The Big Five Oh ... Oh

According to my dashboard, I've just hit a milestone on this blog. This is post #500. Well, for now it is. I've been thinking of going into my backlog and clearing out some of the overgrowth, but I've never gotten around to it, but anyway...

Wow. I'll be honest, when I started this blog, I didn't think that it'd last very long. If you go back and look at the earliest entries (and please don't, just take my word for it), this little corner of cyberspace would very easily live up to its name. Stupid rambling posts by yours truly, never around a central theme. It very well should have imploded like a Viking's fan's Superbowl dreams (Gah! Too early!).

But here we are, five years and five hundred posts later. I suppose I could get all introspective right now and try to come up with some profound insight over how I've changed over the past five years. Five years ago, I was still a pastor in Blue Earth. Five years ago, I hadn't yet gone through the adoption process and become a father. I hadn't attended an ACFW Conference yet, I was still banging away at the same science fiction trilogy that now gathers some dust on my bookshelf.

Truth be told, though, I'm in a bit of a mess right now mentally. So instead of going for philosophy, let's go for the moment.

As of right now, I'm sitting in my den chair, wearing my purple #4 jersey, wondering how much the Saints paid to bribe the refs. Saints fans may disagree with me, but come on, some of those last calls were ridiculous. Go Colts.

Now that that's out of my system, let's talk TV viewing. My current roster of TV shows I follow regularly is holding somewhat steady: Chuck, Heroes, Castle on Mondays. Scrubs and now Human Target on Tuesdays (although don't hold me to the latter, I'm not sure when that's on exactly). Law and Order: SVU on Wednesdays. Dollhouse (for now), Shark Tank, and Law and Order on Fridays. Thank goodness for my hardworking VCR so I can record it and catch up on those shows at my leisure.

I'm reading Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins presently and I'm surprised at how fast I'm plowing through it. Good stuff there.

According to my iTunes 25 Most Played List, I am apparently obsessed with the soundtrack for Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog. Weird. I didn't think I'd listened to it that many times. Not that I have recently. I'm also the proud subscriber of about a dozen podcasts, three from How Things Work, the venerable Late Nite Jengajam, the PC Gamer Podcast, and I just recently, I subscribed to Word Like Fire and downloaded all 25 episodes.

I'm still a pastor but I've dabbled with dreams of going for an advanced degree of some sort. I took a somewhat half-serious look at an MFA from Hamline, but got derailed sometime last year.

I've lost more hair in the last five years than I wanted, but those are the breaks.

So that's about it. I have no idea where or when I'll be when post #1,000 comes around. I have no idea what changes might have occurred in my life.

Hopefully by then, the Vikings will have at least made it into the Superbowl. A guy can dream, right?

The Late Night JengaJam

I've blogged about this before, but it always bears repeating. I listen to one podcast faithfully and religiously, namely The Late Night JengaJam, hosted by the ever incredible J. G. "Jengaship" Edathil and the lovely and talented Lauren (a.k.a. OboeCrazy). He always comes up with the most interesting guests from all walks of life. And tomorrow night, his guest is none other than ... well, me.

This is the second time I've been a guest on the JengaJam. I had a great (if rambling) time. Jengaship invited me on this week to help promote our congregation's podcast, but I'm sure that the topic won't be limited to simply that.

I'd like to invite anyone who passes through my little corner of the Internet to join us tomorrow night, starting at 10:30 PM EST (9:30 CST). Bring your questions, comments, whatever.

There are three ways you can participate, if you so wish:

1) Via the Internet. Tomorrow night, you can head on over to the Talkshoe website, the service that Jengaship uses to both broadcast and record his show. Head on over here and you can log and listen in. You can also participate in the Jengajam chat room, which can be pretty wild sometimes.

2) Via your phone. Talkshoe also allows people to listen in and participate over their phone. All you have to do is call this number: (724) 444-7444. Then enter the show ID number: 6478, #. You can listen in. Jengaship is also pretty good about bringing people into the conversation so they can ask questions.

3) Download it later. While you'll miss out on the fun of the chat room and you won't be able to ask any questions, you can always find the Jengajam on iTunes and download it for future consumption.

And if you need any further reason to listen in, just consider the title that Jengaship has given tomorrow night's episode: "Sermon on the iPod." Sheer awesomeness.

Friendly Aquaponics

It'd admittedly been a while since I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, namely The Late Nite JengaJam. I won't offer any excuses as to why I haven't been listening, but I finally listened to the latest episode this morning. I'm glad I did.

J. G. Edathil's latest guests were the folks who run Friendly Aquaponics, an aquaponics facility that's run in Hanokaa, Hawaii. I'd never heard of this technology before. I'd heard of hydroponics, but never the aqua- version. I wasn't sure what to expect but I decided to listen to find out more.

I'm so glad I did. This is an incredible technology, one that deserves a lot of research and development. Basically, it's a system that allows people to grow vegetables and fish in the same farm. According to their data, they can produce 30 times the vegetables as a traditional farm in the same land area while using only 1% of the water. In the interview, they make a great case for using this technology since it can be built on any type of land.

If you've never listened to the JengaJam, this is a great episode to start with. Fire up your iTunes and head on over to "Late Nite JengaJam" and download Episode 89. Take a listen. It'll be an enlightening 50 minutes.

Late Nite JengaJam

So what could inspire me to post a record fourth time in one day? It would have to be something truly special. Something truly epic. Something motivated by an Internet phenomenon that is sweeping this great land. I'm speaking, of course, of...

The Late Nite JengaJam!

Jengaship, the host, is a very cool guy that I met at the Rooster Teeth website. He started a podcast about a year ago, one that I listen to faithfully every week. I used to call in to it regularly, but haven't had the chance as of late.

But that will change tomorrow night. For his guest is none other than... me.

I know. I'm scared to death.

So what will we talk about? Religion, writing, we'll just have to see. Jengaship is a skilled host and the conversations he has with his guests are always fun and insightful. So if you're free tomorrow night (Thursday, February 21st) at 10:30 EST (9:30 for those of us in CST), do the following:

1) Call 1-724-444-7444

2) Enter show ID: 6478

3) You're in!

Or, if you don't want to do that, go over to Jengaship's Talkshoe page. You can sign in and listen over the Internet.

And please. Be kind.

Jengajam Plugs Part Two: Electric Boogaloo

I'm such an idiot. There was a fourth thing I could have plugged:

Irruption, a fantasy short story I wrote that was published a little over a month ago.

D'oh!

Jengajam Plugs

I've been listening to a podcast by a guy who calls himself Jengaship. I met Jengaship at Red vs. Blue. He schooled me in a Biblical debate and I really respect him for that. He's a witty, erudite guy and he's now branched out into a call-in podcast called the Late Nite Jengajam. I can't always liten to it live, but I always catch up on my iPod.

Anyway, Jenga recently sponsored a contest at the Jengajam's website. He wanted witty, articulate comments on his posts. The winner would receive some airtime to plug whatever he or she wanted. I made a comment that was basically nothing but a silly sycophantic rant.

I won.

Which kind of put me in a quandry. I'm not some Internet celebrity with an impressive project in the works like some of Jenga's previous guests or even future guests. I'm just a barely published author who hasn't quit his day job of being a Lutheran pastor. What projects could I plug? It felt like something of a waste.

But then I put my mind to it and I realized that there were a few projects of mine (or in two cases, projects I'm remotely affiliated with) I could plug. The list started to grow and, before long, I realized that I had so much I could plug, I would run over. What to do, what to do?

So I decided to simply plug my blog and leave this entry for whoever decides to come along. Sorry for the long explanation for those who tuned in to the Jengajam, but here are the projects I could have plugged:

1) "Adventures in Dating" -- This is a machinima series produced by a lady named Decorgal. I provide the voice for one of the characters, namely Elijah. It's done in the Sims 2 and, to put it bluntly, Decorgal is a wizard with the Sims. She is. If she weighed the same as a duck, she'd be in trouble. As much as I enjoyed the Strangerhood, this is so much better.

I could try to sum up the series, but Decorgal did that already in this handy dandy video:




So watch the video, then go download the series and keep an eye out for me.

2) My TEW Diaries -- About a year and a half ago, someone introduced me to the Total Extreme Wrestling videogames (the current game is TEW2007). Entirely programmed by one wrestling fan in England, the TEW series puts you in charge of a wrestling promotion. You are the head booker. You hire, you fire, you book the matches, plan out the storylines, and try to bring your promotion to dominate the business.

For copyright reasons, the game isn't released with real world data (but the dedicated TEW community has crafted numerous mods that allow you to control the WWE/F and the rest at various times). Instead, the game is released with data for the Cornellverse, a fictional universe with over a dozen different promotions you can control. To put it bluntly, the C-verse is incredible. The backstory is rich and densely layered and fans can and do get lost in it easily.

What got my attention about this game is the "dynasty" or diary forum. People will tell stories about what's going on in their games.

Needless to say, that piqued my interest.

So I created a diary about a year and a half ago called "SWF - This Means War!" The SWF, or "Supreme Wrestling Federation," is roughly analogous to the modern WWE. I tossed in a few characters of my own and I was able to build something of a following with it.

When TEW2007 was released, I started a new diary called "MWA - This Means War!" It's basically a sequel to the first.

I won't lie to you, the diaries are long (especially the SWF one), but I'm proud of the work I've done in these.

3) The Christian Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog Tour - I'm a writer who loves sci-fi and fantasy. I've even written a Christian sci-fi trilogy. Problem is, Christian sci-fi and fantasy is kind of a dead genre. There's not a lot out there and what little there is often gets overlooked.

To combat this, some people put together a blog tour. Every month, we blog for three days about a chosen book, magazine, and/or website. The idea is to generate buzz about the genre and raise awareness so there can be more opportunities for writers like me.

Believe it or not, it actually works. One way to gauge this is by checking out Technorati's Popular Books page. This ranks books by how much they're being discussed in the blogosphere (or, at least, the portion of the blogosphere that Technorati tracks).

This past month our blog tour took place immediately after the last Harry Potter book was released. Guess what books dominated the Technorati Popular Books page. That's right. Potter everywhere! But because of our concerted effort, we were able to get our book up to number 12 by the end of the week.

I've been participating in the tour for about a year or so. It's been fun. Here are a few of my favorite posts that I've made:

An interview with author Sharon Hinck -- Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Sin Boldly! - an essay in which I discuss whether or not Christian authors should portray "big sins" in their writings

Fearless Day Three - From our last tour. I hadn't read the book but I did some fast tapdancing on the last day of the tour and I think the results came out all right.

So there you go. This is why I couldn't fit it all into five minutes! Yes, I need to work on brevity. I'm well aware of that.