customers served (give or take a few hundred thousand) since September 2004!
Comments and opinions expressed on THE KNIGHT SHIFT are those of Christopher Knight and not necessarily those of subjects discussed in this blog, of advertisers appearing on it or of any reasonable human being. Any correspondence/irate letters/lawsuit threats/Nigerian e-mail scams can be sent to theknightshift@gmail.com.
"Weird Ed" Woody, my filmmaking partner, is quietly attempting to murder me.
That's the only reason why I can conceive of his sending me this link to ThinkGeek's product page for the Grow Your Own World's Hottest DIY Pepper kit... because Weird Ed is well aware of my fascination with spicy hot food and he knows that I'm not going to pass up on the chance to grow my own Bhut jolokia!
This pepper, native to northeastern India, was written about more than three years ago on this blog and at the time some enterprising folks were looking at how to market it to the wider world. Well for a few bucks and some scratch you can get this pop-top can, open it up and give it water and sunlight, and in a few weeks you'll get your first sprouts. The pepper comes in at more than a million scorching Scoville units of heat. By comparison, your typical bottle of Tabasco sauce is 2,500 Scoville units. A few weeks ago the Bhut jolokia was dethroned as the hottest pepper on official record by a hybrid (which is based on the Bhut jolokia), but it's still the hottest-known naturally occurring pepper that's on the market.
Here's that link again if you dare. If nothing else, maybe you'll get lucky and get your Grow Your Own World's Hottest DIY Pepper kits by Christmas: 'twould be something different to give than those Chia Pets you always wind up buying when all other gift ideas fail...
Holy crap! This is amazing! A new app for the iPhone called Word Lens from an outfit called Quest Visual uses the phone's camera to translate visual words on-screen in real time.
Awright, first person who can tell me what obscure mondo-bizarro film that is from, can buy themselves a candy bar and pretend I got it for them.
I'm... not quite ready to return to this blog at the usual frenetic frequency that all two of my loyal readers have come to appreciate. According to my figures there had been an average of five new posts a day for quite some time now. But if you look at the front page that I'm seeing right now, there've only been twenty-five posts since mid-August!
Clearly, something has been amiss with Your Friend and Humble Narrator.
I'm not retiring The Knight Shift (well, not planning to anyway: some claim that this blog has caused more mischief than WikiLeaks... and look at where that site has gone lately!). But there is certainly - and there has already been - some significant "shifting around" of sorts behind the scenes as I have had to wrestle with quite a bit in my personal life. And I may or may not have divulged more than enough of that already.
What can I say? I believe in being honest and sincere. And most especially to and about myself. As the Bard wrote in Hamlet, "To thine own self be true".
I believe that. Even when my own self is wracked with common human foibles and frailties and a few more common than we often care to admit.
This blog has always been about things that interest me, that I believe others might find interesting as well, and as a place where I can share my thoughts and reflections on various matters. This site in its seven years of operation has done quite a lot: from movie reviews, to chronicling my running for public office, to premiering movies that I have made with friends, to documenting the exploits of the last great American moonshiner, to taking on a multimedia giant in a copyright dispute (and prevailing in the end), to recipes, and well... just about anything and everything in between.
And now, there is something else that I'll be writing about and reflecting upon. Not a new thing, but something that I'm inclined to believe is important enough to share some perspective about. And maybe others will come away from this blog even a bit wiser and more enlightened for the time spend reading from it. In the end, that is all any writer is really hoping to accomplish.
So that is what I'll be doing. Along with everything else that readers have come to expect from this blog. And Lord willing, I'll be doing more of that sooner than later.
In the meantime, to The Knight Shift's regular and faithful readership: Hello again! And to those who will be coming across this blog during the next few days: Welcome! Hope you like what you find here :-)
By the way, in case any of the regular readership is wondering if I deep-fried any turkey this past Thanksgiving...
Ahhh c'mon: y'all didn't think that I wouldn't properly document something like that, didja?!
Edit 5:12 p.m. EST: I have been asked to remove this post. And, I will honor this request. EDIT 5:22 p.m. EST 11/18/2010: I am not going to repost the original text that was here. But increasingly, I am being led to post something about what I have gone through. Maybe - just maybe - God might use it to spare others the grief that I have gone through and that I have put too many other people through.In my last post (which really was meant to be farewell for now) I publicly disclosed that I have suffered from depression for many years. I also have had to struggle with bipolar. And I do understand that I am likely giving up a lot of great potential in coming forward with that.Well, whether I want it or not, it is a part of me. It is part of my identity, which I will have to deal with for the rest of my life on this earth. And don't think that I haven't cried out to God about it. Indeed, especially in the past two months as I have begun to regain my understanding of things, I have cried out to Him harder than ever before.I have especially asked God why He gave me this, when it led to certain things happening which are, as best I can understand them, things He is against. Like divorce.For whatever reason He has, God allowed me to be stricken full-bore with bipolar, which on top of the depression and very many medications that I have been given in the past several years to fight this, turned me into a very different person than what I really was. A different person than who I like to think God intended for me to be. I became someone who put the ones closest to me through hell. And I was completely powerless to do anything about it.Bipolar, depression and all other kinds of mental illness are not a sin. Not at all. They are a kind of disease: one as real and destructive as cancer, hemophilia and diabetes. In some ways having a mental illness is far, far worse. If God had to stricken me with something, I wish He had given me cancer instead. That is something, at least, that pretty much everybody can understand.So I would like to say some things to two groups of people. First of all, I want to address those who, like me, have been afflicted with bipolar.Please know: this is NOT your fault! You could not possibly have wanted this or asked for this condition. And if you are like me, you probably weren't even aware of your own mind turning against you until it was too late. You know where I'm coming from, and I know where you are coming from too. The feeling of being alone in a dark, deep prison cell from which there is no light, no hope, no escape. Being trapped in your own mind, having to watch helplessly as you do things beyond your control. Things that you know you would have never done otherwise.I know what it's like to feel rejected by God and rejected by those closest to you. They don't understand this. They can't understand it, not without experiencing it themselves. And like me, that is something that you - since you know what this is like - would never wish on anyone. Not even your worst enemies.I know what it's like to tell God that it's just not fair. That if He was going to allow your health to be destroyed, to let it inflict harm on your flesh. To suffer something that takes away your judgment and your common sense and your spirit for living... how can that be fair? And yet, God let it happen to us.Don't give up hope. Please, don't give up hope. And as for why God would allow this to us, the only answer that comes to mind is from the story of Jesus healing the blind man, as is recorded in the Gospel of John, chapter 9:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?""Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means "Sent"). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
That is the best that I have been able to locate in scripture during these many weeks. And perhaps I should be rejoicing that God let me go through this: that if it means He will be glorified in the end, that He chose me because He knew that I could take it.
That doesn't mean that I necessarily like it one bit. After all, depression and bipolar have cost me friendships, opportunities and even my marriage. I wish that I could see how this is going to end, so that my burden might be lessened from knowing that God is going to use this.All I have to go on is faith and hope and trusting in Him. I don't know how the story ends. For now I'm a struggling character in a story that He is still writing. There are moments when I wish He did use someone else. But then, that would have been someone else suffering. And how much faith would any of us have if God didn't put us in places where we were in pain and misery and crying out to Him for deliverance?In the end, God is good. Even though things are so very dark. I will be thankful that as silent as He is now, He is listening.Now, for the second group that I want to address: the people who have to live and deal with a loved one suffering bipolar...Your mother, your father, your brother or sister, your husband or your wife who has bipolar: you have no idea what kind of a hell they are having to endure. They didn't ask for this.And neither do they deserve being abandoned and left alone.Would somebody abandon a loved one because that person became sick with cancer, or hemophilia, or leukemia? Of course not! At least they should not do such a thing. Conditions such as depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and everything else under the umbrella of mental illness are just as much a disease as cancer or muscular dystrophy. With much the same cause: something going wrong physically, deep inside the brain. It could be brought on by trauma or it could be neurochemical in nature.These people who have bipolar, they are good people, who have been hit with something beyond their control. And it is a cruel thing to leave them because of their illness.Wanna know something though? I don't hold anything against those who have left me because of my own condition. Because as I've said, you have to go through it yourself in order to understand. And this is something that I never want those I care about to have to suffer.Folks, please: your loved ones who may have bipolar, they don't deserve to be left behind. They need to be loved and cherished. You need to love and cherish them harder than you ever have before, and I do know how hard a thing that is to ask! Just know that however much hell they are putting you through, they are being put through hell far, far worse. They don't mean to hurt you or humiliate you or otherwise bring embarrassment to you. If they are anything like what I am now going through, the eventual recovery from bipolar is going to leave them cursing the day that they were born. That is the magnitude of grief and shame that people feel when they realize for the first time how much hurt they have done to those they love most, when they couldn't have helped it.Trust me: a person with bipolar is going through more than any person should ever go through in this earthly life. To not be forgiven for what they are by the people closest to them, is a far worse thing than the condition itself.I am not forgiven. By God, yes. But not by those who I have hurt. And I would do anything to be able to take it all back, if I possibly could.And those who suffer bipolar that you, dear reader, might personally know: I've no doubt that they feel the same way.Please, don't abandon those whose own minds have turned against them. Pray for them. Be patient with them. Most of all, dare to love them in spite of their illness.More certain am I than of how my own story is becoming, do I believe that Christ will be lifted up and glorified by those who do love and cherish and forgive those who cannot help the situation of mental illness.All things work for the will of God. Even mental illness. The question is: how willing are we to choose to glorify Him in spite of ourselves and our pride?
"Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
-- Chief Joseph, 1877
I have suffered from severe depression for more than ten years. I have fought it as hard as I possibly can and it hasn't been enough. It has cost me dear friends, potentially wonderful opportunities, and worst of all it has cost me the wife who I loved and held precious more than anyone else that has ever come into my life.
The sufferings I have been through, I would not wish on anyone. Not even wish them on those who have wanted to hurt me.
I am saying this because there is only so much that the enemy, the lord of this world, can do to me. He can take away everything that I hold dear. He can destroy the relationships I have with others. He can even take away my health and end my life.
I am saying this because I will not curse God. Even though in the past several days I have cried out to Him about my hurt and my guilt and my anguish and in spite of it He has been distant and silent.
I am not going to curse God. To follow Christ does not mean an easy life. I have followed Him for almost fourteen years and I have failed and fallen more times than not. There have been times before when I have cursed God in anger.
But I will not curse God this time or ever again.
God is good.
"Whatever they plot against the Lord he will bring to an end; trouble will not come a second time."
-- Nahum 1:9
I will not curse God. There is little left that can be done to hurt me. I am not even afraid to die anymore, if it comes to that.
Here's what really raised my eyebrows: this is apparently a STATEWIDE suspension, and not merely along the North Carolina coast. In other words, folks around Sylva, Waynesville and other fine places waaay out in the North Carolina mountains are also affected by the gun rights suspension... even though it's extremely doubtful that they will be affected by Earl in the least bit.
What the hell is Governor Perdue thinking?!
I would like for someone to show me where this is just a matter for the coastal areas. But even if that were the case, it does not make me feel the least bit comfortable that Perdue has taken it upon herself to say that the Second Amendment no longer applies, regardless of how big or small an area is affected by Earl.
And then the woman has the gall to say that those who decide to ride it out are "on your own". So what are they supposed to use to defend themselves against potential looters? Like the guy in Aliens suggested: "harsh language"?
This woman hasn't a clue. Like too damn many other elected officials in this country.
Hey y'all, been a few days since an update. All that can be said at the moment is that I've got a lot of irons in the fire, so to speak :-)
Here, maybe this'll make up for it. My good friend and brother in Christ (not to mention fellow Star Wars ubergeek) Joshua Ausley shot, edited and produced this head-slammingly rockalicious music video for a band called Death Proof out of our very own Greensboro, North Carolina!
Dear Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and attendees of today's "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington D.C.:
America does not need a "religious rebirth". America and her people do need to experience genuine contrition before God. And the two are absolutely NOT the same.
Five years ago tonight was when Hurricane Katrina roared ashore and beat the city of New Orleans to within an inch of its life. The photo is a now-famous one taken of the storm surge as Katrina made landfall.
Katrina started out life on August 23rd, 2005 as a tropical system in the southeastern Bahamas. It did substantial damage and caused a number of deaths as it went across the Florida peninsula. And then Katrina entered the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico... where it became the monster that would ultimately cause the worst natural disaster in American history.
Five years later and Katrina is being debated as hotly as ever. I thought at the time that the situation became one of the worst clusterf-cks ever for government at all levels (and both major parties, mind ya).
(I still think that the Interdictor blog is going to make for one helluva movie someday, with the right screenplay and director behind it.)
There is something dreadfully fascinating about hurricanes. And if you were reading The Knight Shift at the time you'll remember well how, ummm... nuts I went in writing about Katrina.
Let us hope and pray that another such opportunity will be a long, long time in returning.
I wasn't going to make a blog post this late but I was still up working on stuff and this report came from a longtime trusted source. And as this blog has become one of - if not the most - viewed and respected sources of reliable information about Rockingham County matters, I would be remiss in my duties if I did not pass along the following...
The title pretty much says it all: Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll who allegedly died in 1977, was witnessed at the Sheetz in Eden just a few short hours ago.
Sightings of Elvis are not unheard of in Rockingham County but this is the first time in more than a decade and a half that Elvis has been verified as being in the area. Previously Elvis had been riding around in a white stretch limo, including one visit to a convenience store in Ridgeway, Virginia in 1993 that was authenticated by the News & Record out of Greensboro.
