Last week was an awesome week of worship for me.  Let me clarify, I was able to worship my God through music on several occasions.  On Monday night, I went to a concert of my friends, The Never Setting Suns, who opened for The Whigs at the Mad Hatter in Covington.  I love listening to the Suns because while very few people realize it, their songs are ladened with the gospel, dripping in grace.  And I would define them as the opposite of K-Love.

On Tuesday, I got to play at a city worship event.  We do this event monthly and several Christians from various local church bodies come out to worship.  Then, on Saturday night, I got to go to a Crowder concert.  It was fantastic!   I worshipped my guts out!  When you leave a concert having sung at the top of your lungs and danced til your dripping in sweat, it is a good night.  But what I really love about Crowder is that they are not seeking worship of themselves.  They always have the lyrics up on the screen, which draws attention off of them and allows people to give glory to God.  I love that.

People are worshipers.  We worship many, many things.  It’s not a matter of whether or not you have faith.  There are people who worship sex.  There are people who worship fame.  There are people who worship appearance.  There are people who worship sports.  Next UFC fight, go to your local beer and wings joint and see all the people with their MMA equipment and apparel.  It’s clear.  I watched the Bengals game yesterday with some friends on a porch.  We were eating game food, smoking a nice Rocky Patel sun grown.  It’s easy to place these things or anything above the only one who deserves our worship.

So, how do we live as Christians?  Perspective.  We don’t deny the good things that God has made, but give proper thanks to our good God.  Worship is a part of who we are.  Who or what are you worshipping today?

Oh…I like DCB.

Well, Halloween has come and gone.  It’s time for me to put away my Renaissance costume and look ahead to the holidays for the rest of the year.  Funny, we’re house sitting for the weekend in a nice neighborhood, but we only had about 30 kids come trick or treating.  Did it seem down to you this year?  There were actually some kids who were just walking around with their friends and not trick or treating.  One was doing research on how Halloween is “dying.”  Interesting.

Oh well, now I’m looking at how I can get some Christmas shopping done a bit early.  So, I’m sitting down to a nice hot cup of tea and getting to work.  There are some deals to be had online, but you would be wise to take advantage of all the holiday internet sales.  You can find cyber Monday deals just about anywhere.  For my niece and nephews, All Aboard Toys is a perfect place to shop.  They have all sorts of great clothes and toys, and they love anything that has to do with Thomas the Train.

So, good luck to you in your shopping.  Don’t procrastinate.  Get it done early so you can enjoy the holiday more.  Or, better yet, give less gifts so that you can give elsewhere.

My wife and I are housesitting for some friends until next Tuesday.  They are a family whose kids have gone through our Young Life group, and we were glad to help them out.  So, while they are enjoying a long business trip to Paris (with the tab picked up by the company), we are at home with their 2 kids and one exchange student, 2 dogs, one cat, and I think some pet rats.  The kids are very responsible, all in high school, and the mother has all of the rides lined up already, so we are just an extra safety precaution.  All we really have to do is get them out of bed, give them their kids school backpacks and away they go.  However, this morning I woke up to the front door being pounded on veraciously and the door bell ringing about 30 times.  It was my wife.  She had locked herself out and lost the cat and was none too happy.  It’s all good though.  She went to work, and I waited for the cat.  He’s chilling on the hot tub cover outside as I write.

It’s always interesting being in someone else’s home.  People certainly have different habits.  Lets just say that I like to live in a house that’s a tad bit more organized.  But, we are made differently.  I caught a part of 30 Rock last night after The Office and in between the World Series, and Tina Fey actually made a good point.  She said all God’s children are horrible or something to that affect as Jack was trying to prove that country folk are purer and better.  Well done, Tina.  All people are horrible.  She might actually get the Fall.

Well, the nice thing about this house is they are giving us food and a clean bed.  They have a sweet walk in bathtub, which makes it easier to get in and out in the morning when I am groggy.  My allergies are flaring up and it smells a bit like these, but all in all, we are happy to be here.  The kids have a band competition this weekend.  There is Halloween.  My brother in law has a going away party for leaving for the Army.  It’s election day on Tuesday.  So, it’s kind of busy, but it’s all good.

So, I love Coldplay.  Thought I’d share another music video/song I like.  These guys just keep getting better and better.

Have you seen this new show on ABC FlashForward?  I have a feeling it’s going to be the new lost for me.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw Dominic Monaghan at the end of the last episode, which fits quite nicely with Lost.  It’s definitely an intriguing show.  Basically, the whole premise is that the world blacks out for 2:17 seconds, and everyone sees a glimpse of the future.  The main character is an FBI agent, and he gets a glimpse of his office and himself trying to solve the case.  His wife, Penelope from Lost, also has a vision, but she is with another man.  She’s a doctor and meets the guy in the hospital.  So, she’s hoping the future doesn’t come true, but it seems inevitable.  All in all, it looks like a cool show.  If I had to work on a hospital set all day, I’d have to wear some of these Jobst stockings.  I hear they work wonders.  I bet there are a few people on set who wear them, thanks to tips from nurses.

The last episode also had a sweet song at the beginning.  It put me on a quest to find it.  Here it is:

I thought it was Regina Spektor at first, but it was Bjork.  What a fun song!  You could give me a bunch of wooden toy parts to play with, and I wouldn’t have as much fun as being in that music video.  Awesome dancing!  The song lulls you in with the shh, shh, and then Bing Bam!  It’s like everyone is being spurred on by these, and then back to normal.  Fun!  I may have to check out more of Bjork.  I really liked that song.

The shopping season is gearing up, so it’s important to ask, “what will be the hot toys for 2009?”  It may be too early to say, but there are some retailers already making some pretty drastic moves.  For instance, Target is cutting toy prices by 50% this year.  They are definitely trying to take a bigger bite out of the retail giant Walmart.  I can’t imagine them making any money with those small of margins though.

Last year, Bakugan was a huge seller, and they expect to score big again in 2009.  The idea of this toy is very similar to a Transformer concept.  And it combines a cool toy with one of things boys love best, fighting and brawling.  Great idea!  This year, Yo Gabba Gabba and this popular new show expect to sell a lot of toys.  There is always a new fad of the year that will sell great, but I am still biased to old classics like LEGOs.  Give me a set of Lego Power Miners, and I’ll be happy.

Be on the lookout for some of these toys to make a move this year:

• Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster, $9.99
• ChixOs Design-A-Luxury Loft, $29.99
• Moxie Girlz Jammaz Dolls, $17.99 each
• Bakugan Battle Brawlers New Vestroia Maxus Helios 7-in-1, $39.99
  
• Transformers: Revenge of the Construction Devastator, $98.99
• MindFlex, $79.99

Mindflex

You gotta checkout Mindflex.  For all you telepathy fans, it’s a must have!

Yesterday was my mom’s birthday.  I gave her the usual phone call that a son gives his mom.  Unfortunately, it went straight to voicemail.  I was at my brother’s house, watching the Bengals lose with him.  What I didn’t know is that my dad had taken off to Michigan for a hunting trip and left my mom all alone for her birthday.  So today, with the gentle nudging of my wife, we’re taking her out to lunch.

Generally, in my family, we’ve resorted to cards for birthday presents.  After you get your mom 30 somethings she doesn’t like, the game is not that fun to play anymore.  I’ve tried in years past.  She loves house decor, so I got her a princess shower curtain, but I think my taste was not the same as hers.  I also got her this very cool Kata camera bag one year, but her love for photography had been dying, and I didn’t know it.  There’s always the opportunity to buy something shiny for her, but that can be an expensive miss.  So, a loving birthday card and a trip to Panera is on the agenda this year.

Mom always makes us great big meals for our birthday, so the least I can do is offer something tasty on hers.  Maybe a nice hot bowl of French Onion soup and multi-grain baguette.

So, I wake up this morning and go through my usual routine.  Make a pot of coffee and sit down to roll through my favorite sites – Cincinnati sports page, ESPN, Yahoo Fantasy Football, Facebook but WAIT.  Something catches my eye on my Facebook home page.  My friend Susan wrote, “Did I just see that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?”.  I say to myself, surely not!  What would he have won it for?  So, I hop over to the Drudge Report, my last stop on my morning routine and there it is, “OBAMA WINS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TO MIXED REVIEWS.”  What????  I think even GW is scratching his head on this one.

Did I miss something here?  I start scanning my memory banks for everything Obama has done in office for the past 9 months, and I’m trying to come up with something he did that is Nobel Peace Prize worthy.  I’m coming up with a blank, and so my only rational explanation is that Obama used the Ben 10 Omnitrix on himself to transform into a hero in the eyes of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.  Did he just pull an Optimus Prime?  That’s the only explanation, right?  I mean, I’m not normally a fan of the Taliban (that is, not at all), but there quote seems to make the most sense:

The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won the ‘Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians’

Ok, maybe it’s a bit extreme, but I get what they are saying.  Obama has sent 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan in his reign of office, and is considering sending 40,000 more.  Now, I’m not saying that is the wrong move from a military standpoint, but it seems like a pretty decent red flag to have on the resume of a Nobel Peace Prize candidate.  This just all seems odd to me.  Seriously, did nobody else this year do something more peace worthy then send 21,000 troops to a war?  I recommended some friends to buy tasers for themselves for protection.  Can I be up for the prize?

Weird.  I believe Barack is about change, and he has proposed some great plans for worldwide diplomacy, but until some of these speeches are changed to history, let’s give the prizes and gifts to the people who deserve them.  Shall we?

So, while I was watching the Bengals game this Sunday on my fuzzy, poor picture TV, John Madden was doing this.

Stupid WordPress.  I can’t figure out how to embed video.  Here it is.

How cool is that?  The guy had the perfect idea of bringing every football game to fans.  There are 10 screens that are voice activated.  Not like the guy needs to buy a ticket where he goes, but this is just to freaking cool.  The guy eats, sleeps and breathes football.  And a few other things too.  One day, he’s going to wake up surrounded by Landau scrubs because he probably had a heart attack, but God bless him!  He’s downed enough turkey legs for the whole world.  He’s kind of like those guys from da Bears skits on SNL where they have a heart attack every 2 seconds and just pound their chest really hard to fix it.

Speaking of heart attacks, how about my Bengals being the Cardiac Kids.  Every game this year has come down to the last second.  I loved the shot of Bill Palmer in the video who looks as cool as can be.  Could you do that if your son was in the NFL?  You have these 300 lb monsters trying to kill your son, and not even a Phoenix vest would protect them.  And yet, there they are, Archie Manning and the rest just watching their boys go to work.  Awesome.  What a cool scene.

Hang up this sign in the Bengals locker room.  We are open for business!  The Bengals won an enormous game yesterday at Paul Brown Stadium yesterday against their dreaded rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Now, while the Steelers have basically wiped their butts with the Bengals over the past decade (when they could have just used a terrible towel), they have to take notice of us now.  Carson Palmer led a beautiful clock eating, game winning touchdown drive for our first win against the Steelers in 9 attempts.

Now, I must say.  Pete Carroll doesn’t look that great in straw cowboy hats, but he can just keep producing football players and sending them our way.  The Bengals should start calling themselves USC West because with Carson leading them on offense and Keith Rivers and Ray Maualuga pounding people on defense, we’re starting to get a taste of that winning tradition in the Queen City.  Speaking of Keith Rivers, thank God he didn’t have his jaw wired after the game.  He was probably wearing an MMA mouthpiece this time around so that Hines Ward wouldn’t bust him up.  However, for once, the Bengals are smiling and Hines can cry his way home.

Now, we’re not a playoff team yet.  We have a loooonnng way to go.  The Baltimore Ravens look freaking unbelievable this year with an offense as good as their defense.  But yesterday’s game was so huge.  It could be a changing point for this franchise.  By the way, here is the song that Chad OchoCinco had blaring over the stadium PA and in the locker room after the game.  How true it is:

A Change Is Gonna Come.