Our life in words and pictures.
You are currently browsing the Noel Green.com weblog archives for September, 2007.
We had a good time on iChat last night.
First, we talked to our good friend Jason Whaley. He showed us the movie he had just watched and I snapped a picture of it because it was so “posed” and funny!
Then we talked to Celeste’s parents. Their dog got right up into camera at one point as we were calling her name. It also made a great picture!
So, I just thought I’d share the two pictures…
We got a card in the mail from the Post Office, or possibly PitneyBowes, that talked about the “benefits” of using metered mail instead of stamps. It had a bunch of “reasons” listed on it, none of which were convincing to me at all.
Let’s look at them shall we?
So thanks metered mail people… but no thanks! I think we’ll stick with our faulty, over used, late arriving, cost prohibitive, amateur looking stamps. At least for now.
I’ve just run across this photo album from the Nazi’s Auschwitz death camp during WWII. If you’ve not seen it have a look. It’s from the Nazi’s point of view… so instead of bodies and death you see happy friends smiling, laughing, and having a grand old time. It’s very scary… or disturbing… or maybe just weird. I’m not exactly sure what I think of it actually… but I do know it’s important.
I think it’s important to see that these people were… well… people. They weren’t the “bad-guys” from the movies. They were people who had flaws just like you and me and had fallen so far into evil that they didn’t even worry that skulls were part of their uniforms. They were the blind being led by the blind. But they were still people, people in need of God’s grace.
It puts me in mind of Nineveh. While Nineveh was arguably the worst civilization in history (as far as cruelty and general evil) they too were still people… and God still loved them and wanted to see them saved.
I (like 99.9% of the world) am glad the Nazi’s were defeated in WWII. I’m thankful to God that He saw fit to destroy yet another “empire” that was set against Him. However, I believe that one of the great graces of God was shown in their defeat as well… the grace to allow a people as a whole to be redeemed from themselves. To give these people another chance. To allow their children, and their children’s children, to live on… in spite of the atrocities and horrors committed by their parents and grandparents… and even, to find forgiveness by the children of those who were not smiling at Auschwitz.
What a great and merciful God we serve!
Using the following simple algebraic equation you will be able to make a perfect sandwich everytime!
x + y + n = perfect sandwich
Where “x” = bread, “y” = condiments, and “n” = meat(s) and /or contents.
Don’t believe me?
Next time you’re wanting a sandwich try using this equation! You’ll find out that it works every single time!
Now I know what my high school algebra teacher meant by, “You’re going to need this in the real world.“
The old saying, “It’s funny ’cause it’s true,” is certainly true. Things that are often the funniest are things that are often the truest. It’s why sitcoms like Seinfeld do so well and why people like Larry David are such comic geniuses. The shows are based on truth and he knows exactly how to key in on that! So yes, “It’s funny ’cause it’s true,” is true… but, just because something is true doesn’t make it funny.
Take, for example, the cartoon on Freelance Switch. Now don’t misunderstand me (comic creator dude) it is a great comic! Incredibly well drawn, very insightful, even makes me think, “Yep…” sometimes, but, it’s never really funny.
I put this in the same category as The Family Circus (which I honestly hope was never meant to be funny). Both comment on things that are very true about life. One about life in the freelance world, the other about life in a family. Both are very well done. Both even have few frames… never more than 3 on average. But neither of them are really funny.
I think people forget the real reason why things are funny. They’re funny because they’re funny! That’s it. Nothing more. The truth of something is only a side-note. I doubt Larry David tries to think of TRUE things to then write jokes about… he thinks of FUNNY things that also happen to be true. He’s not pigeon holed into one genre of circumstances… the reason so many comics end up failing. He has the whole world to comment on, and he does it wonderfully!
So… next time you think something will be funny because it’s true… stop, sit down, count to ten, then eat some chicken.
So it seems that NBC is possibly leaving Apple for Amazon. This is because Amazon will allow them to sell their shows for more, and / or sell them at discounted rates, where as Apple’s iTunes will only allow the set price. Seth Godin has (of course) a great article about this on his blog, but I wanted to touch on it some here from my point of view.
The thing is NBC still believes that they are “NBC“… like the “must see TV” NBC… well, they’re not, not to us at least. Sure, we like the Office, and we liked Heroes okay, but the thing is we don’t watch TV. We are a 100% iTunes household. Sure, we buy seasons of shows we love on DVD (sometimes) but, for the most part, if it’s not on iTunes we don’t watch it. Movies from Netflix and TV from iTunes… that’s it.
The fact is, no matter how much we might “save” on an NBC show from Amazon, we most likely will never buy one from them. The iTunes interface and method has already won us over completely. We’ve TRIED to watch things on other venues, including LOST on ABC’s site, but nothing compares to iTunes. No matter how good the shows are, or how much we might “miss” them, we can, and are willing to, simply not watch them anymore.
So we may be saying “bye-bye” to NBC… or more correctly stated, NBC may simply be saying “bye-bye” to us.
Well, Apple announced yesterday that they are cutting the price of the iPhone by$200. Of course this meant that hundreds of thousands of people started complaining that they had to pay more for their iPhone than everyone else is going to.
It reminds me of the parable of the vineyard workers. People are mad that they got exactly what they wanted for exactly what they agreed to pay for it.
Were they complaining for the last two months? No. Did you hear anyone say, “I got a new iPhone and it ROCKS! If only I could’ve saved $200 on it.” No. In fact, everyone that has an iPhone has (in my experience) done nothing but defend the $599 price tag. They have done nothing but proudly show it off and rest every night in the fact that they spent their money well.
However, Apple is one of those rare companies that isn’t satisfied with simply satisfying their customers. They want to do more than is expected and more than, in many cases, they should “have” to do. So, today Steve Jobs issued this letter explaining that everyone who paid the higher price for the iPhone and bought it early will be getting $100 of Apple credit. Wow! That is amazing! It makes companies like NBC, who are pulling content from iTunes because they “claim” to want to charge more for their shows (their stupid mistake in my humble opinion), look pretty pathetic. Apple understands what getting customers, and keeping them, means. It’s much more than providing an awesome product… it’s living up to a reputation.
By the way… my brother Jason, who waited all day in line and got his iPhone at the “expensive” price, said it was still well worth the original $599 price tag.
For a while now I’ve been seeing a personal tutor for my Arabic, Henrietta Romma. She was / is awesome! But for me, a tutor wasn’t working so I’ve stopped seeing her.
If you’re learning a language getting a personal tutor is something that you’ll have to decide on, or against, yourself. For me, and the way I learn, I do much better on my own. When I was being tutored I fell into the mindset of, “Monday is my Arabic lesson.” So I found my personal study slowly slipping, because my Arabic lesson was on Mondays. Since I’ve stopped seeing her my personal study has gone back to once a day… and things are moving forward again.
Pacing is something else you have to know about yourself when you’re learning a new language. I think everyone wants to learn it fast! But it’s better to learn it well. For me learning from a tutor was almost too fast. There will be time when I certainly need someone that knows the language to practice and speak with, but I wasn’t there yet.
