And it’s not even a Slinky.
The garage door works. Woo.

In college, I wondered why there wasn’t a Resident Evil-esque Humans vs. Zombies game. It looks like someone is doing that with Nerf guns and has created a pretty formalized set of rules.

Woo and hoo.

“Pew pew pew.”

Teaching actually counts as experience.

These are all stand-alone movies with no chance for a sequel, right?

Well, as fast as you can say Ariel’s Big Adventure (no offense, Tom), Hollywood will want to cash in. Check out these actual script treatments for some of our favorite movies. Roger Rabbit versus the Nazis?

Wake Up Sleeper

(Check out the transition at 2:50. Can we please find a reason to play this as a band?)

This is Not the End

And yes, they’re on Spotify/Pandora.

I think we all can relate to this synopsis from the back of the book.

Your passive-aggressive advertisements won’t work on me.

Star Wars: Uncut

My oldest asked me to explain the romance aisle of books. There are some things in life that I just can’t rationalize.

Last night, the Runnin’ Gungan confused security cameras with his bouncing gait and floppy ears. He also ruined the night of some poor audio surveillance team by ranting into a bug about the decline of quality Hapan flautists and increased Bith musical stereotypes in the galaxy.

My students put Google’s protest into words really well without realizing it:

“Man! Some moron drew a dirty picture with Google Doodle and now it got Google blocked.”

It’s not too effective when every day is SOPA Day.

One thing SOPA PIPA has going for it: it sounds like a really tasty treat I used to order at Pancho’s. The trick was to put honey on the inside of the SOPA PIPA. Pancho’s was great because every time you raised the tiny flag, you got more SOPA PIPAS.

Slade, here’s another Desert Yeti for you:

Tonight was funny on the writing front. I was one word short of my writing target for the night. I could either fall short or agonize over the next section. I chose the latter. Spooky scene, though. Sheol will do that to you.

This, though, is the creepiest. Any time your game seems to be influenced by Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”, you know you’re in trouble.

Feed the Head is a puzzle game – I think.

“They’re wacky in a woo woo way.”

This coming from a school where parents think that the Middle Ages are too bloody and the Holocaust is too depressing.

Has anyone seen the five floppy disks playing a cover of daft Punk’s “Derezzed” from Tron Legacy?

I’m really digging Scrivener.

The first one is about marriage and it is a great eye-opener that reminds me of some conversations that I had with Grandpa Bob. Tim Keller references an article called Picky,Picky, which is located here.

The other is a video about college students freeing people from human trafficking. Definitely worth the watch.

Either that or I’m Hessian.

How many differences can you spot?

It’s the last day of break, which is the perfect time to use the gift card from last spring. This is the new faucet. The old one looked like a shipwreck, which was to be expected.

I found this video while yelling at my XBOX. It responds to voice commands, even when given in a Kermit the Frog voice. Don’t think I didn’t check.

What will happen in 2012?
A secret will be revealed about a presidential candidate. 20%
A celebrity will get divorced and news sites will run the story on the front page. 20%
The world will end as predicted by the Mayan calendar, but no one will notice because a YouTube video of a cat punching a stuffed animal will have captured our collective attentions. 60%

This cat is surprised.

In the year 1985:

1. Reagan will be president.
2. The Titanic will be found.
3. Coke will release New Coke.
4. A kid from Hill Valley will fight Libyan terrorists with a DeLorean.

Yes. Pretty risky predictions, but I feel confident that that’s what 1985 will hold.

What? You want predictions for 2012? But how could I ever top the ones I made for 2010?

Great Scott! It’s the new Internet. I’m going to crowd-source prognostications.

It’s been way too long since we’ve done a Pop Quiz. IT’S FINE TIME FOR POP QUIZ 18!! I can’t believe the last time we did this was for Kirk vs. Solo vs. Mal.

If you have any other predictions, leave them in the comments.

Dance Central 2 does understand my life stage. It gave me an achievement for dancing while a kid walked in front of the sensor.

Check out the video game flower she made. It’s crazy to think that she will look back on the Kinect in the same way I look back on the NES.

Keep it simple. The endeavor I’m working on involves a lot of hands, which are the bane of my drawing existence. I can’t have the hands always be off-camera.

But man is it fun to do it while wearing a nice set of headphones.

You wanted a picture of Mike’s beard. I think I captured it pretty well.

May God’s shalom be with you all tonight.

5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;

“For” is an important transition word, right?

May today and tomorrow be restful for you in light of a hard-fought peace that you did not earn.

I did get a haircut, which normally shouldn’t be too much news, but when it only happens, like, five times a year (I never did the math until now), inquiring minds want to know. I have lost my Alan Moore disguise. Mike, I’m excited to see Colorado’s Baron Davis Effect.

Nice.

I guess my version of Santa does look like Donkey Kong chucking down barrel-y goodness. It would make sense considering Yuffie the Snowman is trying to catch a ninjabread man scaling the roof of the A-frame.

Sometimes I forget.

I was listening to my Nobuo Uematsu station on Pandora (I highly recommend it) and Loreena McKenna’s “The Mummers’ Dance” came on.

It just so happened that I was at the point in my writing where an airship crew was dancing a mournful jig (because my story is awesome) and this song, a corsair interpretation of Ecclesiastes 1, came to me:

All streams run into the sea
But the sea is never full
All things full of weariness
But hearts are never whole

What do we gain from our day’s toil
Beneath the beating sun?
Can we say that this is new
Before our course is run?
Before our course is run

What I love about writing a fantasy is that I can bust out with a song and no one thinks it’s strange. I mean, if dwarves can sing of cracking plates, then why not a corsair jig about empty pursuits?

So, sing my song to the tune of “The Mummers’ Song” and marvel at one of the only music videos (that I know of) to feature people dancing with wicker chairs on their heads.

(A mummer is a performer who acts in a traveling troupe to tell folk plays. Yeah, I Googled it.)

In the belly of Sheol
I cry
confident
in Your love

Water closes in
driven from Your sight
my brain
a sushi wrap
my life
faints
what I have vowed
I will pay

A second time
I hear
Three days
In the belly
Three days
To the city
But I go
One day in
And say,
“Forty days left!”

And they
Believe

But how can they?
I’m the one
You sent
I can hear
Your word
I’m the one
You love

Fire here
Locusts there
A pillar of salt
A shake of the Earth
Maybe even
A flood
(You’d make an exception, right?)

But no, it’s
Sackcloth
Fasting
Turning
Relenting

Disappointing
I said this back home
I called it
My reason to flee

You are gracious
Merciful
Slow to anger
Steadfast love
Abounds

It is better
For me
To die
Than
To live

You ask
if I do well
to be angry

East of the repenting
I sit
Pouting
The sun beats down
You cover me
A worm warns
of Your judgment
I’m faint
I repeat
It is better
For me
To die
Than
To live

Do I do well
to be angry?
Yes, I do
Thanks for asking
Kill me now

Steadfast still, You say,
“You pity the plant that
you did not grow
came in a night
left in a night;
I show my mercy on those
who did not yet know.”

This is the best line of the article:

Another officer used his Taser, but Canterbury knocked one of the wires away with a lightsaber.

Impressive. Most impressive.

Thankfully no one needed medical attention. The reporter made no mention if that was because the wounds cauterized.

Like snow in summer or rain in harvest,
honor is not fitting for a fool.

26:1

Get ten of your friends to buy stock in Zynga and your stock market will grow.

(I didn’t actually buy stock and this is not an officially-endorsed market recommendation. Why would you trust anything on this site for stock market savvy?)

Signed amnesiac masterpieces
Of a faithful artist

I thought, “Wow. That was rather contrarian of him.” Then I realized that I had said:

Tell me he’s not straight out of Final Fantasy

and you did. That’s funny.

How out of it am I? Well, I keep checking this site to see which day it is.

You, reader, should sell these things to inform people about unit conversions.

The spec fic sports magazine asked me to write an article about the writing process. I wrote it and I’ll give you more details when I can.

I have a very cool opportunity to use some of my creativity to bring the Bible to those who have none. More to come about that.

My fantasy football team lost in a semi-glorious meltdown. You know it’s bad when you log in and see your quarterback with negative points. Was the guy throwing in the wrong direction in a non-funny version of Wrongway Jones? (Is there a Wrongway Jones? It sounds like there should be.)

Yes, Mike, thank you for the trade and yes, I agree that you would have done better with my schedule. I predict that you would have gone 50,000 and 1 (I include the 1 just to make it realistic).

But have you seen Godfather Drosselmeyer? The guy’s a tinkerer and wears an eyepatch. Tell me he’s not straight out of Final Fantasy:

Mythbusters has been put on hold while authorities investigate their safety procedures.

I love the show. I hope it stays on the air. I am also very glad that no one got hurt. I’m sure the show will reimburse the families for the damaged home and minivan.

That they’ve gone this long on the air with no deaths and only mild-ish injuries to the staff speaks well of their safety precautions. Either that or God is a fan of Adam and Jamie, despite what they say about Him.

Mon, Dec 5

The NFL is expected to inform Davis early this week that he must serve a four-game suspension for testing positive for recreational drugs earlier this season, the Washington Post reports.

Argh.

Also, check out some of the most moving images from the news in 2011.

A little bit of math adds to the study of Advent with my oldest.

My wife says that even if I light all of the candles tonight, it doesn’t make it Christmas.

This morning I learned more about the aorist tense, a verb tense in Ancient Greek that signifies an act being whole or simple. The fact that the apostle Paul uses it in his letter to the Ephesians to describe some pretty big stuff makes it an even cooler tense. God is acting in a big way and yet the act is whole and simple.

I just realized something. A British guy is going to be reading my story of an urban alchemist fighting on the mean street of Van Buren. Well, this should prove to be a rather fanciful outing.

A special thanks goes out to Slade for describing the perfect gangster hoopty (they don’t still say that, do they?), John for preaching on Matthew 6:19-20, and to my in-laws for supplying the legal pads.

Is this skeleton flashing a gang sign or awkwardly waving hello? (Or, to be more menacing, goodbye)

I’ll be happy as long as the bunny guy doesn’t win.

I now have a record of 10-2, ranking second only to the Jedi Wrestlers (I still wonder if Sean is saying they are Jedi who wrestle or if it’s a bunch of Animal Planet hosts that tie up individuals who are strong in the Force).

I am breaking tradition by being in the playoffs. How many times have you invited me to this league, Mike? How many times do I crash and burn? How in the world am I beating you? Was it really that trade at the beginning of the season? These are not humble brags but honest bafflement.

Keeping up traditions:
You know that Desean Jackson guy that threw a temper tantrum and was benched? Or that Ndamukong Suh guy who beat a guy’s head into the field then stomped on him with his cleats to celebrate Thanksgiving?

Yep. Both my players.

But we’re not moving to Australia

I am thankful for surprise visitors, paper airplanes, and ma na ma na.

I’m teaching CSS and typography to the youth of our nation. Notice the serif.

Unrelated: one SPAM attack this week tried to lure me in by saying that my site had an issue in Internet Explorer. Nice try, SPAM! Everyone has an issue in IE.

Give me a call or message me if you want to hear more about this past weekend.

Also of note: I have a magazine that signed on one of my short stories (a spec fic version of my nephew’s flag football game). The crazy thing is that the magazine is paying to publish the story. I think I’m entering new territory.

My wife’s friend, Bling (her nickname, not mine), is a frame of reference for how big the Super Fish Burrito is that I ate for lunch today. It was smaller than my foot, though.

Also, more trees have been spray-painted.

We love you SO MUCH. Check out the leaf. All the leaves have been colored with red markers, I think. Also, here’s the drink your mom bought me. Peppermint coffee thing. Very tasty.

This is in no way a Star Destroyer. Would Golden Books try and skirt copyright infringement?

Reading was an escape, but not an unhealthy one. It didn’t enable me to deny my grief or the strain our family was under. It didn’t distract me from my children or make me wish for another life.

In fact, the simple act of allowing myself the luxury of literature served to inspire my days with my children. I was a better thinker — more happy, more energized, and more full. Reading served as a wholly reparative act, something that offered renewal at a time when everything felt out of sorts.

So my response was that fire is a chemical reaction, but that some people say that we are just a collection of chemical reactions. That sent the wheels spinning.

Haikus for a year
Make me want to play guitar
Just like Biff Tannen

Tom Wilson is also on Netflix. I will definitely have to check it out.

I hope you all are having a happy Veteran’s Day.

On Sunday, this is what I’ll be wearing:

No, Mike, I haven’t converted to something, although you gotta admit that my wife’s texts were a lot funnier than my own. (I said I had converted to Awesomeness. She beat that.)

I’m wearing it in solidarity with believers, specifically with Juma Nuradin Kamil’s family, around the world on a Sunday when we remember and pray for followers of Jesus who have been/are being persecuted. (Really, we should remember and pray all year long, which this app (for iPhone and Android) can help you with, but it’s also good to have a set day on the calendar.)

Thanks, Jeremy, for showing us this video that lines up with one of the songs we play. We won’t be showing it on Sunday, but it’s definitely worth a watch.

Art that expresses my heart? Sign me up.

Travis Prinzi of the Rabbit Room has a great article about telling a meaningful story, quoting from Walk the Line:

I mean, you can’t help nobody if you can’t tell them the right story.

I started a new story as part of NaNoWriMo, yes, but also because it’s straight from my heart. Each book I’ve written, I’ve rejected people-pleasing more and more and now write what I believe to be a good story and not what I think will sell (if you’ve watched the majority of what’s on TV, you’ll notice that it’s not always the best story that sells).

Thanks, Futile Ohm, for the link to the NaNoWriMo version of Scrivener. This project has so many character details that it definitely helps me keep all my notes organized. Anyone that has seen me in the midst of writing a novel knows that they should have bought stock in legal pads and tiny memo notebooks.

And for those praying about agents looking at my manuscripts and all that, James 4:2-3 had some insight for me this morning.

I would say that the junior high students will be disturbed, but, well, you know…

As the wise Danny Glover once said, “I’m getting too old for this…”

Redundancy is also when a Deep Space Nine officer sees a ship burning on screen and tells everyone that the firefighting systems are inoperable.

We watched “Babel” tonight, which fits in really well with today’s gibberish theme on the bloggh.

We’re making leaves for our thankful tree. Grabbing the red construction paper, I subconsciously cut out the official leaf of William Shatner’s home.

Have you watched Captains on Netflix yet? What is that all about?!

It’s been ten years since student teaching and the educational climate has changed quite a bit over the years (I had previously thought that RIF was what guitarists played. I like that definition a whole lot better.), but if a friend of Devin needs help, then here we are. (For my other readers – Devin messaged me on Twitter with a plea. This is the response.)

Let’s get this out of the way at the beginning: teaching is worth it. Our students really need people who will help them analyze the world around them and be world-changers, not just consumers. Here’s the kicker, though: you will hardly ever get to see your investment played out first-hand. Some students will come back to update you, and those have been encouraging, but many will move on to bigger and better things – and that’s what we want, really.

The biggest advice I can give is to jump right into any responsibilities that you can. I took over a class on the very first day of student teaching, even though it wasn’t required, and it benefited me tremendously. They were MY students to the very end of the semester. I didn’t have to worry while doing observations. 1st hour I paid attention because 5th hour I needed to know how to teach it.

I also went to all of the pre-semester meetings, the ones where teachers get trained on what to expect for the year. You’ll be just as clued in as the staff. It’s also where teachers shared about their summers. I built relationships that were supportive and much needed when mid-semester hit. If you’re student teaching in January, make sure to attend the staff meetings, especially at the beginning of the semester.

In college, I freaked out about presenting a lesson for 15 minutes. Quick hint: class periods are longer than 15 minutes. But when you have the whole scope of the unit, it makes planning the smaller chunks a lot easier. One idea, one concept, one objective, one activity flows into the next.

Lesson planning and classroom management is all about flow. It’s very “leaf on the wind”, except that you get to be the wind. Keep activities to ten-minute increments. Students can pay attention for 7-10 minutes and then they need a state change, whether it’s a body movement or a switch in activity. Push that 10-minute threshold and you’ll see the consequences.

This probably has been said before, but make sure that early on the expectations you express, both verbally and nonverbally, are the expectations you want to live with for the rest of the semester.

You are not the students’ friend. Friends don’t assign each other lunch detentions. You can be kind, consistent, and caring, but not a friend. Students need adults who are kind, consistent, and caring. They get enough buddy buddy from adults who think they’re cool but aren’t.

Introduce yourself to the principal and the office staff. Be memorable as someone who is professional. You want to be as much of an integral part of the campus as you can. It definitely gives you an edge over the random job applicants. Even if you don’t want to work at the same school you student taught at, you’d be surprised at just how connected administrators from other districts are. Ask for a screening interview at the end of the semester, if only for the practice.

Do whatever you can to help out the secretaries and the maintenance staff. You make their lives easier, they brag about it. You give them trouble, they will crush you.

Yes, there are fewer teacher openings out there than there were ten years ago when I applied. The downside is that there is a tinge of paranoia. The upside is that those that have jobs are generally pretty thankful for them. Even if you don’t get hired right out of student teaching, long-term sub. Teaching is a skill and you don’t want to get out of practice. Sure, you can read a book about teaching, but it’s the delivery of the lesson that counts.

Here’s a timeline of fear that I’ve seen play out in my experience as a district mentor (I work with every new teacher that gets hired to my school):

The Fears/Doubts
Student teaching – Did I choose the right major? Did I waste four years and thousands of dollars? Will the students like me? Will my cooperating teacher be a jerk? Can I afford to not get paid for a semester of work?

First year – Are you sure I chose the right major? This is nothing like student teaching. How can I do this the right way? My cooperating teacher never had this trouble. Are the veteran teachers making fun of me? Does the staff respect me? Will I always have to stay at school until 6pm?

Third year/fifth year/seventh year – Am I teaching what I want to teach? Are the students actually learning? Is this my career? Can I put up with one more crazy parent? Did I handle that situation the right way?

Tenth year – Am I really one of the old guys on campus? Why am I making all the decisions? Why is everyone complaining about my decisions? Can I please just worry about one more crazy parent instead?

One really cool aspect, though, is being able to recognize the spark of learning. Over time you get to see those moments add up and know that you did something with your life. If that student then grows up and positively impacts another person’s life…Exponents are crazy. You can either positively or negatively affect a whole bunch of people’s lives. It’s a lot of responsibility. And, you know, you get summers off(-ish).

This disembodied head is telling students he’s iron.

Here’s how we do it in our neighborhood. Years ago, we had a neighbor who, legend has it, allowed Halloween to throw up in her yard – inflatable pumpkins reaching towards the heavens. She would always sit out in her driveway and hang out with friends. We joined her in this tradition and continue it, even though she has since moved. (She did come back and visit tonight, which was really cool.)

Some strange guests did appear, like a Plant who looked more “in love with” a Zombie and not so much the “versus” aspect.

Yes, they have a pet cow. Because, frankly, why not?

Also filed under Why Not: a ghost on stilts.


Naturally, a sword fight ensued (not the first time at my house, by any stretch of the imagination) and we lost track of who was the ghost.


He’s actually a lot more dexterous than the photo gives him credit for, but it still makes me laugh.

We also maintained the tradition of having teens sing. One group said that they didn’t speak English, so naturally my wife called ‘em out in Spanish. How did it end? With them singing in Spanish, of course.

Side note: we have a garage mariachi band that practices each night in our neighborhood. You know how grunge bands whine and shred incomprehensibly when they first start out? Now picture that with a sad trumpet and an oom-pah tuba.

In yesterday’s post, I showed off our Phineas and Ferb pumpkin. What you didn’t see is the Extreme Effort (I took a Feat in it the last time I leveled up) it took to carve it since I hate getting my hands dirty:

Thanks to all who showed up and shared pizza with us. We should do it again.