I read this article this morning on Engadget. A recent study shows that 95% of returned electronic devices are in fact NOT BROKEN. It attributed 26% to buyers remorse and the rest to basically laziness. How many of you never read the manual and then think “it” doesn’t work?

I know that I am not a manual first guy. I have to press some buttons and hear some beeps before I try to figure out how it really operates. I can’t say that I have taken many things back though. I guess us techies are more likely to figure it out.

Although somewhat technical, I definitely consider this blog subject “off topic” but I couldn’t ignore it. I stumbled across an article leading me to this website, which confirms something incredible.

PETA (the animal rights group) is offering $1 million for the first group of scientists to come up with commercially viable and edible meat. Let me say that again. PETA is going to award $1 million to whoever can make MEAT grow in the lab. It has to be distributable to multiple states and priced more cheaply than its real counterpart (chicken).

PETA is willing to help us “gain access to flesh that doesn’t cause suffering and death.” How very considerate of them. What about the suffering of the taste testers? I don’t even want to think about the test meals in that kitchen.

What a way to re-enter the blogosphere, huh?

-Yours Truly

Guitar heros beware, there is a new kid moving into town. Game Tank is far along in the development of “Guitar Rising.” Rising is similar to Guitar Hero & Rock Band in that the players try to play along with the game’s songs in order to score points. Where Rising sets itself apart is that its real.You plug a real guitar in to your computer and play real notes to real songs. Points are awarded based on accuracy, as you would expect. Apparently its as fun as Hero for beginners AND it teaches guitar at the same time.

I have never played Guitar Hero or Rock Band myself, I have to admit, I am excited about Guitar Rising though. I’d love to think I can learn to play like with a method like that.

Anyone else excited about the potential here?

-Travis

I know its not a real news source, hopefully you know that too. Now that you DO know that. Read this blurb on The Onion, its funny.

Travis

A good question isn’t it? Hmmm, strangely enough, my email box has NOT filled up with anxious pleas for my whereabouts, safety and much less… another post. Regardless, here I am, again.

Where have I been? Its been a looooong 6 weeks or so since my last post. I have a three part answer to the question you didn’t ask.

Reason 1 I have been here at SSCC’s new building. I was coordinating audio, video and lighting guys most of December and into January. Long hours there led to late night laptop work and just down right exhaustion. Follow that up with a week of moving our offices and a weekend more of audio/video systems guys in town and you get… well, you get nothing as far as you are concerned. Nothing, and you will like it.

Reason 2 I always said that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, I wouldn’t say it. Hmmm, wait, that isn’t quite it. Unfortunately I will sometimes say not-so-nice things. What I DID say was that I never wanted to blog for the sake of blogging or even worse, for the sake of driving traffic. So, that reason, in the midst of reasons 1 & 3, played largely into my silence. I just didn’t feel like I had anything that anyone else wanted to hear.

Reason 3 My daughter was born! Gracie is here!

I just love this picture of her yawning that I took earlier tonight. I think she is bored of my blog or something. Anyway… we welcomed her to the world Monday, January 14th, at 7:49 pm. She was 6lbs, 12.8oz and 19 inches long. (Shouldn’t it be tall? I think she is only a few inches “long” really.) All are healthy on the mom-daughter end. And we are adjusting to that whole “being responsible for another human life” thing.

So that is where I have been. Thanks for asking and I will see you soon!

-Travis

Check this out over on drivl. I think I will skip phase 5 but I am between phase 4 and 6.

Here is the whole story.

Enjoy, Travis

I was reading through Gizmodo and came across this entry. Had to share it. If you don’t think its funny then you aren’t a geek. Deal with it.

Gizmodo Windows Error

About to years ago we did this video for a sermon opener. We were in a series studying David. This video is making a point about being overly concerned with the outward appearance. Our youth pastor, Jon Blankenship, is in this video as “JBlank.” Unfortunately for Jon, JBlank is a recurring character he plays that seems to always manage to make a fool of himself in each video. Somehow this video came up in the office today and I showed it to Fred, our worship director, who hadn’t seen it before. He insisted that I get it online so we could share it with the world. Make sure you hang on til the end to see Jon on the treadmill. Yes, he really fell. We were planning a fall and I had Bo running the camera while Jon was figuring out what he was going to do to fall. In the process, well, he fell. We staged a fall a couple more times but once he fell for real he couldn’t commit to a fake one and they weren’t nearly as good. I guess getting flung into the wall head first makes you gunshy. Oh, and sorry about the low image quality, I ripped it from a DVD and then had to re-encode it to upload it and that degraded it pretty noticeably.

Enjoy!

-Travis

I know some folks have had trouble playing embedded videos here, so if thats the case, here is the link to the file.

I don’t know a ton about this guy, but watch his commercial and tell me you don’t want to vote for him.

What do ya think?-Travis

This is a soap box that I hop on every so often. I am not sure what sparks the passion when it happens, but regardless, I get frustrated and vent.

I am not even sure what first made me start thinking about this today, I guess it was “Christian Musician” magazine at Barnes & Noble, or something like that. I just remember it had Casting Crowns on the cover and was crowded in with the rest of the music magazines I had intended on thumbing through. Anyway, what is it with ‘Christian Alternatives’ anyway? I regularly find myself incredibly bothered by them. Godtube and Shoutlife are big names in the Christian rip off category. Yeah, I called it a rip off, it is what it is. HaHa. It seems like every time there is a vehicle for easily spreading light in the darkness, someone does something to pull the light OUT of the darkness. And, in my not-so-expert opinion, it is usually a poor variation of the original.

YouTube and MySpace are really amazing technological developments. These two things draw astonishing amounts of people to their respective pages and allow them to spend way to many hours there. There is unlimited potential for viewership and influence on the personal pages and posts of these two communities. Obviously, they got huge, they got a lot of press and they got a lot of content (of all moral standards) uploaded to them. So what is the Church’s response? “Let’s make our own!” I understand the reason, I think. ShoutLife, for instance, allows a MySpace type community without the questionable ads on the pages. Godtube provides the same searchable video library as YouTube with the addition of content screening and control.

The way I see it, they are saying, “hey, all you good intentioned users out there, lets do this somewhere else.” Consequentially, removing light from the midst of apparent darkness. I tend to LIKE the idea of a funny Christian video getting bounced around YouTubers. I think it is great when someone who faithfully follows Christ talks about it in the middle of MySpace or Facebook and I HOPE they are connected to hundreds of friends that will see it too. Shoutlife can provide a ’safer’ environment for teens to roam on the internet but I am not sure what would prevent sickos from going there too. Godtube’s mission is to ultimately advance the Gospel, but I don’t see how well it will work. I don’t think entitling something “God…” will attract the average unbeliever to its pages. Yes, I recognize that seekers will go there and all that, but I’m considering the norm, not the exceptions.

I just wonder if all these Christian alternatives aren’t counter productive to the advance of the Gospel? A Google search of “Christian Web Alternatives” will reveal a myriad of these things. I just learned that there is even a Christian alternative to the Girl Scouts, wow.

Are we piling up our salt and putting our lit candles under a bowl? What do you think?