ShamWow

Have you seen this infomercial for ShamWow? Have you ordered one? Is it really as magical as it looks.




I am so tempted to order one. (two with the special!)

Fantasy Football - Week 1

Tomorrow night begins week 2 of fantasy football, so I want to reflect a bit on the gravity of the first week.
Now, if you are keeping up with "Blood, Tears and Sweat" then you know we are heavily favoring two teams: Dallas Cowboys and Indianapolis Colts.
From the Cowboys we have: Romo, Owens, and Whitten
From the Colts we have: Harrison, Vinitari, and their Defense/Special teams (we also have Dominique Rhodes as a reserve - we got to dump him!)

Ok, week 1 - such a disappointment. We lost our first game against a team that started Tom Brady. Brady went out, was worth only 3 points... and they still won - 80-73.

What was so disappointing was this - Romo threw for over 300 yds (only 3 QB's did that this week). Owens caught a TD and the Cowboys had over 400 yds total offense and won big. And yet, we did not get many fantasy points.

Secondly, the Colts obviously forgot how to play football. Harrison was a weak receiver and their Defense/Special Teams were terrible.

Third, Darren McFadden (Oakland Raiders) was the best athlete on any field Monday night... and he barely got the ball. In fact, he did not get much playing time at all. The Raiders got killed and all the while, McFadden is on the bench. That I do not understand. And, that I do not appreciate since he is our #1 running back.

Bonus: I also had such a weird experience. I love watching the Cowboys... but, I found myself hoping Marian Barber would not have a great game and that they would utilize their other players. Barber is not on my fantatsy team, so while he was great for the Cowboys, he was counter-productive to our fantasy goals. Interesing experience. I discovered that my loyalties are stronger with myself (my fantasy team) than they are with the Cowboys. In fact, I might even be satisfied with great fantasy points from my Cowboy players, even if the team loses. That was unexpected.

Honestly, I think what that reveals is the depravity of my soul. I care more about myself when NFL football was suddenly about me.

So, this is my week 1 discovery... 15 more weeks to go!

Bock on Palin

Darrell Bock weighs in on Palin in an NPR interview:

Darrell Bock, a New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, says some Pentecostals hold to their convictions in the face of opposition because they believe they are in tune with the will of God.

"What faith does in this case is fuel a sense of mission and direction," Bock says. "It can also produce a little bit of element of certainty about that direction."

Bock, however, warns against drawing conclusions about anyone's policies from his or her faith.

"Trying to figure out what the link is between a person's faith and their politics is very, very difficult business because there is so much pragmatically and ideologically that's also driving what's going on," he says. "There's not just the faith element."

Bock says President Bush and Democratic nominee Barack Obama have already been through this sort of spiritual vetting. Now it's Palin's turn.

You can find the audio of the interview here.
Bock's Blog

Community

Here is a great picture!


Benched from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

Niche market

I am just imagining the marketing directors sitting around the table saying, "Ok, what exactly are we going to say about this?"

There are just some things that will never benefit from "word of mouth" marketing!

MockCast props

shout out to B.B. for outdoing anything I could have personally done with regards to Gustov coverage...

If Geraldo Rivera was a city - he'd be Tyler

It is kind of like the spirit of Geraldo has possessed Tyler. This place has gone crazy with all the frenzy of Gustov. The local media is so excited (in the name of concern) that a tropical storm is going to stall out over East Texas and the rain potential is somewhere between 5 and 20 inches depending on who is at the mic.

Not to be left out, I went to Lowe's today and bought sand bags for the front of our house. We have a low spot in our property and a hard rain can flood our garage and Katherine's room. But, not today. I have a two foot sand bag barrier erected in front our garage and it might take a full-blown hurricane for water to penetrate this baracade. I think the levy engineers would be impressed.

What I was not expecting was to be the one that bought the last bit of sand available at Lowes. Obviously I was not the only one in survival mode today. In fact, I had to supplement my sand bags with large bags of East Texas pine mulch. I'll post some pictures tomorrow... hopefully action pictures. In fact, I may even have to get into the action with a little storm coverage video of my own.

Now, it is off to bed so I can get up early (5am) and begin to keep track of all the local closings due to rain. Yes - closings due to rain. This might make me look like an idiot after it is all said and done, but my prediction is that all this hype is going to be a little disappointing for all those hoping to see Anderson Cooper and Shepherd Smith camping out in the heart of East Texas.

Fantasy draft

Ok... Jay and I embarked on a whole new world tonight. The world of NFL Fantasy Football is now apart of our life. We signed up with a group of men and their sons in the last couple of weeks (most of the guys from our small group). Ever since then, Jay has diligently studied the NFL Fantasy site collecting information, making decisions, and planning our evening. He is eight.

So tonight we all gathered in the foyer of the worship center. A laptop connected to a video projector. Separate tables, each "coach" and "general manager" plotting every move. Twelve teams with twelve (I think?) rounds of the draft. It was absolute chaos. All I can say is that I am glad my theology has the NT church building as just a building and not necessarily a holy place in and of itself (NO - I don't want to argue that point in the comments...)

Overall, we are very pleased with our team - Blood, Tears and Sweat (I know, the last two are traditionally reversed, but your team can't end in tears!). There are a couple of players that we would have wanted, but they were gone or stolen right out from under us. But, we did end the night with Romo, Owens and Whitten. Not a bad trio.

Here is the rest of our team for all the fantasy fans out there.

Romo, Tony QB DAL @CLE 10 0.0 19.1 100 96
Maroney, Laurence RB NE KC 4 0.0 8.1 99 77
McFadden, Darren RB OAK DEN 5 0.0 8.9 86 65
Harrison, Marvin WR IND CHI 4 0.0 n/a 98 75
Jackson, DeSean WR PHI STL 7 0.0 5.6 69 17
Owens, Terrell WR DAL @CLE 10 0.0 11.9 100 96
Witten, Jason TE DAL @CLE 10 0.0 8.2 100 96
Vinatieri, Adam K IND CHI 4 0.0 8.2 99 93
Colts DST CHI 4 0.0 n/a 90 70
Ryan, Matt QB ATL DET 7 0.0 7.1 23 1
Mendenhall, Rashard RB PIT HOU 6 0.0 5.1 75 6
Rhodes, Dominic RB IND CHI 4 0.0 n/a 41 2
Gage, Justin WR TEN JAC 6 0.0 n/a 35 4
Kaeding, Nate K SD

I don't exactly know (yet) what all the stats on the right of each player are... but it won't be long. Now, let the games begin. I'll keep you updated as the season progresses. I know you won't be able to wait!