if you can read this, you're literate

now i read relevant.

and this article may be about celebrities and how even though they're crazy, we're all crazy and just because someone is famous doesn't give us the right to make fun of them. but it reminds me of how much fun i make of everyone, whether they're famous or not.

i've got a bad habit of poking fun at anyone. if there's a joke to be made, i'll probably make it. at anyone's expense. there's a dark side to this that has been bothering me for a while.

how can i truly love like jesus if i'm always picking at someone?

i think over the past couple years, i've become a critical person. it's good in a few aspects. i actually notice things now and i feel i'm more observant.

but it comes with a negative. with the criticalness, you're never totally accepting of EVERYTHING. to be more accurate, you're never totally accepting of ANYTHING. you're (buy 'you're' i mean 'i'm') always on the lookout for what could be improved and less concerned with what is already a positive.

i like being a critical person. it helps me in my own life with school, work, worship, relationships, etc. but it's also hard on relationships with classmates, co-workers, brothers, mothers, cousins, etc.

i know sarah has pointed out to me that i'm quick to tell her what she does wrong (like leaning the wrong way on a motorcycle), but not telling her what she does right (like leaning with me on the motorcycle).

this critical behavior could be dangerous...

so how do you keep it in check?






i hope to have a few answers shortly. and a lot of answers over the years.

Posted by erichapman at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments

i just got back from the david crowder/third day concert and it's late.

first off, the opening band, hyper static union, was pretty ok. but they only played three songs.

then crowder went right on stage w/o even a whole song between acts.

that guy knows how to reach an audience. you were moving and singing and laughing and dancing. it was great. here are a couple quotes from the man himself:

"less pretty more loud!"

"he's a pretty man, but seriously..." (about josh groban)

he also made a comment "WW..." in reference again to josh groban as in "what would josh do?"

that man is hilarious. ...crowder, not groban.

then third day got on stage.

they sucked.
as always.



we left early.

Posted by erichapman at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments

i was inspired by justin's post... here's another joke about church folk.

how do you keep a baptist from drinking all your beer when you go fishing?

bring another baptist.

Posted by erichapman at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments

wow it takes a lot to come together all at once to plan a wedding day.

this isn't even the minor details yet... the big stuff.

first, we had our date (9/8/07) at first assembly. then i realized my mom and dad got married there and they divorced 20 years ago. but my uncle has been married there twice (the first wife died of leukemia 18 years ago). then i realized his second marriage just ended in a divorce yesterday.

so, first assembly isn't really a good choice. but riverside is (plus their website is just way cooler)! ...except that date isn't open. so we decided the place is more important than the date, so we bumped it back a week. now the date is 9/15/07 (which, according to my mom, just 'sounds' like a good wedding date), but the reception hall doesn't have that date open. still, we decided the church is more important than the reception hall.

so we don't have a reception hall as of right now (i'm hoping the gateway building will be open now that we changed our date. it wasn't open for the 8th). BUT... some good did come out of this.

since we changed our date, the photographers will be the actual owners and not their children. i liked their kids' stuff. a LOT. but we hadn't met them. we met with the mother/owner and she was awesome. so i'm pretty stoked to have her doing our photos.

so, it looks like all we need now is a reception hall and guests and we're gettin' MARRIED!

oh yeah... and flowers, a dj, wedding dress, bride's maid dresses, my tux, best man/groomsmen tuxes, i still have to find out who can be ushers, invitations, save the date, engagement announcement, engagement pictures, bachelor party, wedding shower, finding a place to live, registering, honeymoon planning (why didn't i put this first??? i don't know), marriage license, gifts for the wedding party, caterer, flower girl, ring bearer, and how we'll fit millie into the ceremony.

i'm sure there's more, but i don't feel like thinking about it at the moment. i've got homework to do.

Posted by erichapman at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

i looked into googling "tracts" and this is what i came up with...


somehow, that's not the loving God i picture.

Posted by erichapman at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments

relevant has some of the best articles anywhere.

i don't know how many (if any) people that have actually been affected by tracts, but i'm guessing that's not really the wave of the future. they're just too impersonal. and lazy. is someone really going go get a tract and think, "wow... this guy really put a lot of consideration into choosing ME to give this tract to... i think i'll love jebus now."

doubtful.

but there are alternatives... i don't know about the things this guy did... b/c i probably wouldn't accept food from a stranger and i wouldn't want someone else to clean my truck. but the clothes thing was a good idea.

i do like a couple things he had to say, though...

"I really didn't have a particularly sound understanding of why anyone would be interested in listening to me explain the information held within."

"Years after the tract experience, after I had met Jesus," [this implies the author didn't meet Jesus until he grew up. very cool thought.]

"A positive second step is to, as much as possible, avoid coming off as a wacko. I'm still working on this one myself, but I don't think you'll look like too much of a wacko if you really love Jesus, and if you really love the people you talk to." [no one thinks mother teresa was a wacko...]

So what's better than tracts?

Love.

Be friends with someone. The end of this article shows that the author had three friends that show up to church regularly now. If you really want to impact someone's life, love them.














[by the way... the 'jebus' was intentional]

Posted by erichapman at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments

this show just gets better and better.

you can definitely tell there's some new formatting for the show. it's softer and the characters are a lot more likeable (except stanley... i really can't stand that guy. he gets grumpier and grumpier).

this is the way shows go. you can't have a character that everyone hates or else everyone will end up hating the show. the characters have to be likeable.

while the new feel for the show is more of a tv show than a dramatic office documentary, it still delivers on the funny.

this is still, by far, the funniest show on television (now that arrested development is off the air).

steve carell is HOT right now after his success in little miss sunshine and the new sequel to 40 year old virgin, 41 year old manwhore. let's hope he doesn't get fired from his own orifice.

Posted by erichapman at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments

you like paris hilton?

yeah, me neither.

Posted by erichapman at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments

i'm just sitting here watching pbs instead of doing homework (yeah, i enjoy pbs. big whoop. you wanna fight about it?) and there's something on with jean michael cousteua. so it's obviouslly about marine biology.

they're going around america's underwater treasures and i just saw something about sea turtles, and now they switched to humpback whales.

something really struck me as awemazing (a combination of awesome and amazing). hawaii is their breeding grounds. it's protected waters when they are there breeding. vessles aren't even allowed to approach the humpbacks in these waters surrounding hawaii.

these huge mammals (reaching up to 40 tons (80,000 pounds... that's as much as a fully loaded 53' cemi trailer WITH the cemi truck) breed and give birth in hawaiian waters.

after the breeding, they swim to alaska. they come back to hawaii the next year, have some babies, and swim back. they keep doing this year in and year out.

the narrator pointed out how the young humpbacks jump and play in the warm water around the american islands having just arrived from alaska where they gained strength.

i should think so! how awesome would it be to swim from hawaii to alaska and back for a routine exercise?!?

lucky!

this is the life of a whale. a life that has so obviously been designed. thank you, pbs, for delivering awemazing video right into my living room, further proving to me that my god is an artist who not only creates, but creates his own medium.

Posted by erichapman at 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments

let it end with you.

i need to get t-shirts made denouncing small talk. i hate it. people ask, "how are you doing?" and they couldn't care less. in fact, it usually means they want you to ask them so they can talk.

this is a great observation by the people at relevant.

don't spread small talk. do like this article says and just ask, "have you lost weight?"

Posted by erichapman at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments

so one of my friends just became wildly famous.

it's this guy.

and here's how he's famous.

churchmarketingsucks.com is a great website. the name is pretty self explanatory.

it's really awesome to see dave's stuff getting recognition b/c i remember him saying how good tim "brother" schraeder is and that they even talk about tim on churchmarketingsucks.com.

and now he's on there himself.

way to go, dave. i'm glad you're my friend.
and brother tim, too.

Posted by erichapman at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments

this movie had a lot of emotion-recalling power. hardly any of the characters were likeable, and some scenes i just couldn't watch.

i think it showed women in a bad light. most of them were knife-wielding psychos or screaming at their significant other or were just plain a b with an itch.

aside from the characters lacking (i'm just a fan of character-driven movies, so i could be overly critical of that aspect), the story was probably a good one for me to see at this stage in my life.

i don't want to be a spoiler, so look away if you haven't seen this movie yet. that's your disclaimer.

zach braff's character, michael, cheats on his awemazing (combination of awesome and amazing) girlfriend (one of michael's friends in the movie says she's beautiful, and like a guy). and she's pregnant.

i feel like the entire movie after the opening credits was a series of fights.

the mom cheats on the dad, the friend leaves his wife with the baby, the cool guy leaves the girl he's banging, and the spaz leaves the country. all the while everyone's got an argument.

but... back to why this movie was GOOD.

it shows that every friendship, acquaintance, relationship... even every marriage has some really tough times to get through.

i chose not to watch a few of the scenes b/c i just didn't want those memories, but the ones i did watch, i choose to take a lot away from.

i choose to remember how totally insane the awemazing pregnant girlfriend was when she knew her boyfriend was lying to her and was out with another woman.
i choose to remember how angry she got when she wanted him to leave and had to force him out of the house with knife in hand.
i choose to remember how the dad reacted when he found out his wife had been sleeping around on him for years.

those might all seem like negative things, but i don't ever want to make the same mistakes these people made.

they all had something crazy going on in their heads, and i know i could just as easily be there, too.

i'm choosing to use this movie as a lesson and never do those things to my relationships.

Posted by erichapman at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments

check out what cnn has to say about the new 24" iMacs.

how you like them apples?

p.s. i like them apples a lot. they're my favorite.

Posted by erichapman at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments

i just got this in my rss...

it's apple's new line of iPods


it's apple's new line of ipods.

craziest is the shuffle.

what's next?

...chips in our brains that just play music straight to the music sensing part of our brains.

don't tell apple... i'd hate to think of all the chimps with apple wires coming out of their heads...

Posted by erichapman at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments

My Cubicle

i realized something during this spoof...

i'm not doing what i feel i'm cut out for (that's not what i realized... i realized that a while ago. i'm working towards that right now.)

but what i DID realize is that i really don't feel like trying when i know i'm just doing something temporary.

most times, i really could care less if i get a 3 or 2 on my next review.

why should i care? i'm only there until i finish school anyway.

i hope to look back on this time in my life someday and think, "man... i'm glad i didn't do that forever."

and this little video proves to me beyond a shadow of a doubt... it reinforces what i already know...

the big yellow will not steal my soul.
i will get out.
i will make a difference.
i won't work somewhere that doesn't have an impact.

i will get out.

Posted by erichapman at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments

this was a poll on weather.com

i'm curious... what's your opinion?

obviously you can take that puppies are cuter as fact from the smart people at weather.com

or, you could just assume that dog lovers are the only people who actually care about their pets.

either way, cat lovers are nasty people.

Posted by erichapman at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments

that's not what most people would expect a christian to say.

we've gotten a lot of bad publicity over the years and i don't know that our bad rap will ever be set straight.

i know i've plugged them before on this blog, but i'll do it again and again...

the guys at xxxchurch.com are some of the coolest guys around. they epitomize what i think a christian should be.

they stand firm on what they believe in, but they don't think less of someone if they believe differently.
they get flak from both sides - people who say there's nothing wrong with porn, and people who say jesus does hate.
i know they've given away so much and sacrificed parts of their lives (one of them used to run their merch warehouse out of his garage).

but mostly, they just do what christians should do. they talk to people. they treat non-christians like a fellow human being. and they tell everyone that God loves them. it's a simple message that should be easy to understand.

but not everything that's simple is easily digestible.

Posted by erichapman at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments

This might be the coolest church vid ever. seriously. ever.

Posted by erichapman at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments

ok, i'm just getting into this stuff, but i know enough to say, "this is cool." and, "hey... i've heard of vector graphics!"

yeah, it's on the adobe website, so of course it's going to try to sell you something. (in this case, it's illustrator cs2).

they pretty much tell you, "this guy is really good. good luck getting your designs to do this." and that's supposed to sell you on their product.

but i really like the last part of it where they talk about the printers freaking out b/c they have a hard time figuring out all the layers and vectors.

and i especially like the "controversy" about how no one really knows who the technical artist is here.

what do you think? who is the one creating; the man behind the curtain, or the computer outputting all the shapes and colors?

Posted by erichapman at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by erichapman at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

that's what this movie should be called.

although i question their choice in greg kinear, he does play a prick of a guy really well.

it's the most messed up family, but it's what ends up being best for the suicidal uncle that comes to live with them.

there's no giant plot where people overcome great odds to cure a dying race of african honey bee.
racial lines aren't blurred but a miraculous turnabout.
two enemies do not learn to love each other.



a little girl makes it from az to ca to be in a beauty pageant.

she's 7.

and only one person in the audience likes her performance.

but the family full of character has fun despite all the crap thrown at their VW mini-bus along the way.

it may be my new favorite movie. i am seriously considering saying goodbye to my long-standing number one shawshank redemption for a grade school beauty pageant.

it even beat out ricky bobby, and i laughed my face off at that movie.

that's saying something.

---

yet at the same time, it stirred up a lot of emotions that aren't necessarily positive.

it reminded me of how messed up my childhood, along with millions others' was/were/is/are.

but mostly it made me miss my brother.

i could see a lot of myself but even a lot more of my brother in dwayne. dwayne loves nietzsche and hates everyone.
he's anti-social, has bursts of anger, and probably thinks he doesn't fit in anywhere he goes.

as i was watching this movie, i kept thinking of what eli was doing at that moment (b/c i knew he was at work. at a job i know he hates.) or what eli thought of that part of the movie (b/c he had already seen it.)

so i guess this is kind of a combination post about how i loved little miss sunshine, but (and i can't believe i'm saying it) but i miss being on second shift with my brother.

it feels very alone at work now.

Posted by erichapman at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments

someone please explain this to me...

WHY is the word "internet" capitalized????

i know the grammar rules. proper nouns are capitalized. improper nouns are not.

proper nouns being specific names of people or places (McDonald's, Sarah, First Assembly of God...) and improper nouns being pronouns or regular objects (sign, him, phone...).

but why "internet?" every article you read has it capitalized. even microsoft word tells you that "internet" has a grammatical error if you don't capitalize it.

but WHY??? it's not an actual place, it's not anyone's name, it isn't anything except a conceptual thing. you can't touch the internet. you can't go to the internet. you can't give the internet.

someone tell me, please, why is "internet" capitalized?

if no one can tell me, i think we should have it changed.

now... who do we talk to to change english?

Posted by erichapman at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments