Update will be coming soon.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
...So...you know that whole "I'll update while I'm in India" thing? Turns out we didn't have internet (or electricity, sometimes) at most places.
I plan to coalesce my ideas after going through my journal, and I plan to update this blog having now returned home. The memories may not be as vivid as while on the trip, but it was such a whirlwind thing that now I actually have a chance to catch my breath and collect my thoughts.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Two posts in one day? This is not done. I must not be well.
Seeing as I want to keep this blog updated regularly (with writings of substance - not anything like "I used too much Tabasco (TM) sauce on my pizza (TM) and then I fell asleep on my kitchen (TM) floor.") - I thought to upload a paper I wrote for my Old Testament class on the subject of The Book of Eli. This is specifically with you in mind, John Stone:
The
Burden of Hope:
Safeguarding
the Gospel in The
Book of Eli
in view of the OT prophets
By
Daniel Cross
OT
512 – The Kingdom of Israel & Her Prophets
Dr.
Culp
The
Book of Eli
is
primarily a story about hope, despite overwhelming circumstances. In
the story, Eli is a man who is entrusted with the last surviving copy
of The King James Bible after the world has been destroyed. Now,
venturing through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Eli follows a vision
from God to travel with the book and to safeguard it from those who
would misuse its power. Ultimately, The
Book of Eli
paints a picture of an ideal messenger: one who follows God into the
wilderness, in spite of overwhelming burdens to protect the sanctity
of God’s word.
The
protagonist of The
Book of Eli
is the titular Eli, a man who suffered through the destruction of the
world, and was ultimately led by a voice to discover the Bible buried
beneath some rubble. Eli then narrates how the voice told him to
journey with the book. He says, “It told me that a path would be
laid out before me, that I'd be led to a place where this book would
be safe. It told me I'd be protected against anyone or anything that
tried to stand in my way. If only I would have faith.1
It is with this charge that Eli sets off to the west, walking across
the wasteland for more than twenty-five years with the faith that God
will direct him to the right place.
What
should be noted about Eli is that he is incredibly protective of the
book, as he is aware of the power it has over people’s minds and
hearts. This protection of the sanctity for scripture is directly
parallel in the book of Daniel, wherein the message that Daniel
brings to the world is directly met with opposition and hostility.
Yet it is through this hostility that God’s reign is asserted, even
as the outcome of Daniel’s actions seem bleak. In his book on the
Old Testament prophets, J. Gordon McConville says, “The
faithfulness of God is not made dependent on a return to the
homeland; rather it is played out in the exile itself. The issue is
now whether God will and can protect his people from the all too
visible power of kings who do not recognize the God of Israel, and
who may at any time try to assert their power against his claims.”2
As with Daniel, God’s hand is shown through the many hardships that
Eli endures.
While
Eli is acutely aware of the power that the only remaining Bible has
over the hearts and minds of the people, he is not the only one.
Carnegie, the leader of the desert town that Eli stumbles upon, is
actively searching for the book, but for an entirely different reason
than for preservation: he wants to use it to rule over the people.
When prompted by one of his henchmen, Carnegie lays out his plan. He
says,
Don't
you see? It's not just any book. It has the power to motivate people.
It can give them hope, it can terrify them. It can shape them.
Control them… that book is a weapon. Aimed right at the hearts and
minds of the weak and the desperate. Just imagine what I could do
with it. The water in this town may run dry, but faith - that springs
eternal! …it will help me build a new world. In my image…Oh,
it'll say what I want, I can promise you that. Because I'm going to
rewrite it. I'll keep the parts that work for me and make the rest
whatever I need it to be. A new bible, for a new world.3
The
character of Carnegie is the polar opposite of the humble Eli, and
seeks to misuse Scripture to bend the people to his will.
Upon
seeing this scene, I immediately thought of 2 Kings 22, where Hilkiah
finds the Book of the Law. When the book is presented to King Josiah,
he immediately tears his clothes and laments that the mandates of God
are being ignored. Both Eli and King Josiah understand the gravity of
God’s word impacting people’s lives, and both strive mightily to
remain faithful to Yahweh, even as the whole world seems to be living
for themselves. Both Josiah and Eli embrace the idea that humanity
itself is to blame for the sinfulness of the world, and both seek to
humbly intercede to God on behalf of the greater masses who are
oblivious to their sins.
In
Eli’s world, the earth has been ravaged by nuclear war, and very
few humans remain. As more and more of Eli’s character is revealed
to the audience, he is shown as a man who carries several burdens.
Naturally, the most overt burden is his charge to protect the Bible,
but Eli himself seems to bear the weight of humanity’s downfall,
and sees himself as part of the reason that the world was destroyed.
Yet despite seeing the world as a shattered husk of what it once was,
Eli seems to have a deeply-seeded reverence for it, much in the way
that he has a deep reverence for the Creator whose voice he follows
westward. In fact, the first scene where we meet Eli shows him
intensely calm and focused on his task of gathering food, which shows
an almost symbiotic relationship with the world he inhabits.
Having
lived before “the war”, Eli lived a life of luxury and comfort,
“…throwing away things that nowadays men would kill for.”4
The very fact that he mentions this in such a somber tone reveals
that he also feels guilty as to the state of the world. This brings
up an interesting idea: guilt as repentance. In his article on “The
Burden of the Gospels”, Wendell Berry says,
To
be convinced of the sanctity of the world, and to be mindful of a
human vocation to responsible membership in such a world, must always
have been a burden. But it is a burden that falls with greatest
weight on us humans of the industrial age who have been and are, by
any measure, the humans most guilty of desecrating the world and of
destroying creation. And we ought to be a little terrified to realize
that, for the most part and at least for the time being, we are
helplessly guilty.5
Eli
lives his life under just such a burden, and much as King Josiah tore
at his clothes at the state of the faith of his people, so too Eli
mourns the loss of life and morality of the godless remains of
humanity.
Perhaps
the most interesting aspect of The
Book of Eli
is that despite all of the hardships that Eli endures, he still
maintains the hope that God will be faithful to him, even after
wandering westward for twenty-five years. The hope that humanity
could be preserved if The Word is kept safe is a running theme
throughout. Much of this hope is echoed in Isaiah 28: 1-29, wherein
Isaiah is trying to explain God’s actions and God’s character to
his listeners. Carol J. Dempsey writes, “The rich agricultural and
pastoral images embedded in this unit suggest to Isaiah’s listeners
and later readers of the text that indeed God’s final word is not a
word of destruction; it is a word of hope.”6
In fact, with such agricultural language being used to describe God’s
teachings to the people, a strong contrast can be drawn to Eli’s
world of barren lifelessness.
Carol
J. Dempsey goes on to argue that the renewing of the world is like a
bursting forth of new life, much in the same way that plant burst
forth into blossom in the spring. I was particularly struck by this
rendition, especially from a purely visual standpoint in viewing The
Book of Eli.
Eli is protecting the truth to deliver it into the hands of someone
who would not abuse it, and he travels across a destroyed,
dust-filled wasteland, with absolutely no green grass or plant life
to speak of. It is interesting that Isaiah 28:23-29 details the
planting of crops as evidence of being instructed in the ways of God:
“When they have leveled its surface, do they not scatter dill, sow
cummin, and plant wheat in rows and barely in its proper place, and
spelt as the borders? For they are well instructed; their God teaches
them.” (Isaiah 28:25-26, NRSV). As Carnegie sows seeds of
destruction through his power-mongering empire, Eli is sowing seeds
of truth and obedience to bring the light of truth to the world
again.
The
Bible in The
Book of Eli
is the cornerstone of the movie, as it is the cornerstone for all
revelation and teaching from God. Some of the most iconic scenes in
the movie involve Eli forgoing basic necessities in order to protect
the Bible from untrustworthy hands. In fact, the most precious
possession of the day (water) is shown to be of secondary importance
to Eli, with guarding the Bible taking precedence. Trekking across a
barren wasteland, Eli stumbles onwards, following God’s call on his
life and soaking himself in God’s word. This, I believe, is the
life we are called to as disciples of Christ.
Eli
is the very much a modern-day prophet in The
Book of Eli,
who follows the call of God without concern for comfort or
consequence. His loyalty belongs to God alone, and he rises up
against injustice whenever it appears. As a son of the warrior God,
Eli also defends the weak in their oppression, shelters those who are
in need, and teaches the Word of God to those who will listen.
Perhaps the most powerful scene in the movie (for me personally) is
the scene where Eli and the slave girl Solara sit down to an evening
meal, and Eli holds her hand and they thank God for their meal, and
for their friendship. Even in the wake of annihilation, despite all
of the death and violence and moral decay that is tearing the world
apart, Eli is deeply grateful to God for his life, his meal, and his
small friendships. To have my eyes so fixed on The Father is truly
the deepest prayer of my heart.
Bibliography
Berry,
Wendell. 2005. "The burden of the Gospels: an unconfident
faith." Christian
Century
122, no. 19: 22-27. ATLA
Religion Database with ATLASerials,
EBSCOhost
(accessed April 24, 2011).
Dempsey,
Carol J. Hope
Amid The Ruins: The Ethics of Israel's Prophets.
St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000.
The
Book of Eli,
Produced
and directed by Albert and Allen Hughes. 117 min. Distributed by
Warner Bros. Pictures. Motion Picture.
McConville,
J. Gordon. Exploring
The Old Testament: A Guide to the Prophets.
Downer's Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002.
1
The
Book of Eli. ,
Produced
and directed by Albert and Allen Hughes. 117 min. Distributed by
Warner Bros. Pictures. Motion Picture.
2
J. Gordon McConville, Exploring
The Old Testament: A Guide to the Prophets
(Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 127.
3
The Book of Eli.
4
Ibid.
5
Berry, Wendell. 2005. "The
Burden of the Gospels: An Unconfident Faith." Christian
Century 122, no. 19:
27. ATLA Religion
Database with ATLASerials,
EBSCOhost
(accessed April 24, 2011).
6
Carol J. Dempsey, Hope
Amid The Ruins: The Ethics of Israel’s Prophets
(St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000), 63.
Movies + Theology = Awesome.
Edit: Wow. The format of my paper was totally destroyed. All well!
Edit: Wow. The format of my paper was totally destroyed. All well!
My goodness me. What a span of time it's been.
Huh. I guess you can lump me in with the "Started a blog, and wrote a few things for it but eventually abandoned it in favor of other pursuits" crowd. I have some pretty awesome excuses to offer if anyone is interested, but I do have to preface them as excuses.
But here we are! Here I am!
With my trip to India forthcoming (8 more days to be exact), I wanted to continue writing here on this blog, because it affords me an outlet into which I can direct my stream of consciousness. Having this blog was tremendously helpful while with YWAM, and I plan to keep it updated with postings about my time in India.
Here is the (rough) gameplan for my time in India:
-We plan to visit 4 major areas - Delhi, Agra, Kechhwa, and Varanasi. The trip will take roughly 11 days, and we (as in Chip Anderson, Debra Anderson and myself) are going to be bouncing around on trains, planes, and perhaps even crazy-nonsense-rickshaws.
I plan to keep this blog updated with my thoughts on the sights, sounds, smells (which I hear are quite...unique) and crowds of India.
I am also going to be sitting on a plane for a truly absurd amount of time, so I may utilize some of that time to upload some things I've written during my time at Denver Seminary, or just write weird stories about going to Casa Bonita 27+ times. When the mood strikes, all I can do is write.
In closing, any and all prayers would be deeply appreciated for my small missionary team for India. Spiritual warfare is a very real and very commonplace occurrence in India (so I've heard), so I would covet your prayers for safety, health, and expedience with travel.
I love all of you - you are all very near and dear to my heart, and I look forward to sharing these small bits and pieces of my trip with you.
-Dan
But here we are! Here I am!
With my trip to India forthcoming (8 more days to be exact), I wanted to continue writing here on this blog, because it affords me an outlet into which I can direct my stream of consciousness. Having this blog was tremendously helpful while with YWAM, and I plan to keep it updated with postings about my time in India.
Here is the (rough) gameplan for my time in India:
-We plan to visit 4 major areas - Delhi, Agra, Kechhwa, and Varanasi. The trip will take roughly 11 days, and we (as in Chip Anderson, Debra Anderson and myself) are going to be bouncing around on trains, planes, and perhaps even crazy-nonsense-rickshaws.
I plan to keep this blog updated with my thoughts on the sights, sounds, smells (which I hear are quite...unique) and crowds of India.
I am also going to be sitting on a plane for a truly absurd amount of time, so I may utilize some of that time to upload some things I've written during my time at Denver Seminary, or just write weird stories about going to Casa Bonita 27+ times. When the mood strikes, all I can do is write.
In closing, any and all prayers would be deeply appreciated for my small missionary team for India. Spiritual warfare is a very real and very commonplace occurrence in India (so I've heard), so I would covet your prayers for safety, health, and expedience with travel.
I love all of you - you are all very near and dear to my heart, and I look forward to sharing these small bits and pieces of my trip with you.
-Dan
Saturday, January 23, 2010
So. Seminary.
I have officially been accepted into Denver Seminary's Masters of Divinity program, and my classes officially begin on Monday.
Needless to say, I will be quite busy for oh, say the next 4 years or so.
I will do my best to update this blog, and I will also do my best to keep the postings from saying things like "OW MY BRAIN HURTS" and "TOO MUCH THEOLOGY ARGH"
I will take things as they come. :)
Any prayers for my time at Seminary would be greatly appreciated!
-Dan
Needless to say, I will be quite busy for oh, say the next 4 years or so.
I will do my best to update this blog, and I will also do my best to keep the postings from saying things like "OW MY BRAIN HURTS" and "TOO MUCH THEOLOGY ARGH"
I will take things as they come. :)
Any prayers for my time at Seminary would be greatly appreciated!
-Dan
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Tales From The Past - Part 1
I know what you're thinking - "Ooh. Part 1? As in there might be a part 2? Or even 3?! My excitement cannot be contained, and Dan hasn't even told me what he's writing about! Joy of joys - my life is now complete!"
Man you guys are easy to read.
Over the course of many years of writing - both for college classes/assignments, as well as for pure entertainment on my part (and for those who read it I hope) I've come to the conclusion that I am a storyteller.
Story-tell-er [stawr-ee-tel-er]
-noun
1. A person who tells or writes anecdotes.
2. A person who tells more or less trivial falsehoods; fibber.
3. A person who tells stories. Obviously. I mean, come ON man.
4. Dan Cross.
-see related nouns [Daniel Cross], [Amazing Talent], [Man Whatta Cool Guy], and [Oh Man If I Was A Woman I Would Totally Want To Meet Dan Based Solely On His Bizarre Writing Style And Almost-Schizophrenic-Sense-Of-Humor].
So, I tell stories. Stories, that in one way or another, OCCURRED in my life. ...and occur they did. Oh man did they ever.
Here is a story that occurred in my life a few years ago when I was living with my awesome roommate, Lance.
As is usual with my stories, I need a little back-story.
(Cracks knuckles)
Here we go.
Lance and I both worked at LOWE's Home Improvement (TM) at the time, and our shifts usually started at 5:00 AM, so we needed to wake up around 4:00 AM or so to be ready for work.
I am proud to say that I am a raging insomniac, so sleep doesn't like me very much. But she started it.
I like to think that sometime in my past, Sleep walked by me while I was sitting on the couch watching a movie, and she innocently asked, "Hey, Dan? Do these jeans make my incorporeal butt look big?"
-To which I (must have) replied, "...No? Not........entirely?"
She must have taken it personally. She must have sworn incorporeal vengeance on my head. She must have vowed to never let me sleep again.
Sometimes when I'm staring at my ceiling at night, I yell, "I didn't REMEMBER THAT!" just for kicks.
It has yet to work.
So, (really) long story short, sleep hates me. (She did look fat, by the way.)
Back to the story: Lance and I would deprive ourselves of sleep (me more by consequence than choice) and we would do all sorts of crazy stuff late at night - though cooking pasta and watching a random horror movie was top of the list.
There was a Blockbuster about 6 minutes away from our apartment, and we would go there almost every night and peruse the horror section for anything that looked remotely interesting.
It was one fateful night that Lance and I walked into that store, because there was one movie and one movie alone that we were to watch.
We stumbled upon the movie on the rack, and literally began to cry because we were laughing so hard.
The movie is called "The GingerDead Man."
I'll let that sink in for a moment.
Sounds terribly awesome, and/or awesomely terrible, doesn't it?
It stars Gary Busey as The GingerDead Man, and Some-Random-Teenagers who star as the teenagers who get killed.
Now I attribute my insomnia and dulled-senses to renting this movie. Lance? He has no excuse.
As I took it up to the counter, the employee scanned it in and laughed. He swiveled the monitor over to me, and explained that despite being in their store for 7 years, I was the first person - ever - to rent this movie.
That was kind of scary.
Anyway, we took it home, and made some spaghetti. We invited Liz (Lance's girlfriend) over, and we settled in to watch.
Run-On-Sentence-Synopsis Time!
The scene opens on a cafe where people are eating and all of a sudden Gary Busey bursts in and starts shooting the place up and man is he not picky about the whole thing I mean he shoots anyone including a waitress carrying a bunch of drinks which fall to the ground in slow motion.
So Gary continues to push tables over and make a huge mess when a random civilian shoots him in the stomach and he keels over and says - and I am by no means making this up - "I'll get you. I'll have my revenge. Even if it is from beyond the grave."
Who says that?
...Gary Busey, I guess.
Anyway, he dies and the poor lady at the cafe whose boyfriend/husband/brother/passing acquaintance was killed looks towards the sky with tears in her eyes. Camera pans back - Title screen.
So many years later she is working at a bakery and for some reason keeps newspaper clippings of her husband/boyfriend/valet driver's murder all over her work space.
I know that if my girlfriend was brutally murdered in front of my eyes I would do my best to remind myself of that fact as often as I could.
Sheesh.
Anyway she looks at the paper clippings and Gary Busey's voice plays in her head - "I'll have my revenge. Even if it is from beyond the grave."
(This blog is getting long so I'll really stream this together.)
So some old lady knocks on the front door and leaves a package which turns out to be gingerbread dough and the lady is Gary Busey's mother or something and she mixed his ashes into the cookie mix which is a horrible thing for a mother to do but I guess if it was his last wish then your hands are sort of tied and then they use the dough for some reason and they guy that works there accidentally cuts his finger on something and drips blood into the cookie dough (ew) and it begins to glow red but they don't notice and continue to bake them which is gross misconduct for a bakery as well as a huge health hazard but nobody cares I guess and so then Gary Busey becomes an evil cookie and tries to murder everyone for some reason that I've yet to figure out.
This needs its own sentence because it is so ridiculous: He is terrorizing these poor people, and he is about 5 inches tall.
I'll repeat that.
He is 5 inches tall and is a cookie.
A cookie.
The whole time the movie was playing I thought that if someone had a dog then this problem would be solved in a few minutes with no murders to speak of. That dog would just eat the hell out of the cookie and problem solved.
...but I'm not as smart at dealing with murderous cookies as I thought.
The guy at the shop eats Gary Busey (I've never written anything like THAT before) and becomes evil because evil-cookie-Gary is possessed and they have to shove the poor guy into the oven and bake him into human-cookies.
Nevermind that Gary was a cookie, so it's already pretty obviously established that being baked in an oven doesn't hurt him. It must be quite pleasant for him actually.
....
This just gets worse and worse.
Here are some lines from the movie:
Some old lady tries to tickle Cookie-Gary even though he is cackling and holding a butcher's knife, and as he cuts her finger off he cries, "Want a ladyfinger?"
When the guy tackles cookie-Busey and eats him, he stands up with cookie blood all over him (ew) and says proudly "Got Milk?" He then turns into a cookie-Busey-zombie four seconds later.
Ugh.
Finally, there is a scene that Lance and I still cannot understand no matter how many times we watch it.
There is a really annoying blond woman who is a stereotypical diva and full-of-herself, so naturally she dies in a movie like this. The way in which she dies is very puzzling though.
See if you can help Lance and I figure this mystery out:
She walks into a room, complains about how much her hair is getting messed up and how much her makeup is running, and she storms out all flustered.
This is what happens:
She walks into a tripwire that a 5-inch cookie somehow set-up, and literally a second later she has a knife buried in her forehead. A really fake looking knife, for that matter.
...How?
(Bad joke.)
The worst part of this whole thing is that after we all watched it, Lance and Liz fell asleep on the couch, and as I was cleaning up our spaghetti my friend Adam showed up at our doorstep, and wanted to see this horrible movie I was telling him about. So we did.
...This may be an achievement for me, or a blemish on my past that I never want to mention again.
However, I can safely say that I am the only person in Lakewood, CO who watched The GingerDead Man.
Twice.
Until next time.
-Dan
Man you guys are easy to read.
Over the course of many years of writing - both for college classes/assignments, as well as for pure entertainment on my part (and for those who read it I hope) I've come to the conclusion that I am a storyteller.
Story-tell-er [stawr-ee-tel-er]
-noun
1. A person who tells or writes anecdotes.
2. A person who tells more or less trivial falsehoods; fibber.
3. A person who tells stories. Obviously. I mean, come ON man.
4. Dan Cross.
-see related nouns [Daniel Cross], [Amazing Talent], [Man Whatta Cool Guy], and [Oh Man If I Was A Woman I Would Totally Want To Meet Dan Based Solely On His Bizarre Writing Style And Almost-Schizophrenic-Sense-Of-Humor].
So, I tell stories. Stories, that in one way or another, OCCURRED in my life. ...and occur they did. Oh man did they ever.
Here is a story that occurred in my life a few years ago when I was living with my awesome roommate, Lance.
As is usual with my stories, I need a little back-story.
(Cracks knuckles)
Here we go.
Lance and I both worked at LOWE's Home Improvement (TM) at the time, and our shifts usually started at 5:00 AM, so we needed to wake up around 4:00 AM or so to be ready for work.
I am proud to say that I am a raging insomniac, so sleep doesn't like me very much. But she started it.
I like to think that sometime in my past, Sleep walked by me while I was sitting on the couch watching a movie, and she innocently asked, "Hey, Dan? Do these jeans make my incorporeal butt look big?"
-To which I (must have) replied, "...No? Not........entirely?"
She must have taken it personally. She must have sworn incorporeal vengeance on my head. She must have vowed to never let me sleep again.
Sometimes when I'm staring at my ceiling at night, I yell, "I didn't REMEMBER THAT!" just for kicks.
It has yet to work.
So, (really) long story short, sleep hates me. (She did look fat, by the way.)
Back to the story: Lance and I would deprive ourselves of sleep (me more by consequence than choice) and we would do all sorts of crazy stuff late at night - though cooking pasta and watching a random horror movie was top of the list.
There was a Blockbuster about 6 minutes away from our apartment, and we would go there almost every night and peruse the horror section for anything that looked remotely interesting.
It was one fateful night that Lance and I walked into that store, because there was one movie and one movie alone that we were to watch.
We stumbled upon the movie on the rack, and literally began to cry because we were laughing so hard.
The movie is called "The GingerDead Man."
I'll let that sink in for a moment.
Sounds terribly awesome, and/or awesomely terrible, doesn't it?
It stars Gary Busey as The GingerDead Man, and Some-Random-Teenagers who star as the teenagers who get killed.
Now I attribute my insomnia and dulled-senses to renting this movie. Lance? He has no excuse.
As I took it up to the counter, the employee scanned it in and laughed. He swiveled the monitor over to me, and explained that despite being in their store for 7 years, I was the first person - ever - to rent this movie.
That was kind of scary.
Anyway, we took it home, and made some spaghetti. We invited Liz (Lance's girlfriend) over, and we settled in to watch.
Run-On-Sentence-Synopsis Time!
The scene opens on a cafe where people are eating and all of a sudden Gary Busey bursts in and starts shooting the place up and man is he not picky about the whole thing I mean he shoots anyone including a waitress carrying a bunch of drinks which fall to the ground in slow motion.
So Gary continues to push tables over and make a huge mess when a random civilian shoots him in the stomach and he keels over and says - and I am by no means making this up - "I'll get you. I'll have my revenge. Even if it is from beyond the grave."
Who says that?
...Gary Busey, I guess.
Anyway, he dies and the poor lady at the cafe whose boyfriend/husband/brother/passing acquaintance was killed looks towards the sky with tears in her eyes. Camera pans back - Title screen.
So many years later she is working at a bakery and for some reason keeps newspaper clippings of her husband/boyfriend/valet driver's murder all over her work space.
I know that if my girlfriend was brutally murdered in front of my eyes I would do my best to remind myself of that fact as often as I could.
Sheesh.
Anyway she looks at the paper clippings and Gary Busey's voice plays in her head - "I'll have my revenge. Even if it is from beyond the grave."
(This blog is getting long so I'll really stream this together.)
So some old lady knocks on the front door and leaves a package which turns out to be gingerbread dough and the lady is Gary Busey's mother or something and she mixed his ashes into the cookie mix which is a horrible thing for a mother to do but I guess if it was his last wish then your hands are sort of tied and then they use the dough for some reason and they guy that works there accidentally cuts his finger on something and drips blood into the cookie dough (ew) and it begins to glow red but they don't notice and continue to bake them which is gross misconduct for a bakery as well as a huge health hazard but nobody cares I guess and so then Gary Busey becomes an evil cookie and tries to murder everyone for some reason that I've yet to figure out.
This needs its own sentence because it is so ridiculous: He is terrorizing these poor people, and he is about 5 inches tall.
I'll repeat that.
He is 5 inches tall and is a cookie.
A cookie.
The whole time the movie was playing I thought that if someone had a dog then this problem would be solved in a few minutes with no murders to speak of. That dog would just eat the hell out of the cookie and problem solved.
...but I'm not as smart at dealing with murderous cookies as I thought.
The guy at the shop eats Gary Busey (I've never written anything like THAT before) and becomes evil because evil-cookie-Gary is possessed and they have to shove the poor guy into the oven and bake him into human-cookies.
Nevermind that Gary was a cookie, so it's already pretty obviously established that being baked in an oven doesn't hurt him. It must be quite pleasant for him actually.
....
This just gets worse and worse.
Here are some lines from the movie:
Some old lady tries to tickle Cookie-Gary even though he is cackling and holding a butcher's knife, and as he cuts her finger off he cries, "Want a ladyfinger?"
When the guy tackles cookie-Busey and eats him, he stands up with cookie blood all over him (ew) and says proudly "Got Milk?" He then turns into a cookie-Busey-zombie four seconds later.
Ugh.
Finally, there is a scene that Lance and I still cannot understand no matter how many times we watch it.
There is a really annoying blond woman who is a stereotypical diva and full-of-herself, so naturally she dies in a movie like this. The way in which she dies is very puzzling though.
See if you can help Lance and I figure this mystery out:
She walks into a room, complains about how much her hair is getting messed up and how much her makeup is running, and she storms out all flustered.
This is what happens:
She walks into a tripwire that a 5-inch cookie somehow set-up, and literally a second later she has a knife buried in her forehead. A really fake looking knife, for that matter.
...How?
- How did a 5-inch cookie set up a tripwire?
- How did the tripwire maintain the tension needed to kill someone instantly?
- How did the knife factor in?
- How did the knife get any higher than 5-inches from the ground?
- How did it kill her one second after tripping the wire?
- Why did Lance and I rent such a horrible movie?
- Were we really bored as to rent a movie starring Gary Busey called The GingerDead Man?
- Why, Gary Busey?
- WHY?
(Bad joke.)
The worst part of this whole thing is that after we all watched it, Lance and Liz fell asleep on the couch, and as I was cleaning up our spaghetti my friend Adam showed up at our doorstep, and wanted to see this horrible movie I was telling him about. So we did.
...This may be an achievement for me, or a blemish on my past that I never want to mention again.
However, I can safely say that I am the only person in Lakewood, CO who watched The GingerDead Man.
Twice.
Until next time.
-Dan
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Luftanza Airlines: How Beverley Hills Chihuahua Wrecked Both My Cognitive And Immune Systems
Wow. What an amazing title for a blog, right?
So full of intrigue - so cloaked in mystery - and with just the right amount of "What in the world is Dan talking about?" to hold your interest.
Here we go again with the backstory:
2 months ago when I left for Europe at the beginning of my outreach, we were scheduled to depart for Madrid, with a transfer both from Los Angeles, and Munich to said destination. Needless to say, it meant a whole lotta flying.
Despite not having any food in my stomach, I felt rather nauseous upon arriving at the airport, which, I've realized, seems to preclude most of my flights. I always get a bit nervous when it comes to flying, and with the idea that I would be flying for nearly an entire day made me want to crawl into a ball and wrench my eyes closed. I did exactly that, but it was when I was actually on the plane. (So it sort of defeated the purpose, I guess.)
Now it must be noted that I had absolutely nothing in my stomach at this time, because I figured that if I was going to throw up, then having SOMETHING to throw up wouldn't be the best idea. I guess I was trying to use logistical psychology on myself in thinking that if I didn't eat, I wouldn't throw up.
(Logistical psychology isn't even a word, by the way. I just thought it sounded cool.)
So there I was - sitting at 36,000 feet and staring at the back of my seat in a sort of haze - a mixture of airsickness and recycled-air overdose. I was scrolling through the movie selections, and I made a horrific discovery.
(Oh, and as a side note - Luftanza is a German airline, which travels internationally. As with most international flights, the back of the seat in front of you has a television screen on it, where you can watch tv shows, movies, and clips of various other programs. Just so you know)
...now where was I? Oh yeah. The horrific discovery. Not sure how that could have slipped my mind.
I came to the horrific realization that my horrific discovery was even more horrific than I originally horrifically thought it to be.
...
I had seen every single one of the movies on selection, except one.
BEVERLEY HILLS CHIHUAHUA
The name strikes fear into my heart even now.
For you at home - let me find an overview of the story via my good old buddy IMDB.com:
"A pampered Beverly Hills chihuahua named Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore) who, while on vacation in Mexico with her owner Viv's (Jamie Lee Curtis) niece, Rachel (Piper Perabo), gets lost and must rely on her friends to help her get back home before she is caught by a dognapper who wants to ransom her. In the meantime, Papi (voiced by George Lopez), a male chihuahua who is in love with her is in pursuit of her. Papi's master (Manolo Cardona), a handsome young gardener for Viv, slowly develops a romantic interest in Rachel. Chloe befriends a lonely German Shepherd (voiced by Andy Garcia) who travels with her to protect her from the evil Doberman (voiced by Edward James Olmos) who wants to return her and her diamond collar to the dognapper."
Dude. Seriously.
Madness must have compelled me, because I picked that, and settled-in (or 'settled-in' as much as I could in a cramped airplane) to watch the movie - if only to kill 2 hours off of my 11+ hour flight.
(As the movie began, I also took a Sudafed, a vitamin-C tablet, and a nasal decongestant, because I was suffering through a very bad cold and the recycled air was probably impairing my judgment. But I assure you that what happened next was by no means a chemical reaction, but something entirely more sinister.)
I began to watch.
(Ill try my best to give a point-by-point retelling of this.)
Chloe is a little white dog that has booties on that prances around a super-rich person's palace-like home while Drew Barrymore acts as the voice of the little white dog.
A typical scene: Chloe and several other dogs that are all dressed up and super-pampered looking are sitting on lounge chairs (one little dog to each huge chair, naturally) wearing little tiny doggy sunglasses and completely ignoring the tiny little umbrella drinks next to then that the props department spent such a long time making.
Poor prop guys.
Anyway, the dirty and rascally dog that pines after Chloe shows up and dives into the pool, upsetting the other dog's delicate routine of sitting in one spot for a long time. After much exasperation on the part of the pampered-lot, they storm off in a huff leaving poor lovable rascally dog alone in the pool.
'kay.
Now Chloe gets lost and rascally-dog runs off to save her while Paris-Hilton-lookalike-lady and scruffy-yet-handsome-owner-of-the-rascally-dog also run off to find Chloe and they somehow get to Mexico and then Chloe meets some Hispanic dogs of whom one is voiced by that one guy who played the servant to Edmond Dantes in the movie "The Count of Monte Cristo" which is super stereotypical but sadly expected in a movie like this and then another big dog meets Chloe who wants to eat her I think because he is a huge black Pit bull who snarls a lot and then they run away while the Paris-Hilton-lookalike and Hunky-rascally-dog-owner start to crush hardcore on each other and embrace that radical and dangerous dream that despite the obstacles that face them that love may blossom even in the bleakest of circumstances and maybe also that opposites attract or something because these two people are seriously like the worst people for each other even though the Manly-gardener-guy kinda reminds me of a guy I used to work at Lowe's with and that job was hard as hell sometimes so this guy can't be all bad but this girl is totally the biggest airhead I've ever seen in a move and despite the fact that the character may have been written for her to be an airhead the girl playing her either does a great job or a terrible job depending on how you look at it................
.....................
I suddenly became aware of an incredibly acute desire to vomit.
It was as if my nausea had been waiting patiently outside the door of my consciousness, then somehow became aware of what I was watching and took it upon......itself?......to football-tackle my stomach.
...man I write weird things sometimes. But stay with me.
I stood from my seat, and walked briskly down the darkened corridor of the plane (they had turned the lights off so that people could attempt to sleep) and headed for the bathroom.
Now Luftanza is such a prestigious airline that they have a stairway down from the passenger level to the bathrooms, with 8 bathrooms on the lower level. Kinda nice, actually.
I stumbled down the stairs and by the grace of God, one of the seven bathrooms was unoccupied. As I walked in and locked the door, my stomach decided that the time for mere protest was over and that action was now required.
I threw up for a few minutes (ew) and flushed the toilet. Now I don't know if you're aware of this, but if you have just thrown up, your stomach muscles are crazy sore, and you feel...actually pretty darn good considering how you felt a few minutes prior. This at least was my experience.
I felt so good in fact, that I closed the lid of the toilet, and rested my head upon it for a few seconds, relishing in the newfound comfort of not wanting to puke.
An hour later, I woke up.
Three thoughts went in my head at the same time:
1. I just slept in a cramped airplane bathroom.
2. That was a really bad movie.
3. This is going to make an awesome story.
All this happened, and I hadn't even gotten to Europe yet.
More stories to come, friends.
-Dan
So full of intrigue - so cloaked in mystery - and with just the right amount of "What in the world is Dan talking about?" to hold your interest.
Here we go again with the backstory:
2 months ago when I left for Europe at the beginning of my outreach, we were scheduled to depart for Madrid, with a transfer both from Los Angeles, and Munich to said destination. Needless to say, it meant a whole lotta flying.
Despite not having any food in my stomach, I felt rather nauseous upon arriving at the airport, which, I've realized, seems to preclude most of my flights. I always get a bit nervous when it comes to flying, and with the idea that I would be flying for nearly an entire day made me want to crawl into a ball and wrench my eyes closed. I did exactly that, but it was when I was actually on the plane. (So it sort of defeated the purpose, I guess.)
Now it must be noted that I had absolutely nothing in my stomach at this time, because I figured that if I was going to throw up, then having SOMETHING to throw up wouldn't be the best idea. I guess I was trying to use logistical psychology on myself in thinking that if I didn't eat, I wouldn't throw up.
(Logistical psychology isn't even a word, by the way. I just thought it sounded cool.)
So there I was - sitting at 36,000 feet and staring at the back of my seat in a sort of haze - a mixture of airsickness and recycled-air overdose. I was scrolling through the movie selections, and I made a horrific discovery.
(Oh, and as a side note - Luftanza is a German airline, which travels internationally. As with most international flights, the back of the seat in front of you has a television screen on it, where you can watch tv shows, movies, and clips of various other programs. Just so you know)
...now where was I? Oh yeah. The horrific discovery. Not sure how that could have slipped my mind.
I came to the horrific realization that my horrific discovery was even more horrific than I originally horrifically thought it to be.
...
I had seen every single one of the movies on selection, except one.
BEVERLEY HILLS CHIHUAHUA
The name strikes fear into my heart even now.
For you at home - let me find an overview of the story via my good old buddy IMDB.com:
"A pampered Beverly Hills chihuahua named Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore) who, while on vacation in Mexico with her owner Viv's (Jamie Lee Curtis) niece, Rachel (Piper Perabo), gets lost and must rely on her friends to help her get back home before she is caught by a dognapper who wants to ransom her. In the meantime, Papi (voiced by George Lopez), a male chihuahua who is in love with her is in pursuit of her. Papi's master (Manolo Cardona), a handsome young gardener for Viv, slowly develops a romantic interest in Rachel. Chloe befriends a lonely German Shepherd (voiced by Andy Garcia) who travels with her to protect her from the evil Doberman (voiced by Edward James Olmos) who wants to return her and her diamond collar to the dognapper."
Dude. Seriously.
Madness must have compelled me, because I picked that, and settled-in (or 'settled-in' as much as I could in a cramped airplane) to watch the movie - if only to kill 2 hours off of my 11+ hour flight.
(As the movie began, I also took a Sudafed, a vitamin-C tablet, and a nasal decongestant, because I was suffering through a very bad cold and the recycled air was probably impairing my judgment. But I assure you that what happened next was by no means a chemical reaction, but something entirely more sinister.)
I began to watch.
(Ill try my best to give a point-by-point retelling of this.)
Chloe is a little white dog that has booties on that prances around a super-rich person's palace-like home while Drew Barrymore acts as the voice of the little white dog.
A typical scene: Chloe and several other dogs that are all dressed up and super-pampered looking are sitting on lounge chairs (one little dog to each huge chair, naturally) wearing little tiny doggy sunglasses and completely ignoring the tiny little umbrella drinks next to then that the props department spent such a long time making.
Poor prop guys.
Anyway, the dirty and rascally dog that pines after Chloe shows up and dives into the pool, upsetting the other dog's delicate routine of sitting in one spot for a long time. After much exasperation on the part of the pampered-lot, they storm off in a huff leaving poor lovable rascally dog alone in the pool.
'kay.
Now Chloe gets lost and rascally-dog runs off to save her while Paris-Hilton-lookalike-lady and scruffy-yet-handsome-owner-of-the-rascally-dog also run off to find Chloe and they somehow get to Mexico and then Chloe meets some Hispanic dogs of whom one is voiced by that one guy who played the servant to Edmond Dantes in the movie "The Count of Monte Cristo" which is super stereotypical but sadly expected in a movie like this and then another big dog meets Chloe who wants to eat her I think because he is a huge black Pit bull who snarls a lot and then they run away while the Paris-Hilton-lookalike and Hunky-rascally-dog-owner start to crush hardcore on each other and embrace that radical and dangerous dream that despite the obstacles that face them that love may blossom even in the bleakest of circumstances and maybe also that opposites attract or something because these two people are seriously like the worst people for each other even though the Manly-gardener-guy kinda reminds me of a guy I used to work at Lowe's with and that job was hard as hell sometimes so this guy can't be all bad but this girl is totally the biggest airhead I've ever seen in a move and despite the fact that the character may have been written for her to be an airhead the girl playing her either does a great job or a terrible job depending on how you look at it................
.....................
I suddenly became aware of an incredibly acute desire to vomit.
It was as if my nausea had been waiting patiently outside the door of my consciousness, then somehow became aware of what I was watching and took it upon......itself?......to football-tackle my stomach.
...man I write weird things sometimes. But stay with me.
I stood from my seat, and walked briskly down the darkened corridor of the plane (they had turned the lights off so that people could attempt to sleep) and headed for the bathroom.
Now Luftanza is such a prestigious airline that they have a stairway down from the passenger level to the bathrooms, with 8 bathrooms on the lower level. Kinda nice, actually.
I stumbled down the stairs and by the grace of God, one of the seven bathrooms was unoccupied. As I walked in and locked the door, my stomach decided that the time for mere protest was over and that action was now required.
I threw up for a few minutes (ew) and flushed the toilet. Now I don't know if you're aware of this, but if you have just thrown up, your stomach muscles are crazy sore, and you feel...actually pretty darn good considering how you felt a few minutes prior. This at least was my experience.
I felt so good in fact, that I closed the lid of the toilet, and rested my head upon it for a few seconds, relishing in the newfound comfort of not wanting to puke.
An hour later, I woke up.
Three thoughts went in my head at the same time:
1. I just slept in a cramped airplane bathroom.
2. That was a really bad movie.
3. This is going to make an awesome story.
All this happened, and I hadn't even gotten to Europe yet.
More stories to come, friends.
-Dan
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Car-lag + bullet train-lag + jet-lag = Severe loss of coordination
Hi everyone! Its good to be back in The Good Ole' United States of America (TM) !
Also, I am very super-tired. I have jet and it fly for 27 hours. I make talk with broken english when having jetlag. We drive much time.
(Also I felt like typing like this so that the headache you get from trying to figure out what I'm saying will make you sleepy enough to sympathize with me.)
Did it work?
Ok then.
So - I'm back in Kona! Hooray!
The trip back was very interesting to say the least, and I honestly feel a lot like James Bond or Jason Bourne because I was in 5 countries in a week. (Starting in Switzerland, we drove back through France to Spain, then hopped on a flight to Frankfurt in Germany, then connected to another flight back to the US.
So: Switzerland, France, Spain, Germany, US. in less than 5 days.
Awesome. Tiringly awesome.
It was definitely a long trip in many ways - we drove from Lausanne in Switzerland to Vezenobres in France (Roughly a 7 hour trip), then we rested for the night. From there, we drove down into Barcelona and met up with the team there, and rested again. ( 5 hour drive). We then took a bullet train from Barcelona to Madrid (4 hours) then slept at the Madrid airport in order to catch our 6 am flight. We flew from Madrid to Frankfurt (3 hours), then from Frankfurt to San Francisco (11 hours - ugh). Then we flew from SFO to Kona (6 hours), and collapsed under the weight of both our exhaustion, and our folly of ignoring our exhaustion.
So to summarize:
I drove a lot and flew a lot. A whole lot.
But I have chocolate. Oh, what chocolate do I have.
The chocolate is coming, dear friends - it is coming.
Hold fast, for the day will soon come when you can totally eat some of this Swiss chocolate that I got in Switzerland.
It is written, and so it shall be.
Now to bed for making not sleepy anymore.
Love you guys
-Dan
Also, I am very super-tired. I have jet and it fly for 27 hours. I make talk with broken english when having jetlag. We drive much time.
(Also I felt like typing like this so that the headache you get from trying to figure out what I'm saying will make you sleepy enough to sympathize with me.)
Did it work?
Ok then.
So - I'm back in Kona! Hooray!
The trip back was very interesting to say the least, and I honestly feel a lot like James Bond or Jason Bourne because I was in 5 countries in a week. (Starting in Switzerland, we drove back through France to Spain, then hopped on a flight to Frankfurt in Germany, then connected to another flight back to the US.
So: Switzerland, France, Spain, Germany, US. in less than 5 days.
Awesome. Tiringly awesome.
It was definitely a long trip in many ways - we drove from Lausanne in Switzerland to Vezenobres in France (Roughly a 7 hour trip), then we rested for the night. From there, we drove down into Barcelona and met up with the team there, and rested again. ( 5 hour drive). We then took a bullet train from Barcelona to Madrid (4 hours) then slept at the Madrid airport in order to catch our 6 am flight. We flew from Madrid to Frankfurt (3 hours), then from Frankfurt to San Francisco (11 hours - ugh). Then we flew from SFO to Kona (6 hours), and collapsed under the weight of both our exhaustion, and our folly of ignoring our exhaustion.
So to summarize:
I drove a lot and flew a lot. A whole lot.
But I have chocolate. Oh, what chocolate do I have.
The chocolate is coming, dear friends - it is coming.
Hold fast, for the day will soon come when you can totally eat some of this Swiss chocolate that I got in Switzerland.
It is written, and so it shall be.
Now to bed for making not sleepy anymore.
Love you guys
-Dan
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