Tag: shenanigans

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A step too far?

So, I heard this mentioned a few weeks ago on a video game blog I listen to: if you don’t like the message of the songs presented in the popular Guitar Hero or Rock Band franchises, you’re in luck, ’cause now there’s Guitar Praise!! You can how have “inspirational fun” with 52 songs from Christian bands like Skillet, Petra and Casting Crowns!

But that’s not all! Remember the seemingly unstoppable”High School Musical” franchise? Well, maybe some of the themes in those movies are questionable…but you’re in luck there too, ’cause now there’s “Sunday School Musical!” An “inspirational story” about a group of kids that enter a music competition to save their church from closing! Watch the trailer – it’s gripping…

So yeah, perhaps I’m wrong (and I usually am…), but isn’t this a step too far? I understand that the “High School Musical” franchise is primarily watched by middle school-aged kids (as opposed to actual high school kids), perhaps exposing them to some themes that aren’t exactly age appropriate…but shouldn’t it be the parent’s responsibility to limit that exposure? Or the fact that music from Guitar Hero or Rock Band are on the radio/TV all the time….wouldn’t it make more sense to talk to your kids about the themes in popular music rather than simply ignoring them and avoiding them? Isn’t it better to teach kids how to handle a variety of media that they may be exposed to on a daily basis…rather than trying to keep it from them only to have them see it on their own at a friend’s house, not knowing how to treat it?

It seems to me that, while I don’t have any kids (besides a very lazy beagle), I’d want to help my children integrate into the world around them efficiently and effectively, rather than shelter them to the point where they may not know how to deal with what’s really out there until they leave home and go to college.

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My civil duty

So, I got a notice in the mail a little over a month ago from the city…apparently, I’d been selected for jury duty…… The plan was for me to appear at the civil courts building downtown on Nov. 3rd at 8:00 am and wait to see if I get selected.

Quite honestly, it was a fascinating experience. I got there a bit late (a comedy of errors going on there, forgetting my summons after parking, having to get cash from the ATM to pay for parking, but the ATM not having any cash to give out, etc…), but generally you hang around in this large room with, literally, 500 other people (there were two rooms like this available), until you get selected. There was a lunch break, but otherwise, you sit in a room and wait. Thankfully, I took my DS along and played some Phoenix Wright to pass the time…

Every 30 – 45 minutes or so, the voice over the loudspeaker would read off juror numbers and have you all come downstairs to a separate seating area where they could look at the group (making sure they got a good sampling of young/old, black/white/hispanic, etc.), and then they’d send you off to your designated room.

I got called around 3:15, so I was one of the last groups to get to go. Around 40 of us were taken across the street to another building where we had to answer a variety of questions from the two lawyers, whittling us down to a group of 14 (12 of which would decide a verdict, and the other 2 would be alternates). Of course, I was kept on and had to return the next day (Election Day) to serve on the jury.

After voting at 6:15 am, I went to the court around 9:45 to serve. I won’t go into the details of the case here, but essentially, it was a case involving a car accident and who was at fault. We ended up deciding in favor of the person bringing the suit, mostly because their lawyer was much more effective in his arguments and the defense was…well…not so effective…

The most interesting part for me was the “awarding of damages” portion… I personally tend to err on the side of not awarding “pain and suffering,” but the other jurors felt it was appropriate and, in the end, they were probably right. I guess it’s just hard to come up with a monetary value to decide what something so abstract as “pain” or “suffering” is worth. Especially considering that I haven’t ever been in an injurious accident where I felt I was owed something for all I had just been through. Figuring in the length of the court case, the car repairs, the lost work due to physical therapy, and the costs to the lawyers hired, we felt that going above and beyond the monetary value of the medical treatment alone was just and right.

Anyway, I’ve served on a jury now. And as the judge pointed out, it isn’t very often that one gets to perform two civil duties in a single day: serve on a jury, and voting. Both of which are things that many people around the world aren’t allowed to do.

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And you thought golf was boring…

So, Brooke and I inherited two free tix to the Rams game today. It was the first time either of us had ever been to an NFL game, so we were all about “the experience,” especially as we’ve both lived close to NFL teams for years and had never actually gone to one. Kickoff was at noon, and as we were getting out of church just before then, we were a bit late to the game. Either way, we hung out through the end of the third quarter. At the time, it was 7 – 30…so…not so good…

It ended 13-34.

Now, I’ve been to high school and college football games…but neither are as boring as an NFL game, apparently. Seriously, I think I missed the commercials during all the timeouts! The thing that really has me confused is how people can think baseball is boring when there’s so much downtime in an NFL game. I’m pretty sure, at least for the nearly 3 quarters we were there, the ball was not moving longer than it was moving. At least in baseball, there are short pauses throughout, but there is a game to watch for the vast majority of the time!

Anyway, we’re glad we went to the game…and didn’t pay anything for it… Which brings up another point: we were up at the top of the Dome and those seats would have cost $44. $44?!? That’s two tickets for a Cardinal’s game that is a). more entertaining, and b). better seats!

We’ll probably still try and hit up a Blues hockey game, as neither of us have ever been to an NHL game, either…but we may put that off until we get to a few more baseball games to wash away the sour taste in our mouths…

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10 Items That Make You Think You're Cool, But Don't…

I wish I could take credit for this, but sadly I can’t… Little Sister Kristen sent this along to me and, she’s right, it’s pretty friggin’ funny…

A few highlights:

#3: Guitar Hero

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: Dude, this game totally rocks! I love this song! Hell yes! Welcome to the Jungle, baby! You’re gonna diiiiiiiiiiiee!

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: Despite what the commercial says, you do not suddenly turn into Slash when you’re playing this video game. You are playing a child-sized guitar that doesn’t even have strings. It has multi-colored buttons and an on/off button. And playing this video game does not mean you can play the guitar now. If I have to hear someone say “I can totally play ‘Anarchy in the UK’” but actually mean “I can totally play ‘Anarchy in the UK’ on Guitar Hero,” I am going to take a pee inside the nearest PS3.

#1: Funny Ringtones

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: A ring tone is a great way to give strangers and coworkers a little peek into your personal life and let them know that your grasp of pop culture is vast. You’re pretty sure that having a silly quote from Monty Python or the Transformers theme song as your ringtone will make those around you realize that you are a the guy everyone else wants to be. There is definitely more to you than meets the eye.

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: Having your phone play Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” just makes you look (and sound) like an asshole. And the fact that you let it “ring” 15 times while you stand there and look around for reactions to your hilarious little joke not only reeks of desperation, but it makes everyone around you want to cram that phone up your taint. Put it on vibrate like every other normal person and keep your witticisms between you and your collection of Star Wars figurines.

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10 Items That Make You Think You’re Cool, But Don’t…

I wish I could take credit for this, but sadly I can’t… Little Sister Kristen sent this along to me and, she’s right, it’s pretty friggin’ funny…

A few highlights:

#3: Guitar Hero

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: Dude, this game totally rocks! I love this song! Hell yes! Welcome to the Jungle, baby! You’re gonna diiiiiiiiiiiee!

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: Despite what the commercial says, you do not suddenly turn into Slash when you’re playing this video game. You are playing a child-sized guitar that doesn’t even have strings. It has multi-colored buttons and an on/off button. And playing this video game does not mean you can play the guitar now. If I have to hear someone say “I can totally play ‘Anarchy in the UK’” but actually mean “I can totally play ‘Anarchy in the UK’ on Guitar Hero,” I am going to take a pee inside the nearest PS3.

#1: Funny Ringtones

WHY YOU THINK YOU’RE COOL: A ring tone is a great way to give strangers and coworkers a little peek into your personal life and let them know that your grasp of pop culture is vast. You’re pretty sure that having a silly quote from Monty Python or the Transformers theme song as your ringtone will make those around you realize that you are a the guy everyone else wants to be. There is definitely more to you than meets the eye.

WHY YOU’RE NOT COOL: Having your phone play Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” just makes you look (and sound) like an asshole. And the fact that you let it “ring” 15 times while you stand there and look around for reactions to your hilarious little joke not only reeks of desperation, but it makes everyone around you want to cram that phone up your taint. Put it on vibrate like every other normal person and keep your witticisms between you and your collection of Star Wars figurines.

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You know it's bad when a blind guy is better than you…

I heard this mentioned on NPR this morning…they like mentioning these 30 sec. funny stories before the regular news starts…and one of them before 8:30 am mentioned a guy in Alta, IA that bowled a perfect game on Saturday night. This wouldn’t normally be that big a deal, but he’s 78 and legally blind – apparently, he could only see the ball when he picked it up.

Yeah…my high score is still only, like, 160…grrrrrrrr…

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You know it’s bad when a blind guy is better than you…

I heard this mentioned on NPR this morning…they like mentioning these 30 sec. funny stories before the regular news starts…and one of them before 8:30 am mentioned a guy in Alta, IA that bowled a perfect game on Saturday night. This wouldn’t normally be that big a deal, but he’s 78 and legally blind – apparently, he could only see the ball when he picked it up.

Yeah…my high score is still only, like, 160…grrrrrrrr…

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Why do CDs cost so much?

There’s an interesting blurb in this month’s Rolling Stone talking about why CDs cost $15.99, and moreover why Wal-Mart wants that cost dropped to $10… Apparently, the price of a CD is figured as follows:

    $0.17 Musicians’ unions
    $0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
    $0.82 Publishing royalties
    $0.80 Retail profit
    $0.90 Distribution
    $1.60 Artists’ royalties
    $1.70 Label profit
    $2.40 Marketing/promotion
    $2.91 Label overhead
    $3.89 Retail overhead

Now, in all honest, it’s rather interesting just seeing how many pieces of pie are getting divided up here, and how the retailer only sees $0.80 in profit per CD sold, and the artist themselves see $1.60 per CD sold.

Apparently, according to the article, Wal-Mart has emerged as the nation’s biggest CD retailer and your record’s sales at Wal-Mart essentially determine whether you’ll make money or not (~138 million people shop at Wal-Mart each week). However, Wal-Mart (and Target and Best Buy…) take a loss on CDs to sell them closer to $10 in hopes of getting people into the electronics section, where they’ll buy something on the way back, or pick up a DVD, etc. while they’re back there.

Well, Wal-Mart is tired of taking that loss on each disc and is trying to convince the music industry to streamline their process a bit, otherwise Wal-Mart will cut back on space for CDs and instead offer shelves to DVDs and video games. This would, of course, be terrible for the music industry as a whole in that nearly all their CDs are sold (excluding the internet) in Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy now, as an estimated 1200 record stores have closed in the last two years alone.

Anyway, I find this relatively interesting… I did a presentation for Speech class in undergrad on how stupid the music industry is, as a whole, and how they really need to adjust their model if they want to compete in the 21st century. That was nearly 6 years ago, and apparently little has changed. As the article states, the music industry is all about milking every last dime in profit from a given song (frequently crappy ones…), while companies like Wal-Mart want to make every purchase as cheap as possible to make their profits on volume. I kinda think iTunes, and other online retailers, are following closer to the Wal-Mart model, removing most of the overhead costs listed above in favor of making money on the volume sold of a given song (or album) to millions of people.

Personally, I’m shocked the CD has made it this long as a popular medium. Brooke and I only buy CDs anymore when it’s a certain group (like Dave Matthews, for example) – otherwise, we’ll buy it through iTunes and burn it ourselves, as we tend to care very little about how pretty the cover art to a given album is.

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"Education" vs "Training"…

So, I finally watched “Jesus Camp” this weekend with Mom and Brooke, the latter of which had already seen it and subsequently shown it to the high school Sunday school class at church (heh…). The movie, for those that don’t know, is a documentary beginning in the spring in the general area of Lee’s Summit, MO (near Kansas City, of course) as kids there (ranging from ages 6-12) prepare to go off to summer camp in North Dakota; the kids then go to the camp, and then return. The camp is run by a Pentecostal minister that is preaching to them for the week. It’s close to 1.5 hrs long. Essentially, the movie is about how the evangelical movement in America is affecting the young children involved.

The neat thing about the movie is that it’s told solely from the perspective of the kids and the camp director, along with a sort of “counterpoint” presented through an evangelical radio host (that later interviews the camp director). The film makers say nothing in the movie, but allow the kids, parents and other figures to do all the talking. The people in the film speak for themselves, leaving little room for interpretation by the viewer.

Well, the thing is…because of this fact, you know that these people really believe what they’re saying, and it provides some cause for concern. The camp director is interviewed frequently throughout the film talking about “training” these kids. She constantly refers to it as “training,” and mentions multiple times how “people in other religions” start “training” their kids from the age of 3 to do everything and anything for their beliefs, including strapping a bomb to themselves. She literally talks about how “we Christians” need to start “training” our kids in a similar way.

Now, as my Mom so perceptively noticed, many of the kids depicted in this movie seemed to be brainwashed. Not playing with toys at the age of 9. Not playing video games. Not watching MTV. They were instead going up to a few old African American guys in the park asking if they knew “where they were going after they die.” They said heaven. The 9 year old girl said “are you sure?” They said “yes.” As she walked away with her mullet-donned accomplice (seriously…watch that video…), she says “I think they’re Muslim.”

I guess it’s concerning because, as the camp director says, these are the next generation of voters in our country. I know (or hope?) that this is an isolated group of evangelicals and that this is not how most of them go about things, but I have to wonder if their childhood isn’t being corrupted for something Jesus didn’t intend?

Perhaps I’d feel differently if they were talking about “education” rather than “training.” That word really has the connotation of preparing for a battle or war.

I don’t think I like where this is going.