The Great Disney Trip of 2011

So I just spent a week in Florida at Disney World, aka the Happiest Place on Earth. If you judge that last statement by some of my siblings that went you wouldn't believe me but it is. How can one not be happy at Disney World? Members of my family found a way but it didn't ruin my general excitement and merriment.

We started at Hollywood Studios where it was Star Wars Weekend. Lots of Storm Troopers and various Star Wars characters wandering around the park. It was pretty awesome. New ride at Hollywood Studios was Toy Story Midway Mania. I love the Toy Story franchise and this ride was awesome. You just get to shoot things. And shooting things is great. I never won... But still had fun (I'm a terrible shot).

The Magic Kingdom was magical (duh). Animal Kingdom and Epcot aren't my favorite parks but both were fun. Pictures will be posted over at Facebook.

It was hot and I already hate the summer heat that has yet to hit DC. It's going to be brutal and I will be unhappy. Seriously... People actually like the summer weather?

My one complaint is the general lack of toys. Toon Town is closed because they're expanding Fantasy Land and I imagine all action figures would have been at Toon Town. I wanted a Mr. Incredible action figure and a Wall-E action figure so... EBay here I come. Disney's thing at the moment is these collectible Vinylmation toys and pins. They're cool. All the figures are Mickey Mouse but painted to look like your favorite Disney characters. Some were awesome... Some were lame. The biggest bummer was you couldn’t pick which one you get. You grab a box in the series you want and hope it's awesome. I grabbed too Toy Story boxes and got Hamm and Rex. The best figures were the Nightmare Before Christmas, which you could pick and choose but they were more expensive. I, of course, got a Jack Skeleton. I also picked up too of the pins, Jack Jack and Mr. Incredible. The Dalmatian was the best pin but I couldn't find one when I went to get it so... It didn't happen.

Of yeah, my playlist for the week?

Anberlin – Blueprints for the Black Market
Anberlin – Never Take Friendship Personal
Ascend the Hill – Hymns
August Burns Red – Messengers
The Chariot – Wars and Rumors of Wars
Emery – Favorites Mix
Jeremy Enigk – World Waits
In the Midst of Lions – The Heart of Man
In the Midst of Lions – Out of Darkness
A Plea For Purging – Depravity
A Plea for Purging – The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Sigur Ros – ( )
Sleeping Giant – Sons of Thunder
War of Ages – Eternal
War of Ages – Arise and Conquer
Your Memorial – Atonement

Fun times. Now to enjoy my 3 day weekend.

Food Review?: Extra Dessert Delights - Mint Chocolate Chip

Yep, I'm reviewing gum.

I used to chew gum constantly. Always had a pack and was always chewing. And then a year and a half ago I stopped. No real reason just stopped chewing gum. So I was in Target yesterday and because I'm heading to Disney in a couple days I decided to get some gum or my trip.

I've been eying Extra's Mint Chocolate Chip gum for a while. I mean, a gum based off one of my top five favorite ice cream flavors. Even though it's sugar free, it has to be good right?

Well... Like all my food reviews, this one isn't positive. The gum isn't terrible... It's just not that enjoyable. First off, the gum smells great. A good starting sign, or so I thought. You're first hit with just mint. Normal, boring mint gum. And then you get an underwhelming chocolate taste.

And then you finally get that Mint Chocolate Chip taste... Well, at least what low fat, sugar free, awful crappy ice cream tastes like. It's not very pleasant and made me a little ill to my stomach.

It makes me sad. I had high hopes. And yet again, I was let down.

Habakkuk 3

I know I've tweeted (twice) about Habakkuk 3 but I'm going to blog about it too. I'm a little obsessed with Habakkuk's prayer. It's beautiful. And I think it's a good reminder of honesty with God about life.

It starts with praise to God.

"LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, LORD. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth. His splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden."

At this point Habakkuk lays out the formula for Christian metal. You think I'm joking? You know why yo don't believe me? Because you don't like Christian hardcore and metal. Well I do. I live, eat, and breathe the stuff.

I saw Over the Rhine in concert at a festival and inbetween songs Karin Bergquist said she loved Christian metal and then sang Death, death, death, Jesus, deah. It was funny. Not completely true but still funny.

So after some worship, comes death and desctruction.

"Were you angry with the rivers, LORD? Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your chariots to victory? You uncovered your bow, you called for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers; the mountains saw you and writhed. Torrents of water swept by; the deep roared and lifted its waves on high. Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear. In wrath you strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations. You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot. With his own spear you pierced his head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding. You trampled the sea with your horses, churning the great waters. I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls."

That's pretty metal. A lot of death and killing. It's great word play. I want to record this passage as a spoken word poem. It would be amazing.

But the best part is when you come to the end of the Chapter.

"yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior."

Boom!

Through all the pain, and wrath, and destruction that's happening there is still joy to be found in God.

No matter what's happening in your life God is still awesome and there is always joy to be had in God. He loves you!

The Dad Joke

So Sunday morning in between church services a handful of us were trying to explain the dad joke to a friend. I didn't know people grew up in a world without dad jokes but apparently some people have.

For those who don't know, the dad joke is a terrible a dad tells. It's usually a pun, or a play on words. Sometimes (with my dad) it's inappropriate. And it's almost always terrible. But the dad will always tell these jokes. And somewhere along the way, all male children will pick up this ability to tell the terrible joke. It's in the moment when men will utter the phrase "I'm just like my dad."

Here's an example of a dad joke that my father told. We were watching some show involving food on the Travel Channel and they were talking about either a fish sandwich or dish. And my dad turned to us with a smile and said;

"I would try that just for the halibut."

If you don't get it, say it out loud a couple times.

It's cringe worthy. You shake your head. And then a part of you dies while you ultimately succumb to laughter.

But there's another part of the dad joke that I haven't mentioned yet. I will tell a story to explain this.

I tweeted today one such awful joke.

"Peanut butter and jelly. It's the jam!"

Awful. Cringe worthy. And yet you still chuckled.

What makes this a classic dad joke is the sense of pride I have taken in the fact that I was smart and quick witted enough to come up with this true gem of comedy. Anyone who ha ever heard a dad joke has seen the face of one who thinks they are the new master of comedy. The prideful smile and laugh because they are funny.

I would love for people to share their memorable dad jokes and the stories behind them.

The Voice

So NBC has been running promos for their new singing contest, The Voice, for what seems like a year now. Maybe it's only been 6 month but still, that's a long time to pimp a show.

So the Voice finally aired last night and the promos worked because I wanted to watch and check this out. Damn you NBC! Having your promos plaster my on demand viewing choices and running constant commercial for this show while I watch the NHL Playoffs.

Seriously, there was compelling NHL playoff hockey being played last night but I watched the Voice instead.

Now I don't like these types of shows. I don't watch American Idol or America’s Got Talent or anything like that. But the Voice was just intriguing enough for me to watch. I wanted to see if it was actually all the talented people who were in the commercials or if they were going to pull an Idol and have some painfully tragic fools on the stage.

To the Voice's credit everyone who got on stage could sing. Not everyone got picked, but just because you can sing doesn't mean you have the pipes to be interesting enough to hold mainstream America's attention.

The show is actually very compelling. It's interesting to see which of the judges like which voice. My favorite part of the show is the contestants get to chose who's team they'll be on (if multiple judges want them on their team).

So I think I'm hooked for a while. From the understanding each team gets 8 singers and they pit their own singers against each other and the coaches have to eliminate their own singers for the first couple of weeks. This is clearly no Idol. It's better.

Bravo NBC. Through nonstop promotion you have gotten me to watch your show. The show being good will keep me interested... For now.

Food Review: Wheat Thins Stix - Cinnamon Kick

My last food review went over so well, I figured it's time for another.

I needed something to go with my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So I walked on over to Shoppers and picked up the new Whea Thins Stix, Cinnamon flavored. If you're like me your mind works like this:

Wheat Thin = Yummy Cracker
Cinnamon = Awesome
Stix = Lame spelling but I can pretend I'm smoking like I did when I was 5.

So obviously my brain works in a way that makes this the logical choice for a perfect sandwich side.

I was wrong.

First of all, if you're going to rock Cinnamon on your cracker, you had better take the salt off. And while Wheat Thin isn't the saltiest cracker in the world, the salt that is there is over powering.

Which gets us to the next part.If you're going to call your product "Cinnamon Kick" it should have cinnamon on it, and the kick part should be feeling like Wheat Thin has kicked you in the balls and tricked you into buying there not so cinnamon cracker.

Damn you Wheat Thin and your lying names! I could have gotten Teddy Grahams or a multitude of chips or crackers that would have been better.

Obviously you should avoid this.

I Want My MTV

It's soapbox time. I feel like I haven't pulled it out and given a rant in a while. SO let's give a whirl.

It's GMA week in Nashville, which means the Dove Awards are happening. They're actually being filmed today and aired (somewhere) Sunday night. THe Dove Awards are like the Christian version of the Grammys. Only instead of game show American Idol winners and bad pop acts like the Black Eyed Peas, we get aging artists like Michael W. Smith and Third Day.

Now I don't want to bash the Dove Awards. They are a Christian music staple and people love the music they honor on that night. Plus, I always watch the Dove Awards (like I do with the Grammys) and without them I would have nothing to complain about.

So my beef is more of a music industry beef. While the Grammys and Dove Awards exist to showcase the "best" of what's new in music, a lot of artist and genres are excluded from these parties.

So what am I proposing? I would love to organize and run an award show for underground Christian music. I know the inernet always hands out their best of every year (I know I rock mine). But I'd like to have a night, with a televised event, showcasing the best of the Christian underground scenes (hardcore, punk, alternative, hip-hop). You can have industry people vote on their favorites and pick the winners and put on a whole party with presenters and make it just like the MTV awards (only more awesome).

So who's with me?