowledge, but he's the go-to-guy when it comes to crucial decisions. He's frequently risking his own neck for everybody else. And in the first episode of the show, he was literally attempting to give himself stitches. Tell me that isn't bad-ass.

Matthew Fox, playing the lead character of Jack Shepherd in ABC's hit show "Lost." Shown here, Jack is fighting evil in the rain in a tight-fitting grey T-shirt. Like you do.

Jack Bristow
Although I don't watch the show Alias, those that do find the show quite addictive. And one of the main good guys in that show is the father of Syndney Bristow (played by Jennifer Garner). His name? You guessed it. Jack Bristow.



Jack Ryan
Of course, there's other famous Jacks as well. There's the star of Tom Clancy's wildly popular serial of books, Jack Ryan, who has been playing on the Silver Scrren by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck. Not only in Jack a patriot who doesn't play games, he clears present dangers and when you really need a Red October, he doesn't just hunt for it, he finds. This is a man's man. Eventually in the books, Jack becomes president, just so he can stop running around to South American countries to free hostages from Columbia drug lords whom he must hit with large pieces of wood to knock away their uzi so he can run to the roof to jump onto the rung of a helicopter to escape.


Among other famous Jacks:

• Jack Johnson
• Jack Black
• Jack Daniels
• Jack in the Box

Write in if you can think of other famous Jacks that are worthy of inclusion in the "Jack Hall of Fame."

Aruba. Jamaica. Ooh. I want to take ya.

So Nicole and I got back from Aruba Saturday night. It's been a whirlwind since, and I have tons of things to talk about, but some of those will have to wait for a later post. So I'll start here with things I learned from my trip to Aruba.

1: Aruba is not technically in the Caribbean.
The Beach Boys' famous song "Kokomo" really makes you think that it's close to Jamaica and the Bahamas, and that Key Largo and Montego are very close. But they're not. Aruba is 18 miles off the northern coast of Venezuela, and is not in the "Hurricane Belt" which is good for the island. Almost all the "natives" we met were actually from Columbia, and nearly everyone spoke Spanish and English, so that was interesting. Felt like California, only everyone was a bit darker. There were also quite a few black people - remnants from the Slave Trade, I was told. You can check it out on this map if you'd like. I also learned that Bermuda is right due north off the coast of North Carolina. North Carolina. So in January, it's freezing. Weird, huh? Yeah.

2. Aruba, though not technically in the Caribbean has the bluest water I've ever seen
So what if it's not in the Hurricane Belt. This water was probably the nicest I've ever seen (beating Hawaii by a slim margin). The sand was this pure white, like talcum powder, and the visibility when we went snorkeling was like 60 feet. It was astounding. If you want to see what I'm talking about, you can check out this picture, which I took from our hotel balcony.

3. Aruba is a desert wasteland
It's dry, flat, barren and dry. There is no natural water source on the island and the only thing that grows there natively is Aloe plants, which - as Jeff Rev pointed out - is just a cactus. Convenient that a plant that helps with sunburn actually grows where you need it. Wouldn't do much good if Aloe grew only in Canada, or something. But Aruba is just ugly and dry and dusty. In fact, when Christopher Columbus found it, he named it "Isla Inunitil" which means "Useless Island" because there was no food, water or gold. The Dutch picked it up somewhere in there, and now it's part of the Dutch West Indies.

4. UB40 is huge in the Caribbean
We heard a song by them almost everywhere we went. Weird.

More to come...

New Take2 Website...

It's not the best site in the world, but it's up and it's live and it's functional.

Click here to see it.

You can go there to download two of my latest sermons.

Miracles

and

Jesus as Sensei.

Not-so-Happy Mother's Day

A new report called the "State of the World's Mother's Report" says that the US has the worst infant and maternal fatality rate of any industrialized country, with the exception of Latvia. An estimated 2 million babies die in the first 24 hours of life in the US and about 5 in every 1000 babies dies. For African-Americans, the mortality rate is nearly double that of the U.S. as a whole, with 9.3 deaths per 1,000 births.

However, this is nothing compared to the mortality rate of infants and mothers in developing countries, where 98 percent of infant and maternal deaths occur. The report cited the following:

The Mothers' Index -- which excluded some nations that lacked sufficient data -- highlights huge disparities between the nations at the top and the bottom of the list.

"This report challenges us to do as much to protect mothers and children in poor countries as we do in rich countries," wrote Gates, herself a mother of three.

Compared with mothers in the top 10 countries, a mother in the bottom 10 was found to be more than 750 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth.

In top-ranked Sweden, skilled personnel are present at nearly all births, but in bottom-ranked Niger, such help is available for only 16 percent of women in labor.

Virtually all Swedish women can read, nearly three-quarters use modern contraception and only one in 333 will have a child die before its first birthday. In Niger, by contrast, 10 percent of women are literate, 4 percent use modern contraception and one in seven children die in their first year.

I would say that this makes me gald that I was born in the US, and that my son was born in the US. But then I just get depressed thinking about how many women die in childbirth, and how many infants die in childbirth. I think that either would destroy me on the inside.

Notes, Quotes and Billy Goats...

Couple of semi-random musings


Backstreet Boy Goes Christian



Brian Littrell, the former lead singer and face man of the Backstreet Boys has a new album - a new Christian album - called "Welcome Home." Now, before you go getting all cynical here, I'd like to point out that Littrell has said he's a Christian for a long while now. I remember when he got married - to his high school sweetheart - some magazine asked him about a pre-nup and he said, "I wouldn't marry this girl if I thought I had to sign a pre-nup." I knew something was different then - that's a little different tack than his other Backstreet Boy alums, like Nick Carter, who frequents Paris Hilton and AJ Maclean, whose alcohol problem landed him in rehab. Thus far, the album has sold exceptionally well and is currently at the top spot in iTunes' list of the top 100 Christian albums. Apparently, the 14-year-old Christian girl + Dave Tieche market is widely untapped.

I Pulled It. No, really, I pulled it
This past weekend, I had a blast of a Saturday at Jeff Revenaugh and his soon-to-bride Melissa Werner at their co-ed couple's Wedding Shower. Normally, I am against co-ed showers. I don't like to sit around in the hot sun watching people open up gift bags with colorful tissue flowing out the top. "Oooh, these hand towels are perfect!" But this time, we got smart. During the gift opening, I went to my trunk and took out the wiffle ball bat and balls I had purchased that morning from SportsMart. And while the girls were oohing and aahing over the thread count of those sheets, the guys were playing wiffle ball in the street.

It's a surprisingly difficult game to play. We played 7 innings of scoreless ball.

My first at-bat, I was at the plate for the first time, determined to send that ball out of there with a 502-foot-blast ala Frank Thomas circa 1993. The pitch came, I rotated my torso and whipped that 7-oz piece of molded plastic around so fast you could hear the air whistle through the hollow tube . The ball blasted off the "sweet spot" of the plastic yellow bat. I began to do my homerun trot. The ball soared a good 25 feet right into the hands of the left fielder/third baseman, who frankly, didn't even have to move his feet. And then I kind of felt something below my left ribs.

I trotted home, but something kind of felt weird in my chest. That's when I realized it.

"I just pulled a muscle playing whiffle ball."

Whiffle ball. It's hard to even say the word and take yourself seriously. Luckily, the injury didn't last that long, and with some cortisone shots and some steroids from the trainer, I'm going to be okay.


New MercyMe album



So I'm excited because one of my favorite bands, MercyMe, is out with their new album. It's called, coincidentally, "Coming Up for Air." Apparently, they have been underwater for a while. Maybe they've been hanging out with David Blaine a lot, or something.

Keith Richards Having Head Surgey
Keith Richards had surgery Monday in New Zealand to relieve pressure in his head following a fall, his representative said. The Rolling Stone lead guitarist was in the hospital in stable condition, but was complaining of headaches yesterday, and so doctors thought it prudent to move ahead with a small operation to remove the pressure.

Which brings us to the question: how did Keith Richards fall?

Initial news reports have variously claimed that he fell out of a palm tree or from a jet ski. Personally, I think he fell out of a jet ski that was in a palm tree. That'd be a story.

Broken Brokeback
So my wife and I are slowly making our way through the list of 2006 Oscar Nominees. Thus far we've seen King Kong which was visually stunning but I didn't really like that much, and Good Night, and Good Luck, which I really liked. We had rented Memoirs of a Geisha - which by the way, was written by an old white guy from Chatanooga, TN - but we never got to it. So this past Saturday, we watched the controversial Brokeback Mountain.

Initial thoughts: Ang Lee is a genius at cinematography. The film is gorgeous. Secondly, I came away from the film depressed. Not because I had just seen two men make out - but because this was a story of misery and pain and heartache. There is really no way this story could have had a happy ending. And although I can't really understand the physical attraction part - any more than I can understand, say, gambling addictions - the movie did a great job of making you care about these two men, both of whom lived fragmented lives and were desperately trying to connect with someone in a profound way.

But...I can't really say I recommend the movie. I suppose there are people who simply can't get past the characters being gay, and would automatically qualify them as "bad" and not worthy of anything except a disgusted grimace. But like Celie in "The Color Purple" - who was also gay - if you can't see the longing and humanity of these men - and how good and human that desire to simply connect in a lonely world is - then I kind of feel sorry for you.

I'm Lost and I don't want to be found...

Holy Crap.

Did you see last night's episode of "Lost?" Holy crap. The last three minutes, I just sat there stunned. Man. Holy crap.

I figured that Ana Lucia would get killed off, seeing as how Michelle Rodriguez didn't seem to want to be part of the show for more than a year, but Libby? What the heck are they going to do with that plot line?

I read this comment on a post. I thought it was pretty interesting.

Ana-Lucia finally showed repentence,and acknowledged that her act of vengeance was wrong. Hence, her failure to be able to shoot Henry. All members have died in this plane crash. This island represents Purgatory. The seven deadly sins which are all represented here one way or the other. Pride, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, Envy, Anger, and Covetousness.

I'm not sure about the whole "Island as Purgatory" thing, but I do see each of the deadly sins. Here are some questions I have:

• Michael seems to be doing what he's doing because he has been threatened. He seems to be leading his friends into a trap, much like Lando Calrissian. Does he have "the virus" that makes people go crazy, has he been brainwashed, or did he make a deal with "the others" trying to get his son back?

• Is Libby dead? Do we know? Will Jack be able to save her?

• From the preview of next week's show it appeared that Eko will be killed next. Are you kidding me? He's my favorite character on the show.

• Jack's father and Ana Lucia travelled down under and it turns out Jack's dad has a daughter with a woman who looks an awful lot like Claire. Hmm.

• I liked the flashback scene in Australia with Sawyer running into Jack's father's door as he opened it. Nice.

Get a Mac

As a teacher at a school where every student has a laptop computer, I have to say that I am more than a bit biased when it comes to Apple computers and their OS and their native applications. I love Macs.

That's why I kind of snickered when I saw the new line of advertisements from Apple.

You can check them out here. I think you'll get a chuckle. Some funny acting.

Mega-Church Shopping

According to the definition, I now work at a Mega-church (weekly attendance of more than 2000 adult worshippers). Like anything else, there are pros and cons to Mega-churches. I think the pros outweigh the cons by about 1000 times, but not everyone agrees.

But this clip - which I got via Jonathan Ziman - looks at some of the more humorous aspects of the Mega-church. Here, after getting into an argument with their old church, Hank and his family go church shopping to find a new home. It's pretty funny.

You can watch it here.

Wedding Story: Part 1 - Scott Fischer and Charice Buchholz

Let the Wedding Season Begin! This past Sunday, Nicole and I attended the second wedding of the season. This time, it was our friends Scott Fischer and Charice Buchholz (our pastor's eldest daughter) who finally tied the knot (after about 10 years of dating) this past Sunday. There are much better pictures of them out there, but this one will have to do.



Scott is the leader of the Take2 band, and one of my favorite people in the world. He's also probably the funniest person I know. I have a tendency to use hyperbole - and I know some funny people - but I think Scott might actually win the award.

Something about Scott that I can't seem to figure out - and it's something that I see in other people, like my friend Ben, and this guy I knew in college named Troy and our friends Ken and Aimee. They are people who just make you feel good being around them. They're incredibly friendly, and warm and they're always cracking really funny jokes. I've never seen them in a bad mood. Whatever your emotional state before, after you've been with them, you feel better. And you always feel like they're glad that you're there.

I guess you'd call it joy. They have joy. I wish I were more like them. I can't say that every interaction I have leads to people being happier. Often I'm short with folks, or I say something wrong, or I say something controversial that polarizes people.

For example, one time, I was talking in the hallway of church about the illegal alien immigration issue, and the conversation was a bit tense because the person I was talking with had a really simplistic point of view that was pissing me off, frankly. And so, I'm getting agitated, and there's this tension. And Scott walks up and says, "We need to get rid of all illegal aliens. Especially Alf. Man, that guy eats cats. Get him out of here. Once you're done with him, let's move on to Mork. Anyone who travels in an egg is no good."

It defused the whole situation. And we all walked away laughing with each other, instead of being all pissy to each other because of some political issue. I know, not everyone has the same personality, but I want to be more like the Scott Fischers of the world and be more of a source of unadulterated joy.

Of course, Nicole and I almost didn't even GO to the wedding. Our sitter situation fell through and at about 1:30 p.m. we realized that we didn't know what we were going to do with Justus. The wedding started at 4 p.m. Luckily, I know who to call when I'm desperate, so I rang Russell and Rebecca. How's that for a favor?

"Hey, Russell. What were you planning on doing tonight? Yeah, could you not do that, and instead watch my kid."

But they did. I suppose the lesson here is that if you don't live close to family or your parents, then make sure you have a tight-knit Bible study to bail your butt out. Thanks, R & R.

Military Intelligence?

So you're going to think that I'm making this up, but my journalism students are doing a story on a number of Gunderson students who have joined the military in recent months. In doing so, they are doing interviews with recruiters from the various branches of the Armed Forces, who have a mild presence on the GHS campus.

So I'm reading through the list of quotes, and I see that one of the names of the Army Recruiters is:

Moron Ditzler

I turned to my students, "Steven. You're telling me that there is an Army recruiter whose legal name is Moron?"
Steven took out the guy's business card, complete with Army logo. He had it correct.

No wonder the guy went into the military.