My plans have been thrown afoul... because now I'll have to be here next Friday afternoon to place my order for the iPad 2 on Apple's website.(Mash here for one of Engadget's myriad of articles about the product's unveiling today.)I didn't get an iPad last year, but I fell in love enough with the simplicity of the design that... I knew this was on my short-list of "things I never knew I needed" and ought to have. For more than a decade people have...
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
What I'm about to say has nothing at all to do with "religion"
Christ is the only path toward finding God.But, there are many paths toward finding Christ.Who am I, then, to say that how another another has found Christ is inadequate or even "wrong"? Who are any of us to demand that we have found the "one true" way of discovering Christ, to the exclusion of all others?It would only seem to most matter that Christ is found at all. And He will be found, by those who seek Him... whether they are even conscious...
Monday, February 28, 2011
Frank Buckles, the last surviving United States veteran of World War I, has passed away
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived,...
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Be thankful
My dear readers,I was told that Tim Scales was at a meeting of the school board on Friday night. Everyone that I've spoken to said that he was, as always, full of cheer and good humor and... just full of life.And then, yesterday morning at the Food Lion that he worked at, he collapsed and died. One member of the board tonight said that everyone is still in deep shock about Tim's passing.People, I have asked you for prayer recently. I thank you...
Tim Scales has passed away
This community has lost a respected and admired leader... and a friend to many.The sad word came late last night that Tim Scales, Vice-Chairman of the Rockingham County Schools system here in North Carolina, passed away yesterday morning. He had served on the board since 2000, and had been representing District 6 in the western part of the county.Can't express how torn up...
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
BEING BIPOLAR: Trying to make amends
I don't care what this looks like. This is something that I need to do.I am coming to realize that, during the span of my life I did hurt a lot of people. And even though those were times when I was suffering episodes of my bipolar mania, I still have to own up to all of it.I am counting on this blog being read by many who have been in my life over the years. No, I don't know who you are or where you are. But since two people from my past have...
Saturday, February 19, 2011
BEING BIPOLAR, Part 5: God and Mental Illness
READER ADVISORY: This, the fifth installment of an ongoing series exploring what I have experienced and learned from living with bipolar disorder, contains an account of an extremely graphic nature. My writing about it here marks the first time that I have revealed in public an incident, the nature of which I pray would never happen to anyone. This advisory is not to "warn...
Friday, February 18, 2011
Trailer for ATLAS SHRUGGED: PART 1
Yes, I have seen the new trailers for Thor, and for Captain America: The First Avenger, and for Green Lantern and Transformers: Dark of the Moon and every other trailer out right now for a tentpole movie this year.But I haven't posted about them. If you want to find them, here's YouTube. Knock yourself out.I am however going to post the trailer for Atlas Shrugged: Part 1...The...
Detroit to get geeks-financed statue of RoboCop
I guess if Philadelphia can have a Rocky Balboa statue, and if New York City has one of Ralph Kramden and if Milwaukee has the Fonz as a landmark, then Detroit should get a lasting monument to its own... hero?(Oh yeah, I almost forgot : nearby Mount Airy - the model for Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show - has that life-sized bronze statue of Andy and Opie going fishing! ...
This blogger is impressed... but just mildly... by Watson's streak on JEOPARDY!
So one of the bigger stories this past week has been IBM's supercomputer Watson beating all-time champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter during a three-game series on Jeopardy!. Watson's final haul was $77,147, with Jennings coming in second with $24,000 and Rutter third with $21,600. During Final Jeopardy! on the last night of the contest Jennings wrote "Who is Stoker?"...
Doug Smith remembers Dale Earnhardt and reflects on NASCAR
Today is the tenth anniversary of the death of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr.. On this occasion, good friend Doug Smith wrote some thoughts and posted them on Facebook. Doug asked if I could post his essay here as well. I don't follow NASCAR too well, but I remember Earnhardt as being one of the finest drivers to ever be in the sport, and Doug's thoughts about the state...
About those new features on The Knight Shift...
Last week I said that there were two new features coming to this blog: Movies I've Never Seen and A Sermon A Week. And the plan was to kick them off this past Sunday.Obviously that didn't transpire according to plan.It was bad timing more than anything else. This past weekend I was doing the last few performances of our community theatre guild's production of Gypsy. And then some other stuff happened and the new stuff got pushed to the backburner.I'm...
Didja know that STARCRAFT II don't run so well on multi-core systems?
Well, you do now! But be of good cheer: I'm about to tell you how to fix that.I've had StarCraft II for awhile now, but haven't played even anywhere close to finishing the first campaign. Among other reasons, I've been frustrated by what I have been certain is too slow performance for the high-end rig I've got it installed on. And yesterday, I finally set out to find out...
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Late-night theological rumination
Righteousness before God must be desired before it can be deserv...
Chris set to tempt fate with... REAL BHUT JOLOKIA!
This is either one of the bravest things that I will have ever attempted... or it is the stoopidest of my entire life (which could be snuffed out by this stuff).Back in December I posted about my filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed Woody passing along the link where you can purchase Bhut jolokia for your very own! Why did Ed tell me about ThinkGeek's Grow Your Own World's Hottest...
