Not that anyone cares what I think about this subject, but I'm going to chime in with my thoughts just like everyone else.

The subject is the movie that everyone is talking about, The Passion of The Christ. I should point out first of all that I have not seen the movie, so I cannot speak completely objectively; however, the things which are bothering me the most are not dependent on whether or not I've seen the movie. The violence of the movie does not bother me, nor do I believe that the movie is "anti-semitic", as many have argued. Since I speak as a Latter-day Saint, I should point out that I'm also not bothered by the R-rating. There are two things that disturb me tremendously about the movie, though.

First, the movement by Christian churches across the nation to see this movie and use it as a "missionary tool". Churches rent entire theaters to view this film. I've seen local television commercials advertising this movie and encouraging viewers to "see the movie, then go to fill_in_the_blank church to talk about it". I recently received a postcard from a group of churches for the same reason - to encourage people to go see the movie and then go to their church to talk about it.

This bothers me for several reasons. First, the movie is about the crucifixion of Christ. Although it may do a tremendous job of portraying this event in Christ's life, it does not focus on the most important aspects of His life - His teachings and His triumph over spiritual and physical death. Still, this does not bother me. I am bothered by the religious fervor shown toward this film. The attitude of these churches seems to me to be nothing less than idol worship. It is as if they had nothing to teach until now, but finally they have a way to get their message out! This is absurd. This film does nothing to change the original message. If people spent as much time sharing their faith and religion with others as they spend advertising this film, certainly the nation would witness a strong spiritual surge - with or without this film.

Second, I am disturbed by the merchandising of the movie. To wear a necklace with a nail hanging from it seems just plain sick to me. It is distasteful at best.

I have nothing against the movie and am still contemplating whether I will see it or not. I hope that the churches who are treating this movie as more than what it is - a movie - realize their folly and repent.

With the ending of My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance the number of shows that I am committed to watch is winding down. The conclusion of that show had me both laughing and terrified at the same time. It was some of the best TV viewing I think I've ever witnessed.

Still remaining to be watched is the rest of the American Idol 3 season. After the conclusion of Fear Factor Couples I've decided not to start watching any new Fear Factor shows. The "Couples" edition bummed me out because one of the most obnoxious couples won, while the ones I liked were eliminated. The only other shows still to be watched are The Simpsons and America's Funniest Home Videos. I see no reason to ever stop watching those shows. Shows like those are the reason that TV still exists.

We haven't watched a lot of movies recently, but a couple weekends ago we watched Miracle, Whale Rider and Radio. They were all pretty good movies, but I especially liked Miracle. Radio was okay, but didn't really do a whole lot for me. Whale Rider was very good, but equally as strange.

Emilie has watched some that I haven't, so I won't speak for her.

I've been working on my shelf above the TV, only to learn that the walls are completely crooked. My shelf is completely level, but it looks totally crooked because the floor under the TV isn't flat. I'm still trying to determine how to deal with this problem. I'm not going to make the shelf crooked for the sake of the TV, but it really does look a little funky. I have one piece remaining for this particular shelf, then I can post pictures.

I've finally gotten around to uploading my pictures from last Saturday. I have a few more to add, but the bulk of the images are available.

We started Valentine's Day fairly early and went back out to Hidden Valley for a good hike. Emilie did not join us because she was having a baby shower at our house (for someone else). We were going after the "Cross Peak" cache, but we passed by a couple others along the way. We ran into another 'cacher that was at the "View from the Top" cache and hiked with him for a ways as we continued on to our destination. The cache ended up being on a different peak than we were hoping for, so after finding the cache we got creative with our hiking.

On the way back we decided to climb up to the peak of the hill we were originally hoping to climb, but the terrain was pretty nasty, which made it more fun. We spotted an eagle, but lost sight of it before we could get any pictures. We split up while going back down the hill in hopes of seeing it again, but alas we struck out. Total hike was just under 7 miles of pretty grueling hiking and was pretty fun. Pictures from this hike can be seen in the Cross Peak geocaching album.

After the hike we stopped at Chili's for some lunch and had some of their delicious chips and salsa. Before going home we stopped by to view the bizarre duck that has been hanging out at the pond across from Sierra Pacific, next to Home Depot. After much research and study, Mike finally identified this duck as a muscovy. To really appreciate this animal, you need to view the pictures. Even though we've identified this duck, we will still always refer to it as the "Darth Maul Duck (Darthius Maulus duckus). I have a couple more pics of this one to add, but nothing that really changes anything.

We had a big movie weekend, too, but that posting can wait until later - this posting has gone on long enough.

I wish I had some great story about why the page was dead for a few days, but the fact of the matter is that I forgot to renew the domain name. Unfortunately, someone else nabbed it and I had to pay $10,000 to get it back. I'm kidding! It would cost far more than that! Anyway, I forgot to renew, the page got disabled, I renewed the name and we're back in business.

Coming soon I have hiking/geocaching details as well as hair-raising pictures of the Darth Maul Duck. Yikes! Stay tuned...

Well I have started to paint my house. With the help of some Interior Designers from my work in the San Diego office, they picked out some colors for me that I like.
I went to start and realized that the blue shade was too dark!, I told the designers and I found out that I had used the wrong paint. I am supposed to use satin or eggshell, but I had used semigloss. So I bought some more blue and, it now looks good and I am excited. I still have to repaint over the semigloss blue, but I have now started with the blue and tan colors in a differnent area. Now I need a ladder to reach our ceiling. I will post a pic when it is done.

Well I had my braces "tightened" yesterday, and I am really sore. I realized that I dont think i have had any vegetables in the last few days. I thought I need to eat something because Im hungry, but my teeth hurt. I can eat carbs all day or vegetables. SO I bought a V8. Its gross. I am gagging it down. I will have my serving of vegetables!

The weekend was a little exciting, but not too crazy. We saw Along Came Polly on Saturday. It was okay, but not all that great. The funny parts were really funny, but the bad parts were pretty bad. The good parts to bad parts ratio was not too good.

Emilie painted part of our front room while I worked on building some shelves. The blue color that she painted the wall has been the cause of some serious controversy, so I'll let Emilie blog about it if she so chooses. To quickly summarize, it might be too blue. But we don't know.

I've got some interesting pictures from the past week or two, but I just haven't taken any time to post them. One of my more exciting pictures is of a large bird that was hanging out right next to the side of the road.

Sunday night we had a "Green Boiled Peanut" party. "Ray the Ripper" blessed me with a can of these peanuts, so I took it to my parent's house to enjoy it with my Emilie, Mike and my dad. Mom chickened-out. I have to say, they didn't taste much like I thought they would and I'm still trying to determine whether they were better or worse than I thought they would be. I wasn't expecting the wet and mushy texture. They come in a can of "brine" water, so I'm not sure why I thought they wouldn't be wet or mushy. We took some pictures so that you can join us as we take the magical "Green Boiled Peanut" journey.

Finally, I thought I would provide a bruise update. The bruise is continuing to marble nicely. For anyone interested in viewing the bruise, you can check it out here.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I am sure you don't care. For some reason my body started popping yesterday. It started yesterday morning right as I was getting out of bed. Something popped in my neck and progressively got worse throughout the day. People started making fun of me because I couldn't keep my head up straight because it hurt too much. I finally went and saw the chiropractor at lunch and had him do his thing. I'm not sure how much it helped my neck, but it felt good anyway.

Then last night, just moments before we left to go to Know Your Religion, a vein in my finger popped. It didn't seem to correspond with any particular activity or motion - it just "popped". You could see it swell up and it started turning blue. Today it has more of a textured look - black, blue and brown in particular.

Just two very strange things to have happen on the same day.

As part of our shopping spree I acquired something that I never thought I would get. The idea always seemed so stupid that I couldn't understand why anyone would use it. I'm referring to XM Radio. The idea of paying for radio seemed ridiculous until recently when I was listening to KKOH. I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the programming, but one day I thought long and hard about why I hated KOH so much.

I realized that Rush Limbaugh is on during the day while I'm at work, as is Sean Hannity. Bill O'Reilly is on from 9p to 11p, which is not a very good time slot for me. I'm basically left with Reno's Morning News (aka The Breakfast Club) while I'm getting ready for work in the morning and Michael Savage when I'm coming home at night. I don't even want to talk about weekends. I like Ross Mitchell in the morning, but the whole format stinks. They do two or three minutes of news, then five minutes of commercials then a cheesy traffic/weather update, then five minutes of commercials. Ultimately, you get about 10 minutes of information per 50 minutes of advertising, at best. Michael Savage is a subject for another site. I'll just say that he is rude, obnoxious and full of himself. He talks constantly about how educated he is, but he sounds like he never finished grade school. His ideas are good, but his delivery is horrible. The radio gets turned off the second he comes on.

Assuming I wanted to listen to something else, what are my choices? Most of the stations don't play anything except for hip-hop and rap. The stations that aren't hip-hop and rap just play the same song over and over and over and over and over and OVER! You would think that after a few years they would quit playing a song so frequently, but that is just not the case. I like classic rock, which gives me two stations to choose from - KOZZ and KNHK (The Hawk). One plays some good classic rock (Rush, Yes, etc.), but they mix it with AC/DC and Bon Jovi, which is just evil. KOZZ has a hard time finding the right mix between it all and it ends up annoying. They play Rush, then they play Neil Young. They play Genesis, but then they play some new Aerosmith song that is just rotten. So, Reno radio stinks.

My frustrations led me to XM, which I just hooked up last night. I already love what I've heard. When I want news, I can listen to the Fox News channel. When I want to listen to music I can listen to whatever type I want, but without commercials. It even has a Discovery radio channel. I can listen to Bill O'Reilly's TV show on XM at the same time it's on the regular Fox News TV channel. I can listen to Hannity and Colmes. I can do whatever I want without the advertisers dictating my life! In a short time listening I've converted. XM is our friend. It's not the devil.

I've probably already said too much, but I'll have a more informed update once I get a chance to play with it a little more.

I like to shop. especially when you shop for things that dont cost you money. Brad and I had the experience of a shopping spree at Best Buy. We had alot of money in gift certificates. We got these gift certificates as a bonus at Brad work.
We bought alot of stuff we needed and we still have some extra. AHH nice things for free.