miss your windows start menu?

Now here’s one I didn’t know… drag your applications folder icon into the dock, between the trash can and the divider line. Now, click and hold it for a second. Presto! There’s a complete listing of all your programs. Very useful.

VW Thing

I have a new infatuation. It’s the VW Thing. I’ve loved them for years, and had all but forgotten about it until my bro mentioned them last Sunday night when we were hanging out. Now I’m looking. Anyone out there know of a good VW Thing for sale?

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I’m currently trolling thesamba.com and ebay.com… getting an idea of what’s available, pricing, etc. Now, of course, this infatuation may pass (much like my short-lived desire for a pinhole camera), but it may not. In any regard, don’t laugh when I pull up in an orange box of sheet metal passing as a car.

Mario Wagner

Mario Wagner. Oh mmmhmmm. Seriously. MmmHmmm.

baptism

As previously mentioned, a quick photo from the NewSpring Baptism… with all four Wilsons in the pool at the same time!

Lost, wind up into next year…

So there’s one more (2-hour) Lost in season 3. It’s been an amazing show, really. Yes, it got slow at the beginning of this season, but let’s just call that either setup or a speed bump, it’s still a remarkable show. The intricate plot, likable characters, rich (or confusingly frustrating, your call) back story. There’s a lot going on. I really enjoyed tonight’s episode, and can’t wait to start reading the observations from around the web. The Looking Glass station… so who’s down there? Does Juliet know more than she let on? Or is Ben keeping them in the dark. And how does the staff get there? The sub? Swim?

Meg did comment, and I agree, that the “Desmond knows Charlie’s going to die and saves his life” subplot is getting a bit tired. That needs to resolve one way or another.

Still, great show. Bummer the next 3 seasons will only be 16 episodes each, and they’ll start after the next year. I can spend the next 8 months catching up on other things, like sleep.

Stardust / Presidenitti

This piece by Stardust makes we crave coffee, or at least mad 3d skillz. Beautiful, flowing work. The result of many, many hours. Do appreciate.

Streets piece.

You saw the comp from the other week… here’s a special “web cut” of the Streets Have no Name piece performed at NewSpring two weeks ago. For those unfamiliar with the auditorium, it is currently covered with thousands of names, names written by friends and family of those they would like to see saved. If you were at Unleash, you saw the walls. Here we have photography of every single name (some showed on a different screen in the center of stage, visible on the newspring.cc streaming video cast), video footage of true lives saved at NewSpring, some fantastic car-mounted camera work, and a great team effort. I’ve heard of at least one person who was saved when they saw their name on the screen.

That is reward enough.

Thanks to everyone who worked on this one, especially the thousands of attenders who contributed a signature. Collaborative the in the truest sense of the word.

Streets (30MB, Quicktime)

Reel Life comp 01

Just a little comp from the Reel Life open, still very much a work in progress.

Great weekend

It’s been a great weekend. Baptism, as previously mentioned, was Saturday and was awesome. Friday, Meg had an official tea party and I played the role of Coco, the Tea Monkey… serving tea and playing waiter. It was fun. I like that my wife is keep the traditions like formal entertaining alive.

For Mother’s Day, Jason and I cooked dinner for our Mom and wives. (all mothers). For them, burgers on the grill. For Meg and I, portabello mushrooms on the grill.

We had a family reunion to attend on Saturday… plenty of fried chicken and pasta salad to go around. And on Sunday at NewSpring, we gave away a house to a single mom in our congregation. It was awesome. Be sure to catch the streaming video of her story on Tuesday at newspring.cc.

That about wraps it up, except for the movie run down. We caught Music and Lyrics. Good flick, not great. I did appreciate the cheeky 80s references, and the feeling that I was looking inside a pop star’s life. The romance portion was just about predictable, but makes a great date movie. And the Cora stereotype was hilarious. We also watched 10 Items or Less, which is a wonderful 4.5 / 5 star effort in my book. Now, you have to like indie-style movies and people parodying themselves (which Morgan Freeman does remarkably well), but I recommend it.

Extreme Makeover

The video package was a little different for the Extreme Makeover message… a few clean, simple elements and a ton of produced, TV-like video (which will be available Tuesday on newspring.cc).

Extreme Makeover open (0.8 MB)

We did run a quick promo for the next series, Reel Life (Reel Life Promo).

newspring baptism.

Tonight was NewSpring baptism (pictures to follow). My brother, Jason, and I had the honor of baptizing our parents. They joined NewSpring about 6 months ago and both came from denominational backgrounds that didn’t baptize by immersion. So, tonight they took the plunge (literally).

church branding

Jonathan Herron has a great little blurb about the importance of church branding.

We earn permission to be heard… and the Message we have is the hope of the world.

Lost end date?

Looks like the Lost end date is being discussed. My prediction, 2 more seasons… end it in five seasons.

So, what did we think of last night? I’m more scared of Ben now than I’ll ever. And the Jacob thing freaked me out a bit… anyone have any insight on who he is? We agreed today that we’re really liking Sawyer more these days. And they’ve mentioned they’ll be killing off 5 cast members by the end of the season. Who do you predict? So much to think about, aren’t you glad network TV is good again?

UPDATE: Thanks, Jonathan, for the info. Here is the Lost Easter Eggs blog with some detailed info, especially these close up pictures of Jacob.

work and guitars

It’s been continues to be a busy week for us. That said, you can expect an awesome Mother’s Day at NewSpring. Come. Bring your mama. Enjoy.

I just finished watching last night’s Heroes. Still good, maybe not as intense as last week. Nice job keeping the mystery up… who blows up? Peter, Silar, Ted? It’s anyone’s game.

Last night, my wife was enjoying the Katherine Hepburn marathon on TCM, so I decided to break out my as-of-late neglected Strat and the POD. It is bliss, and I’ll be doing that more often. I forget how much I love playing guitar. I searched the web for a quick picture of my Strat for you, but it’s unusual enough that I couldn’t find one. (it’s a Fender American Double Fat Strat, tobacco sunburst, strung through, if you must know).

I spent some time picking out Wolfmother (listen) riffs and relearning the first part of “Drown” (listen) by the Smashing Pumpkins (from the Singles soundtrack… highly recommended). Never could get that 8-minute feedback solo right, though. It did remind me of a kid in college who bought a Mutron Biphase, supposedly “THE” pedal that set the Pumpkin’s sound.

Also got some colored 3×5 cards for my hipster today. (Thanks, Chip, for the starter cards… now I have a full collection). I haven’t had time to organize them yet, but I did take time last night to read some more of Getting Things Done, and I’m learning how to properly organize a “project”.

Tomorrow, it’s off to shoot some media for an upcoming series, Reel Life. Uncut. Uncensored. What’s it all about? You’ll have to wait and see.

iPhone abilities

iPhone. Edit video? Noooo. Seriously? Noooo.
(can I cancel my Verizon contract now?)

UPDATE: Yes, this is a scam. But it would be cool if it were true.

AV Club blog favorites 01

It’s time the AV Club starts a weekly feature. Why? Why not, I say. From a question in the comments last week, I’ll start to share each Monday a blog / news site that I read religiously. First, I should mention again that you should consider using an RSS reader like Bloglines (or Google Reader, though bloglines is my favorite) to track sites. The benefit? A central location to get all of your news, and it only tells you about the articles you have not read yet. (and for the truly tech’d-out, you can read bloglines on your cell phone, too, with their wonderful mobile version).

Today, I feature Etcetering Fresh Design. I love that this site includes large photos of its design / artistic posts. Plus, I’m currently a sucker for faux wood grain. From their about page:

This blog it’s called etcetera. And it’s ours as it is yours, also. If you are into graphic- design- post- consumerism- retro- futurology- how- it- looks- area, you’ll certainly like visiting us for your daily-design-dose!

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They post great images, and feed the site frequently with all sorts of interesting (though strange) stuff. I noticed, too, that they have a rating system for their posts. I’ve never used this, but it’s an interesting idea.

vacation wrap up

I’ve been enjoying some R&R time with my family the past few days. But you’d never know it, huh, as I had my blog remote posting a backlog of links for you (sneaky, huh? Notice that last post… mentioning Saturday and all… just like a Kansas City Shuffle). Anyway, I’ll write more later but I think this says it all:

or this one (yes, the child’s eating sand. Did I stop it? No. I just grabbed the camera):

Spiderman (by bunnies)

Happy Saturday morning! As episode 3 is coming out soon, how about Spiderman, as acted by bunnies.

sumo name

If I were a sumo wrestler, I think I would go by “Rotunda.” Just a thought. What would your sumo name be?

designer’s sketchbooks.

A set of photos… designer’s sketchbooks. Each has its own personality, much like the designers themselves.