"God is the Lord of angels and of men -- and of elves."

- J.R.R. Tolkien
Promise of Expertise FAIL

I "love" that the cover in the ad on this page (right sidebar) for a book on how to help writers get noticed by editors and avoid the slush pile has a typo.

Here's a tip, though: Never trust an anonymous editor who wants to give you advice on how to get published.

"24" Made Awesomer

I tried (twice!) to get through the first season of "24." It never took. Couldn't stand it. 6 hours in, I just wanted that whiney chick out of the barn already.

But even though I have no desire to waste another five minutes of my life on "24," I find myself enthused and enthralled by Brant Hansen's dramatic recaps of the episodes.

The videos are not available to embed, but you can watch the latest here. It makes "24" come alive with awesomeness.

How LOSTies Make Sandwiches

How "Lost" characters make a sandwich.
Some examples:

Jack
1. Gather ingredients
2. Point gun at ingredients and shout “HOW DO I MAKE A SANDWICH OUT OF YOU?!?!?”
3. Breathe heavily through your nose as though you were about to hit ingredients
4. Give up and make the sandwich yourself, and eat it bitterly

Kate
1. Make separate sandwiches, one with peanut butter and one with jelly
2. Take a bite of the peanut butter sandwich, declaring it the best
3. Take a bite of the jelly sandwich, declaring it the best
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad infinitum
5. Follow peanut butter or jelly sandwich into grave danger

Sawyer
1. Throw the jar of jelly at wall, sneering “I don’t need no sandwich”
2. Call the mascot on the jar of peanut butter lots of clever nicknames
3. Huff and puff and stomp around and grumble a lot
4. When no one’s looking, make perfect, even, symmetrical peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sit in a corner, enjoying every bite

Locke
1. Sit idly by, believing that the ingredients will find a way to make a sandwich out of themselves
2. Lose faith and make the sandwich anyway
3. Realize that you were the instrument by which the ingredients chose to make a sandwich after all
4. Run around the room and grab everyone’s knives, insisting that their sandwiches will do the same in time

It's Quite Terrifying

Creepy. Classic.


I Double Dog Dare You To Read This Without Laughing

You won't be able to do it.

From Tim Challies - Rich Daddy God Board Game

I triple dog dare you. You won't be able to do it. I laughed until my gut hurt.

A taste...

Timothy (in the yellow robe) is my personal favorite (and be sure to check out the picture of him on the box). This must be the face he made while Paul circumcised him. Philemon (second from the right) looks like a Mafia hit man while Barnabas (far left) looks inebriated and Paul (far right) looks like a televangelist.
But you'll have to go to the original post to see the picture.

Possibly the funniest thing I've seen in a year.

Bohemuppetian Rhapsody

The Muppets cover Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." So glad to see my all-time favorite Muppet, Lew Zealand.

Firelight



It's a Conspiracy!

Jon Stewart parodies Glenn Beck.



HT: BHT

Evangelicals vis a vis Halloween

At the new Evangel blog, Russell Moore posts:

An evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for Halloween.

A conservative evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for the church’s “Fall Festival.”

A confessional evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for “Reformation Day.”

An emerging evangelical is a fundamentalist who has no kids, but who dresses up for Halloween anyway.

A revivalist evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up as demons for the church’s “Judgment House” community evangelism outreach.

A fundamentalist is a fundamentalist whose kids hand out gospel tracts to all those mentioned above.

First World Problems

Inspired by the Twitter meme #firstworldproblems, here are some frustrations that only make sense here.

The grocery store is out of the brand of bread you like.

Gasoline is up 5 cents a gallon from last week.

So hungry but "nothing sounds good."

The water coming out of the faucet tastes "funny."

The cable guy won't give me a specific appointment time.

My kid didn't collect enough box tops to earn an ice cream party.

If I don't water my lawn every other day, the grass browns.

The wait at the bank is, like, ten minutes long.

It's hard to get up for church because the bed feels so good.

The pizza delivery is late.

She only refilled my drink once. Do I tip 15%?

The bathtub drains slowly.

I don't feel "fulfilled" in my job.

Church camp is at Daytona Beach so you might have to tell your kid he has to sell candy bars or mow lawns to pay for half.

Kanye West aggravates you by interrupting an acceptance speech on MTV.

Feel free to contribute your own in the comments . . .
---

Btw, one two-thirds world problem is "death by mosquito bite." Foreign concept to us. But a measly $4 buys a mosquito net.
I buy mine via Mosaic, an awesome missions org run by my friend Justin Holcomb and his wife Lindsey who recently left Virginia for Seattle, WA and now work for Mars Hill's educational and social justice efforts.
100% of your contributions to Mosaic go directly to the projects you want them to benefit. All overhead costs are paid for by a single benefactor so that every penny contributed by everybody else goes to help those in need. Can't beat that.

Deliberating whether to spend $4 on a mosquito net that helps save a life or on a cup of coffee? That's a first world problem for sure.

David Crowder Band + Twitter Addiction = Hilarity

Oh man, this is great.



I had no idea Crowder was so funny.

(This was sent to me by a girl in our youth group. She said she saw it and thought of me. I have no idea what she was trying to tell @me. ;-)

(Btw, you can follow me on Twitter: @jaredcwilson !!!)

It Takes One to Know One?

At the risk of beating a dead horse -- and PLEASE read this post with a huge honkin' smiley face superimposed over it -- I believe I have discovered why there's been such pushback to Obama's planned speech to school children.

A few of us have known that Obama's speech is not unprecedented. Both Reagan and Bush Sr. presented nationally televised speeches to school children during class time.
But only the truly inquisitive have seen the insidious nature of these speeches.

I was only a snotnosed kid at the time, but apparently Reagan pushed the "goodness" of his policies.
And take a look at this directive from George H.W. Bush's address:

"Let me know how you're doing. Write me a letter. I'm serious about this one. Write me a letter about ways you can help us achieve our goals."

Holy cow. I'm pretty sure Kim Jong Il asks for letters too. And did you catch the whiff of totalitarianism in the phrase "help us achieve our goals"?

More from the Coke Classic of conservative blogging, Eugene Volokh.

So now I see what's really happening. All the parents upset about our president's speech were subliminally indoctrinated as children toward conservatism.

I keed, I keed!


And Now For Something Completely Different

The Blogosphere

yup

The Government Can...


H/T Enkurio

Where My Youth Ministerz At?

This is hilarious. (And quoth Homer Simpson: "It's funny because it's true.")



I think this is funnier -- and certainly more affectionately accurate -- than that Ignatius, Super Cool Youth Pastor thing.

HT: Matthew Paul Turner

Cross-posted at GDC

He's Barack Obama!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!


[Many thanks to frequent Thinklings commenter Wickle]

They Don't Make Fun Of Obama

Nothing like a political post to get things jumpin' around here...

I first noticed it during the primaries. The comedians would slam Hillary (and Bill), and McCain, and Bush and then they would make fun of how people responded to Obama. This clip and this one of Robin Williams illustrates what I'm talking about.

Comedians have been making fun of politicians for years. (Going all the way back to Will Rogers at least.) In recent memory, they made fun of Nixon for lying, of Gerald Ford for being a stumbling, clumsy doofus, of Carter for being a hick, of Clinton for sex, G.W. Bush for being stupid.

And it's personal. They make fun of the person himself. Saturday Night Live, Late Night talkshows, and now all the comedy shows, will mock the person. They tell jokes making fun of them. Or they will have someone do an impression and make fun of that person for something.

But not Obama. Not ever. At least not that I've seen. How about you?

When you watch a typical comedian riff on politics, they'll make fun of Bush, Nixon, Clinton, McCain and whoever else...and then if they make a joke about Obama, they never make fun of Obama himself. They only joke about how people respond to Obama.

Or they'll even defend him.

But they haven't yet made fun of him personally that I'm aware of. Not once.

Since when as ANY president been off-limits to all of the comedians? I think this is a first.

I don't watch everything obviously, and I don't have cable.

I could be wrong. But I don't think so. Feel free to disprove me under comments. I welcome it.

Why I Love Brant Hansen



Btw, he's also over there to feed the hungry and what-not. :-)

This Looks Like a Masterpiece



If this is intentionally awful, it is brilliant.

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