Binocular Soccer.

I know it’s a completely random video, but when I see ‘em I can’t help but share ‘em. Enjoy.

(Oh, and this is where I credit my buddy Sean for finding this absurd video. Kudos, Sean!)

New old CD.

I really enjoy listening to jazz, especially vocals.  I like artists including Harry Connick Jr., Peter Cincotti, Michael Buble’, and most recently — Jamie Cullum.  (Special thanks to Joe Howard for pointing out this guy!)

Anyway, I had purchased one his albums, “Catching Tales” and really liked it.  Recently I had an iTunes gift card burning a hole in my pocket from my birthday, and so I decided to snag another Jamie Cullum album.  It was a great decision.  I bought “Twentysomething.”

UPDATE: My new Kitten Cannon record – 2,758 ft

The Einstein of the 80’s.

My brother-in-law hooked us up with 6 months of Netflix for Christmas. Lately I’ve been using it to explore some not-so-recent movies. Last Saturday I watched “Real Genius” with Val Kilmer.

I went into it expecting that “Sunday afternoon TBS movie” feel, and it didn’t disappoint. Any movie that ends up with a house overflowing with popcorn due to heat from a space laser is worth renting at least once…

Lighting it up.

I’m always looking for new stage ideas and lately we’ve been playing around with gobos. We paid for some custom eXchange gobos a while back, and they’ve really added a lot to the evening service.

We also used some snowflake shapes to add to our Christmas set-up helping to extend the stage a little, although I think we’ve just scratched the surface of how to creatively use these.

Since purchasing the custom eXchange gobos I have found a person in our congregation that has access to a laser cutter, and he’s offered to make all the custom gobos we can dream of — awesome!

A Kitten Cannon Confession.

I’m totally addicted to this game.  I don’t want to admit how many times I’ve played this.  See if you can beat my high score–so far, that is.

Click here to begin wasting your valuable time launching innocent cats 60 ft in the air.

Google forms rock!

Yesterday I saw on Lifehacker.com an article talking about a new feature in Google Docs. We use Google Docs to communicate within our team regarding the schedule and special event details. It’s easy to create an event document and then publish the link so my whole team can see it. And Google keeps adding to their online document arsenal.

One of the coolest is the new form feature. I can create a custom form, email it to everyone on my team, they fill it out and click submit, and the information is automatically added to a Google spreadsheet — amazing! I messed around with it for about 5 minutes and had my first custom form ready to email out. It’s definitely worth checking out.

See Google’s blog on creating forms here.

Moving to hi-def…kinda.

With more and more HD talk I’ve been thinking about our church. While we want to be good stewards we also don’t want to fall behind technology. I know what it’s like to go into a church and see nothing but outdated technology. Our message is not outdated, and neither should the way we present it.

So am I ready to approach our leadership with a list of things we need to buy right now? No. Instead I am making a 2-3 year plan that will move us in the direction of HD. Basically it includes two steps: move to 16:9 widescreen and THEN work on going full HD.

I was thinking, how many “HD” televisions do you see that are actually using an HD signal? Even the displays in stores are showing stretched out SD content — tacky. I think we could go to 16:9 widescreen for not too much money, and it’s likely 2/3 of people would assume we’ve already gone HD. The last step (and more expensive step) would be to replace our cables, cameras, and switcher.

Although I may make it sound simple, I think this will be long process — and a detailed plan is absolutely a must.

“Stretchy Shirt” play

What an amazing football game last night. The play that my friend and I were referring to as the “Stretchy Shirt” play: with one minute to play Eli Manning pulls away from the Patriots grips and launches a pass. David Tyree then makes one of the best catches I’ve ever seen – he catches it with one hand and his helmet! It was a great finish.