Sara and I are planning our vacation. We're planning on going to 1) Brendan's graduation in Moberly, MO. Then 2) we're heading up to Kirksville to see some friends we knew from Campus Christian Fellowship. Then we're heading to 3) Kearney, NE, to see Brandon and Keri. Finally we're stopping in 4) Omaha, NE to spend a couple of days going to the zoo and stuff. Here's the thing that's kind of funny. We're trying to decide on what hotel to stay at in Omaha. One of us is leaning toward a place with free wireless internet in every room and the other wants to stay in a hotel that looks like a castle from the outside. I won't say which of us is pulling for which, because I want you to be impartial. Help us out by posting a comment giving your opinion. It probably won't affect our decision, but it could be a fun discussion. Also, feel free to speculate about which of us wants which accomadations.

Okay, I know, many of you want to string me up after merely reading the title of this post. Let me explain: I'm a jerk. I'm cynical and somewhat of a music snob. In no way have I or would I ever pretend to be able to write a worship song, or any song for that matter, but I have been subjected to numerous worship sets which made me feel like laughing or puking. (Neither option is preferable when singing to the Big Guy.) Additionally, I am the director of our church's Worship Planning Team, so every week I consciously choose to let these and other songs which annoy me to be played, for the good of everyone else. So I am capable of group thinking. I just reserve the right to my opinion. And so do you. (So please tell me your own worst worship song).


5. I Will Not Forget You
I love Waterdeep. I think they are original and fun and somehow still serious and they usually move me in worship like nothing else. Here's the thing--I can't stand when songwriters want to use a word or phrase, then realize that using said phrase would mess up the rhythm of the song, but instead of rethinking the phrase, they add a word. In this case, the word is 'huge'. (As in, "a huge bell I ring"). I usually remain silent on this line or risk bursting into an inappropriate display of worship laughter.


4. Trading My Sorrows

Please don't kill me. I know that a lot of people love this song, particularly the actions (oh my goodness, don't get me started on action songs). This might be a little picky, but what am I if not detail-oriented? The bridge of this song includes the line "Though the sorrow may last for the night" and the music hits on each word in 'last for the night' in such a way that makes me think of hip-shaking. As in: Though the sorrow may last (stick hip out to right) for (to left) the (to right) night (to left). Get it? Anecdote--I was in a worship setting with my friend Marty and we were singing this song. We get to this part of the song, and, I kid you not, Marty does the hip thing. Completely his idea. I almost crapped my pants.


3.Draw Me Close Not a big fan of the emotional 'Jesus is sitting next to me' type songs. "I'd lay it all down again/ To hear you say that I'm your friend." Not so bad, I guess. Just wait. "You are my desire/ No one else will do/ Cause nothing else could take your place/ To feel the warmth of your embrace." What on earth does that mean? Grammatically speaking, we have a monster on our hands. To what does 'to feel the warmth of your embrace' refer? Peter, please back me up on this one.


2. Come, Now is the Time to Worship
This song is one of a few in a category I like to call "Ha, ha. You have to sing me first." For a Worship Planning Team director, this is maddening. Not to mention the weird chorus that doesn't seem to fit and the way we must all say 'come' at the end of the verse in an unnatural sing-whisper.


1. Your Love is Extravagant

I'm pulling out of the 'most recent' file on this one. My friend Hannah introduced me to this song, and when she sings it, it's great. She has a beautiful voice, and I can pretty much ignore whatever she is saying when she's singing. But when forced to sing as a participant, I found this song problematic. (Again, grammatically). "Spread wide in the arms of Christ/ Is the love that covers sin." No one told me we were moving back to Olde English on this one, and I spent an entire morning trying to figure out what I had just sung. I asked like 10 people what it meant, and understood even less when I was done. (I felt like a major idiot because it seemed like everyone else understood what we were saying. Maybe they just didn't care). Later, Danny explained that we were saying "The love that covers sin is spread wide in the arms of Christ." English majors.


Freebies:
Anything with the word 'river' in the title

This includes "Jesus Flow Like a River," "Let the River Flow," and "Dance in the River." My reasoning: no one can legitimately explain what the 'river' signifies. Seriously. Once, my friend Peter (whose list would be MUCH longer than mine) asked people why they liked a song with 'river' in the title. I believe he said, "What exactly is the river?" The answer? "Oh, you know, its Jesus and he's flowing through us. It's like the Spirit or something." Whatever.


Songs with lyrics that don't match the melody
Example: I Could Sing of Your Love Forever Here, we are singing a fun, happy verse, and then we move into the bridge with a depressing sound where we say, "Oh, I feel like dancing….." (Actually, this music makes me feel like crying.) "Like we're dancing now" (By the way, I have never seen anyone dance at this point. False advertising.)



**I Googled this topic and came up with nothing. So, from now on, when anyone wants to find the world's worst worship songs, they will see this list. So, if you want to be a world-famous jerk (and, really, who doesn't?), post your comments.

First, let me apologize for the lack of posts the past two weeks. See number 5 for an explanation.

5. Dawson's Creek While TiVo and Dawson's were the subjects of my last post, I feel I must bring them up again. For the past two weeks, my part-time job has been keeping up with my two-a-day recordings of this television show. I told myself that I would stop watching once they got to college, but that didn't happen. Yes, it is dumb. Yes, I can't believe I'm still watching. But every night after Emma goes to bed, I open up our Now Playing window and there they are, calling out to me: "What will happen with Joey and that professor?" "What about Jen and Dawson? You know they eventually have to break up. How will it happen?" I know, not the questions of the century, but give me a break -- I stay at home with a two year old. I'm not trying to reform the Electoral College or anything. (Plus, I have to do something while Danny is playing Gunbound.)

4. Vacation We get two weeks of vacation from the church each year, and we always have a hard time deciding what to do with it. Since Danny is doing two youth camps and one major youth trip this summer, we've decided to take an earlier week of vacation. We are going to Brendan's graduation, then to our old stomping ground, Kirksville, then Kansas City and then possibly to Nebraska to see Brandon and Keri (and Eden). If you know me, I am always excited about a road trip and a change of scenery. (You will also know that I start planning suitcase-packing schedules about a month in advance. I'm that anal.)

3. Sesame Street One of the few shows I can stand to watch with Emma (Dora's too repetitive, Oobi is too weird), Sesame Street is and always will be awesome. The new characters, once you get to 'know' them, are great -- Zoe and Rosita (or, if you are Emma, 'Mozita') especially. Just the other day, I got to see the sketch with "Teeny Little Super Guy", the character on a cup who spins around the sink talking to other cups. (Remember: you can't tell a hero by his size). What a great show!

2. My brother Lucas, my brother, is in the Navy and is currently in Iraq. I haven't seen him in two years, which is really strange because when Danny and I were first married, he lived with us in our very small K-ville apartment (think glorified attic). He's a fun kid with great taste in music (I'd like to think I had something to do with that, but probably not) and an even better sense of humor. So Lucas, if you're reading this, I miss you and hope you get to come home soon.

1. My mission Last week was a very reflective one, spent figuring out why I am here (when I wasn't watching Dawson's). I discovered that when I first became a Christian, I changed everything about myself, including my personality. In the last year or so, I've finally recovered that part of myself that believes it is vitally important to point out the traditional/fundamental/absolutely incorrect assumptions made by Christians everywhere. As I recently said in an email: My [current] life as a Christian is not much different than my life as a non-Christian. What I mean is that I still have doubts, I still question everything, I still don't read the Bible a lot or pray a lot or give sub-standard, one-size-fits-all Christian advice. I prefer to say "I have absolutely no idea" than to pretend I understand a person's problem or know what advice a person needs to hear. This is how I deal with the "Do unto others" idea practically. The point is that I do not deal well (you could say I abhor) with what I deem to be cookie-cutter Christian rhetoric because it doesn't work. Aaaahhhh, introspection.

If you haven't yet, check out the comments on my Passion of the Christ post. And you may as well give your opinion, too.

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When I was taking ancient Greek at Truman I did this just for fun. I translated the One Ring poem at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings into Greek. Now you can read it in PDF format, or if that doesn't work, as a jpeg.

Yesterday I finally got to go snagging. Gerald, Matthew and David took me down to Warsaw, MO, and showed me how it's done. If you've never been snagging before, here's the story: The spoonbill (aka paddlefish, aka Polyodon Spathula) hangs around at the bottom of rivers eating stuff and pooping (I can only assume). You throw out a 4-10 oz. weight and two huge treble hooks, drag them accross the bottom of the river hoping to sink some hooks into a fish's hide. It's exhausting, but a lot of fun and it's good to eat.

Matthew and I had never caught one before and we each hooked and then lost one within an hour of when we started. By the time we were done we had each brought one in. His was 36 inches and mine was 40. Click on the image above to see a bigger picture of my fish. Click on this link to see Matthew's fish. Come over to my house Saturday night (5 pm) to help us eat them.

Today Emma and I spent the day together. We went to Don's TV and Appliance, Ethan's Auto Care, Sonic, Famous Footwear, Best Buy, some craft shop, Office Max, Famous Footwear again, Petco, and Wal-mart. We didn't buy much. We spent some time playing Tony Hawk Underground, we watched part of a documentary on some huge plasma TVs, looked at parakeets, she tried on some size 12 shoes and we brought home 3 black mollies for our fish tank. We had a great day. It's 7 pm and I think she's already pretty sleepy. She's watching an Elmo DVD and jabbering/singing right now.

Today has started out much better than yesterday did. This morning Emma wanted to go into her room and play with a baby doll. She was smiling and talking, which is more than she's done since last Friday. She's eating a bit now and approaching 48 hours without a puke. I sold my stupid Dish Network equipment for $75 on eBay. Word.

I'm ready to break something right now. When I cancelled my DishNetwork service the nice lady told me that I had no contract and so there would be no penalty for cancelling, except that I wouldn't receive any more credits on my bill for the equipment that I paid for. Great, I said, so I cancelled it and had my wonderful new DirectTV with Tivo installed. I listed the DN equipment on eBay and it's currently at $31, easy money. But then I get the worst call today. Don's Satellite (not to be confused with Don Arndt local DirectTV deale, but some outfit from Kansas) calls and says that when I ordered the DN from them I signed a contract for a year of service, with penalties for early withdrawal. Crap. I forgot about that. Why didn't DN tell me that when I called? Ok, what will the penalty be? $220!!! Oh, and by the way, we'll be picking up the equipment, too. Gaaaah! I paid for that equipment with my own stinking money! I don't know who to be mad at or what to break. DN should have told me that I did in fact have a contract, and Don's Satellite is the one breathing down my neck for this money. The worst part is that if I had just kept my DN service until the end of the contract (I think about 6 months) it would have only been around $100, and the equipment would have been mine.

Update: I was able to sign back up with Dish Network until my contract expires in August. I'll be paying them $24.99 for service that I don't use, but it will be cheaper than what the retailer wanted to charge me for dropping out. And I can go ahead and sell the equipment. I wish DN could have told me that I was under a contract . . . Bottom line: it's all worth it to have Tivo.