Wednesday, February 23, 2011

5 Reasons the World WILL NOT End Soon

So yesterday I posted 5 reasons that I thought that the world was ending soon. If you missed it, you can read it here.

But I didn't want to alarm you with the fear of impending doom. I want to be fair, so here are 5 reasons why I think that the world WILL NOT end soon.


1. The Mayans predicted it-  The Mayans succeeded in several areas. Math, written language, .etc. But they didn't exactly succeed in the area of future predicting. There's something about having your civilization collapse without you realizing it that really hurts your the credibility of your future predictions. I hope no current Mayans read this, otherwise it could be really awkward for me if their prediction of Dec 2012 turns out to be true.

2. There is a Wedding this Saturday - It is every grooms nightmare that on the eve of his wedding, Jesus will decide to come back. I mean at least for the couples who have decided to wait until they are married to....you know....pick out curtains....That's just a lame way to say have sex. I mean the two aren't even comparable. I hope my wife doesn't read this. Anyways, I imagine that God is so loving that He'll wait until the one Saturday that there are no weddings scheduled.

3. The Orioles haven't won the World Series - When Jesus said that the last shall be first, I don't think that he meant that we should apply that to Major League Baseball.  Otherwise, the Orioles would have won the last two world series. I think that if the O's win the Series I'll have to wonder if the end is coming. Being in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox has re-assured me that this is not an immediate worry.  However, if we get to September and the O's are in 1st place I would suggest you start praying.....

4. Steve Jobs hasn't Declared It - Apple makes some cool devices that's for sure. In their press conferences though, Steve Jobs, sells them as if each device is the savior of mankind. FRET NOT PEOPLE! THE IPHONE 17 IS HERE! EVIL WILL NO LONGER EXIST! GET ONE! GET TWO! But I just read that the Ipad 2 is about to be released so maybe that'll usher in the end of the world.

5. I Can't Think of a No. 5 -  I know that this is a cop out and that you are probably want your money back. But, you're not the one who's son decided that he wanted to play at 3 am this morning.  I was honestly hoping for the end of time about then. Then perhaps I could get catch up on rest for the first half of eternity.

What signs do you see that say that the world WILL NOT end soon?


Jon

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

5 Reasons The World is Going to End Soon

I was reading in the Bible this morning and ran across a portion of scripture where Jesus gives people a head's up about some things that will happen when the end of the world is coming. Now I don't think that anything needs to be added to Jesus' list, but there are a few things that cause me to believe that the end of the world is coming.

Here are 5 of them:

1. Larry the Cable Guy has a show on the History channel -  Go ahead and re-read that. Yep. I could technically end the list right here but I won't. I mean really, who at the History channel thought that this was a good idea? The show is about Larry searching for things that pertain only to America. The first thing that was mentioned was a donkey that can shoot basketball.  There's something that will improve our reputation internationally. I was thinking that maybe they would cover the origin of, i don't know, Apple Pie. I mean the saying isn't, "American as basketball shooting donkeys".   And when did the History channel take a hiatus from their 20 year coverage of Hitler?  Anyways, I'm sure I'll be glued to the tv for this one.

2.  The Fast and The Furious 5-  Somewhere in a board room a group of rich people sat and said this: "You know, Tokyo Drift was a good movie, we should make another one." In fact, I had no clue that there was FAF4 in there too. It slipped in there sometime a couple years back. No, this is supposed to be the last one ever, at least until the 6th one comes out. It will  be titled "The Slightly Less Fast and Less Furious, the Buick Skylark Years" Sigh. As long as Paul Walker isn't in this one it'll be ok......hmm.....a quick visit to imdb.com has shown that he is indeed in this movie. Now I'm praying for the end of days.

3. The Price of Cereal-  Have you actually looked at the price of cereal lately? Holy Cow. When buying cereal I feel like I need to borrow against my house. Soon there will be a sign on the cereal aisle that reads: "You have been Pre-Approved to purchase Frosted Flakes: followed by a bunch of small legal jargon that no one reads but promises Kellogg's your first born child or french poodle named FiFi. " If there is anything that we need to fix in this country it's cereal prices. Seriously. I eat it for every other meal.



 4. The NBA still has an All- Star Game -  does anyone still watch the NBA? that being said, at least the Dunk Contest was interesting again. Check this out.






5. Because it's Predicted for May 21st of this year-  Some church in Pennsylvania has predicted that Judgement Day is set for May 21st and the Earth will be destroyed in October. They come to these dates by reading almost every Bible verse out of context and then making up some math based on numbers in those verses. They even challenge what Jesus said when he said "no one will know when the end of the world is except God". So they mis-interpret the Bible, make up math, and challenge Jesus.   So why am I including them on this list?  Because if I were God,  I would end the world the day AFTER they predicted.  I just think that would be funny.


Do you have any thoughts on when the end of the world will be?

Jon

Monday, February 14, 2011

I'm a Man...so that explains a lot (the worst valentines day ever)

Whenever I do something incredibly stupid I usually blame my Y chromosome.

why you ask?

Because it's easier than to say..."I'm really sorry that I

a) forgot _______.
b) said ________.
c) did ________.
d) didn't _______.
e) lied about _______.

You know what, I could come up with enough of those for the entire alphabet. So you can see why, when my wife gives me that look that says "You're an idiot" I just throw my hands up and cry "Y Chromosome!" Granted this doesn't make anything better, but it makes me feel better.

Unfortunately I couldn't use that in the year 2001. The year of the worst valentines ever.

February 14th, 2001. Mollie and I had been dating for 1 month. We were talking as the holiday came closer. We learned that this would be the first time that either of us had a significant other for Valentines Day. This is where things started to go wrong.

Growing up, I always hated February 14th. Everyone had a girlfriend and they could hold hands and cuddle among other things. They would bring flowers and teddy bears and balloons in order to impress their girlfriends. The girls would bring something for the guys, maybe candy, maybe a teddy bear, maybe a collage of all the fun times that they had together. (what's the deal with girls and collages? I'm pretty sure that's not included on the Y chromosome) I hated it. I would sit there while everyone was opening their gifts and hugging at the lunch table.  Even the cafeteria ladies would get in on it by cutting the pizza into little heart pieces....(ok so that's not true but it felt like the lunch ladies were in on it. )

So I swore an oath to myself.  When I got a girlfriend, I was going to respect all of my single friends and not rub it in that I had a girlfriend on Valentines Day. I was just going to keep a low profile on Feb 14th. We weren't going to have all of the candy and gifts. We were just going to enjoy each others company.

Stop shaking your head at me. I know you are. I was young and dumb....(Y chromosome)

On the other side of things was Mollie. She had watched all of her friends in high school get flowers and gifts on Valentines Day. Every year she waited for the day when she could be dating a guy and go through the fun of getting flowers or notes. She waited patiently for the day that she could make a collage of pictures for her man.. (I know, I still don't get it)

Which brings us to Valentines Day 2001. Our first Valentines day ever.

Here's what I said....

"I was thinking that I don't want to alienate all of my single friends. Let's just skip everything for Valentines Day this year. I hate it when other people rubbed it in my face. I don't want to do that to other people.

This was her quiet response,

"Oh.....ok"


So that's what we did. We sat in Cascades Cafe in the Student Union at ASU. We had bagels and cereal.

No Flowers.
No Gifts.
Nothing.

(seriously, stop shaking your head at me)

It gets worse. A few rooms away from us, a group of our friends were having dinner. Not just any dinner. The guys had prepared a nice Italian dinner for their girlfriends. They were all dressed up and serving the girls dinner.

Molls and I stopped in to say hello. I can't really imagine what Molls was thinking at that moment. I mean these guys were serving their girlfriends a nice dinner. I hadn't even offered to spread her cream cheese.

It was a few months later that I found out that Mollie's dream was to have a romantic Valentines Day.  Thinking back to that day makes me shudder. I was so preoccupied with not upsetting others, that I ended up upsetting the one who would eventually become my wife. In fact, I think that this date was proof that God was behind our relationship. Most girls would have kicked me to the curb but she stuck with me.

Don't worry ladies. I made up for it the next year. I took Mollie to a restaurant that served the best steak we've ever had and paid $75 out of the $90 that I had to my name. After all, she was worth it.

These days, Molls and I are pretty low key about Valentines Day. We prefer to show crazy amounts of love to each other on random days instead. (hello Bruster's ice cream last night!) What about you?

What was the worst Valentines Day story from your life? 
Drop a comment below!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Play the Background

I have a few dreams in my life.

To be a rapper.
To be a well known speaker.
To be a writer.
To run a restaurant.

Dreams are good. They give us focus. They give us drive. They give us purpose.

As you might have noticed, I haven't written much on this blog lately. In fact over the past two months my number of posts dropped significantly. I love to write and honestly I've missed writing here. I have a lot of fun poking fun at things and digging into the deep complexities of life.

But as much as I love writing, I desperately want it to take off. I want it to be read by thousands. I want people to read my writing and laugh and cry and occasionally think, "what's the deal with that guy?"

 So after every post that I wrote I would check my stats constantly. Sometimes I would check stats 10 times a day. I would get excited with every new visitor that came through. I became obsessed.

Then I got an urge. That urge was to push my wife into blogging. The only problem was that she doesn't really have any technical background when it came to setting up her blog but she had the topics to write about. She needed someone to run the background. That's where I come in. And it's why I haven't written much in the last 2 months. I've been playing the background.

The crazy thing is that God has been all over it and I haven't realized it until right now. Like right in the middle of writing this post. See I was so obsessed with getting big that I started to lose my desire to help people. I just wanted it to blow up and become popular.

I think that God knew this and so he gave me this urge. This urge that I gave to my wife.

This urge that resulted in the site www.momconformist.com. 

I think that God knew that I needed to take a little break from writing because my desire to be BIG was in itself getting too BIG. At least He knew more than I did.

When you realize that you are in the middle of something that God is doing, you can see some really amazing things.

In my writing I wanted to help people. By playing the background on Mollie's blog, I'm helping people in a way that can't be seen. And I'm helping more people than I ever imagined.

Momconformist.com (did I mention that was the name of the site yet?) has met goals that I never thought were possible.

For example: In 1 month, it has tripled the number the visitors and pageviews that this blog has had in it's ENTIRE existence.

Hopefully people are taking things away from reading it. And I still get to say that God used me to help others.


The point of this post wasn't to publicize my wife's blog (although I did plenty of that). It also isn't to just give you a reason why I haven't made fun of as many thing lately.

It's to challenge you to look at your life and consider this: Are you called to Play the Background? Maybe you are called to work in the background where there isn't much recognition. Where there aren't a lot of people congratulating your latest thought or post or tweet.

Maybe you are called to feed the poor without anyone knowing.
Maybe you are called to work with children during church services.
Maybe you are called to work with teenagers on retreats.
Maybe you are called to just sit and listen to others.
Maybe you are called to give up everything and follow God.

Maybe. Just Maybe.. You are called to Play the Background. What do you think?

jon



*this post was inspired by the song "Background" by Lecrae. Check it out on youtube. It's worth it.*

Friday, February 4, 2011

An Assault on Wintry Mix.

This year has proven to be kind of crazy when it comes to weather. It's been cold and snowy almost everywhere. In fact at one point in time there was snow on the ground in every single state except Florida. (and you wonder why older people move there) But it's not just that it has snowed. It's that it has snowed FEET.  There are places in the Northeast that have gotten over 100 inches of snow and we're HALFWAY through the season.  It's also been ridiculously cold. If I wanted to live somewhere that the temperature was often in the teens, I would have moved to Canada a long time ago. I blame Global Warming.

But that's not what this post is about. Nope. It was just an incredibly long intro paragraph written to make you start shivering from thinking about all of this cold weather. No. This post is about something in winter time that is completely deceptive.

I'm talking about Wintry Mix.

No one likes Wintry Mix. Normally I would say things like that because it would be mean, but let's be honest here. NO ONE likes Wintry Mix.  Why not, you ask?  Because the term Wintry Mix can be roughly translated as "Crappy Weather"

I think that's my problem with Wintry Mix. The name. When I hear the term Wintry Mix I always think of happy things. Things like:

1. Snow Cones- Snow is very wintry. And the best snow cones are the ones where you mix all of the flavors together. I think that we should rename this delectable treat the "Wintry Mix". Kids everywhere will run to concession stands across the country begging for Wintry Mix.

2.An Ipod Playlist - When the first sign of cooler weather comes, my wife insists on turning on "winter" music. This involves some Christmas music but there are also types of music on there. Generally it involves music that makes you want to cuddle up with some hot cocoa.  The Wintry Mix playlist is very popular between November and March.

3. A Type of Trail Mix -  No one can resist trail mix. Every year I talk about how I hate it but then I start eating and end up eating an entire bag. Wintry Mix is trail mix but it has Wintry items in it. Items like; red and green M&M's, Peppermint Bark, and that chex mix that is covered in powered sugar so that it looks like snow..  Seriously, it's scrumptulescent.


But there again is the problem with the real Wintry Mix. When I hear that there is going to be Wintry Mix outside I jump up and run outside  with my mouth open. Instead of Chex mix goodness, I get pelted in the face with ice pellets.

Even the weather radar is misleading. Every winter storm that comes through your town you become glued to the tv. Where is it going to go? Who will get the most snow??

You watch the radar and you see 3 colors. White, Green, and Pink. White is for snow. Green is for rain. Wintry mix is Pink.....really?  Pink??  Pink is such a festive color! Why should we use it to show the crappiest of all winter weather?

Pink should be reserved for the day we find a way to cure 100% of breast cancer. Then we can use pink for everything. I think that Wintry Mix should have be black on radar maps because that's the color the ice will be when you are driving over it the next day.

We should also rename it from Wintry Mix. Here are a few ideas for new names.

1. Wintry Crap - I'm not sure if you can say crap on tv. My mom never liked me saying crap at home either so this might not be the best idea. Although it would be the most accurate.

2. Winter's Hail - Technically it's not hail, but seriously how many names do we need for ice that falls from the sky? Plus hail is close to another word which adequately describes how your drive to work is going to be the next day.

3. Mother Nature's Revenge - "Hey man, you want to go to the mall today?" "Nah dude, I heard we are about to get a bad day of MNR! I'm headed home!" You see that works well. It is negative and communicates that you don't want to stand outside with your mouth open.

So my question to you is this:

WHAT WOULD YOU CALL WINTRY MIX???  comment below!