Archive for the 'Rant' Category

A church-sponsored butt kicking?

Published
by
Todd
on Wednesday, July 9, 2008
in Christianity and Rant
. 11 Comments

He loves you with the love of the Lord.There’s this church somewhere that had their children’s ministry trailer stolen. This isn’t the first case of a church having a mobile storage unit pilfered, but the way Revolution Church’s pastor is dealing with it is quite interesting disgusting. Here’s what he said at his blog:

First let me say, God loves you. Second let me say we forgive you. We really don’t want to forgive you, but God says we should so we do. Third of all I want you to know that I think you are scum bags. I think you are lowlife degenerates who need a good butt kicking. Matter of fact I feel so strongly about the fact that you need a good butt kicking that I am volunteering to do it. I hope you believe in God because you should get on your knees and cry out to Him like never before because if we find you, I can promise we will kick the crap out of you. It won’t be pretty, it won’t be over quickly, and it will be very painful. I know that doesn’t sound very nice but I feel pretty strongly that is what you need.

I am curious what kind of lowlife you must be? Trust me, I have been around some pretty low ones before but never one that would be so low as to steal from a church. I understand you probably need some crack or something like that but stealing from a church would scare me. It would scare me more once I realized which church I stole it from. We are probably the only church you have ever heard of that will honestly break your legs once you are found.

Let me say again that we DO forgive you. But there are still consequences for your sin and your consequence will be toting a butt kicking. It is obvious you aren’t very smart so let me give you some advice. Get that trailer out of the county QUICK. As soon as I hit publish on this blog post a church of about 1000 crazy people will know that our black, children’s trailer has been stolen and I can promise they will be on the lookout for it. You would much rather me find you then one of them. :)

I suppose slapping the emoticon on the end is supposed lighten up what he’s saying?

I thought I had a pretty good sense of humor, but I can’t tell if this guy is serious or not. Either way, this post is a bad idea. It’s not funny – it’s creepy. It’s not loving. It’s not Christ-like. It’s not right.

He has already posted an “explanation.” He says he’s not angry, but he would like to punch the guy in the mouth. Right. He doesn’t sound angry. I sometimes punch people I’m not mad at too, just to make a point.

In moments like these, I just want to pack in the whole organized Christianity thing. It’s failed. We’ve failed. People aren’t being transformed. We act just like everybody else. Even the “leaders*” fail to act like the One they preach about. It makes me want to kick some butts.

But I’m not angry. :)

Here’s hoping I read an inspirational story of inspiration about some church saving the lives of thousands of children today.

What do YOU think?
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(h/t: Church Marketing Sucks)

*For the record, I don’t think that ALL leaders fail to act like Jesus, nor do I think Revolution Church’s pastor is representative of the whole of organized Christian leadership.

Taxes, taxes, taxes

Published
by
Todd
on Monday, March 24, 2008
in Politics and Rant
. 8 Comments

So, as I emotionally prepare for a Democratic president, I have some question for my readers:

  1. Who is going to pay for socialized medicine?
  2. Do you think capital gains and dividend taxes are fair? (I hope you answered number one first!)
  3. Are you supportive of having 50% or more of your income and profits confiscated?
  4. Do you think I’m overreacting?

Happy Monday everyone!
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Creative Commons License photo credit: Stillframe

Death to PowerPoint

Published
by
Todd
on Thursday, March 13, 2008
in PowerPoint and Rant
. 3 Comments

I hate PowerPointI’m sure that there is a post similar to mine somewhere else out in the blogosphere, but I feel the need to share my frustration with Microsoft’s standard-setting presentation software, PowerPoint.

I’ll wager that a large number of you – nay even all – have used PowerPoint at some time in your life, either for a school or business presentation, worship service or to create a choose-your-own-adventure game. Maybe for you, PowerPoint meets all your presentation needs.

But it doesn’t meet mine. And here’s why:

  1. The freakin’ grid. Have you ever tried to line up two pictures manually in PowerPoint? It’s practically impossible. Everything is on this invisible grid, which seems to be built of five-pixel squares. What’s odd is the grid isn’t in a fixed position. Two pictures can be on two completely different grids. So when you’ve got a series of pictures that you want on a straight line, you have to use the auto-align function, which can take a number of extra clicks if you’ve got the “relative to slide” button clicked under the auto-align menu.
  2. Fonts aren’t embedded. I work on a Mac. The rest of the business world works on a PC. A large number of fonts (read: most) don’t play well across platforms. For example, those of you who read my blog on a PC aren’t seeing the true beauty of my blog. I use a font called “Gill Sans” – a Mac-standard font that must be added manually (or purchased) for use on most PCs – for my body copy. This is a bad practice in blog-building, as I’m creating a style around a small number of readers, but the font makes me happy. Anyway, when I create a presentation I have to use standard fonts, just to make sure the slide will be readable no matter the platform.
  3. Junky animations. PowerPoint has a large animation library, which sounds good in theory. Unfortunately, a large number of those animations should never – I repeat NEVER – be used in any type of professional or academic presentation. This complaint has less to do with my using PowerPoint and more to do with my having to view PowerPoint presentations. Don’t even give people the option to drop their words in letter-by-letter Microsoft!
  4. Doesn’t play well with movies. Why do I still have to manually link movies? At least give me the option to embed them in my presentation. That way if the movie gets thrown away or filed elsewhere, it doesn’t break my show.
  5. The option to insert clipart is higher than the option to insert a picture from file. Clip art must, must, must die, but Microsoft has refused to remove the bitmaps’ life supports. Beyond that, MS seems to be promoting the silly cartoony-things by including their clip art gallery with Office. There are two surefire ways to make your presentation look amateurish: silly animations (see point 3) and clipart. PowerPoint should take their industry-standard responsibility seriously and help lead people to create professional presentations.

So what am I to do? I can’t really use Keynote because it doesn’t allow me to create cross-platform presentations (let me know if I’m wrong). MediaShout doesn’t really seem to be an appropriate tool for my needs (let me know if I’m wrong). SongShow Plus is designed specifically for worship and has features that I would never use (let me know if I’m wrong).

Ah Microsoft. Your products create such joy for your users.

Anything you need to rant about this Thursday?
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Embarrassed on behalf of my sex

Published
by
Todd
on Tuesday, August 21, 2007
in Rant
. 1 Comment

Doh!There is a man who works in our building who is unfriendly to my fellow, male co-workers and me. He doesn’t really acknowledge our presence aside from a head nod or a brief “hello.”

This same man, lights up in an animated grin the moment he spots one of our female co-workers. “Hello! How are you? Good to see you!” he exclaims (he literally exclaims!).

My fellow, female coworker is aware of this discrepancy of treatment and is both grossed and freaked out.

Why is the male sex so stupid? Why do we, at the first sighting of an attractive female, lose all sense of propriety and decency? Why do we continue treating women as playthings or objects to be conquered?

It is disgusting, and as for me, I apologize to any female if I ever made you uncomfortable, freaked or grossed out. I apologize if my desire for your acknowledgment and approval caused me to act in a way that was offensive or even impolite to you as a person.

Men, let’s start treating women with respect, grace and humility. Let’s start treating women like we would want our wives or daughters to be treated. Let’s start looking at women with the eyes of Jesus – that is seeing them for who they are, not what we can gain from them.

Have a good, respect-filled Tuesday.