My replayTV has done an excellent job of shielding me from advertisements. I'm not complaining, it's like a pop up/spam blocker for your TV. A downside to that is that apparently, I have missed some really great commercials. While looking for the CarMax/ShipMax commercial from the superbowl last night I stumbled upon this gem. Apparently it's been out for a while, too funny.

So far, the funniest commercial I've seen yet is the CarMax commercial that's based in a shipyard in the 1600 or 1700's. Here's the dialog.

Customer:"Where did you get all these ships? you've got some real creampuffs out there"
Salesman:"We have 1000's more to choose from across the country, you can browse these as well" (points to ships in bottles on the wall shelves)
Customer:"If I find the perfect ship at the far end of the world will you hold it for me until i can go pick it up?"
Salesman:"No sir, we will ship it to you"
Customer:(astounded)"You'll ship my ship?!"
Salesman:"We'll ship, your ship to any ShipMax in the entire flat world!"
Customer:"Are you shipping me?"

I lost it, that's too funny. May not be funny at all like this, when it shows up on youtube i'll post it.

UPDATE: Here it is, I'm still laughing at it.

So I'm watching the news tonight and hear a quick blurb that stopped me in my tracks. Apparently NASA has so much time, money and resources on their hands they are beaming a Beatles song, through space, to the North Star. Can anyone explain why they would be doing this? Less than a year ago, there were tons of articles about NASA being in major financial trouble, like this one. I'm guessing McCartney is paying for this to bolster sales of old Beatles albums. Hey, if it will get Fall Out Boy off the radio, I'm all for it. All jokes aside, how egotistical are we that we feel the need to beam our music across the galaxy to who knows where? What makes us think that our music is good enough to force on others? And come on, no offense intended, but the Beatles? That's what we want to use to communicate with someone we've never met? If I was sitting there minding my own business and my radio suddenly started playing some crazy alien music on its own, I would be really pissed. It would be Mars Attacks for real.
Link to "NASA invades alien privacy with old British music".



As a reminder of what this could mean to us, I have included a clip from one of the funniest movies of all time. A future that only Grandma's music can save us from is not a pretty one.

 
Our prayers are with you and Melissa, hope all is well.

Pink slipping is the act of firing, terminating or ending a relationship with something or someone. I heard a guy I know use the phrase for a friend of his that had worn out his welcome. It's a beautiful, easily identifiable phrase that everybody gets and is highly descriptive.
Today, I'm pink slipping the northbound access to I-85 from Hwy 211 in Braselton. Until the DOT puts a left turn light there, I'm done. I have spent to much of my life expectancy trying to turn left and not die.
I'm sure I'll find something or someone else to pink slip shortly. Maybe this will become a weekly installment.

While Pastor Tony was blogging about this, we were doing this! He probably thinks he got the better deal but I beg to differ. Snow in Georgia, how cool! We cut up a big box and did some read snow boarding down the big hill, southern style. Ethan's first real snow, he loved it.
 
 

There was talk of this on Sunday at church with regards to Guitar Hero 3. For those that would like to witness the fury first hand, here ya go! The entire song rips but it really gets stupid at the 3 minute mark when the guitar battle starts.

I saw this on the way in this morning and had to stop to take a couple of pictures. Looked like a wall in the distance. Pictures don't do it justice. The the sun started coming up over it as I was standing there, pretty cool.


 
 

I guess if you fall into both categories this is cool too. Imagine playing a first person shooter on, lets say a 105" projection screen! It will be like you're in the Matrix and can dodge bullets! Sweet! This guy is a genius. The video is a little long, if you aren't into technology or games don't even bother, but if you are it's so worth it.

So, yeah, I'm a dad and inclined to think my kid is best at this or that. Or is the smartest ever, really I have proof now to back up the claims. He had been more and more frequently asking to use our computer to play games and was starting to get the hang of it so for Christmas we bought him this Fisher Price computer system that hooks up to the computer and sends him to websites related to the cartridge he plugs in. We got a little desk and chair and got an old PC to run it on. He rarely asks for help with it anymore, he just gets in the chair and goes. It blows my mind how quickly he learns stuff, check it out.

Ethan got a bike for Christmas from Santa and I can't resist posting this pic I ripped straight from my wifes blog. That is one cool dude!

Zune arrived yesterday to my surprise. It was a good surprise, i was just amazed it got here so fast. So far I'm loving it. I was able to get it setup and running after syncing 34GB of music, create playlists and had it jamming all night for our New Years party. Very cool, i'm still playing with the video formats but I've got a couple on there and it seems to work very well for that. Make sure to check out the custom engraving on the back, skull melting warning included.

For those of you that grew up playing 8bit NES and think you know how to play SMB. Take all the secrets you know about it and throw them out the window. Check out this hacked version, took the guy like 30 lives to get through 1-1. I would have smashed the machine way before then.

I read this story on Christmas Eve. GPS Nativity and thought, man thats a lot of $ to track those figures. They must really have a bad problem with this.

This morning I'm reading my news feeds and this story comes up. Baby Jesus found. Looks like their investment paid off. Idiot lived across the street too. Ha Ha! I love dumb criminal stories.

I ordered a 80GB Zune last night. I've been wanting a Zune since they came out but 30GB was not enough storage. When they announced the 80Gb model, it went straight to the top of my Christmas wish list. After poking around looking at pricing I opted to order direct from Microsoft. It was a couple of dollars more than Amazon but Microsoft was offering free custom engraving on the back. I'll post the pics when it arrives, I'm pumped. Now I've got to find all the accessories I need for it.

Finally, I'm back at church.
I've been a few time over the past few months when we were back in town but I've really felt like a visitor. Today I wasn't just there for the service, I was serving. It's amazing to me how it feels so different now. 2 years ago, I never would have imagined feeling this way about church. I grew up going to church, against my will for the latter part of my teen years and never felt like I was getting something out of it. Now, after being gone from it for close to three months and feeling what it's like to know it's your church home, but not really being able to serve. Man, how can people come weekly and not be involved serving in some type of role? You aren't really getting what God wants you to if you aren't serving.

For the regular readers of my blog, all .5 of you, you know I have a serious phone issue. I'm in the cellular industry and have been through almost every type of smartphone since the monochrome Treo 170. I have been a smartphone advocate from day one and have preached the merits of them to many a poor soul who had to suffer through my sermon. For those of you on the fence about smartphones, read this article. It sums up everything I've ever wanted to say about the good of smartphones in one concise, shut up and listen article. It's the way of the future man, deal with it.

 
I'm not thrilled about being back in Daytona for the next couple of days, but this makes it a little better.

Check this out from Popular Science, Oil from Anything. Man if this technology works, it really will be like back to the future where Doctor Brown comes back to visit Marty and is refueling the DeLorean with garbage. How sweet is that! And you can already buy a Flux Capacitor! Time travel is Here! Maybe I can hook up the Flux Capacitor to my Jetpack and power it with garbage.