What's NEXT?

After becoming a follower of Jesus (AKA Christian) I felt conflicted about music. I LOVED hip hop music. But so much of the music at the time wasn't very inspiring. I stumbled across the Kirk Franklin video for Revolution on CTS (www.ctstv.com). It was more "Gospel" than I really liked but it made me wonder if there was Christian Hip Hop music out there. I visited the local Christian bookstore and looked in there small contemporary music section.

Finally after digging through a discount basket I found a CD called "Coalition: the Hip-Hop Alliance". It was a compilation of various Christian Hip Hop artists. I LOVED it. I found every website listed on the cd sleeve and began earnestly searching the internet for other Christian Hip Hop artists. I quickly came across DJ Maj's Wax Museum Mixtape tracks and some classic Tunnel Rats tracks.

The Christian hip hop section of my favorites was quickly getting VERY big. It was then I realized that if I had this passion for both Hip Hop music and Jesus then others would or have had it too. But what if they aren't as good at finding things online as me? So I started a free website with Freewebs.com to host the hyperlinks I had collected to various Christian Hip Hop related sites. While MP3.com was still a free site I had a link for almost every artist. Evetually I bought my own domain name with pages for MC's, Dj's, Break dancers, & Graffiti artists giving special mention to any Canadian artists. I even had the dream of eventually making it a professional looking site and possibly even being a distribution site for Christian Hip Hop to Canada.

But in the years that followed I got busy with other things in life. First it was a girlfriend, then college, then leading youth group, and now my fiance (& the associated wedding). The updates that I've made over the years have mostly been cleaning up broken links. But in the past 3 years I've even given up on that. Now there are MANY other great Christian hip hop sites out there. Most artists promote themselves online with a Myspace page or Soundclick account. The artists signed to "major" Christian hip hop albums have their own websites. The more popular underground artists have their own site & store. The fan sites have interviews, upcoming album release dates, forums, and music videos.

So what do I do? Obviously trying to revamp the website now would be silly! there are so many other website of high caliber. But do I just GIVE UP on my passion? Am I to be simply reserved to buy a few CD's here there after being so on fire just a few years ago? For whatever reason, just like in the secular world, hip hop culture is forced to the outside and deemed uncool by the mainstream Chritian culture despite the fact that it relies upon hip hop culture to tell them what IS cool.

So... What's NEXT?

Floppy Disk Art

So today at work I'm cleaning off my desk and I come across a stack of floppies. First I check to see if there is anything on them I need before formatting them. Then I realize that I am NEVER going to use these again. Floppy disks useless. 1.44 MB is nothing!!! My address book file is bigger than that. And if I need something saved I can use a CD, DVD, or a flash drive.
So I'm sitting there staring at a stack of almost 20 floppies thinking to myself "There's gotta be something I can do with these other than just chuck'em". I figure someone out there has to have come with some sort of use for these other than chessy lookin' coasters.

So I spent the rest of the day surfing Google. Most of them were pretty lame: a notepad, a pencil holder, a photocube, and the worst of all... a bag made entriely of floppies. The best one I found was called Disk Combobulation. But I think my boss might get suspicious if I started trying to make that LOL.

I DID find out how to make a couple mini Star Trek ship models. I made the Enterprise (A I think) and a Klingon Bird of Prey. I'm also going to make a mobile of stapling the actual floppy part of the disks together.

If you have any cool ideas on how to use the ACTUAL floppy disk (and not just the slider) PLEASE let me know!

Honeymoon in ???

OY VEY !!! Will this honeymoon issue ever come to an end? Just when I thought it was all said & done it turns out that the NYC timeshares are EXTREMELY popular and none of them are currently up for trading. So we had to pick a few more options as backup. Here they are in order of preference:

B. White Point Beach Resort, White Point, NS

C. Horseshoe Resort in Barrie, ON

D. Kaatskill Mountain Club, Hunter, NY

These are really cool options! But I'd REALLY like to go to the Big Apple.

4 8 15 16 23 42

Lately I've had a horrible case of writers block. I have ideas coming out the wazoo. But when it comes to putting them in the form of a poem I struggle. So I started surfing for stuff about Lost to distract my mind and give me something LOST related to talk about until the next ARG gets going. So I thought I'd write a poem with a LOST twist. The idea being that the numbers of words in each stanza would equal each of the Lost Numbers. Then I decided to insert different lost words, phrases, episode titles, etc into the poem. Finally, when I posted it online I decided to link each LOST word to its page on Lostpedia. So here it is...

I feel so LOST.

The DHARMA of my karma is long gone.

I was once a MAN OF FAITH, but now WHISPERS make me doubt the truth

And OTHERS have kidnapped my heart. So now hatred and loneliness are my CONSTANT in life.

Death looming over me with OCEANIC weight like nightmares of faceless MONSTERs whose footsteps EKO after me in endless pursuit but never strike.

When THE ISLAND of my discontent washed up on shore I took a oneway trip THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. Now left has become right, and right is all wrong. So DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO because you don't know JACK!

Honeymoon in NYC !!!

For the most part the wedding planning has been smooth sailing. There was initial change of plan from having it in Milton to Cobourg. But that made sense. It was a whole lot cheaper there and it makes it easier for Christine's grandparents to make it. After deciding to have it in Cobourg everything else was very easy. The date wound up being the 25th (because the 18th was a HUGE soccer tournament). We decided to have the ceremony & reception at a local community centre which is also doing the catering and bar. A local store is taking care of decorations & flowers. We have a local DJ booked. Most impressive is the fact that Christine's cousins & their parents have decided to pay for the photographer as our wedding present.

Oddly enough, the decision that has been the source of the most debate and flip floping has been the honeymoon plans. We limited our ideas to Canada (due to passport issues.. don't ask). Initially we were thinking of going to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia and staying in a Bed & Breakfast. With the cost of gas only going up and B&B's not being cheap it was quickly becoming unrealistic.

We tried looking at other places to do a B&B. Stratford would have been nice but to do anything, like see a play, would have costed a fortune and didn't offer enough variety of things to do. Next on the list of possibilities was the 1000 islands. This seemed like a better idea. It offered boat tours and locals spas. However, we couldn't find a place to stay that fit what we were looking for.

Then we were offered to stay in a 2 week stay with a timeshare for free. So we searched the site and found 2 locations in Ontario in or near Barrie. The problem was that we wouldn't REALLY be getting away. We would end up doing things we can do ANYTIME! Then we opened our search to Quebec. Only 1 major downfall: Neither one of speaks French! LOL.

Suddenly it occured to me... What about New York or Michigan? We could drive across to the states, not have to worry about passports, and still spend more of our money and things to do and see rather than travel. Then I saw that they had places in New York City. Then I looked closer... One of them is The Manhattan Club, a posh hotel in downtown Manhattan just 2 blocks from Central Park!

There are TONS of things to do in NYC. Come on, they even call it the 'City That Never Sleeps'. We could do touristy things like visit the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, or Ground Zero. We could check out a play on, off, or off-off Broadway. We could check out all the cool stuff in and around Central Park. We could visit and get pictures in places like Time Square. We could even go see TV shows like David Letterman.

I've even found cheap bus tickets to New York and back for about $60. Not each, that's for the 2 of us. It's going to cost us more for an unlimited 2 week transit pass!

Right now the owner of the time share is checking the availability dates. Pray... PLEASE PRAY that the dates right after our wedding are available. I really hope that they are (since it IS a hotel). This would a really awesome and totally unforgetable honeymoon if it works out. LOL Not to mention the fact that deciding it would FINALLY be done and we could start the fun part of deciding what we are going to do instead.

Did the season finale leave you LOST?

I'm very much a LOSTIE. I watch every episode, discuss question about the plot, and read Lostpedia almost daily. I've even added the 1st 3 seasons to my wedding gift registry. If you're a LOST fan too then you watched this weeks 2 hr season finale and have a whole host of questions.

After watching the show so far I have a few theories. The island, Jacob, Christian Sheppard and now Claire are all the same. They try to keep the island secret and carry out it's will. I think the island is a representation or manifestion of God's will on earth. Just like in the Bible, God had a chosen people the island has a chosen people (the Others).

Just like Jacob of the Bible was a man of faith the Jacob of the represents faith. Those who follow Jacob (Ben, The Others, & now Locke) do so by faith. Whereas those live by science (Jack, Widmore, Dharma Initiative) try to control things. The DI used stations to control the islands natural properties (Swan & Orchid stations). Usually with dire results (ie: the purge).

Just like God, the island offers people redemption. Or more specifically to choice at seeking redemption. Those who fail intially but then redeem themselves through actions are taken/die (Eko, Charlie, Michael). But those who follow the quiet voice of God inside all of us from an early age are given the chance to accept their fate and used as instruments of the island.

How do the ancient things on the island (statue, the temple, smoke monster, the orchid wheel) fit in with the outside forces (Hanso, Widmore, Paik, DI)? I think that's what the next 2 seasons will be about. In the end, ALOT of the small questions will go unanswered (at least by the TV show.. the producers may fill in the gaps through podcasts). It will answer major questions about the island, the numbers, the DI, the others, and why Oceanic 815?

All the world's a stage

I've taken part in a few small open mics before but this Sunday night was my first time to sign up and take the stage at a poetry slam. I had been to the Toronto Poetry Slam (TPS) once before in February. Their website had recommended going at least once before you sign up for the slam itself. I dragged Christine, my then girlfriend, and a few friends. We ALL had a blast. The feature was a guy from South Carolina and blew us away with 20 minutes of straight performing, alot of which I suspect was improv.

During the time that followed I started writing poems again for the first time since high school. I had even written a poem for Christine as a Christmas present. I also signed up for and began participating in the TPS online forum. I quickly became a very active member posting comments, asking for critique of my poems, and letting it be known I'd be showing up for the first slam after the finals: Sunday May 25th, The annual "Anything Goes Slam". Where the only rule still in effect is the time limit/penalty.

Christine, my now fiance, 3 of our friends, and my mother showed up early to get good seats because there was a lot of anticipated interest in this slam. When the host announced the sign-up the massive line formed out of nowhere. I spoke with and met a few poets who were on the forums as well as the host himself. But to be honest I was worried I wasn't going to make it through the lottery with so many people signing up.

You see they only let 12 people in for the 1st round, top 6 make it to the 2nd round, and the top 3 make it to the finals. But the host broke the rules too! He let all 15 peeps into the 1st round. PHEW !!! I made it. But something even crazier happened... I made it to the 2nd round! The top 6 of 15 ?? Not bad for a 1st timer I'd say.

I didn't end up making past the 2nd round but that's TOTALLY cool. I got to get on stage, do 2 pieces, make people laugh, and (best of all) my mom & fiance were there to support me. Plus the fact that Elyse, the girl who won, deserved to win hands down. Not to mention the fact that I didn't have my 3rd poem well rehearsed yet.

I'm going back again for sure. In fact, I'd love to make it back for the June one and find some other open mics. But the next month is going to be CRAZY busy and I'm TRYING to save money for the wedding in the fall. I guess I should use this time to write more material.