Howdy howdy! As I believe I mentioned somewhere, I've been working on Drawing Hand screensavers. If you wanna czech out my handiwork, you can download four of my .artwork files below! They're pretty cool. You'll need the Artwork Player to view these files, but don't worry - it's free. If you wanna view them as actual screen savers, you'll have to buy the Drawing Hand screensaver (which in my opinion is entirely worth the 20-so Bones the guy charges). So you know: the black and white ones are pretty short and only about 200 - 300 KB, but the color one is set for 1024x768, takes about 20 minutes or so to run, and ia a whopping 1.2 MB (so beware).

Someone spent sixty-eight minutes looking at thirty-two pages of my site today. Strangely enough, I find that to be slightly spooky.

My Top 5 Albums:
(In no order beyond alphabetical)

1. "Introducing Kristin Korb with the Ray Brown Trio" - Kristin Korb
2. "Leave Here a Stranger" - Starflyer 59
3. "Kick" - INXS
4. "Russian Lullabyes" - Havalina Rail Co.
5. "When the Pawn..." - Fiona Apple

Wow. This was tough. These are all albums that are entirely self-consistent. And are just chock-full of great songs. Too many albums offer two or three or one great song and a host of trash. These are not them. Some runners-up were Havalina's self-titled debut album, Van Halen's "1984," They Might Be Giants's "Flood," John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things," The Dave Brubek Quartet's "Time Out," Alanis Morisette's "Jagged Little Pill," Oingo Boingo's "Farewell," and Verve's Compact Jazz release of "Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong."

As a topic that often comes into conversation for the nearly-twenty-nine year old single guy, I question narrowly the concept of "being called to singleness." Isn't this just one more symptom of that kind of touchy-feely Christianity that demands an awareness of divine purpose for every occasion?

Oh, you're single? Perhaps you are called to singleness? Perhaps you have been given the gift of singleness? Oh, you speak Spanish? Perhaps you are called to Mexico as a missionary? Oh, you lost your job? Perhaps you're called to live and minister with the homeless? Oh, you have both an X and a Y chromosome? Perhaps you're called to be a man and stop relying upon relentless, unfounded superstition to rule your life and bring you comfort?

While being unmarried is clearly a gift of sorts insofar as it allows one the option, if he'll bear it, to focus more rigorously upon service in the name of the Lord. There is, however, no evidence that I've encountered that would cause us to imagine this to be any sort of perpetual calling. You know what I mean. Those people that the rest of us talk about in hushed tones of dread horror: "That's Johnny. He has the gift of singleness. In fact, he'll never marry." Those who have this mythical gift are emasculated to the point where marriage is so little an option or desire that members of the opposite sex (supposedly) hold all the attraction of a day-old waffle.

This is snacky. Really.

And the calling? Unless you attest to having heard an audible voice proclaiming yours a destiny of bachelorhood, I will not accept that you or I or anyone has been called to monastic living. And even if you do receive auditory revelation to the fact, I'll remain understandably skeptical. And why pray tell would my skepticism be so understandable? Simply because I have found no evidence in our one infallible authority on all matters spiritual that any such thing ever happens in the realm of Christianity.

On reflection, I might be willing to concede that God could, if He so desired, give someone such a revelation. But such special incidents of revelatory act on God's part are credibly rare even in Scripture (which is packed with the supranatural); to imagine their occurance with the blinding frequency with which pop-Christianity seems to is one step into gullibility and mythology that I'm not yet willing to take.

A week ago, Blake and I journeyed to far-away Silverlake for Havalina Rail Co.'s album release party for their new one (and number five), "Space, Love, and Bulfighting." Because a picture speaks a thousand words, here's 24,000. Well 24,000 plus a few hundred because each picture features complimentary commentary. Bon appetite!

Catharsis Through Babble:

"Fine. Thanks for askin'."

"Doin' good. And you?"

"I'mGreatThanksAndYourself??"

Why does it sound so hollow right now? Why does my honest answer to the how of my doings seem like a lie? Has "fine" simply become a word of polity to me? What's wrong? Why the change? Is it a change?

Really though. When I said "fine" is my honest answer, I wasn't fibbing. In some ways these are the best days of my life. I know more than ever. I understand the world better than ever. My experience of life is ever-expanding. I am ever being conformed to the image of Christ.

And yet. A malaise. A weariness. An overwhelming sense of earthly futility. I feel at times as though I were the incarnation of a cosmic sigh.

The key, I think, lies in the two mes. There is the me that recognizes the good and beauty of life and relishes its gift. This is the Redeemed Me. And there is the me that is selfish and mean and pitiful and hating and grumpy and revelling in life's futility, unable to see hope or meaning to All the Suffering. This is the carnal me.

And so I battle against myself for mastery of myself. When am of good cheer the real me is winning that battle. When I become somber, the wrong me is winning. And as the battle rages on and on, the right me wearies and and gives fore to the somber, morose, and self-pitying me. More and more, I find myself struggling to keep my perspective. I am become forgetful of who I am. Who I am made to become.

A child of the King. An heir of righteousness. Much more than a conqueror. One of the eternal living. A solid portion of the Holy Temple. Bride to the Prince of Peace and Creator of All.

How easily I forget. How often I need reminders. And yet so often it feels as though it is up to me to remind me of these things. I feel the weight of responsibility to proclaim the Gospel to myself. And yet when I am losing my battles, how rare am I in proper mind to exhort myself from the Scriptures. A puzzle then. Maybe I need more friends who will actively remind me of Truth. Maybe I need to change something in my life. Maybe I need Idunnowhat.

Maybe I need to continue trusting God for my life and trust Him to strengthen me as He will.

I've been thinking about it and I'd be willing to bet that unconscientious men who go to hell spend the rest of eternity being peed on by toilets. Consider it the just reward for their miscreancies here on earth.

If I ever go to prison, I know where I'm gonna spend the bulk of my State allotted internet time! Hey, what's the use of being a hardened criminal if you can't look cool hanging around in the Yard.

Hmm... a friend had a dream and I was in the hospital - quite ill from what I gathered. In any case, many people with whom I worked in the dream were present visiting me and soon, due likely to the horrible death eating at me which held me in the hospital in the first place, I died. And in the moment I passed this mortal coil, our boss in the dream mustered deep within himself these immortal words of encouragement: "Well, back to work!"

A funny dream on the one hand. Kinda sad on the other. And thought-provoking on the other. And yes, I'll bet you didn't know I had three hands. Well, you'd be right. I don't have three hands. I have five.

But back to thought-provoking. I have always wondered at my impression upon the world around me.Will my passing be heralded? Will it be noticed? Will I be missed? And by missed, I mean more than that obligatory "Hey, where's That Dane fellow gotten to anyway? Oh. Oh yeah. Too bad. i'll miss him." By missed, I mean will anybody beyond my family (who are required by law to miss me always) be profoundly and deeply moved by my absence?

In truth, probably not. Sure, I've increased a vocabulary here and there. I've saved people from mis-using "sex" or "gender" to everlasting embarrassment. I've hosted some decent parties and opened up the doors of cinema and culture to a few. I've eaten a bug for Kevin Otsuji. I've taken pictures of flowers that many women have enjoyed simply because it is in their nature to do so. And I've been for the most part a pretty-fun-guy-once-you-get-to-know-me. But really, who hasn't done these things? Well, except maybe the bug thing for Kevin Otsuji. My interaction with the world around me has to date and so far as I can tell been perfectly average. I haven't done anything super. Either for myself or for others.

The deep and horrifyingly selfish truth is: I want to be missed. I want to be mourned - not that I want to cause anyone the pain of mourning. I want to mean so much to someone - or even better, to some people - that if I died in a hospital somewhere, people would cry for sorrow that I will no longer be a part of their lives and those same people would cry for joy at all the wonderful things I'll be able to do now that I'm not saddled with earthly life.

Really what I'm saying is this: I want to matter.

And honestly, so far, I think I have too wrapped up in what I'm doing and where I'm going and how I'm enjoying the ride to really even be able to matter. I am not intergral to anyone. I am not something depended on for anything more than the work I produce. I'd rather be known and depended upon for the warmth I share with people, for the love I pour forth upon the world, for the empathy I have for the hurting, for the joy I exude in every circumstance. I want to mean something. I want to change. I want to matter. I want to change. I want to be missed. I want to change.

I want to be missed.

I'm growing a Bonsai tree at my desk now! I got a widdle tiny pot. And some widdle tiny pruning shears. And some widdle tiny seeds. And now I just have to wait a widdle tiny month before it even begins to sprout. *sigh* I was not built for patience.

Ah yes. Here I am, after hours at work. All so you can have something to read. I'm too good to you ;-)

So, now that the bag's out of the cat and everyone knows that MC Brando and Wendolucci are hooked up all official-like, I have a story. A queer sort of story. A story of oddness and strangity. A story of a man's advice to Brandon.

On second thought, it's really not so much a story but more a reccount of a certain baffling thing a recently married man of forty-five or so said to my young co-worker. That and the life-and-faith questioning that necessarily followed.

The man who bears the weight of this anecdote approached Brandon just prior his recent trip to Abballama and asked genuinely, "Have you prayed about her?" to which Brandon readily assented. Not to be deterred, the questioner laid down the following curiosity in deep solemnity.

And have you given her up? To God? When I gave my wife up to God, it was the hardest thing I ever did. A very difficult time in my life. Thankfully, God only kept her for a few days and then He gave her back to me.

Now I'll be the first to confess that along with Brandon (who nervously announced, "Uhhhm"), I had not the FOGGIEST FREAKIN' IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS. Did you give her up to God? Is this some new Christian doctrine? Do we now have give everything that comes into our lives to God to see if He'll be nice enough to give it back? If it came to us in the first place, doesn't it come as much from Him as it would a second time? Is this some new test? Did somebody, somewhen, mistake this for a Scriptural concept? Are we to take the knife to our brides-to-be as a sacrifice to God even as Abraham gave up Isaac to God?

*sigh* This seems yet another one of modern Christianity's uselessly mystical attempts to holyize the everyday decision-making process. Though having vastly more far-reaching impression on the direction of our lives, choosing a wife is no different in concept to choosing between pancakes and waffles and pigs-in-a-blanket. [yup. sorry. I just did the atrociously academic thing of sucking all the romance out of courtship.] In the final detail, they are both simple decisions based on desire and preference. I'm dang hungry and am totally in the mood for the Best Panackes This Side of Heaven, sooooo: I choose and eat the panacakes (at Ted's Place: the best kept secret in Laguna Niguel). Or I'm in the mood to be married and dang, I totally love everything about Janet, soooo: I choose and marry Janet. Obviously much more thought goes into marrying Janet because the consequence of years of unhappiness are far weightier than the consequence of an hour or two of indigestion, but essentially, the decisions are based around the same two things: desire and preference.

Now if I am to "give up" a potential mate in the process of gaining her as a wife, that oughtn't I do the same with my panacakes?

"Mr. The Dane, sir? Aren't you gonna eat those panacakes yet? They're getting cold...."

"Nope. Not 'til I get the A-Okay. I've given them up to God. Hopefully He'll give them back soon."

This functions the same with all the other silly ways people try to mystify, and thereby justify with holy approval, the decision-making process. Waiting for "open doors," "putting out a fleece," "listening to a still small voice," and waiting for God to tell us what to do are just ways of alleviating either the burden of having to decide or the burden of having decided poorly. I have yet to see God work normatively through such means. Maybe I'm just a heathen and God's Spirit will have nothing to do with me?

But I ain't.

Has anyone out there given any thought to the fact that when I introduce my children to the Star Wars saga, I'll be unable to show them in an event-chronological order (i.e., Episode I, II, II, IV, V, and lastly VI). The only way to maintain the intended suspense of the original trilogy will be to show them in a canonical order (IV, V, and VI, and then I, II, and III). Can you imagine how dilluted the suspense of the original trilogy would be if you already known the whole history of Anikin and Obi-Wan and Yoda and the Emperor? No "I'm your father" revelations since the last name "Skywalker" would pretty much give that away. No mystery over who this hooded figure is in A New Hope or Empire. How can we stop this from happening to future first-time viewers of the series?

It's kind of like with The Chronicles of Narnia. They've recently (okay, okay, a decade ago) repackaged The Chronicles in an event-chronological order completely destroying the wonder of discovery felt by all of the tales' original fan base. A tragedy if you ask me. I taped cheesy numbers on the covers of mine to maintain a canonical order lest a thief break in, steal my copies, and go home and read them (horrors!) in the wrong order - aren't I the philanthropist?

Unfortunately, Cox Communications has sabotaged my attempt to remain on top of blogging regularly. I lost my connection and have been on the phone with Customer Relations three times now. To no avail. So alas, the only posting I'll be able to do is posting from the office. Tragic, no? Hopefully this will be resolved soon, butcha never can tell....

Just got in from Episode II. Can we say "Wow"? Can we say "Forget the redemption of Anakin Skywalker, I'm just happy to see the redemption of George Lucas!"? And after seeing MASTER Yoda in action, the viewer is only left with one thing to say: "Neo's a fag." That is all.

As some of you may recall, the office where I work takes Tuesday mornings off to gather for a time of prayer and Bible study. And we often host guest speakers ranging from bigger names (within the Calvary movement - e.g., Brian Brodersen and David Hocking) to not so big names (e.g., me). Yesterday was a name I didn't know, but he's a pastor at an L.A. County Calvary Chapel. Now these devotions run the gamut from being very good and encouraging to being downright awful and discouraging. Yesterday's fell somewhere in between, having some good points, but also possessing enough weirdness that I shied away from allowing myself to really get anything out of it. Sometimes I feel I'm too critical. Typical Evangelicals would probably say I'm too critical, while the average Reformed friend might think me not critical enough. Them's the breaks.

But there was a certain sticking point in what was said yesterday that just really stuck in my craw. Among a host of silly things said, this took the cake. Said of his interpretational crux, "God gave this to me to say." A bold enough statement on its own, but combined with what God gave him to say, an outrageous supposition. I really hate it when people blame God for the dumb things they say. So what did he say? What did he say?

He spoke from Mark 5 of the women who had an issue of blood. He explained how just as this woman had an issue to deal with, so too, do we have issues that can hinder our relationships with God. *ahem* That was his exhortation "from the text." But waitaminnut!? You can't use two seperate words interchangeably even if they're spelled the same!! That would be like reading 2 Kings 2:24 ("So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the Lord. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths") and preaching from that "God will sometimes place people in our paths that we cannot bear, but never fear for He will soon deal with them as they deserve." Ridiculous, no?

And to maintain the insight came from God Himself?! Astounding.

As I said in an early comment thread, I have a sword. I'm not so interested in gun control laws. I'd much rather see the citizenry enabled to carry daisho, the matching sword-pair traditionally reserved for the samurai class in until-recent Japan. I think a bandit would be less likely to mug a man strolling down the street with a katana at his hip than a man without. As for my sword? I'm not certain if it's a tachi (a cavalry sword worn blade-down) or a katana (the typical sword weilded by samurai worn blade-up). My guess is katana. In any case, it rocks. And could cut you in half. Like Darth Maul.

Also, the ladies out there (and men who are secure in their orientation) may wish to check out the twenty-four new pictures I've added to SupahFloraSection! They're Supah!! (And though I took the first batch from my own personal garden, this latter group comes from a garden/park local to the office from where I post this very post!)

In light of the 1000-acre fire that yesterday stenched up the sky at work, wreaked havoc upon South Orange County's corridors of transport, and burnt within a hundred yards of my boss's house, I thought some reflective images from my own passed experience with wildfires might be fitting. Nearly nine years ago, in the October month of 1993, Laguna Beach was brought low by a mighty firestorm fueled by dry chaperal and feisty Santa Anas. The devestation was sizeable and my very home and neighborhood was assaulted by licking flames; but through the hard labours of myself and a few others, two-thirds of our neighborhood was saved. Fighting for hours against flame, smoke, and exploding propane tanks, we held the fire at the creek that divided the neighborhood until professionals could finally arrive to stop its appetite. My only regret is that we didn't act sooner. And with that:

Firestorm Laguna '93:
Battle at El Morro