ACL Festival First Day Highlights

Nickel Creek. Amazing musicians. We got there right as they were starting to play, after a somewhat arduous trek to even get there. We wound up paying $30 or so to park both of our cars. The poor wife had to drive down all the way from DFW! She didn’t arrive until Los Lonely Boys, who also put on an impressive show. That was followed by an overpriced, albeit good, dinner. Then we watched John Mayer for a couple of songs, then trekked across Zilker Park to see Van Morrison. Both of them put on a good show. It was a very good start to the weekend. And the weather was near perfect.

The funniest moment of the night was the fairly well drunk guy standing directly behind me right before Los Lonely Boys that kept shouting back to them when they talked to the crowd, and slurring everything. One lady was so upset she told him “One quick punch and I could flatten you,” to which he said “WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO LOS LONELY BOYS I’M NOT LONELY LOS LONLEY BOYS I’M FROM AUSHTIN! (Aushtin because he was slurring everything). It was annoying at first, and it became really funny, really quickly. I wish I would have videotaped it.

One more thing, which I did film. Nickel Creek did a cover or Britney Spears’ Toxic. It was awesome.

Videosift

My author friend Mr. Whittington pointed me to this web gem. Videosift sifts videos from Google, Youtube, Yahoo, and lots of other places, allowing you the viewer to vote on what gets promoted. It’s a nice way to see what’s popular without having to sift through all the crap yourself. Not that nine-tenths of the stuff out there isn’t crap already, but it’s still fun to watch, right?

Pride Goes Before a Fall…

and also at the top of the billboard.

I was watching 30 Days, a great show where two vastly different worlds collide when one person decides to live the life of someone else for thirty days. In the first season, one of the more intriguing ones had a Christian (from Texas, if I remember correctly) live with a family of Muslims. Quite timely, and still so.

The episode to which I refer in my title had an atheist live with a Christian family (also from Texas). The show doesn’t always do religious themes, but they’re usually the most controversial.

One quick take made me laugh out loud. The camera pans across the outdoor sign for the church that the Christian family attends. It had the Pastor’s name at the top, and then “It’s all about God” at the bottom.

I laughed because…shouldn’t that be reversed?

And if you feel the need to make your own church sign, the wonders of the internet allow you to do so here. Just be nice.

The Emergent Church Meets Digg

I love stumbling onto a new website and being pleasantly surprised at what it contains. WhatsRemarkable.com is a Digg-like site for articles and posts pertaining to the Emergent Church. It’s user-submitted, user-driven, user-voted, user-commented, user-friendly, and remarkably remarkable for mashing up two great ideas. It’s hosted by the Emergent Village, which describes itself as “a growing, generative friendship among missional Christians seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Both sites are worth checking out, and WhatsRemarkable.com is worth joining in on the conversation.

Never Underestimate the Power of the Comma

[or the 2.13 Million Dollar Comma]
[or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Comma]
[or Comma-tose: When English Majors Sleep on the Job]

“A grammatical blunder may force Rogers Communications Inc. to pay an extra $2.13-million to use utility poles in the Maritimes after the placement of a comma in a contract permitted the deal’s cancellation.The controversial comma sent lawyers and telecommunications regulators scrambling for their English textbooks in a bitter 18-month dispute that serves as an expensive reminder of the importance of punctuation.”

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