Holiday Meals and the Curse of Mediocrity

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and as we gather together with wonderful cheer, I see something awful at the table as I draw near. It’s something so bland and dry that it fills me with fear, and just the thought of its depressing flavorlessness summons a tear. I look at the other food with joy and love, and knowing I’ll at least have something to get my fill of. Because you see, the main course is so dreadful it hurts me, and all the sides full of flavor can’t make up for the turkey. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas: two of the biggest holidays in the US where families gather and celebrate with a feast. Christmas is my favorite holiday. It’s warm, cozy, and full of wonderful joy and amazing flavors like peppermint chocolate and eggnog. Then, on Christmas day, I get to enjoy the beautiful splendor that is Christmas dessert: pies, haystacks, cakes, and those amazingly underrated little peanut butter cookies with the Hershey’s kiss in the middle (personal favorite). But in the middle of both dessert times, there is the main feast, and usually that feast is centered around the bird: turkey. On this beautiful, wonderful, amazing, heartwarming holiday with family, we eat the blandest, dryest, most boring food in the world. Turkey is like the white bread of birds, the Adam Sandler of fowl, the Dallas Cowboys of holiday food, the Jason Statham of dishes; you know it’ll always be there to perform, but it’s not going to be anything special. It’s just…there. Like opening up Netflix and saying, “Oh, another Adam Sandler movie. Is that new, or are they just advertising it again?” And then you inevitably talk yourself into watching it because for some reason you think it’ll be comparable to Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore, and instead you get The Cobbler. Yikes.

So why… WHY do we settle for this bland bird? I know people will argue with me about this saying things like, “Oh you just haven’t had it cooked the right way!” or “You haven’t had it how my family cooks it” And they’re absolutely correct, I haven’t had it cooked the right way because there isn’t a right way to cook a turkey and make it less bad because that’s borderline impossible. I’ve been eating turkey for 27 years; I’ve had it almost every way that you can cook it, and I’ve even had turducken, which is far more enjoyable to say than it is to eat. I also haven’t had it how their family cooks it because, well, I’m with my family and eating it the way they cook it. But I’ll even cut it some slack here: fried turkey is good… enough. It’s not amazing; it’s just good. There, the best turkey I’ve ever had was just good. You know what’s better than good turkey? Okay chicken, decent brisket, meh gumbo, and even 5/10 jambalaya. Heck, I’d even take chicken strips over good turkey. 

And I think many of you feel the same way, even if you’re scared to admit it like it’s akin to telling your child you’ve been lying to them about Santa for their entire life. I know this because, throughout my years of quietly hating turkey, I have observed something interesting about everyone’s holiday plates: there’s not much turkey on there. When there is, that person has inevitably piled an equal amount of cranberry sauce onto their plate because the TURKEY IS SO DRY THAT IT NEEDS A SAUCE TO MAKE IT PALATABLE. What I see on everyone’s plate instead of a lot of turkey is a ton of amazing sides because they are always more reliable than the turkey itself. Think about that next time you’re at a meal with turkey and you’re getting excited over the ham, the mac ‘n cheese, the green bean casserole, and the sweet potato casserole more so than the “main course.” Are you really excited for the turkey? Or excited for what it brings? Like when payday falls on a Monday: I’m not excited for a Monday, but I know I’m happy for what’s coming. 

Additionally, turkey is such a pain to prepare and cook. It can take anywhere from 3-5 days just to thaw a turkey. DAYS! Then, let’s say you have a small 8-12 pound turkey: after 5 days of thawing it, you then have to cook it for up to 3 hours. So after 5 days and 3 hours of preparation, you get a wonderfully bland and dry course of disappointment for all to pretend to enjoy. You know how many chickens you can cook in that time? 70. It takes approximately 123hrs to prepare a turkey and only 1hr and 40mins to prepare a baked chicken. Why do we put ourselves through so much for mediocrity when we could do so much less work for so much better? And it is allowed: you can have Thanksgiving without turkey. I know it’s a radical idea, but I’ve seen it in action. After a wonderful Cajun Thanksgiving feast with some of my in-laws, I convinced my grandma to cut the turkey from the meal altogether and just make food we enjoy. She did, and it was wonderful. We had gumbo, jambalaya, etouffee, and whatever else we wanted. What a wild concept: eating your favorite foods on a joyful day of celebration rather than settling for some bland meal because it’s tradition. 

But go ahead, eat all the turkey you want. In fact, please eat all of it so there’s none left for my family gatherings. But don’t feel like you have to, and please stop lying to me about how amazing it is. It’s not. There’s better options. We don’t have to settle for mediocrity, and we shouldn’t during the most wonderful time of year. 

Philly’s Pizza: The Gas Station Jewel of CenLA

I often hear a lot of people talk trash about CenLA, and usually a lot of that is coming from myself. And I understand why: there’s not a lot to do around here. Everything’s closed by 8pm except Pitt Grill, IHOP, and Taco Bell (forgive me if I’m forgetting one or two more, or get over it). There’s only one movie theater and, thanks to COVID, there’s barely that and most of the other things are either closed or just difficult to physically go to. As someone who has lived here for 24 of my 27 years on earth I completely understand the frustrations that come with living here. However, I wanted to shed some light on some of my favorite things here. One thing I hear many people complain about is our food scene. If you’re one of the people constantly complaining about our lack of food, I need you to stop for awhile, try out some of my suggestions, and then you can decide to go on complaining and being miserable here or (OR) you can be happy with a few nice things. 

I’ll write about a few different places around town over the course of I don’t know how long because I don’t know if I’ll even keep doing this so bear with me (not “bare with me” because that’s disgusting). These places have brought me tremendous amounts of joy (and calories) and I’m hoping they’ll do the same for you. I’ll start with one of my favorite jewels: Philly’s.

One of my favorite life-moments happened when I was a freshman in college. I convinced my friends to come with me to checkout Philly’s, a place I sold them on by explaining how it has my favorite Philly cheesesteak in the entire world: a dauntingly large monstrosity of a sandwich which overflows with cheese, meat (I always add pepperonis to mine; you’re welcome), onions, peppers, carbs, and not mushrooms because I am a child and can’t stand them. We pile in my car and make the extravagant trek from Louisiana College to Tioga and, after a tumultuous 5 minute journey, we arrive at our destination. As we pull up, one of my more pretentious foodie friends looks over at me with a look of disappointment that only he can deliver and says, “Really? A gas station? You’re bringing me to a a cheesesteak place in a gas station?” Shut up, Isaiah. 

Yes, Philly’s Pizza, the original location, is located in a gas station. It’s right off of a little road in Tioga, LA, which is a pretty small town. It’s tucked away and difficult to see unless you’re already in the gas station. The gas station is…a gas station. It’s not very beautiful, but oh how beautiful those Phillys are. There are no frills here; no beautiful seats or displays, just a mural on the wall paying homage to the city of brotherly love and the sandwiches descended from it (from the city, not the mural). In the end, Isaiah ate his words…and a philly cheesesteak…and a few slices of pizza as well as some of my pizza turnover. We forgot all about the surrounding gas station as the mountain of food whisked us away to a magical wonderland of pre-diabetes and joy. It was fantastic. Finally, after struggling to put our feast into various to-go boxes, we waddled back to the car and I managed to drive us back to LC where we all took naps. 

We went back to Philly’s many times before Isaiah moved back to Austin and he and I still bring it up every time we speak. Philly’s is one of those beautiful places that offers a small glimpse into the larger picture of the booming metropolis of Central Louisiana. Sure, it isn’t much to look at, but that’s part of the wonder and appeal of it. Something so small can offer so much, like a tiny gas station restaurant that makes a fantastic Philly cheesesteak which rivals those found in the city its named after. It really is the little things in life. Well…actually the Phillys are massive, but you understand. So next time you’re feeling pessimistic about CenLA and think about complaining about our food scene, go check out Philly’s instead. It’ll be much better for your mental health than pessimism, trust me.

My usual: A half pepperoni Philly, light on the peppers and onions. As previously stated, the Phillys here are massive, so the half Philly is the perfect way to go. It comes with an order of fries and is more than enough to fill me up, and I’m a growing young man. It’s less than $10 and is absolutely a great bang-for-your-buck deal, especially at lunch.

Christians and the Temptation of the Lesser of Two Evils

“Well, it’s the lesser of two evils I guess” is a phrase that I have heard come from the lips of Christians far too often, and this phrase seems especially common during election cycles. This attempt to justify what is often a bad choice, even in the eyes of the one who made it, is now seemingly more present than ever before in public discourse. Why? Where have we gotten this idea from? It’s certainly not in the bible, yet this idea is often presented in such a matter-of-fact way that you would think it came from some place of authority. However, I’m here to assert that the concept of a time existing wherein Christians can be okay with choosing the lesser of two evils is a dangerous and completely false one which the bible strongly condemns.

On the topic of evil, the bible is very clear: it’s bad. I’m sure all five of you reading this are very astonished by that. What’s possibly even less surprising is what the bible tells Christians to do when faced with evil: avoid it by any means possible. Let’s use Matthew 5:29-30 as a basis for this:

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

That’s strong language Jesus is using. He says if you’re confronted with temptation to the point that you can’t resist it: GOUGE OUT YOUR EYE AND CUT OFF YOUR HAND. Yes, this is likely figurative language, but the intensity of this hyperbole demonstrates how serious the point is. He doesn’t give the option of doing something less bad. In fact, he gives this notion as a condemnation of even the thought of sinning, which most people would see as harmless (it’s not). In no way does this passage even imply that it is okay to do something less evil than what you really want to do. It outright condemns sin. There is no lesser of two evils; there is just evil, and Christians must avoid it even if it means making sacrifices.

Paul elaborates on this in 1 Corinthians 10:13 when he says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” When a Christian is presented with temptation, it is not acceptable to choose the less sinful option. Paul makes that notion clear when he asserts that God will always provide a way of escape. However, Paul also makes it clear that God’s provision doesn’t make things easier; God isn’t providing an easy route out of a sticky situation. Rather, God provides a way for the Christian to endure it without sinning. In reality, this is usually the more difficult choice to make. It is far easier to choose the lesser of two evils than to endure or, as Jesus puts it, gouge out your own eye and cut off your hand, but the easier path doesn’t get you very far.

Now, we all know that people fall short. In fact, it is guaranteed that we will fall short and sin even as Christians and even with the ways God provides for us to avoid sinning. We still live in a sinful world with our sinful flesh. What I am condemning here is the active and open choice of many to advocate for the lesser of two evils as though it’s clearly the best thing for Christians to do—as though we have no other choice to uphold biblical Christianity than to make an evil choice that abandons our personal convictions for the sake of the greater good. That idea itself is antithetical to the Gospel and is extremely harmful to many Christians who look up to those that are advocating for that position, a position which might very well violate the conscience of one who (rightfully) does not feel okay choosing the lesser of two evils. And this violation of a brother’s conscience is also sinful, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8:12-13: “Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” Paul would rather give up a major part of his diet than violate his brother’s conscience. Please let that sink in. He took the feelings of his Christian brothers so seriously that he was willing to go to great extremes in order to help maintain their spiritual health and sanctity. 

So what does all of this mean for us in an election year? I have seen far too many Christians on both sides of the political spectrum making heinous claims like, “If you vote for ‘x’ then you aren’t a Christian” while supporting candidates who have far too many flaws to ignore. I get it, it can be so difficult to understand why someone disagrees with you, especially on issues you find so important. In fact, it’s one of the most difficult things for me to do, but I have had to grow to accept it. Because no matter how hard I try, I can’t change everyone’s mind, nor should I since I am often wrong. And on issues such as politics where there are so many gray areas which the bible does not directly address, this stance becomes even more challenging. But if you as a Christian are calling out others for the way they vote as though there is some clear-cut Christian candidate, then you are wrong, and you need to stop.

Many prominent Christians such as John Piper and Timothy Keller have already written articles about how Christians shouldn’t feel at home in either of the two major political parties, and I absolutely agree with them. However, there should be certain issues that each person sees as vital, and they should vote accordingly. This means voting according to your conscience. I need to remind you that although either a Democrat or a Republican will win this election, that does not mean that there are not other options for your vote. If you feel bad voting for either candidate, do not let others pressure you into doing so just because it’s inevitable that one of them will win. There are other options, and anyone telling you otherwise is lying. Your vote will count, and those who are trying to tell you that it won’t are just trying to get you to vote for their candidate. You do not have to choose between the lesser of two evils, and, in fact, it would be wrong to do so. 

You have other options; you can vote third party. If you don’t know anything about any of the candidates, isidewith.com has a very helpful quiz that can suggest a candidate for you based on your voting preferences. You can take that and do some research on your own to decide who you should vote for. I know doing your own research can be a lot of work, but it will be worth it if it means avoiding a future feeling of regret because you voted for someone you truly don’t agree with at all. And to those who are so insistent upon arguing with people on whom they should vote for: show some freaking grace like the Lord showed you. Calm down and realize that this is not the most important part of your life, as you usually prove during the three years following an election. We can have civil discussions about candidates, but let’s not allow those discussions to descend into insulting accusations of sin based upon voting preference. We both serve the same King, and this truth is far more important than the president we live under. 

“Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Romans 1:32

“He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.” Proverbs 17:15

The Year of Ted

You’ve missed out.

Well, you’ve probably missed out. And it’s understandable, because nobody wants to pay for another streaming service. I know I didn’t. Why would anyone who isn’t an Apple Stan want to get Apple TV+? I didn’t and I don’t, but I’m very thankful for my friend who was generously gifted a free year of it after buying one of Apple’s overpriced products. I’m thankful because that gift provided us with the opportunity to experience one of the greatest shows I’ve watched in a long time, which is saying a lot because I watch way too much TV.

Imagine: a show based off a series of commercials about an American football coach who gets hired to coach soccer in England which was created to promote soccer on NBC Sports Network. Doesn’t that sound like a really bad idea? It is. The product should suck. Networks have done this before. The Geico cavemen had a tv show for a grand total of 1 season which was more than 15mins and took away what felt like significantly more than 15% of my life (I’m sorry, Nick Kroll, but why?). It was a horrible idea and was rewarded with a beautiful 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Uncle Drew was a series of awesome Pepsi ads where Kyrie Irving pretends to be an old man who goes out to the park and absolutely embarasses youngbloods on the court. Uncle Drew the movie was a series of awful jokes acted out by former NBA stars turned characters. It was terrible, but will totally be a cult classic because it’s so much fun to watch.

But there have been positive results from commercials turned TV shows/movies. Ernest, the guy who saved Christmas and escaped from prison but still got scared stupid, was originally a local TV commercial. Space Jam was actually the result of a very successful Super Bowl commercial and neither the Buffalo Bills nor the world have been the same since. And now there’s Ted Lasso.

All these crazy experiments that turned ads into shows and movies led us here to the 2020 show Ted Lasso. Foreshadowed by its predecessors in the genre, Ted Lasso is the true and greater Commercial TV Show come to right all of their wrongs. It’s a show about an American football coach who gets hired by a newly divorced woman to coach her former husband’s soccer team in order to sabotage and ruin his legacy. If that doesn’t sell you on the show, I’ve got plenty more.

Ted Lasso (played by Jason Sudeikis, who helped create, write, and direct the show) is a cheesy, quirky, fun, lovable coach who constantly uses these hilarious Southern idioms to try to teach a soccer team lessons. He’s pure and kind hearted to the point that it hurts. It’s like watching a funny Jon Snow coach a soccer team. Yet, he’s dynamic. Every character in this show is. The premise of the show is the perfect setup for a cheesy after school lesson in how dangerous revenge is. The characters are typical tropey roles. The naive coach who sees the best in the worst people. The angry old player who doesn’t want to change and hates everyone like he’s an angsty teenager who just discovered Nirvana. The annoyingly prideful superstar player who can’t stop talking about himself. The superstar’s girlfriend who sees no wrong in him. The divorcee on a warpath to destroy her husband’s legacy and anyone who stands in her way, even though everyone keeps showing her love. I could have given the premise to my wife’s second graders and they would have come up with a similar cast of characters.

Yet the show’s creators use this to their advantage. They manage to avoid cheesy cop outs in every episode. They take these cookie-cutter characters and absolutely break the mold. Every time the show should have a stupid cheesy moment that you see coming from a mile away, it’s avoided. These characters do the unexpected and the story takes turns that, even if you do predict, are still exciting and nuanced for a show with such a corny premise. It truly is a breath of fresh air in an age so focused on quantity of shows over quality that they often do edgy things simply for the sake of being edgy (shoutout to La La Land) or they settle for reusing the same wheel rather than taking the wheel and giving them a new spin.

Overall, Ted Lasso is an amazing feel-good TV show that provides a cornucopia of emotions for the viewer and keeps you engaged and on the edge of your seat as you watch the development of these fantastic characters. The episodes are short (around 30mins) and there are only 10 episodes in the first season, so it’s an easy binge. And with the second (and third) season already given the green light, it really is a show you should invest in. Even if that means getting a short trial of Apple TV+ or, crazy idea, actually paying $5 a month for it. Ted Lasso alone makes it worth it. It really is the best show of 2020 and it has no right to be. So don’t miss out.

The Interview

As you hopefully gathered from the title of this post, I watched The Interview recently, and this is about that…

I didn’t expect much at all from this. I expected an over-the-top raunchy, new age SNL level, lame attempt at comedy, bro film made to cater to the mass audience of “comedy” consuming folk of the new wave of movies that are poor excuses for comedy. I didn’t expect to laugh very much…I laughed a lot.

I really enjoyed the movie. But I’m a sucker for a great comedy duo (not calling Rogen and Franco greats, but I think they’re pretty great). David Spade and Chris Farley, Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, The Three Stooges, Cheech and Chong, Parks and Rec, and Frodo and Sam (it’s fitting). Having said that, the best part of the movie was definitely the awkwardly hilarious interactions between Rogen and Franco. They reminded me of my interactions with my friends and they just seemed naturally awkward. So it definitely appealed to me. It felt like I was just watching Franco and Rogen have every day conversations with each other for most of the movie (you basically are). Franco really isn’t that funny in my opinion, but many times I found myself laughing because he was so not funny that it was entertaining.

There is a lot of raunchy humor in this movie. A LOT. Please don’t watch this with your family unless you enjoy awkwardly awkward experiences and horrifying your parents. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone mainly because of the raunchy humor in the movie. It’s heavily geared toward a male audience. Pretty much everything about it screams “Your girlfriend will hate you for making her watch this” (obviously not all girls will hate it, though. Just a generalization on my part). The story is freaking hilarious. It’s a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un that involves a comedic talk show host (Franco) as the assassin. They score an interview with Jong-un because he’s a fan of the show and they’re flown to N.K. to do the scripted interview. The events in the movie are mostly ludicrous and hilarious. Warning: There’s a really random couple-second-long sex scene that’s pretty unnecessary as well as a party scene with some nudity. There’s a few unnecessary scenes that I really could have gone without, but that’s expected from Rogen and Franco. Other than that, I enjoyed basically every second of the movie. The level of satire in the movie is great. The entire thing throws all of the views of N.K. and its leader at the viewer and the movie does a cool job of portraying a view on Jong-un.

I don’t want to ruin anything in this short review, so I don’t want to give too many details. It’s very entertaining and I recommend it to guys. It’s a great guys night movie unless you struggle with the things that are involved in the movie. Crude humor makes up most of the inappropriate content in the movie. It was immensely better than what I thought it would be. The political satire was wonderful. If you’ve seen The Dictator and liked it, you should definitely enjoy this. There are many serious lessons that you could draw from this movie, but I’ll let you decide what they are. Overall, it’s a great comedy movie with an interesting story and some action (they go Tarantino at one point). I could have done without some of the raunchy humor, though. Also: lots of LOTR references. That was awesome.

This review was much shorter than my last one, and I might have left quite a few things out because this is a comedy movie and there really isn’t a lot that I can write about this movie. If you’d like to know more of my thoughts, just let me know!

Selma is Free at Last!

I saw Selma earlier today. It was absolutely fantastic. The cinematography and presentation of all of the events were awesome, even though they were very brutal and detailed. Despite how many people will probably feel about the brutality, they didn’t go as far as they could have (Tarantino style). The movie focuses on MLK Jr.’s adventures concerning Selma, Alabama (hopefully that’s easy to pick up on). It’s after the events in Birmingham, so no “I Have a Dream” speech, although it’s referenced plenty of times throughout the film. It details the fight for the right for African-Americans to vote in America in the 60’s, specifically in Alabama. The right was in existence, but Alabama had done its best to prevent them from voting at that point mainly by making requirements for voter registration ludicrous and nearly impossible for most black citizens, which is shown in a scene at the beginning of the movie.

The film does get a few things wrong; so, historians, please don’t get your hopes too high going into this. Google scholars, as well, don’t get upset when you google things from the film and they aren’t exactly historically accurate. That shouldn’t deter people from seeing this film, just as I don’t think it should for films like Noah and Exodus: gods and kings (that’s another story, sorry if you disagree). The film focuses more on the tension among all of the major figures involved in this part of the civil rights movement as well as the brutality involved in the Selma part of the civil rights journey. The only thing that bugged me (and it didn’t bug me very much) was the portrayal of J. Edgar and LBJ. J. Edgar is portrayed as an evil guy willing to do anything that involves killing to get the job done. That’s kind of understandable, though, but LBJ is portrayed as being completely opposed to MLK Jr.’s efforts from the beginning. Not completely opposed, but just unwilling to fully cooperate immediately. He constantly refuses to fully cooperate with MLK Jr.’s efforts to fight against Alabama. In reality, I don’t really know exactly how their relationship was behind closed doors, because they were closed and it happened before I was born; but the general understanding is that they worked well together on the issues, although LBJ asked MLK Jr. to wait until later to handle this because of the other issues going on in the world. He’s portrayed as a very negative and angry man, and he doesn’t really come around to MLK Jr.’s view until he comes face to face with the problem. I loved that they put the element of waiting into the movie. That was something that seriously irked MLK Jr. in his day, and it’s something that he writes on in his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” (which, if you haven’t read, you definitely should. Especially before watching this movie). The civil rights movement was constantly asked to wait. If it wasn’t told to stop, it was told to wait until a better time. The movie captures it very well, especially MLK Jr.’s real hesitations and then understanding that life is now, not in the future.

When MLK Jr. is not opposed by the president in the film, he’s opposed by his cohorts in the movement as well as the brutal political figures in Alabama (who were quite accurately portrayed, unfortunately for them). The part that I really appreciated them putting into the film was a cameo appearance of Malcolm X. Recently, with all of the Ferguson riots, there have been many mentions of both MLK Jr. and Malcolm X, usually in the same reference. I’m not going to put my opinion of the Ferguson incident in here, but I will say that I don’t like it when Malcolm X and MLK Jr. quotes are used together to support the same point. These two figures were fighting for the same thing: equality. However, they went about it in very different ways, and the movie does a great job of showing that. They weren’t enemies, but they weren’t exactly fighting together. Sorry for the tangent, just really wanted to address that lol.

The movie does not demonize white people, although it may seem like it at first. They just do a good portrayal of the opposition to the civil rights movement. They do a great job of showing some of the white supporters of the movement in the film, and showing what happened to them.

In conclusion to this long/short review, this movie was fantastic. The music was great, and the acting was freaking awesome. The story was great and extremely inspiring, just as the true story is. The movie does a wonderful job of depicting this very intense period of the civil rights movement and most of the people involved, especially MLK Jr. I was very glad that they did not remove the element of faith involved in the movement. Not just because I am a Christian, but because that was the most important motivation behind MLK Jr.’s role in the movement. He’s always been an inspiring figure in my life, and the people of my generation should always remember his words, “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” and “Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” I highly recommend this movie to everyone. I don’t think that I would recommend bringing your kids, just because of the intensity and violence, but you might, it’s your choice. It’s definitely a tearjerker, so just prepare yourself.

There were many things that I didn’t put into this review and many things that I might not have needed to put in, but you can comment and ask if you want to know about anything else. I have plenty of opinions. This is the first time that I’ve ever written a movie review, but I love movies so I might do more. Let me know if you like it.

This Is What My Life Has Become

So….this is what my life has come to. After spending this previous week at the Defend The Faith conference in New Orleans and hearing about everyone’s blog, I decided to start my own (because imitation is great flattery). I had been thinking of doing a blog for awhile. Not for the purpose of telling people my thoughts as much as for the purpose of getting these thoughts out of my head. I’ll write about random things, with a focus on theology and entertainment (music, movies, and video games) or anything else that I decide to “write” about. I don’t know if many people will find this or look at it, but I hope that my random thoughts can have some kind of positive affect on your life.