Last night Genia and I finally bought a DVD player. We're going to christen it tonight with the U2 Elevation Live in Boston DVD!

Got a few bucks and want to make a statement about US Foreign Policy (specifically oil policies), buy some Thank You Financing Global Terror stickers. Of course, the seller makes an official statement that he does not encourage vandalism (placing these stickers on gas pumps that don't belong to you) but it's fairly obvious that's the most subversive way to use the stickers. I love the sticker, and agree that seeing one as you're filling up would get you thinking. The stickers are already becoming a big hit on the web (as evidenced by their link on such A-list sites as MetaFilter and Kottke.org).

Today's Kottke post talks about Google.com pulling the text ad purchased to promote the stickers. Apparently Google initially claimed that the stickers violated their "hate/anti" policy, but now they are running the ads again. (I would assume this is due to some public outcry.)

A recent survey found that nearly half of Americans now think the constitutional amendment on free speech goes too far in the rights it guarantees. Now, I knew that there were people working in our government (John Ascroft, to name a big one) who are going too far in pushing aside Constitutional freedoms in the name of "the war on terror," but there have been some major dissenters to his policies and proposals. Scarier still is that the number of citizens who agree that our freedoms can be sacrificed is growing.

Part of my planning to attend Covenant College next year requires that I find out how many credit hours and what GPA I have from my previous school, Jacksonville State University. About two weeks ago, I called the Registrar's office to request an unofficial copy of my transcript. They told me I'd need to fax something in, which I did. Three phone calls and three faxes later, I still do not have a copy of my transcript. Is it really that difficult for them to fulfill a very simple request in a timely manner?

I've been looking forward to this for weeks, and it has finally come to pass... three weeks earlier than officially scheduled. Sunday, a BBJ Radio One DJ named Sarah played the new U2 single "Electrical Storm" (which she received personally from Bono as a wedding present) and some enterprising soul captured a great quality feed and put it online. I heard it today and it's really good. Like a few of the songs from All That You Can't Leave Behind, it's mid-tempo, and it has grown on me with repeated listens.

My favorite lines from the song:
You're in my mind
All of the time
I know it's not enough
If the sky can crack
There must be some way back
To love and only love

The single will hit U.S. radio September 16th, music stores October 21st, and the song will appear on U2's Best of 1990-2000 which hits stores November 12th. "Electrical Storm" is definitely worth a listen... or ten. Visit @U2 for a list of sites with an mp3 download or U2 Log (where I heard about the leak) to stream the song in RealAudio.

Well, it looks like I am going to visit Covenant on Wednesday, September 4th. I will have my first meeting with my admissions counselor and I'll have a chance to sit in on a couple of classes and talk with one of the professors. I'm really looking forward to it as this will be my first big step (after accepting God's leading to do this, of course) on my way to finishing up my bachelor's degree in a ministry-related major. Any prayers or good thoughts for me on this day are well appreciated, of course.

By the way, did you happen to have "Opposites Attract" by Paula Abdul pop into your head when you read the title of this post? You didn't? Uh, me neither.

This is mind-boggling. There is a website that just opened earlier this summer called Save Karyn and the basic premise is that this girl, Karyn, racked up about $20,000 in credit card debts and came up with the uniquely American idea of setting up a website and asking all visitors to donate $1 towards paying off her debts. To date, she has collected close to $7,000 in donations and several hundred dollars from eBay sales. She is very upfront and admits that her debts are her fault and says she is working hard to reduce them as much as she can, but it still seems ridiculous that she's gotten $7,000 in donations. Her website is pretty funny, though, and it gets over one hundred thousand visitors per week -- I guess it's all a numbers game.

I wonder if I should set up www.sendjohntocovenant.org and see if people would help pay my tuition? It's going to be about $20,000 a year and I'm going into the ministry. I guess that's not very entertaining to most people, though. Maybe I could post flash movies of me dancing with monkeys and singing about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Or bananas. People think bananas are funny sometimes.

For the past week, my wife and I have begun to make plans for me to try and go back to college next fall and get a ministry related degree. This is a big deal for us because we'd been considering that a dream whose time was "indefinite" at best, but last Sunday really began to feel God calling us to move these plans up to next August. I've been struggling in my faith about it because I know that my high school and college records weren't so great, and this is a fairly selective school. I also know that it's very expensive.

Just about 10 minutes ago, I was reading a "Deeper Walk" article on RELEVANTmagazine.com about trusting God. It was an excerpt from Oswald Chambers and it was encouraging, but I must admit I was still living a bit in my fears.

I'm at work, and one of the ways we serve our clients is through an online chat program called LivePerson. It works basically like an IM. I was finished assisting this customer when the following interaction took place:

John: Thanks for chatting... have a great day.

John: Thank you again Deirdre!

He's there, everybody. And He's thinking about you.

Last night Genia and I had the pleasure of seeing Randy Chester, our friend Michial's band The Shots of Perspective, and the rock band Canary in Lawrenceville. It was a great show. Randy opened with a short but sweet acoustic set, including a nice song by his girlfriend (?) Mackenzie, who has an incredible voice.

Michial's set was good and he opened with a special song he chose for me, a cover of U2's "The Playboy Mansion." Now covering a U2 song is a big task, especially considering my great love for their work, but he did a solid job. I enjoyed it quite a bit. He also sang some of my favorites of his tunes including "Iconoclast" and "Let it Be an End." I also got to show him a mock-up of the CD booklet that I just completed for his debut full-lenght. And, because I like both of my readers so much, here's a link to the Front Cover and the Back Cover. He was pleased with it, so that makes me happy. I've worked pretty hard on it!

Finishing out the show was Canary. I had never seen them live before, and had only heard a couple of their songs on their mp3.com page, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I certainly wasn't expecting them to be as amazing as they turned out to be. They brought the rock -- great songs played with incredible passion and energy. I loved it. I picked up their last cd, a split EP with a band called Under the Red. Great stuff. I hope to see this band live again... soon.

I'm speechless. In a good way, a very good way. Today I got my copy of the 2-cd set from Over the Rhine's 4-14-02 show in Atlanta. Genia and I were at the show -- it was our virgin Over the Rhine experience. (Aside: I like to see bands live before buying the cd if I can. It's a recently added quirk.) The show was nothing short of amazing. I am entirely taken with the band, and about a month ago I bought their most recent disc, Films for Radio, which is incredible. Back to the concert cds, the quality is fantastic, and if I close my eyes, I am back in Smith's Olde Bar being amazed. The standout track from the show is "The World Can Wait" -- it's just Karin's voice and a piano, and it's almost too good to handle. Do yourself a favor -- check out this band!

As I was driving to work this morning, I realized that it would probably be a while before I got the Diane King mini-site up and running. (If you haven't ventured to the other pages of the site, Diane King is my former algebra teacher who had a certain "way with words.") You see, I really shouldn't have spent a couple of hours on this site already considering I have other projects that I am in the middle of working on. Regardless, it'll be a while before the Diane King mini-site is up and running, so here is a special sneak preview. The following are actual quotes from our algebra class lectures:

"There is a special relationship between the hypotenuse and my two legs."

"The first time it goes in, it doesn't go in well. Just be patient."

"You're going to need this when I start doing curvy things with you later."

August 8, 1961: David Evans is born in Barking Maternity Hospital, East London.

In case you're wondering who David Evans is, he's that guy in U2 that's always wearing a skull cap and holding a guitar. That's right, kids, he's The Edge. 41 years old and kicking the butts of guitarists half his age. Happy Birthday, Edge.

In related news, @U2.com and other fan/news sites are reporting that a new U2 track entitled "Electrical Storm" will be released to radio on September 16th and released as a single in October. The track is also scheduled to appear on the Best of 1990-2000 CD which drops in November.

I was thinking it might be cool to use clever headlines for each post I make to the blog, but that might be too much pressure. What if I couldn't be clever every time I wanted to post? That's a pretty strong possibility since I just now wanted to post about the movie Signs and couldn't come up with anything good.

I guess I'll just post about the move here. To put it simply, I loved Signs. It was suspenseful, funny without being cheesy, and the real story (small hint: it isn't about crop circles) was excellent. The actors all did a great job with their roles, including the children. The director also had a good (small) role in the film. Overall, I definitely recommend this movie.

Pretty exciting, no?