The Pig With The Froggy Tattoo

The Muppets were a staple in our house when I was growing up. We would get a big bowl or two of popcorn and would watch the show. It was always good fun and my favorite part of the show was always Waldorf and Statler:

By the time the movies started to come out I was starting to get too old and too “cool” to go see them. So when my wife mentioned that she wanted to see the new Muppet movie a few months ago, I just rolled my eyes. Still too old and still too “cool.”

But that was before I saw the newest trailer. It is a parody of the trailer for “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” movie and it is awesome.

Even though I am guessing that the trailer doesn’t accurately portray the movie, it does make me want to go and see it. Hopefully Waldorf and Statler make an appearance.

And here is the original trailer for “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”

Friday Fun?

Today has just been one of those days. There was nothing major that prevented me from putting together a blog post. It was just like a death of a thousand paper cuts.

One interesting thing was the following text message that I received from my brother this morning:

"What smells at 2:30am like rotting vegetables mixed with burning rubber... A border collie that got sprayed in the face by a skunk."

If you have ever dealt with a dog (or a person for that matter) that has had a run in with a skunk you know exactly what he is talking about. It is quite the fun experience.

That is all for today. I will be back on Monday with both a Deep Thought as well as the post that I started to write for today.

Bible App Reviews

Admittedly this posting is going to be a bit one-sided. I use a smartphone that is sold by a certain company based in Cupertino and just had their CEO resign. One of the things that I have enjoyed is trying out different apps; so much so that my wife just rolls her eyes when new apps show up on her phone. Usually she just deletes them without ever opening them up.

I have really enjoyed trying out different Bible and Theology apps and right now I have 14 of these types of apps on my phone. I only use 2 or 3 on a regular basis and another 2 or 3 on a semi-regular basis. The others are used far less frequently but still reside on my phone.

The first of the apps that I use on a regular basis is Crossway’s ESV Study Bible App. It’s a bit pricey at $14.99 but it includes all of the ESV Study Bible notes, articles, maps and illustrations. Seeing that the print edition is going to set you back a minimum of $35 to $50, it’s not a bad deal. The app is even easier to use now that you can swipe between the Study Notes, the text and your own notes. The only problem is that you cannot swipe while you are in the full screen reading mode which would be really nice. The font size can be changed. I usually keep it on medium which I find balances readability and amount of text on the page. I find that the large and extra large sizes have too little of the text on the screen. Changing books and chapters is fairly nice and actually reminds me of the Zune HD UI. There is a free version that does not contain the study Bible notes that is still quite good to use.

The second app that I have just started to use on a regular basis is an app called ReadingPlan. It is an app that simply tracks my Bible reading plan. There are various reading plans available; it comes with 6 and there are many more you can download. It gives you the book and chapters to read with a checkmark box next to them to tick off as you finish. Pretty snazzy idea. It also links nicely to the ESV Study Bible App, other Bible apps and even online Bibles. The limitation is that it does not contain a Bible within the app so you must have either an internet connection or one of the supported apps to actually read on the phone. I haven’t tried it out with a printed Bible but I am fairly confident that it would function just fine.

The third app that I have used on a fairly consistent basis is the WAVE Study Bible app. I found it to be a great app that assisted me in some translation. It contains a limited number of translations which include the Greek New Testament, the King James Version, the New English Translation and God’s Word Translation. There are a couple of others for purchase and there is a supposed to be an update containing the Hebrew Old Testament. There is a Bible Tutor function that includes some “How To” lessons that I have not used nor had the desire to use. Overall it is good for what it does but is somewhat limited.

I also have the Blue Letter Bible app which is based on the great Blue Letter Bible website. The app has a lot of content and does need internet access for the language tools but can be somewhat clumsy to navigate. It is not touch friendly in that the icons are not always intuitive and are too close together. One of the great things about the website are the language tools and they are available in the app. But they require internet access which is not always an issue. The language tools are the most navigation unfriendly part of the app. You cannot move from verse to verse while using them. You can only look at them a verse at a time and then you have to go back to the main text, select the next verse then tell the app that you want the Concordance/Interlinear option before you can see the next verse. It gets quite cumbersome if you want to look at multiple verses.

I also have the Logos Bible app but because I do not have the Logos Bible Software for my computer the app is somewhat limited. It sounds like a great app in that you only have to purchase the content for your computer version and you get the app version of the content (if it is available on the app). I look forward to the day that I can afford the software and start playing with the app as well.

Other apps that I like to use on a semi-regular basis include the Stand To Reason app, the Leadership Journal app, the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary app and the Thoughtful Christianity app.

Given my propensity to search out and try new apps, I am sure that if I revisit this post in a few months that I would have different recommendations. Feel free to share if you have an app recommendation or two.

Is being a Cub fan a lifelong affliction?

1983 and 1984 were great years to be growing up a baseball fan in Chicago. I was a young pup and just starting to seriously follow baseball. The White Sox had won the AL West in '83 and the Cubs won the NL East in '84. Imagine my great discovery...we had winning baseball every year! Well over the next four years the White Sox won more games than they lost one time and the Cubs managed to do it zero times. I also came to find out that you cannot be both a Cubs fan and a White Sox fan.

So I did the smart thing (it's a family matter) and picked the Cubs.

Three years ago I had the chance to visit old Yankee Stadium in it's last year. The atmosphere, the history and the winning hooked me. I bought a Yankees hat and was on my way to becoming a Yankees fan. I really don't like switching my baseball allegiance from the Cubs but did I mention the winning?

Following the Yankees while living in Chicago can be somewhat difficult even in the day and age of this internet thing. In August of this year I started subscribing to MLB.TV which allows me to watch all of the Yankee games. So far in August I have watched more baseball games than I had in the previous 4 or 5 years combined.

Yet I find myself falling into my Cub fan habits. For those unfamiliar with Cub history there is: The Billy Goat Curse, The Fall of '69, The June Swoons, The heartbreak of 1984, the 2003 collapse that was wrongly blamed on an unfortunate fan, not winning a World Series since 1908 and the overall loosing. They have the same number of World Series wins as the Blue Jays, Mets and Marlins. The thing is that all of those teams have been in existence at least 86 year less than the Cubs. There have been a couple of games over the past two weeks where the Yankees were down by a couple of runs early and I chalked the game up as a loss. The Cubs rarely ever come back and they don't give you the impression that they will come back.

I decided not to watch the Yankees game yesterday because after three innings they were down 7-1. What a surprise to wake up the next morning and see that they ended up winning 22-9. As a matter of fact they set a Major League record of hitting three grand slams in one game.

It is all a lesson in shedding that feeling of inevitable doom that has been continually reinforced as a lifelong Cubs fan.