Pfunday Pmonday – Week 2

Well, no one commented on whether they liked or didn’t like the silent P gag, so I am just going to run with it for now.  I figure the fun stuff belongs on Monday as a little extra pick me up for those who start the week off on a hard note for whatever reason.

If you have to laugh, I highly recommend this story out of Canada of a drunk man’s rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody.  I didn’t expect it to be as funny as it was when I read about it.  I won’t embed the video here.  The news story has a charm all its own.  Videos like this should be mandatory viewing to put people off of drinking for good.  One of the reasons I have never consumed alcohol myself is the fine displays of a few of my HS friends who aptly displayed the foolishness that resulted.  But those are stories for another time.

I had so much fun with the baseball stories last week that I saved another one.  My favorite team, the World Champion St Louis Cardinals, had a funny moment on the TV broadcasts during spring training.  A top prospect in the organization was labeled on TV as “Minor League Guy” when he came in to pinch run during a recent game.  You can see a photo of the screen capture by viewing the link.  I am looking forward to seeing how the new team comes together this year.  While I am sad to see Pujols go, I am glad to see Mike Matheny getting his first shot at a managing position.  May the Redbirds have a great year and get 12 in ’12.

In the list of truly laughable, I saw news that the NYC school district has issued a list of “banned words” that could be taken for an April Fool’s joke if it weren’t a little early for such craziness.  We wouldn’t want kids to be offended when they are taking a test after all.

And speaking of things that should be April Fool’s jokes, I saw a story on Fox News about a new push to promote “healthy eating” at church.

“A couple of years ago I came up with the idea that churches were sending people to heaven early because of all the food they served at church functions, like bacon and sausage and ice cream and donuts,” Dr. Amen, who is a Christian and a graduate of Oral Roberts University Medical School told FoxNews.com.  “I have been going to church since I was a little boy and the food in churches is just outrageous.”

This could turn into a non-funny rant if I am not careful, so I will try and save the rant for another post.  Rather, let me poke fun at this with a little bit of sardonic humor.  If we are sending people to heaven early, that would be a good thing:

A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.  – Ecclesiastes 7:1

To borrow a few words from my favorite singer/songwriter:

Don’t you get sick of health freaks? I always want to say, look Bud, you’re gonna die anyway. You may as well go out eating something that you like. (applause) What is the point of living to be a hundred and fifty if all you get to eat is bean sprouts? (laughter) I’ll never understand people, I’ll tell you…   – Rich Mullins (concert transcript)

Lighten up and live a little.  Let your Pmonday be blessed with Plaughter and Pfun.  And if you didn’t get enough laughs from today’s post, check out the fare from yesterday’s April Fool’s Day fun at SBC Voices.   All posts from April 1 are gag posts, including one contributed by me about the new list of banned words.

And if you need one more, I saw my favorite gag from ThinkGeek last night as well.

Pfunday Pmonday

I have decided that I am going to go ahead and try the silent P thing and see how it works for me.  Amazingly, I was able to hold a few more stories in reserve to bring out a few more chuckles for the beginning of your week.  I will get to the humor in a minute, but I wanted to thank you all for voting for me this year in the Blog Madness.  I checked the vote tallies earlier this evening with no expectation that I would be close, but you know what; I clearly overestimated my chances.  The winner in my region had more than double my vote total and had nearly double the total of any other region’s leading vote getter as well.  Even if I combined my vote total with the total number of votes of the winner of any of the other three regions, I would still come in second in mine.  Maybe I will get a better draw next year.  In the meantime, I know how several other basketball teams feel after this weekend.

On that note, let’s get in some fun stuff.  I found this story while reading at the end of last week and I can’t stop laughing at the video.  Someone should perhaps clue our esteemed president in on the fact that other nations can see him on TV even when he isn’t meeting with their leaders.  The Danish press certainly got a kick out of the fact that he has lost any pretense of originality in his compliments to other nations.  This video clip is on the site with the story, but I will embed it here as well.  Either way, you simply have to watch this video.  If he keeps this up I may repost my parody song from a year or so ago.

A couple of MLB stories hit the scene last week that made me laugh as well.  First, is a case of mistaken identity.  I suppose it can be confusing when two pro ballplayers have the same name to be sure, but can it be that hard to get the right checks to the right place when they aren’t even in the same organization?  My only real question is if one of those other Jeff Musgrave guys that are out there (one of them is even a pastor) could accidentally send a little extra cash my way.  I would be willing to return it (although a reward would be nice).  Other big league players are costing themselves money all the time in other ways.  Injury-prone Job Chamberlain managed to hurt himself again, this time jumping on a trampoline with his son.  If he has this on video, he could pull the daily double and maybe win of America’s Funniest Home Videos as well as one of those gruesome sports injury highlight shows.

Last but not least for the new Pmonday version of Pfun stuff, I know you probably don’t read all the terms and conditions on every single piece of software and website; but I am also sure you have never bothered to count how many words there are in the crazy things.  Now I am no Shakespeare, and I am certainly no lawyer; but I am not surprised to find out who is the more verbose between the two.  Unfortunately, lawyers use a lot more words to say nothing at all, as proved by some intrepid researchers.  Paypal spends more words than the entirety of Macbeth and iTunes outdoes Hamlet for word count.  There are all kinds of jokes available for this.  But the best one I can think of is my opinion of lawyers and these T and C’s in general.  They are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

SBC Blog Madness Round Two – I Need Your Votes Again

Thanks to any and all of those who read here who took the time to go and vote for this blog in round one over at SBC Voices.  I am through to the round of Sixteen this year and so I need your support once again.  I ended up third in my region on the first round tallies, so I need a little more help this time around to advance to the Final Four of SBC Blue Collar Blogs.

Here’s how you can help.

1. Go to the post for the voting.
2. Vote for Jeofurry’s Jesus Journey in the Golden Gate Regional, it is the first region listed this time.
3. Vote in the other regions if you want.  (other region blogs who would like an endorsement from here can ask for it now).  I haven’t made up my mind who to vote for in any of those regions yet as it is a toss up for me between two in each of them.  P.S.  If you want a few good laughs, be sure and check out the comments on the post.  There are some real gems of strange and creative humor there already.
4. Spread the word to Facebook or Twitter and lets see if we can really muster up a ton of votes.

Thanks again for indulging in the fun with us for another year.  Personally, I look at this as a bit of discovering my anavah, the space that I need to fill up this year.

Friday Is Just Made for Fun

This post should be a perfect mashup of all things funny, unusual and otherwise uncategorizable (new word that I know isn’t a real word, thank you very much spellchecker).  And when I say all things, I really only mean the collection of things I have assembled for this particular week.

First things first however, it is once again time for the SBC Blog Madness to make its appearance on literally dozens of computers around the world.  After narrowly missing advancement to the second round last year, I have renewed hope of advancing to the round of sixteen this year.  Mostly because they have removed all of the big-name SBC celebrity types in favor of guys like me with a handful of faithful readers and a plethora of occasional visitors who show up once and may never come back again.  And yes, I do know what plethora means.

Please take the time to go and vote for this blog.  You will find it near the bottom of the post as the first blog listed in the Golden Gate Regional.  At last check, I was sitting in second place in my region, with two other blogs just one vote back and the leader just a few votes ahead.  This year’s winner gets a place in the blog feed at the top of the main page at SBC Voices.  Thanks for your support.

Now on to the crazy story.  I am not sure that I would ever be willing to do something this insane, but I bet the view is awesome.  This guy is talking about breaking the sound barrier in free fall.  I remember reading all of the problems that the sound barrier caused for planes back in the WWII era (usually breaking it unintentionally and crashing) and after the war as they attempted to do it on purpose and crashed a lot too.  This might be fun, but it would be too dangerous for my blood.

I got a huge kick out of this letter that is apparently going viral.  It was written by a grade-school kid to a local weatherman who had come to speak at his school.  There is a bit about offering donuts served by unicorns that is pretty funny, but this part steals the show:

In full praise, Flint said Ramon was ‘more awesome than a monkey wearing a tuxedo made out of bacon riding a cyborg unicorn with a lightsaber for the horn on the tip of a space shuttle closing in on Mars, while engulfed in flames’.

Flint added: ‘And in case you didn’t know that’s pretty dang sweet.’

The letter also includes a drawing on the reverse of a unicorn presenting an enthroned figure with the words ‘your doughnuts, Master’.

The story at the Daily Mail also includes the picture from the letter, and it is worth looking at too.  I think I am going to have to find a way to work in this totally awesome compliment at some point in my life.  I might have to modify it just a little bit.  How about this: you guys who keep coming back to read this blog are better than a monkey wearing a tuxedo made of duct tape riding a cyborg unicorn with a lightsaber horn that keeps the donuts warm for you before he serves them to you with chocolate sauce to dip them in.  If you didn’t know it already, that is pretty high praise.

Seriously, thanks to all of you who come here to read the blog, whether it be frequent visitors or random read-by visitors.  To close us out, I just want to share with you a joke that my friend Eric told me on the phone a few days ago.  Unless I misunderstood him, it was made up by one of his boys.

Why does the toilet paper roll downhill?

To get to the bottom.

You can’t get comedy like that just anywhere.  Enjoy your Friday and have a restful Sabbath.

You Don’t Get to Pick Your Own Nickname

I would generally be content to stay out of the fray when it comes to the new “nickname” that the SBC has informally adopted.  As a commenter shared on one of the posts over at SBCvoices, everyone learns in elementary school that you don’t get to pick your own nickname.  I had a friend in college who desperately wanted a nickname and asked us to give him one.  Unfortunately the first thing that came out was “muffin” which was said as a joke, and it stuck.  Here is a funny video of a nickname mishap that I just had to share because it reminded of that story at the time and it seems fitting now too.

The SBC has decided that they want to be know as the Great Commission Baptist Convention.  It isn’t a formal or legal name change, so it has earned the distinction of a voluntary nickname.  I really don’t have a whole lot of feelings about this one way or the other.  If anything, I think it is kind of silly and I fear that it has the potential to be seen as dishonest.  I was in Amway when they tried the Quixstar business online as a way of getting around bad feelings about the Amway name.  It didn’t work.  I don’t imagine that an informal change of name will do much different for the SBC, but time will tell.

Of course, self-picked nicknames hardly ever stick.  Look at Chad Johnson.  He legally changed his name to a couple of numbers just to force people to call him that and now he has had to change it back because his new bride-to-be didn’t want to be called by that silly name.  Self-chosen nicknames are rarely a good idea.

Funny Friday Again – A Time to Laugh

I haven’t been doing as much blogging lately, and I haven’t been stockpiling as much funny material for Fridays either.  But I found a couple of things that make me chuckle anyway so I am throwing them out there this week.  In honor of the fact that the winter up here in North Dakota has been the mildest by far of the 5 total that we have experienced in this part of the country, I present you this story that finally (not really, but one can dream) nails shut the coffin on the “global warming hysteria.”  Never mind that they took to calling it “climate change” a few years back just so they could play this kind of stuff as well.  We are now potentially headed for a mini ice age, just like we were in the 70’s.  I assume the credit for placing these images side by side should go to the website referenced in the watermark although I saw them elsewhere.  Things like this amuse me.  If you want to debate the “science” that asserts that man has a profound impact on the climate and has either made the planet warmer or colder at some point in the past, you are simply going to add to the humor.  You are welcome to comment, but don’t expect me to take it seriously.

In other amusements, I decided to check up on my old standby – youtube for some fun stuff.  The Lutheran satire channel has uploaded several funny videos since I last ran one, but this one on creeds was particularly good in my view.

Since the most popular post on this blog still hasn’t managed to answer the question of what translation Joel Osteen uses (Can anyone tell from looking at his Bible in the video perhaps?  Seriously, in two years time not one commenter has been able to cite a single translation that says what he said and it isn’t like that post hasn’t spawned a lot of traffic from others looking for the same info.  If any of Joel’s churchgoers do stop by here, please ask him for us.  We would simply like to know.), I figured I would throw out a bone in passing about that odd little creed that he uses as well.  I imagine most of the people who say it every week have no conception of it as a creed.  Maybe this can be a fun learning experience.

Oh, and since yesterday was Groundhog Day, I thought I would bookend the post by posting something I saw on twitter yesterday from another North Dakota resident:

We finally have enough snow on the ground that it looks like it is early December or something.  Not complaining about it myself so much either, but all of this thawing and refreezing stuff is not a lot of fun.  Have a great weekend.

 

Tebow 316

I have noticed that a lot of people are spending a lot of time on the Tebow phenomenon.  Both sides, those who love it and those who hate it, are constantly throwing more wood into the fires and passions are running high.  I have no desire to add more fuel or to consume a lot of time talking about it, but I just wanna say a few things.  This will be a short post.

1. Don’t get mad about the so-called “Tebowing” as a reference to prayer.  So what, big deal.  I doubt that God is getting all worked up over someone bowing their knee and not calling it by the right word.  Someday every knee is gonna bow anyway, it just looks like some are getting in some early practice.  My advice: stop getting offended over minor things.  It will save you a lot of ulcers and stress.  Besides, for those who are doing the whole thing in a mocking fashion, there are bigger problems for them (Galatians 6:7).
2. Don’t read too much into things like Tebow’s stat line from a big improbable win.  By all means, have a little fun with it if you want, but don’t start looking for signs in a box score or stat sheet.  God has communicated pretty effectively without resorting to Tebow’s QB stats or passing yards.  But there is no harm in being amused or even thankful that so many people are checking out John 3:16 yet again thanks to Timmy.  Since no one is holding up those cute banners at games anymore that I have seen, this is the next best thing. 
3. It’s OK to pull for Tebow.  I enjoy watching someone do what no one says can be done.  Mark Gungor has jokingly said that he should be the “patron saint” of marriage because he just never gives up.  I kind of like that.  It is fun to root for a guy who just won’t quit trying.  I think we can all relate to that a little bit.  I am not a Broncos fan.  I never really liked them at all.  But more and more, I think it would be fun to see them win the Super Bowl this year just because it would make a lot of people’s heads virtually explode at the incongruity of it all.  Besides, my Cowboys (whom everybody knows is America’s team even if God is currently smiting them) are out of it anyway so who else would I root for at this point.

There it is.  In typical pastor fashion, I have given you three points; now for the poem.

Roses are red

Broncos wear blue

Tebow wins games

What will you do?

P.S. This blog was intended as light humor.  If you are offended by this post then you have utterly missed the point.  Try rereading point number one again.  Rinse, read, repeat as often as necessary.

TULIPY: The Acronym for Hyper-Calvinists (i.e. 6-pointers)

I have had a flash of inspiration.  Perhaps someone, somewhere has already done this before, but I can’t say that I have seen it elsewhere so I thought I would give it a whirl.  I run in some blog circles where people complain about hyper-Calvinists.  I have a dear brother in the Lord who was burned so bad by a group of extreme hyper-Calvinists (we referred to them as 6.5 pointers in humorous love) that he would nearly froth at the mouth at the mere mention of Calvinism at all.  This post should not be taken as a diatribe against Calvinism as a whole or even all that seriously.  It is meant in a spirit of levity to encourage potential discussion.  I love my brothers and sisters who are serious Calvinists and who are passionate for the Lord and the Gospel.

Please further note that I am not a 5-point Calvinist.  I am probably more like a 2-3 pointer if anything, but I will try to describe the points with some accuracy up through my own addition.  These descriptions will be intermingled with my observations as well.  With all that said, here is the acronym spelled out for posterity.

T – Total Depravity

Ok, we all pretty much get that and know what it means I would think.  Man is totally depraved.  Scripture makes this point repeatedly, and one episode of Jerry Springer will drive this point home to even the most reluctant of individuals I would think.  The other point behind this however is that man is completely helpless regarding his salvation.  We don’t even look for salvation on our own.

U – Unconditional Election

We can not earn God’s grace and cannot merit salvation.  There is nothing within us that makes God love us, He just does.  All our righteousness is filthy rags type of things are the general point of this point.  From my perspective, the idea behind this is generally right, but I hesitate to do much explaining about how God does these things.  Even Paul was eventually rendered speechless in this regard (see the end of Romans 11).

L – Limited Atonement

Since not everyone is saved based on the words of Jesus, it follows that Jesus’ death must not be effective for all people in the end of all things.  This particular point is generally arrived at through logical means in my experience.  Both those who support it and those who argue against it can cite John 3:16 as it becomes a discussion/argument of who is covered by whosoever.

I – Irresistible Grace

This is the teaching that God’s grace is irresistible to those who are elected to salvation and they will respond to the call of God through the Spirit.  This is also a hotly debatable topic, mostly because simple observation yields plenty of examples of people who hear the clear Gospel message and don’t respond to it.  Frankly, I think it is more amazing that anyone can reject God at all.  This doctrine reflects that in some means, but I think any attempt to explain why some reject God’s call by placing them in a category of “unelected” or whatever is not correct.

P – Perseverance of the Saints

This doctrine simply states that those who are called, elected and chosen will remain in the faith without fail as God is capable of keeping them.  This sentiment is perfectly biblical and true as far as it goes.  I think the main problem in applying it stems from the fact that we never can know who is who from our limited perspective.  In fact, many of the problems of Calvinist theology and much of the rest of theology is our extremely limited understanding and perspective.

Y – You’re Irrelevant

This one is all mine, but you may have seen it coming.  Given all of the above as absolutely true, many have moved on to another very logical point.  It doesn’t matter what we do, since God has planned it all ahead of time.  This comes out in various ways.  I have seen a church that did no external evangelism.  They preached the Gospel in Sunday morning service and expected God to draw those who were called to their building.  I have seen others who assume that because everything is up to God, it absolutely doesn’t matter what you do about anything.  Ultimately you are either chosen or not chosen, so just live your life and trust God(I mean why not do it anyway right) and He will do everything.

Let me say it once again.  I love my Calvinist brothers and sisters.  I will work alongside you all day long to share the Gospel and make disciples for Jesus Christ.  I just wanted to write a post that points out the all too real end of taking this theology to its logical conclusions (I have seen it far too often for my liking).  The only thing that can keep us from going there is the reminder that while all of these points may be true from God’s perspective; we are not God and they don’t work from our limited perspective.

Bonus Funny for Friday Stuff

I didn’t want to overwhelm my previous post with videos, but this one was too good to not throw in for a good laugh.  I got alerted to this one thanks to an email exchange with my sister and her boyfriend.  Fair warning, it may get stuck in your head.

Of course, when I first saw the word llama, I was expecting this:

Look out!  There are llamas!

Finally for this Friday comes the comedy of politics.  It was just two years ago that Obama took over the White House and declared that he didn’t need to listen to anyone who opposed him because “he won,” or something like that.  What some fail to remember is that no one is always on top all the time.  What you say will come back to haunt you.  Elections do matter, even when you wish they didn’t.  Pelosi finds this uncomfortable and stuck her foot in her mouth this week.

“To my Republican friends, take back your party, so that it doesn’t matter so much who wins the election because we have shared values about, again, the education of our children, the growth of our economy, how we defend our country,” she said.

Pelosi went on to say: “There’s so many things at risk right now … but the fact is is that elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do, (there) should be some place on the spectrum where we respect each other’s views and all the rest.”

This is pure comedy gold.  She just said that she wants the “Republicans” to “take back their party” so that it won’t matter if they win elections or the Democrats do, it will all be the same.  This is what she really wants.  It would be funnier if it wasn’t so scary that she is serious.  Maybe we could just elect more llamas.

Funny Stuff for Your Friday

Another Friday and a chance to kick around some of the funnier things that have crossed my path online during the week.  There is so many bizarre things out there and so little time to find them all.  Here we go again.

In the spirit of true frivolity, I offer you a Klingon translation of the Gospel of Mark as done from the Greek text.

29 chaHvaD ghelmeH jatlh:

‘Iv jIH, ‘e’ bomaq?

jangtaHvIS pe’tlhoS, ghaHvaD jatlh:

‘IHrIStoS SoH.

– Mark 8:29

Which, when translated says (never do tongues without a translation ya know), ^“And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”  Now even Klingons can acknowledge that Jesus is Lord.

In the category of I still can’t stop laughing, I get a huge kick out of these Things Your Lutheran Pastor Totally Loves videos that our local ELCA Lutheran pastor has been posting on Facebook from time to time.  This one is about anonymous complaints.  It isn’t just a Lutheran thing.

And a bonus clip for Steve, if he happens to stop by and any others who can relate.

My sister brought another clip to my attention this week.  This is for anyone who has ever participated in a prayer circle.  I can identify with several of these from personal experiences.

I have a couple of more funny things to shoot your way today, but I am going to go ahead and put them in a post here in a few hours.