Wacky

Creative Juices

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:01:00 +0000

Thanks to Dave and Kevin for passing this one on to me.

Get your creative juices flowing?

ANGRIEST POODLE IN THE WORLD

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:26:00 +0000

Along with last week's bucket full of puppies the little pet store in the Pueblos de Dominicana had this charming little critter.

While it seems to be indeed the angriest poodle in the world, it was in fact a very sweet little dog having a bad hair day.

Bucket full of puppies

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:47:00 +0000

Bucket full of puppies

While traveling to South America I went to the Pueblos de Dominicana in Santiago, Chile.

They have everything.

Wood carvers, jewelry stores, t-shirt shops, and a ton of local craft-type shops.

They also have a pet shop. The pet shop had a bucket full of puppies.

Also - now I have a story that starts, "So I was on this plane full of Argentinian Super Models." The story doesn't really get any better than that, but it sure starts great.

Technology Impaired

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:16:00 +0000

Apparently I'm technology impaired. It took me a an hour to figure this one out. The bellboy in my hotel (Montevideo, Uruguay) didn't give me the heads up. That's fine, I'm usually a pretty smart guy. Not today.

The light switches in the hotel don't work!

What's this salad?

ohhhh.... you put your room key in here and then all the light switches work. Nice.

Yeah, I totally want that for my apartment now. That's just too brilliant! It saves so much energy that the US will clearly never adopt such a thing.

Phone cards on a leash

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:33:00 +0000

Phone cards on a leash

I spent 10 hours in the Miami Airport today on my way to Montevideo, Uruguay to speak. I'm excited about the trip, but not the 5 hours on this side of security, and then 5 hours on the other side. Fortunately, I was able to work from a lounge next to the luggage shrink-wrapper.

Am I naive to think that I don't need my luggage ensconced in blue glad-wrap to survive the trip? These guys do a bustling business, so I must be crazy.

Meanwhile - there are international phone card machines everywhere. This guy lead his along by a leash. We definitely don't want that phone card machine out running amok!

Curses to the Miami Airport for removing the stamp machines so I couldn't mail cards and letters. They did leave the mail boxes out though. Really? Yes, apparently 9/11 created a state of fear, not about what people might put into letter boxes, but that they might do legitimate mailing.

I blame the Amish - who, by the way, were in the Miami Airport in droves. How does that work?

Boxing Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:22:00 +0000

From the YouTube member's description:
This is what my cat does every time we watch boxing...

Thanks to Tara, who sent it to Sylvia, who sent it to me.

Historical Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:12:00 +0000

I normally don't link to or display content from The Onion because, while it's usually hilarious (read: wacky), it's also off-color enough that I don't feel right about including it.

This time I've got a good one thanks to my friend Paul.

Paul was kind enough to pass this article on to me - containing the video. I really recommend the article as well.

Mother Goose Rocks

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:07:00 +0000

As disturbing as Mother's Day was, Mother Goose Rocks takes it up a notch.

Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes by Mono with ME2

Good luck getting that out of your head.

Thanks Paul

Happy Mother's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Sun, 11 May 2008 05:01:00 +0000

My Mom sent this to me back in January. Turn your volume down before playing it. It's kinda loud.

Like the good son I am, I'm posting it for Mother's Day.

Dog tricks

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:46:00 +0000

My mom sent me a link to this dog tricks site.

Go visit and try some typical dog commands:
Speak
Rollover
Play dead
Jump
Fetch
and be sure to try - Kiss

Thanks Mom!

Volunteering Week

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:33:00 +0000

It's National Volunteering Week.
Seriously - it's a real thing. One of the organizations I work with runs a Christian Volunteering site called (surprisingly enough) ChristianVolunteering.org. We decided to make a video.

Visit ChristianVolunteering.org for more.

During the shooting and editing, the following expression popped up and I think I'll use it for my next Christmas Card.

Human Snake

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Thanks to the fun people at Get out and play .com we have this video of a human snake.

GO!

Expelled

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:02:00 +0000

I'm not a movie reviewer by trade, but I do go to a bunch of movies and I eat popcorn.

Tonight I went to see "Expelled", a documentary about the oppression of even the words "intelligent design" if used in academia, the press, or politics. It's a run-n-gun shoot showing Ben Stein interviewing leading scientists, thinkers and writers who have been fired, labeled, branded, and ostracized for mentioning intelligent design, along with dyed-in-the-wool Darwinist authors, teachers, and philosophers.
Big picture - Ben comes through the heavy Nazi, Communist, Berlin Wall, and Eugenics metaphors genuinely asking for open, free, debate on the topic of intelligent design as a way that Evolution (change over time) began.
My favorite detail - The Darwinists all agree, as did Darwin that life began with a single cell. There's disagreement on where the cell came from. One scientist postulated that the cells piggy-backed on crystals. Another agreed that one way the cell got here was through seeding by another intelligent race of aliens. Clearly, he believed in the possibility of intelligent design, but not the possibility of a Judeo-Christian designer. Aliens "Yes", God "No" - everyone got that? Yikes!

Transitive Pictograph Verbalizations

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:57:00 +0000

Oh you transitive pictograph verbalizations, how do we Y thee.
Thanks to TorsoPants for the tee shirt.

Narcoleptic Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:58:00 +0000

Everyone, meet Boone.
Boone, this is everyone.

Boone is a narcoleptic cat.

Don't believe me? - click on the picture of Boone to watch him pass out. It's hilarious.

Meanwhile, Boone has a day job.
Boone works at Kitty Wigs (dot com)

Seriously - kitty wigs.
Is that really necessary?

Garfield Minus Garfield

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:10:00 +0000

This is Garfield genius!
What's better than a random Garfield comic strip?
Why a Garfield comic strip without the Garfield.

Meet Garfield minus Garfield.

Thanks Tol!

A Monkey Washing A Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:18:00 +0000

Yep... a monkey washing a cat.

Happy Fish Day

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:09:00 +0000

The French call April 1, Poisson d'Avril - or literally translated "The Fish of April". Traditionally, school children tape a picture of a fish onto the back of a schoolmate who then cries out "Poisson d'Avril!" when they discover they've been, as Ashton says, "Punked."

Here on the Wacky page, April 1 is a bit like Christmas. I look forward to the variety of hoaxes perpetrated by some great pranksters out there. Last year's Google hoax was particularly fun.

This year, I had the fun of setting up a little something that goes live on April 1.

I'm supervising a weekly blog for the community I manage as part of my work and we blog every Tuesday. This week, Tuesday happens to be April 1, so I couldn't resist. The posts are usually about what's happening in the community, with our members, or internet ministry in general. Over the last few months we've been phasing out one site: Gospelcom.net in favor of Gospel.com and next month we're taking the old site down entirely and pointing it to the new one. The new site has been incredibly successful so far. How successful?

Here's the gist of the blog...
Since Gospel.com has been so successful Google might buy us out. The Gospel.com brand name is so valuable that we're going to offer some services with the Gospel.com identity; services like Gospel.com email - or Gmail for short. We've even launched a new website showing the merger of Gospel.com and Google - Googspel. Of course that prospect is ludicrous and Google has no interest in the Gospel, let alone Gospel.com. I realize that for most people it's not all that funny, but to us it's hilarious.

The thing about trying to reach people for Jesus is that sometimes people see it as just a big April Fools Day joke. The rug's been pulled out from under them so many times that they can't trust people. When someone says that they love me, I tend to shy away. And if they tell me that they are going to love me, that makes me even more nervous.

But here's what I've learned. People fail. People fail all the time. I fail ALL THE TIME. I fail my friends, my family, my employer, the ministries for which I'm responsible. I mess up ALL THE TIME. It took me the better part of my life to figure out that God doesn't mess up, doesn't let me down, and doesn't fail. God is exactly who he says he is.

Our own histories and experience with people have skewed our perception of who God is, but when you really read what he says about himself, it's a very different picture than what we've thought for so long. Our culture has been throwing us a red herring for years about God. It's time that we pull that fish off of our backs and yell, "Poisson d'Avril!" one last time, and go see who Jesus really is.

No fooling!

Happy Fish Day!

Are you paying attention?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:42:00 +0000

Test your visual acuity with this simple video test:

Today is Good Friday - it's a day that we post-modern, millennial, post-literate Christians tend to overlook when we're not looking for it. We tend to miss the miracle that's just around the corner. If it's never been explained to you before, I'm going to take a really quick crack at this.

Jesus, who lived not just a good life, but a perfect life, died. He died in the most horrible way that the most brutal culture ever to walk the planet could imagine. Then, after he was buried for a couple of days, he got up and walked out of his tomb. No one ever did that before, and no one has done it since. Afterwards he ate and drank with his friends, thousands of people witnessed him walking around living and breathing. He's still alive right now. The best and worst part of this for me was that he did it on purpose. He knew that because of the rules of the universe, someone had to put things right between us (me) and God. The only way to do that was through a sacrifice like this. His act of selfless love tore down the wall between me (us) and God and now we can live directly with him in our lives, without fear. Today is Friday when we remember his death, his sacrifice, and the huge pileup of everything we've ever done against each other, ourselves, and against God. On Sunday, we'll remember that in one moment everything changed.

It's Friday, but Sunday is coming.

Let me know if you want to know more: brianatkinson [at] mirthmobile [dot] com

Does it really?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:43:00 +0000

Does it really?

I used to drive by this sign all the time and it made me laugh.

Seriously? It Works?
What works? I imagine their sales pitch going something like this...

"Hi, this is Brian from It Works Marketing. I was wondering if you had any marketing needs that It Works Marketing could take care of today."

"No, we don't have any graphic designers."
"No, we don't have any one who has any marketing training or anything."
"No, we don't actually have any experience."
"What do we do? Well, we recently bought a box of sticky letters that we could use to put on a sign out in front of your place."

"No... we don't have any Goo-Gone to help wipe off the adhesive from the previous sign."

Yeah - something like that.

Fred and Sharon's Movies

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:59:00 +0000

Holy Crap!

Yep... holy crap!

That's all I've got to say about this one.
Thanks Steve.

OK - I've got more.
If you go to Fred and Sharon's website you can view that video and if you're feeling particularly masochistic, you can pay $1 Canadian to see more. Anyone willing to shell out the Loonie and write a review?

Jump in - the water's fine

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:53:00 +0000

When some people decide to follow Jesus, it's all at once and they jump right in.

(wait for the second kid)

Others have more of a process they need to go through and some have to put a toe in the water first.

When God brought His people to the land that He promised them, he said,

"When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river."
Joshua 3

Once they did, God parted the water in the river, just like He did earlier in the big migration story - parting the Red Sea. God spent 40 years teaching a people that they needed to trust Him. When he got them where they needed to be, he asked them to take the critical step in faith.

I'm not the first person to say this - but to me it seems that if you go and read that whole story, God wants us to trust Him and not ourselves. He wants us to leave our "good sense" behind and go jump in the river (lake).

What do you think? (read the story first)

Thanks to my Mom for sending me the video.

Bear with me

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:44:00 +0000

Some fantastic bear moments from around the internet:

1) from Jonathan: Bear Rescued on Donner Pass Bridge

2) Stephen Colbert hates bears
Flickr Group
official site

3) Bear with me a moment - from xkcd.com
Thanks to my brother Chris for getting me hooked on that one.

and just because I can't resist another Stephen Colbert moment:

Screen Cleaner

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:58:00 +0000

So we ran out of screen cleaning wipes at my office the other day and our purchasing department got us a replacement.

Please consider donating to Gospel Communications so we can either get some real screen cleaners or feed this little guy.

Thanks to Jon for that one.

Even better when you watch it in your browser. For best cleaning be sure to maximize your window.

What's a Gygax?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Atkinson) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:52:00 +0000

Maybe you heard that Gary Gygax died.
Maybe you're saying, "Brian, that's awful. Who's Gary Gygax?"
Maybe you're in the first stage of grief, denial.

I tend to move along pretty quickly.

Here are 16 jokes about Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, that you'd better not make. There's an internet full of nerds who will get out their vorple blade and... oh man.

1. “Quick! Someone cast Raise Dead!”
2. “Don’t worry – he’s just play-testing the Astral Plane for the next edition.”
3. “He’s gone the way of Star Frontiers.”
4. “Analysts warn of a free-fall in Mountain Dew futures.”
5. “In the next town, you meet a stranger named Barry Bygax.”
6. “Now who will lead our young people to Satan?”
7. “With his last breath, he cursed the name of Marlon Wayans.”
8. “I wonder how they’ll divide up his XP.”
9. “Pallbearers, make a Bend Bars/Lift Gates roll.”
10. "At least he didn't live to see Disney's Greyhawk On Ice."
11. “Lorraine Williams is behind this somehow, I just know it.”
12. “The worlds of adventure gaming, fantasy fandom, and van painting will never be the same.”
13. “When I heard, I cried 2d10 tears.”
14. “Is there anything in the will about electrum?”
15. “Heart condition? Wow, I always thought it’d be owlbears that got him.”
16. “Suddenly, nobody in Heaven wants to hang out with Marilyn Monroe on Friday night.”

Thanks to Woot.com for that