Grow: Freaky Thingamajig

If my Japanese is correct, you’re supposed to: “Throw friend-heart tools so grow score, high.” I didn’t build, I’m just the messenger here. Whatever you do… don’t spend too much time trying to understand the logic here, because I think GROW might be the kind of flash game Escher would make. My best score is lame, but oskar got 13,900. [via BoingBoing]

Passion: Evaluated

Everyone has a unique perspective, when viewing and discussing The Passion of the Christ. Audiences have applauded its vision and power. Critics must be astounded by its amazing box office success where the movie is past $200 million in just 12 days. But what I find interesting is how the different faiths view the content of the film. We’ve heard from the some Jewish leaders who’ve not approved, while the Jewish population, by and large, endorse it. Of course, Catholics love the film’s focus on their faith’s tennants. I doubt most Protestants see these aspects of the film, but Let God Be True, built by a group of Baptists, sure doesn’t approve. Further discussion on such an important topic is always a good thing.

New Camera Lens Mimic Human Eye

How some thinking people choose to believe that human beings evolved from apes (and single-cell amoebas before that) rather than being well-designed from the get-go is beyond me. Darwin himself cursed the human eye because his theory of evolution could not possibly explain how it could have come about. Now Philips is developing a new technology where the human eye is the blueprint for a new camara lens. Simply amazing.

Make Tax Prep Bearable

Despite the small tax reduction last year, I think the tax burden is far too great. With Bush adding Pharmacy to Medicare, our tax future doesn’t look to bright. As it is, we have very little control over reducing our taxes, but we can make the tax preparation process bearable. Want to keep your offshore, gambling business private? Better keep your data on your system. If your conscience is clean, then filing your taxes online is a breeze; here are 5 options. I found TurboTax very user-friendly. I filed mine electronically and received refunds inside of 10 days. Now, only 42 more days until Tax Freedom Day.

Amazon Enhances Wish List

Noticed yesterday that Amazon now lets you rate the items in your Wish List. From a 5:”Don’t buy this for me” to a 1:”Must have” users can now better label each potential gift. What they really should do is allow the users to have multiple Wish Lists that they can mark as either Public or Private. Then let them attach titles like, “Stuff only my great Aunt Loretta could afford to buy me” or “Buy these for Leon or pay the consequences”. The possibilities are endless! Amazon corporate could not be reached for comment, but needless to say, I’m expecting a fatty gift certificate hitting my inbox any second now.

The Design of the Universe

To learn about the amazing, confounding precision with which the universe is operating should lead the investigator to a designer. I just read a highly entertaining article called 2 + 2. This article goes into great depth about how mathmatics are all around us and how this might help explain our purpose in life, either as creatures with freewill or simulacrums pretending to be real. Very deep and thought-provoking, I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I did. [via Presurfer]

Mickie Ds Now Saying Mickie Don’t

News can be obviously bad or good. But some news, like McDonald‚Äôs phasing out supersize fries could be either, depending on your perspective. If you’re helplessly addicted to those golden flavor sticks of pure joy (I’m just surmising) and your waistline is rapidly expanding (again, someone out there… not me), perhaps pulling this temptation off the menu is a blessing in disguise. Looks like the message from Super Size Me, A Film of Epic Portions has reached the ears of the McDonald’s executive team loud and clear. This before their trailer was even released.

What’s Real Anymore?

With the advent of new video-editing tools and high-powered computers, not to mention the talented artists who use both, it’s not impossible to completely swap people in video. Don’t know what I mean? Look at the latest Nike commercial where among other swappings, Lance Armstrong is a boxer. First Gatorade did it with dual Jordans. Just recently Adidas has released one where Laila Ali is boxing her father, you know… Muhammed? If they can do this, couldn’t they also frame almost any public figure for a crime they didn’t commit? Sure, and that’s just the beginning.

Selfless Hero Saves Girl

I read today that the true root of all evil is self-centeredness. When we care only about what we want that’s where it all begins.

Daniel Venegas, on the other hand, didn’t think twice about himself when he saw someone in trouble. This 12-year-old, like the firefighters he saw on TV, acted quick and rushed into a dangerous situation to save a 5-year-old girl from a fire. [via PositivePress]

Tough Customers

What makes a man tough? Oh, I don’t know… this comes to mind! But apparently Men’s Journal didn’t think Mr. Ralston quite worthy. Instead, they’ve put together their list of Top 25 Toughest Guy’s in America. Great read. 50 Cent reportedly drove himself to the hospital after being shot 9 times, and that only gets him to #23?!?

The Passion: Reviewed

I didn’t want to immediately post my thoughts after seeing the movie yesterday. But rather, I wanted it to sink in. It’s truly a tough movie to watch… painful. Especially so for those of us who consider Jesus our hero. So here’s what I thought…

Filling in the Gaps
The Bible is like an onion, in that, as you read and study it, layer upon layer is revealed and we catch glimpses of what God is really like.

The Passion covers the last 12 hours of Christ’s life. The Bible covers a good number of those events and some dialog, but to cover 12 hours in sufficient detail, we’d need a transcript hundreds of pages long, which the Bible is not.

This opens the door for interpretation and we all interpret things differently. This is because we are amazingly complex beings who’ve had vastly varied experiences. The Passion is Gibson’s interpretation. He takes what is given from the Bible and “fills in” the missing parts to tell the story.

Pain, Pain and Then Gratitude
To me, the moive was a painful experience. Thinking about it, I get tears in my eyes even now, and probably will for the rest of my life. As I consider it, the pain may be proportionate to the depth of our relationship to the living Savior, but that’s just a theory.

Some consider Christ only rarely—Easter, Christmas… a funeral. Others more frequently, perhaps each week. I strive to consider Him daily. On occasion he deems it worthwhile to reveal more of Himself to me and our relationship grows.

So while I watched the humiliation, the completely unjust actions, the unbearably painful torture… it hurt me, to see my friend, my hero, treated like that.

To know that He did it for me, made me love Him even more.

Looking Ahead
And so the film did what I had expected it to do. It gave me a newfound, and as close to permanent, vision of who it was that died for me.

My only complaint was that I had to watch the film in a crowded theater. I would rather have seen it by myself, in some small sanctuary somewhere. Alone with my thoughts, but not really alone.