This was and probably will be one of the craziest movies I have ever seen. If you have seen Inception check out the image below, if you have not seen Inception stop what you are doing and go see the movie first then come back and check this out.
As soon as I finished watching this movie, I immediately wanted to go home and start to dream.
What is one dream you have had lately that you can share?
*kyle
The United States has a lot of problems.
In fact, some believe that as a country we have no hope.
This might not be a new piece of information for you, and you could even be one of those people who sees the country as hopeless. I mean I read Drudge Report ever single day. I watch 60 minutes every Sunday. I even listen to conservative radio in the car (well only when the local ESPN radio station is on commercial). I have heard all about our collapsing economy, out of control spending, endless war in Iraq, oil spill, and rising jobless rate.
It does not take an expert to figure out that we have problems. But it does take an expert to fix the problems.
I want to let you know that I think I have the solution to all the problems that present themselves today….
Continue Reading…
I have huge expectations for everything.
I am the guy that can run through a situation from start to end in less time then it takes for you to read this. It could be a simple idea, response to an inquiry, or even a non verbal communication that someone has given me, I just seem to turn expectations into a session of daydreaming about the future.
What I am learning is that my expectations get me in real trouble. Not only are they always ridiculous, they never come true. There have been several times when I have gotten upset with people because they did not meet my unfair expectation of them.
There have been several times where I have been frustrated with myself because I set high expectations on my life and ideas and they have not been met.
The interesting thing about expectations is that if you have none you are set up for success. Thats right, if you can have no expectations then you will always succeed. Which is crazy, because we all have expectations, but I think if we can start to be realistic instead of expecting, things might be different.
Case in point. Musicians that seem to have great success do no start out with the hopes that they will be huge. My favorite example, the guy from Owl City, he set out to make music, not a million fans. Bloggers that set out to have thousands of followers usually quit after 2 months because they only have 10. It just seems that we let expectations of what others have done dictate what we deem as being successful.
*kyle
It’s reported that the image above is photoshopped.
To the naked eye this image looks to be a typical command center style photo. But behind every photo is a story, and this photo is screaming with unseen details.
This photo was “taken” in the BP command center for the oil spill.
Upon further investigation you start to see just how photoshopped this image really is:
Thanks to Gizmodo (haven’t we seen them catch other things out in the wild before?) and their investigative work, BP has been busted, again.
As I read this story I couldn’t help but wonder how BP could make such a terrible mistake, till I realized that I photoshop my own life all the time.
Photoshop is a great tool, but sometimes we can get a little carried away in the “retouching” department. The temptation to make things appear better than they are one button at a time is often the method of choice, and the vehicle we use is often twitter, blogs, or Facebook. Yet, Under the surface our problems still exist, no matter how much we photoshop our appearance, response, or profiles… we will still be the same person.
Can I make a confession?
I “photoshop” myself to give off the appearance that I have things figured out. This is usually masked in my speech. It’s not that I try to be someone else, it’s that I try to stand on the same level as everyone else. I have this idea that if I can be like (insert famous blogger here) or be like (insert well-known twitterer here) then I will be someone and something.
Have you photoshopped yourself?
*kyle
I have had the iPhone 4 for about a month now and have really had no problems.
One of the many new features that excited me was the camera. But honestly, I have not used it as much as I should. But some people have gotten the most out of their iPhone 4 camera. Maybe a little to much. Check this out.
Have you taken any cool shots with your iPhone camera (or any other cell phone camera)?
Lets see them
*kyle
I was 11 years old, it was March and the Nickelodeon Teen Choice Award show was on (I was a sucker for award shows). At the end of the show they would always “slime” an actor or a musician, this year they decided to slime Shawn P Diddy Puff Daddy Combs. As he excepted his award for doing something, he said one thing that has stuck with me until today, “I would like to thank God for this award.” At that moment I realized that Puff Daddy was a christian and I was a christian, Puff Daddy is cool therefore I am cool. From that moment on I would start to look for the “cool” christians that would give validation to my beliefs.
Pretty crazy that I would need a celebrity to tell me that christianity was cool and even a life worth living, but I needed to hear this. Maybe because others followed what celebrities said and like what they did, or maybe it was because 96% of the time it was not cool to be a christian. Whatever it was, I got my validation from celebrities.
Fast forward to 2010 and the same thing is happening, only a little bit more covert. Today we mask this by looking for the approval of celebrities in what we are doing. I am not a 11-year-old boy anymore, I am a 24-year-old guy that now hopes most celebrities are not christians (see Mel Gibson) and instead looks for celebrities stamp of approval. Well, semi celebrities, more like christian world celebrities. Nothing like getting a big name christian speaker, blogger, or musician to stamp their word of approval on you with a tweet, video endorsement or even a post about what you are doing. For some reason the gatekeeper that is the christian celebrity holds the keys to validating a movement or an idea.
Don’t believe me? Go and check out any blog that has had a small amount of success (maybe one big post or wrote a review of someones book) and did not mention “insert big name christian” here in their tweet or replied to their comment in the comment stream. Listen, I am not complaining about this. I have done this as well. Part of the way that I spread the word about scarletcordm.com and prayer for prostitutes was that I got the “christian celebrities” to tweet about it, even Max Lucado tweeted it out. The blog went from getting about 14 views a day to over 1000. But it was almost like I (we) need that stamp of approval to say what we are doing is right. And I see this all the time with people who are looking to get to be friends with “big name blogger a” and “big name author b” because it could make the next “big name whatever”
Even though I have progressed 15 years since Puff Daddy told me I was cool,
I still am looking to be on the in-crowd of celebrity christians. Why? Maybe because I want to be a celebrity christian? maybe, maybe not. Or maybe it is because people have given those celebrity christians approval and validation and I/we are looking for people’s approval and validation.
Whatever happened to finding approval in the Lord?
We might have a validation problem that needs to be flipped on its head.
*kyle
You?
*kyle
I saw this tweet the other day from John that made me think a minute.
See at first I started to say, “ya me too, I am tired of mediocrity and its mediocrityness” but then I realized
Mediocrity calls me to settle
Mediocrity calls me to play it safe
Mediocrity calls me to be content with little
Mediocrity calls me to do nothing
Mediocrity is not sexy or even something to be desired, but it is easy and doesn’t call for much.
For someone who is afraid of failure, mediocrity might just be the best thing to be.
*kyle
