This blog needs more beautiful... and LOTS of it!

I can't recall posting a picture of my extremely lovely and incredibly sweet cousin Lauryn for the month of February. Even though I know that many of The Knight Shift's male readers can't get enough of her beautiful visage (I got two e-mails this past week complaining about the lack of Lauryn of late).

So since I've been posting too many videos showing my ugly mug in recent weeks, I'll more than make up for it. Here is Lauryn, flanked by my equally stunning cousins Rachael and Angela!

Remember fellas: Lauryn is a taken lady, but she doesn't mind being The Knight Shift's poster gal. As for Rachael and Angela, I don't know if they're seeing anyone. However I feel strongly obligated to mention that their father is something like seven and a half feet tall and is a minister.

Parse that as you will :-P

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Classic SESAME STREET: Kermit the Angry Reporter!

Goodness gracious... it's been ages since I've posted a clip from Sesame Street on this blog, or anything else having to do with the Muppets! I'll try to do better from now on gang.

This is one that I remember seeing a few times in my childhood: Kermit the Frog doing a report for Sesame Street News on what makes people angry. I laughed when I watched it then but now that I'm older...

...Well, is there anyone else who sees Kermit honked-off and thinking that he's a lot like Howard Beale from the movie Network?

The more I think about it I could totally see Muppets Network happening, with Kermit screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" In his reporter gig he even looks a lot like Howard Beale, right down to the raincoat. Yup, "Kermit the Frog, the Mad Prophet of Sesame Street". And Arthur Jensen could be played by Oscar the Grouch.

Ahhh c'mon... that would be hilarious! :-)

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BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 8: Depressive Episode #2, "Stop Thinking About Nothing"

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An appeal for prayer on behalf of someone (And yes, I'm serious)

I'm not going to say much more than needs to be said about this, because in spite of everything I wouldn't wish this on anybody.

Several readers of this blog have notified me that Johnny Robertson has been diagnosed with colon cancer. And apparently it's pretty severe.

So I'm asking everyone who is reading this: Please put aside whatever else you feel toward Mr. Robertson, and hold him up in prayer. Ask God to bring him healing. Ask God to bring the peace which surpasses all understanding to him and his family.

Johnny, regardless of the past, I will be praying for you to fully recover from this. And I'm going to sincerely encourage everyone that I know to do the same for you.

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The earthquake in Japan...

...moved the axis of the entire Earth 10 inches from its previous position.

And the coastline of Japan has been permanently moved nearly 2 and a half meters.

Once again, I am reminded about how lacking in humility we are in regard to the world we live upon.

Try to think about the forces required to move something as big as the entire Earth by ten inches. Just ten inches.

In the first year of this blog's operation, after the 2004 Indonesia earthquake/tsunami, I posted an excerpt from Jurassic Park (the super-incredible novel not the less-than-satisfying movie). It's the scene toward the end where Ian Malcolm is telling Hammond about how the Earth cannot be destroyed. It's perhaps worth reading again, and pondering.

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8.9 earthquake just hit Japan

That's just short of the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake that produced the tsunami which devastated Indonedia and other places along thousands of miles of the Indian Ocean's shoreline.

8.9 Richter... sheesh. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to experience something like that.

Thoughts and prayers going out this morning to our friends in Japan. And if you can, tune in to the television coverage going on right now. This is history in the making.

EDIT 2:55 a.m. EST: This blog has lots of readers in Hawaii (yeah hey to you too Danny :-). Now hearing that a tsunami warning has been issued and that you guys are due to get hit by the heavy end of the hammer around 3:00 a.m. Hawaiian local time this morning.

Got you guys in prayer especially. Please, be safe.

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Thought on a Thursday morning

It is better to be a liberator than it is to be a conqueror.

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BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 7 - God, Happiness, Yoda, ATLAS SHRUGGED, Weird Al, and Charlie Sheen

And I hope to have Part 6 of Being Bipolar up by the weekend :-)

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Popcorn Sutton moonshine still for sale on eBay!

For $20,000 you could be the proud owner of this authentic moonshine still designed, built and no doubt USED by Popcorn Sutton for the brewing of his famous likker!

Here's the link to the item's eBay page. And here's the official description...

Up for sale is a genuine Copper Moonshine Still that was used by the legendary Popcorn Sutton of the appalachians. This item is being sold for historical purposes only, not for actual use. This still is 45-50 years old and has a 110 gallon pot!

Any additional questions please call about this rare and highly collectible item.

Rare and collectible, indeed!! I would love to own this... or anything that was the handiwork of Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton: a character who was truly an American original.

Tip o' the hat to Eric Smith for an awesome find!!

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Gasoline now $3.45 in most places here

"Here" being Reidsville, North Carolina and the surrounding area.

It will likely hit $4 per gallon or thereabouts by the end of the week. And this month might end with it averaging $5 a gallon, depending on how the situation in Libya goes.

I haven't said anything about Libya yet on this blog. But for those who are curious: I don't see any good outcome. Kadaffi (or however you spell his name and I've heard there are about a hundred English translations) is a nutcase and a half enforcing his private little fantasy world with lots of guns and missiles and probably chemical weapons... but if he goes down in what can only be called civil war at this point, look for the Muslim Brotherhood-type that we just saw running the show in the Egyptian revolt to take charge.

And then things start to get interesting.

(I would also - not to put too fine a point on it - advise keeping an eye on Saudi Arabia in the near future.)

Two other factors that are ramping-up the price of fuel: the official stance by the executive branch of the United States federal government to disprove of increased deep-water drilling. And, something that I've talked about a few times already on this blog: that this country needs more oil refineries. That is more a bottleneck than most people realize, but there haven't been any new refineries built in quite some time. Without that, whatever increased petroleum production we might have becomes a moot thing.

I'm due to take a trip early next month. It'll be a long drive. Here's hoping that the pumps between here and yonder won't be seven bucks and change. The way things are going now, I wouldn't doubt it.

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What a night

In the six hours or so since that previous post...

...I feel like I have grown more as a person than, I probably have in, well... a very long time. Emphasis on "very".

And with the sun rising on this new day...

...I am finding myself thankful to God, that however He allowed my mind to be, that He did bless me with a wonderful mind.

And now I am going to keep on doing what I have always done: doing my best to make the most of it.

To put it in some perspective: it's been, ohhh... about twenty years since I've had a moment like this.

(And no, the previous post has nothing to do with it...)

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Sources at this late hour...

...are telling me that this blog - yes, this one - is "about to bust wide open". Apparently, in a way that's not bad, for once.

That is all.

Guess I should dust off the welcome mat again, huh?

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E.T. phones home and dials down destruction on Earth!

Very, very disturbing (yet funny) trend I've caught lately happening on the Intertubes. Some clever chaps are taking 1982's beloved film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and giving it the Frank Miller/The Dark Knight Returns treatment. Namely, producing faux trailers for grim, dark sequels to E.T.

And so far I've found two of these pieces of work!

This first one splices together footage from E.T. with another Steven Spielberg movie, War of the Worlds. Here is E.T. Returns...

Not bad! I like how it takes Tom Cruise's character from War of the Worlds and turns him into the older Elliot.

But the trailer for E.T.-X, made with overwhelmingly original footage, is so crazy insanely ludicrously... AHHHH just see for yourself! If E.T. didn't scare you at the theater before, it sure will now!

Michael Bay should team up with Spielberg and make that 'un after he finishes this next Transformers movie. I would pay just to see the bad E.T.'s crush the Jonas Brothers :-P

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A church that requires faith to enter

This is an Orthodox chapel near the city of Chiatura in the former Soviet state of Georgia...

Oh yes, you can go in... but first you have the climb a rickety, rusty metal ladder up a 130-feet tall column of rock. The building atop the column was constructed sometime between the sixth and eighth centuries and is thought to have at first been a pagan temple (the rock being ummmm... symbolic of "fertility", parse that as you will).

The Orthodox churches credit their founding to the apostle Andrew, who journeyed to the region following the ascension of Christ. With the conversion of the pagans, the temple became a Christian chapel. Today it is being restored and is even the home of an Orthodox priest.

My brain feels staggered just looking at the photo of this thing. Just... wow.

Click here to learn more about the chapel at Chiatura, including a photo of the interior containing some beautiful icons.

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Three people have asked me about Charlie Sheen and bipolar disorder

Perhaps that's been prompted by (A) Charlie Sheen's out-of-control antics during the past 72 hours and (B) the "Being Bipolar" series that I recently started on this blog about my own experiences and struggles with bipolar.

And now it's being asked aloud by a lot of bigger news outlets.

I'm not too "hip" about things on the celebrity scene. In fact, the last thing that I would ever want to be called is a "celebrity". I am a character. My life is filled with lots of other characters (though more than a few are what pop culture would call "celebrities"). Charlie Sheen's behavior exemplifies why I don't want to be known as a celebrity.

But the more I've looked into his peculiar case, the more I am finding myself also wondering - not a professional psychiatrist, mind ya: I'm just a guy who has the condition himself - if Mr. Sheen might have this illness.

Because, I see a lot of myself during my worst manic episodes in Mr. Sheen's bizarre activity.

And if it's bipolar disorder, then I genuinely feel sorry for the man. Because I know what that's like. And as I've said before, it's not something that I would ever wish on someone else. Not even my worst enemies.

A person in this condition needs help. More than he or she could possibly realize it on their own. I certainly didn't understand how much I needed it. It took a hard crash to get me stabilized and even then, it was two years before I finally came to my senses enough to comprehend what bipolar did to me and my loved ones.

Mr. Sheen, I don't know if you'll ever read this. But if you do, from a person who does have bipolar disorder and is learning to live with it and have a much more productive life than I've ever been able to have before: Dude, you're in a bad place. And you can't get out of it on your own. You need help. If not for yourself then, think of your beautiful little twin boys. They need you to be the most you can be. Bipolar disorder robs a person of that. You don't deserve to have that stolen from you any more than anyone else does.

And if Mr. Sheen is still doing drugs, well... I can't express enough how much he needs to get off that crap. Heck, I don't drink and I've never done recreational drugs: there's been nothing to chemically multiply the effects of bipolar... but even so, without that bipolar is still hell to deal with.

Charlie, man, if you've got bipolar disorder, get help and get cleaned up. You got too much of a good life that God has blessed you with and you gotta start being appreciative of that.

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Darn you Steve Jobs!

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 given me funny looks when I have to tell them that I've never had a laptop computer. I just don't like how they're made: too much that can get broken easily. The iPad is different. And iPad 2 has enough bells and whistles on it to have me break down to get one now.

'Course, word on the street is that iPad 3 might be coming out around September. Not feeling terribly obligated to wait to see what it may (or may not) have on it. I just care about what can help me be productive now... and since I'm looking at a fair bit of traveling coming soon, the iPad is gonna make a fine tool to that end.

Besides, if iPad 3 is lustworthy enough, I can just give my iPad 2 to my sister :-)

On another note, Steve Jobs looks great!! Glad to see that his health is apparently improving well :-)

EDIT 8:50 p.m. EST: So my sister has since told me "I don't see what's so great about them!" and that she doesn't care to have an iPad at all.

Well, phooey on her!! I'll tell you what I might do, gang: come September or October, if there is an iPad 3 out and I wind up getting that, we may just have a contest on this blog and give away the iPad 2.

Or I could get two iPad 2s soon and run a contest and give one of those away, brand-new.

Hey, you never know what is going to happen on this blog :-P

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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 of their desire or not. In the end, God will know who belongs to Him. That is something that is not left to any of us in this temporal realm.

Seek after Christ, as best you understand Him, if you have found Him. For those who seek Him still, pray for them and for God's glory without regard to your own sake.

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