Despicable Me & Remembering What is Truly Important

I have a confession to make. Last night we finally watched Despicable Me. Every single person who heard we hadn’t seen it gave us the same startled reaction. Now that we are past that…there was a scene in the movie where in a moment, everything became clear. I would have said in a moment everything changed but it didn’t change in that moment…it was all the moments leading up that did the changing. Gru finally gets his chance to steal the moon…he had dreamed of this moment since he was a child. He takes the moon in his hand, erupts in triumphant, joyous laughter and holds the moon close to his heart. At the same time his ticket to the girl’s ballet recital floats out of his pocket and glimmers before his eyes. In that moment, what was truly important became most clear. He knew what he had to do and what was really most important. Besides, we later find out owning the moon wouldn’t turn to be as glorious as he had imagined. When it came time to choose between the two (his adopted girls or the moon) he did what was right. He was changed (I guess we will learn how much or how little in Despicable Me 2).

Isn’t that how it works when we make goals apart from what is most important? We embrace the very things that can and will destroy us at the expense of the very things that would bless us most.

A change Gru…

Advertisement

Grown Men Don’t Cry – Tim McGraw

Great song…I guess having a 19 month old has made me soft. I can just close my eyes and picture this whole song in my mind’s eye. A couple of years ago I wouldn’t have given 30 seconds of my time to country music. But its growing on me.

Lost Beginning to Make a Little More Sense…Maybe

Here are a few thoughts Missy and I were discussing after last night’s episode of Lost. If you aren’t caught up you may not want to read this. I am not sure if any of this will turn out to be spoilers or not…I doubt I am smart enough for that to happen. But if you don’t want to read anything like that don’t read the rest of this.

Jacob & the MIB

We have been learning a lot about the relationship between the “man in black” (the smoke monster) and Jacob. Jacob used an interesting analogy last night about the purpose of the island. He said the island served as a cork to keep the evil man in black contained. This explains the intent of the MIB to get off the island and his misleading of some of the Oceanic 6 into thinking they all have the same purpose…to get off the island. The fact is, they have the same short term goal, getting off the island, but for very different purposes. The survivors want to get home, the MIB wants to escape the island for his own evil reasons.

The Role of the Candidates

So that leaves us with the candidates. We learned the Man in Black has wanted to kill Jacob for many years but there were rules they had to play by for this to happen. Dogan told Sayid that if he was to kill the MIB he couldn’t let him speak to him and had to plunge a certain dagger into his chest. Last night we learned that Jacob could be killed the same way as the MIB sent Richard to accomplish this when he got on the island in the 1800’s on the Black Rock (black rock, white rock…an illusion to the game Jacob and MIB play back and forth?).

Back to the candidates. We see Hurley taking on more and more the role of Jacob. I have been thinking for the last few weeks that he would take the place of Jacob. But we also know that Jack has a role to play or a job to do. What is that job? I don’t think he has spoken with the MIB since he has been on the island, unless you consider that his seeing his father on the island (who I think was the MIB taking his form) counts. I think Jack’s role is going to be to kill the MIB and Hurley’s role to take Jacob’s place.

“Jacob’s House”

As for Christian, Jack’s father, we learned early on that his body was on the plane when it crashed and his casket was later found without the body. When Locke’s body came back to the island the MIB took on his form. I am wondering if the same is true for Christian. We saw Christian in “Jacob’s house” that at least we thought was Jacob’s. But we also found out that house was surrounded by ash, which we later learned was something used to contain the smoke monster (MIB). So I am wondering if the house was either not Jacob’s, or who they encountered there was the MIB rather than Jacob in the form of Christian and also explaining the strange happenings that took place when Ben visited the house in an earlier season. We also saw that at one point the line of ash around the house had been broken and allowed the MIB out of the house. I now believe Claire did that as we also, if my memory is right, saw her in “Jacob’s house” as she believed the MIB was her friend.

Isabella

The last thing I will toss out there is I am wondering how Richard saw his dead wife Isabella on the Black Rock after it landed on the island. Unless I am missing something, the only way this has happened in the past has been for the MIB to take on the form of someone who came to the island dead (if my theory about Christian is correct). If that is true, I am wondering if her body was on the Black Rock. I have no idea why that would be the case but it would keep things consistent.

Hope and Disappointment from the AMAs

Did anyone else watch some of the AMA’s last night? I was encouraged by the popularity of Taylor Swift. She seems pretty wholesome. Then there was Lady Gaga. She seems like a living piece of artwork. As you watch her, as strange as it is, there is something intriguing about it all. You wonder what is going to happen next or just how much more strange it can get. But there is no denying the artistry of it all. Whitney Houston made recompense at the awards with a good performance. But the saddest part of the whole thing was the popularity of Eminem. Much of his song was bleeped out but did any of you catch the opening of his song “Crack a Bottle”? If you didn’t, here it is. Said proudly, braggingly like these were his credentials:

Ladies and gentlemen!
The moment you have all been waiting for.
In this corner, weighing 175 pounds
with a record of 17 rapes, 400 assaults and 4 murders
the undisputed, most diabolical villain in the world
Slim Shady!

And we wonder why our women are being abused, children left fatherless, and our society so calloused and violent. Try playing these words in your ear over and over and over and see if it doesn’t change the way you think…then put yourself in the mindset of a 12, 15, 18 year old boy trying to figure out who he is and see what effect it has in how he views women and how he values or devalues the worth of others. What on earth is being promoted as enviable? What is being called good, desirable, worthwhile? What is being promoted as the standard of entertainment and quality in the music industry. This is not some behind the scenes, rogue group putting out this hateful music. This is by one of the most recognized “artists” in the industry. It is sad that anyone has to be exposed to this. The rest of the song was filled with the most vulgar profanity and sexual exploitation. All that and there were children in the audience, not to mention those watching at home. Unbelievable.

More Taylor, less Slim Shady. More lyrics, only this time from Isaiah 5:

“Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.

²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.

²² Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine
and champions at mixing drinks,

²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
but deny justice to the innocent.

²⁴ Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw
and as dry grass sinks down in the flames,
so their roots will decay
and their flowers blow away like dust;
for they have rejected the law of the LORD Almighty
and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.

– Isaiah 5:20-30

 

How Do You Watch Television?

I am wondering if we are the only people left on the planet watching television via bunny ears. The beauty of the internet is that I don’t have to wonder about many things any more. Instead I just go to google or do an online poll. So here goes…

Guaranteed Way to Lose 15 Points of Your IQ

Just watch this and I guarantee you will feel like you just lost one standard deviation of IQ. This is called Party in My Tummy on Yo! Gabba Gabba

I Don’t Get Verizon Fios and High Def Commercials

So the cable company wants to convince you to switch from your provider to theirs by showing you stunning images of just how great their pictures look. The problem is the picture on the commercial is only as good as the provider and television you currently have. Missy and I laugh when we see those commercials because we don’t have cable and just use bunny ears. All the vibrant high def pictures they are trying to sell us on look pretty fuzzy to us.

U2 Gets to Sing with George Pendergrass

U2 was so lucky to get to perform with George Pendergrass who used to sing with Acappella. You would be hard pressed to meet a nicer man than George Pendergrass. Bono joins the ranks of those lucky enough to get to sing with such a talented singer. This is I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for. You can hear the live recording in concert on the CD Rattle and Hum. The choir doesn’t kick in until the end then you catch some of George singing right at the end. You get to hear more of him on the CD.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Get Ready to Suspend All Sense of Logic and Realism

If you haven’t seen this movie but plan to please stop reading here.

I believe I would have truly enjoyed this film had I still be 8-12 years old. But I cannot watch a movie based on who I used to be, only on who I am today. I had a really hard time trying to put my logic and all common sense on the back burner in watching this movie. I just couldn’t pull it off. Here are a couple of examples:

Ford survives multiple things that should have easily killed him.

1 – Ford survives a nuclear blast that is capable of melting flesh off someone and toppling a home but yet cannot best a 1950’s refridgerator. Either they just don’t make them like they used to or else Uncle Sam best start using Fridgidaire technology to protect our country.

2 – They survive three successive drops from waterfalls that would have squashed them flatter than a pancake.

3 – Ford stands with his nose 5 feet from an entire mountain that has been mangled into huge boulders and sent flying around and around at at least 150 mph. Wouldn’t anyone who saw that run as far away in the other direction as they could?

There were gaps in the storyline that made the movie ridiculous:

1 – Ford’s friend backstabs him multiple times. Ford is fighting with him in the jeep punching him repeatedly and the next thing you know Ford is taking him to the mountain of gold. No apology. No reconciliation. All of a sudden, magically they are buddies again…and the guy even keeps talking about how he wants that gold on the way to the mountain.

Impossibilities of nature:

1 – How do you have a car chase at 50 mph through virgin Amazon rainforest? The jeeps are running over short palm trees. Have you ever cut down a palm tree that size? I have and I wouldn’t want to run my truck into one, much less several hundred

2 – The gun powder flying to the magnatized crate. Why wouldn’t every light hanging in that place already be pointing to the crate?

3 – Didn’t you think the snake was a hoot, the way it was all rubbery when Ford was pulled from the pit and as the kid flung the 250 lb monster snake into the woods like it was a, I don’t know, 10 lb piece of rubber?

Don’t get me wrong the movie had its moments and was very exciting and had some great fights but the plot was horrible and predictable. In the end you know his friend is going to die from what the villain always dies from – an inner character flaw that they just cannot seem to overcome (his greed is his own undoing). That was the same ending as the Last Crusade and the villains grasping for the cup. I also got a little tired about how they kept up the “old man” mentions. We get it. He is older now. You don’t have to remind me 50 times.

Tide to Go and the Talking Stain

This has to be one of the funniest commercials I have ever seen. Thank you Tide to Go and the Talking Stain. You made my day! What kind of awkward or embarrassing interview experiences have you had?

When I interviewed at the University of Florida for the doctoral program in clinical and health psychology it was so hot that day that I left my jacket in the car. I walked in the room with the other 40 interviewees and I was the only guy there without a jacket on! That was embarrassing. I also only got three hours of sleep before the five hour drive to Gainesville. I found myself nodding off through several lectures as I sat next to the director of the department. By the end of the weekend I figured I was out of the running. I ended up getting accepted and thanks to that experience found my wife, Missy. God has a sense of humor.