Best and Worst Commercials Currently on TV

Geico, “Warren Wallace”:

Hilshire Farms, “Go Meat!”

This, the short one, is the best by a “Whoo!”

Best moment: The woman on the left makes the commercial. Watch her face light up as she realizes what’s going on.

A longer version and loses out to the above for it’s slightly creepy mood.

Best moment: “That’s crazy, girl, I swear; there is so much stuff in there!”

Worst:

Cadillac CTS:

This a great example of good writing, nice visuals, and sellspersonship let down by the crappy idea that sex sells. It doesn’t. Sex doesn’t sell anything but sex. You don’t want your car to “return the favor.”

My Hypocritcal Real Estate Snobbery

Today I went to look at a condo being shown by a realtor. The reason I went was because it was relatively affordable and seemed like a place that Leah Beth, Joel and I might be able to live in after I finish school, especially for the area of town that it was in.

It only took two streets to get there, but it was in South Pasadena (or so I thought) and thus, Joel would be able to attend the prestigious South Pass public school system. I looked at the apartment because it was on the east side of the south part of the 110; on the west side of the 110 is Highland Park, an “up-and-coming” neighborhood that is still too scary for me to put my family in and part of the “improving” LA Unified School District.

So east side, South Pasadena = good; west side, Highland Park = bad.

Leah Beth and I have often laughed about Fuller students expressing incredulity at the fact that we live on the other side of the freeway, in this case, the 210 (in Pasadena, south of 210 = good; north = bad). They often ask us if it is safe over there.

Now, let me state that most of Fuller housing is south of the 210 but within sight, sound, smell, feel and sometimes taste of the busy freeway. But we live about a half mile north of the freeway, so we’re in danger? Yeah, like criminals come to the freeway bridge and think, “Oops, we can’t go over there; that’s the other side of the freeway.” I don’t think so.

Yet here I am in South Pasadena doing the same thing. I am a tenth of the mile from the Highland Park neighborhood on the other side of the freeway, but I feel safer. I would put my family here. This is silly.

What is even more silly is that the condo is on Monterrey Road. Monterrey Road runs through Highland Park, through very nice South Pasadena, through the nicest parts of Pasadena, through ulta-ritzy San Marino…you get the idea: ten minutes from a place that I would be caught alive in are places I will never be able to afford to live.

Location, location, location. And we (I) think that I’m so far away from crime and the world’s problems in a safe neighborhood. In LA, you’ve never that far away.

And the realtor told me the condo was in Highland Park after all.

Thursday, Reflection Week 10

I recently mentioned to my family about the emerging church and what Ryan mentioned about the church in England giving groups and religions with different viewpoints opportunity to evangelise to the church in order to build relationships. I mentioned that, though this church in particular was not a universalist church, the fact that they were listening more than talking and learning useful things from other points of view was great. I mentioned that other religions have useful things for Christians to recognize, for example, that Christians would be well-served to pray five times a day like Muslims. This impromptu discourse was met with silence. Crickets chirping on the phone. I hadn’t said anything in a long time (and I say a lot) that was met with such silence.

Maybe I picked a bad example. My parents neighborhood has just gained a new mosque in the last few years. It didn’t go over very well in my family. So maybe that was it.

But I’m afraid that we as the church are still in the Pharasaical mindset of “clean” and “unclean” members of society. I’m afraid that we still think like Peter, that someone would have to convert to Christianity before we can associate with them (the correlation here that Peter wanted Gentiles to convert to Judaism and then Christianity). I want to be more like Jesus when he approached the Samaritan woman. Check that, when he was approached by the Samaritan woman. He didn’t bring up her race, she did. He did bring up her sin, in a round about way, but he never condemned her or said, “You know, what you are doing is really evil.” He just offered her “living water”. He didn’t make her change first. He didn’t even tell her to change her lifestyle, though we would like to think that she did.

We have a lot to learn by listening and having relationships those that are different than us. Look at the part of the story (John 4): “39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41And because of his words many more became believers.”

That sounds like transforming contemporary culture to me.

Tuesday Reflection, Week 10

Oh, the McDonaldization of America. Nay, the world! Has it come? If it has, will it stay? I think there will always be hippies (Harris) and commie libs like (Cody) to thwart the evil neo-con captialists (Amanda and me; sorry, Jeremy, I don’t really know where you stand), so probably the world will look like a mixture of the two: Places like farmer’s markets, thrift stores and granola factories trying to adopt some of the efficiency and profit-enhancing techniques from modernity, while McDonalds and Wal-Mart try to improve there public image through pleasing atmospheres, less impact on the planet and better treatment for their workers. I dare say a mixture needs to happen. If not, McDonalds and Wal-Mart will go away and the granola factory will find it hard to sell their $10/lb, organic, fair-trade, free-range granola. (I know that free-range granola doesn’t make sense, and that, speaking of mixture, granola is like the meatless version of pre-cased sausage, bologna or hot dogs.)

Tuesday Reflection, Week 9

The transition from modernity to postmodernity has an important asterisk: neither is better than the other. It’s arrogant for us to think that as we go through history that we are better suited towards completing this life successfully. For all of our studies and research projects, there’s so little that we know.

It is easy to dismiss the contributions that modernity gave us to focus on its shortcomings. Advances in medicine, commerce, production and communication have changed the world in many good ways, some bad. Would you like any of those areas of life to arise from a postmodern philosophy? For example, industry bad, handmade good. Does this apply to perscription drugs, an industry where exact and repeatable results are very much desired by producer and consumer? What about construction? Would we like our buildings to be built by postmodern thinkers, feeling their way towards the completion of a project because scientific calculation is a function of modernity? Do we need to offer fast-food workers the chance to use their special skills and talents, or do we need them to learn how to be a part of a team, to work hard not because they like it but because they committed to do the job?

Don’t get me wrong, I like how the postmodern philosophies are shaping our society, but let’s not poop on the shoulders of the modern giants that have brought us to this point.

Thursday Reflection, Week 8

Thursday we talked about Transforming Power and Culture Jam. These two books at first seemed to be very disparate, but after discussion I could see that they did hold things in common.

First, both books detailed a problem and a solution. Second, both books were urgent in their message. Third, I think both books were a bit hypocritical, in that Linthicum used the power of the bank president to legitimatize his efforts and as a means of completing them, while promoting grassroots efforts and activism. His story seemed to mostly be a grassroots lobby, thus influencing the power, but not necessarily transforming it in the way he detailed earlier. Yes, the bank president was transformed, but not by the cause, but by the threat. Lasn’s book railed against media saturation and hypocrisy, but his cover was the flashiest and most eye-catching of the books I bought of the semester, he uses the very media he indicts, he promotes non-consumer culture by advocating buying certain “approved” products, and he adds to the media noise and saturation with his Adbusters magzines and the like. He says he hates the being told what to do all of the time, but he wants us to pay attention to what he’s telling us to do. And also, he’s stupid and ugly. ( I just had to throw that in because this was a really negative post. Sorry for the immaturity.)

Tuesday Reflection, Week 8

We’re never going to finish the Table 3 handout.
Also, if one has to be involved 6-10 hours a week at church in order to notice a difference in their life, how much better a Christian would I be if I would just go to church? How much better would we all be?

The quote from McGovern was interesting as well. I don’t know the exact quote, but it was something about the barriers coming to faith as “sociological, not theological.” It reminded me of the perception of the church by the American culture as intolerant and hypocritical. But they would all get on board with the “love each other, serve each other” model of ministry that made impacts even on the great persecutor Diocletian (I think it was him) who marveled that the Christians not only took care of their own sick, but also the abandoned sick of the Romans! Who couldn’t support this kind of ministry?

Thursday Reflection, Week 7

I spent the 10:00 hours of Wednesday and Thursday listening to the needs of the children of the world. The situations they are in are often incredibly oppressive and life threatening. I didn’t know how bad it was. I mean, I guess I did, but I decided to think I forgot.

What can you do? There are minsitries all over that reach out to the children of the world. I could join them. But could they really fix the problem? Are there enough people to do the work?

What can you do? It becomes overwhelming to sit and listen to all of the statistics, to sit and listen to Dr. Greener’s system on how to minister to children, to hear stories about a family taking on an oppressive debt of $35 dollars. I have $35 dollars. Why didn’t I know they needed $35 dollars?

What can you do? What can I do? I don’t know. Somehow, I don’t think that solely giving to Compassion International (though there’s nothing wrong with that) will do much towards the problem. And is it something I need to do as the body of Christ, or is it something that I have to support others who are more passionate about that area of need? And if I have to support others that are more passionate, what the heck is wrong with me that I’m not as passionate about children starving, being used for their bodies or being systematically eliminated?

Studio 60 Lives!!!

No, it wasn’t because I sent a letter. I hadn’t sent it yet. But it stays for the rest of the season.
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/archives/108597.asp

Tuesday Reflection, Week 7.

Tuesday we talked about the emerging church in England and some of the problems it faced as it tried to implement different tactics for growing the church. One example in particular had to do with a “club” church and the success it had. However, it was brought down by a scandal within the leadership. Ryan said something about private choices having public consequences.

How often do we think we can get away with something? Or that nobody will find out? But it always comes out at some point. “…your Father, who sees what is done in