Walmart....stupid walmart

Uggghh, I hate WalMart!  I hate it on so many levels.  My local WalMart has the rudest shoppers; people who cut you off or practically run you down with shopping carts.  The parking lot is full of lunitics who don't know how to drive; maybe they hate it as much as I do.  Generally, the brightest and best of society isn't on display in WalMart; single moms with spoiled, obese children or gang initiations of theft.  If all this weren't enough, as I have grown older, and become more informed about things, I hate WalMart for what they stand for and have done to our economy and society.  When I was younger, there were so many different department stores to shop from, so much variety, but now there is only WalMart.   The literal goal of WalMart is to choke out competition and take a monopoly on the local economy; I'm not sure why this is cool with WalMart, but normally we call this communism.  When they first came to town, they were all about smiling service, and cheery attitudes, but now that's all gone.  Now that they have choked out the local competition and made low-price addicts out of all of us, they can have a "who gives a crap" attitude when you shop there.  Their express lane checkouts sum it up:  they herd you through these lanes like cattle, which is what you are to them, cattle.  They let you pasture in their stores, fatten up on their cheap Chinese-made products, and put you through quickly, so they lighten the wallets of the next cow behind you.  I try not to shop there, but sometimes I have to because there is nowhere else to go.

Bob Ross is dead

Who the heck is Bob Ross?  Oh, you don't know!  Bob Ross was the genius behind a popular painting show on PBS in the early 90's. (wikipedia page)  Bob was an amazing painter who taught everyone in a half hour how to paint beautiful landscapes.  Bob was definitely a throw-back:  He had a hippie-esque feeling to him, and the dude still sported an afro.  I was watching Bob the other day and the first thing you feel is relaxed: he speaks through the whole show with soft, low voice that reassures you like a parent when you're scarred.  Secondly, you're impressed with how much he loves painting.  He uses phrases like, "Ain't that neat!" or "This is my favorite part!" or "The canvas is the world under your control"; much like a child with a coloring book.  In the end of a non-stop half hour program, Bob has transformed the white canvas into a snapshot of a great landscape.  Two things strike me about the Bob Ross experience:  Why don't we have shows like this anymore?  A half hour of no commercials, relaxing/soothing environment, and confidence building experience to go out and do something.  It just doesn't exist anymore.  TV is meant to sell you crap, make you unsatisfied with what we have, and make us drones that stay put in our chairs.  The other thing about the Bob Ross experience is I think that we should all spend time in art time.  I used to spend a lot of time drawing as a youth; sometimes it was my refuge from my troubles, a chance to relax and escape.  I'm not sure why I don't draw much anymore.  The creative mind, I believe is a gift from God, and we should exercise it with leisure sometimes, just for our enjoyment.  Whatever you do, whether it's music, visual arts, or just coloring a book we should do it.  It seems as this world continues to plummet, it becomes more void of relaxing, casual art.

Decadent production

Something that has become clear to me recently is how we waste our resources; that is, the amount we consume in North America and what those resources could be used for is kind of disgusting.  For instance, I watch a lot of food network, and in particular, I watch a show called "Unwrapped".  Unwrapped is a show that shows how some of our favorite food is produced.  One thing I have discovered if you mass produce a food product is that you have to have a irrelevant, but impressive statistic in reference to how much of your product you produce.  If someone make chips they will say, "We produce enough chips everyday to fill a 2000 sq ft. house."  Or their BBQ sauce could replace one of the oceans in two years. There is two levels of waste here: not only the product produced and consumed, but some guy has a job that figures out how to explain how much they produce. If you look at the statistics on what people produce and what people consume it's disgusting.  I know in Prince Albert, the top selling product is chips.  Potatoe chips roll into a store everyday in Prince Albert; one particular store I know receives 3 shipments a week in sometimes of the year.  It baffles my mind when you think about all the cars, boats, and snowmobiles that a small town like Prince Albert sells every year.  Look around your house and see what your decadence means.  Keep your junk food receipts for awhile.  How much change do you have around?  What do you spend on TV and movies in a month?  How much weight in garbage do you throw out a week?  I want to punch myself in the gut and kick myself in the crotch when I think about it, but it's a good exercise to do.  When you start evaluating things like this you realize how much you truly have, and how much you really can help others.  The rest who don't, can get sucked into the mess of this world with messed up priorities.

Rain, rain. Go Away!

I'm sure there are many farmers in my area who would agree with this; I'm sick of rain!  All spring and now into my vacation time it's rain.  I wonder what it was like in a pre-fallen world when we didn't have rain?  That's right, no rain.  There's a popular theory that before the flood, the world was a tropical greenhouse with thick moist air to nurture plants and no rain; and the first rain would have come during the flood.  Sounds pretty cool to me!  Rain is good for growing things, but it's often inconvenient sometimes; like when you're having an outdoor wedding, a vacation, or washing your car.  We wouldn't have people's homes flooded out.  We wouldn't have water sources contaminated with flash floods.  The only good thing about rain is how it develops a trust in God.  People pray lots to God for rain; to make it stop, to water their plants.  Kind of like how sin in general makes people turn to God.  In the next world there will be no rain, but until then I will cope with the rain here.  At least I have a God to turn to with that.

Computer Programs designed to make you spend money

Recently Rachelle and I each purchased a program for our different line of work; Rachelle bought a card program for photography and I bought a overhead program for the church.  Both these programs are great! The church is now singing all our songs from the screen upfront; and Rachelle can offer thank-you cards etc. to her clients.  The thing that gets me fuming about these programs is that they are really designed to make you a customer of their highly, over-priced related products.  For Rachelle's program, she has to buy backgrounds of different colors or pattern, and I do mean she has to, no importing her own.  For the church program, I don't know where to start.  This program was advertised as having a large database of hymns and songs, which is true, except there is nothing that was written in the last 30 years. Then they have a store with various backgrounds and videos; the backgrounds are like $5 for a simple background I could easily find on the net, and the video clips are priced at $20.  That's right, $20 for 2 minute clips; and a lot of them are not originally produced material, many of them are from Bluefish tv for $2.  The point is when did computer software programmers become drug dealers?  They get you with one fix and then keep you coming back for more, dumping out your money until you are broke.  This can be said of many things in life; for example, cars.  The average car is not built to make it past the first years so you keep buying new.  How come you can't sell a product that will last a long time and the customer never has to make another transaction with you?  You know who's someone I respect; Sorel boots.  Sorel boots were made so good that they went out of business; people would buy a pair of boots and they would last for many years, instead of buying new ones year after year. I know, I know.  I just answered my own question, you need to sucker customers so you can continue to make money.  Live the big dream.  With computer programs like the ones recently purchased, it is no wonder people are pirating software all the time.

Remakes

When I was in the 4th grade I wrote a small paragraph about how one day people would run out of songs to write, shows to create, and movies to make; that people would run out of ideas.  My teacher told me it was ridiculous, that the human creative spirit would never run dry.  Well here we are in 2010, a lot of songs are remakes of classics or rehashes of the same old riffs.  The top movies this summer are the A-team, the Karate Kid, and Toy Story 3.  Now I know there is still some creative juices out there, that all things are not remakes, but there certainly is alot.  As I see more and more re-makes of old songs and movies, it makes me think about something I learned in World Views Seminar at college; that inspiration comes from God.  Many philosophers said that when God created man and breathed life into him; that something that set man apart from the rest of creation was his creativity that stemmed from the breath of God.  Many reasoned that the time of the greatest inspiration was found in the renaissance, when many artists drew inspiration from God and the Bible.  As I see the lack of creativity in the media, it makes me connect the two: that a world that rejected God, finds itself less and less inspired.  A world that draws less from God and focuses solely on itself, can't find inspiration.  I believe as this world continues to fall into a more fallen state, we will see less inspiration and more mindless trash; another suffering in this fallen world.

Cool Parents

So the other day, I'm standing on a dock holding my dad's boat in place while he went to get the trailer and there's another boat docked on the other side.  In this boat were a bunch of teenagers, a mother, and a 8-10year old girl.  The boat was a wakeboarding boat, and initially they were talking about wakeboarding, but then they start talking about getting high.  Pretty soon the conversation started including the mother who was sitting there, all in the midst of this young girl.  I thought, "What a lame mother!"  What's with parents thinking its cool to let your kids be stoners, drunks, and sluts.  My wife overheard a mother at school brag to another mother about how they give their one son, who is about 14, beer and let him get drunk, while their daughter has a bar fridge in her room for beer.  Unfortunately it is also becoming quite common for some parents to let their teenagers have sleep-overs at their house, and its not the ones with ghost stories and smores.  Of course this is a greatly debated topic this time of the year, grad time, where grad classes are divided between those who's parents let them openly drink and want to party with them at grad, and those whose parents still think their children should wait till they are of age to decide to drink.  But why do parents think giving into a teens pressure will make them cool?  As someone who has worked with teens for 15 years, I understand how appealing teens are and how a person wants to "be cool" in their eyes.  But as an adult, who has a place in their life, my role is not to be cool, but to equip them for life.  If you look at it in a purely secular, scientific point of view: parents, elders etc. are to equip the younger of the species for survival and success; animals in the wild train their young to survive and thrive.  So why would we as adults, not only protect youth from things that hurt adults, but rather encourage and enable them to participate in them, and hinder their learning of the skills they need for life?  To me, it not only makes someone an "uncool" parent, but makes them a negligent parent, a harmful parent. I know I am not a parent, and you don't know what you'll do until you get there, and I might have felt different if I had different parents, but the truth is I have eyes and see the results of this cool parenting.  I see youth without essential skills, who need love and who are suffering in this fallen world.

Garbage, Garbage, Garbage

I love the movie Wall-E.  When watching that movie one wonders about garbage; I thought it was quite unbelievable that our world would become like the garbage infested world portrayed in the movie, but lately I have began to wonder.  The last few months I have been working casually as a garbageman; I thought the job would be a change and seemed to be a good workout once a week.  There are many things that have been impressed on me from the job such as how the municipality work, working with different machinery, but I have especially thought the most about garbage and the waste we produce as humans.  It has disgusted me how much we waste as humans.  As we speak, the town I work for is a few months away from filling our landfill to capacity; which is going to mean serious changes to how the town picks up and disposes of trash.  There is no need for our landfill to be almost full at this time, but it is do to wasteful living and laziness to sort and properly dispose of our trash.  Our province has had a recycling program for beverage containers for almost 20years; which consists of paying deposit on beverage containers at purchase and receiving that money back when the empty containers are returned to a recycle depot.  Despite this, there are numerous people who throw out numerous cans and bottles in their trash (we trash collectors usually fill a garbage can each week with the ones we are able to scrounge without really digging in the trash)  Think about this people are literally throwing their money away; even if they didn't want it for themselves there are many non-profit groups who will gladly pick it up for you. So, there are many of these containers needlessly filling space in the landfill.
Our town has had a cardboard recycle program for at least five years, but yet there are numerous people who throw out large amounts of cardboard; again take up space in the landfill that it doesn't need to.
Working at the dump you realize people are lazy and throw out stuff because it doesn't work, but only needs a minor repair.  Lawnmowers that need a $5 part or an oil change.  A guy I work with once took home a Serta Queen Mattress that was brand new and still in the plastic; I would have loved to know why someone threw it out.
It's also awesome to know when there are thrift stores and poor people all over the world wearing rags that people commonly throw out bags of clothes; big garbage bags of clothes.
The other thing that makes me take a step back is the amount of garbage bags some households chuck regularly.  In a small town, you know who lives where and I am taken back how it is becoming common for households to have more that 1 bag of garbage per occupants per week.
This last week it was wonderful to see homes that had unsuccessful garage sales throw out enough garbage to fill a car.  This next year will be an eye-opener for my little town; when sorting garbage will be strictly enforced, no one out of town will be permitted in our landfill, and getting rid of our waste will become expensive.  And despite having 20 years of environmental education we will continue to see the waste of our excessive living pile up in this fallen world.

Lack of respect for property

I don't want to sound like a crusty old man who screams at every passer-by who breathes on his property, "Stay off my land!!"; but I guess I am.  My neighbors have decided a small piece of land closest to their property should be their new drive-way.  It's not a huge deal; I don't really use it, there's nothing growing on it.  However, it's the principle.  (There, I am that cranky old man)  They have completely chewed up the grass on the boulevard, the grass I'm responsible for cutting; not to mention NO ONE ASKED!  So, now I have to be the bad guy and say, " Could you not park on my yard and wreck my lawn?"  I hate being a lame-o.  If people used their brain and common decency many problems wouldn't exist.  I think back in the day when people had to work so hard for their land, their possessions, and their general living there was a mutual respect for not only your property, but others.  I see it not only in my place, but all over town.  We are a self-indulgent society and will use any means for self-glorification or pleasure, even if it's at the expense of someone else, and especially if we think we can get away with it.  The fear I have in a society like that is when less and less is done to control and protect people's property, people take action into their own hands.  Don't worry I'm not about to go vigilante on my neighbors; but I fear in this town where the law is not really visible, that someone will flip their lids and someone will get hurt.  The general lack of respect is another one of those things that leaves a bad taste in my mouth for this world and makes me long for the perfect world in control of the almighty, but until then I will survive in this fallen world.

Dog Years

How many days in a year?  365, right?  How many seasons in a year? 4 usually. (Sometimes we get a few extra winter and springs in Sask) How many times does the earth travel around the sun in a year? once.  Why is this so hard for some people to understand? Why can't dog owners grasp this?  I know dogs age at a rate of 7times faster than humans and that this is what is meant by dog years.  This does not mean if your dog was born in May 2009, he is now 7 years old.  Your dog's rate of aging is not due to the fact that one magical night he circles around the sun an additional 6 times to the one time you went around. Dog doesn't go to bed thinking, "Wow, it's been a week since the sun went down." The ironic thing of this is dog owners regard their pet as a beloved member of the family; but what family member would let you call their age times 7 of what it is?  "Happy Birthday Dad!  You look great for 392 years!"  A little kid would even be upset at being called 21 when they could barely walk and talk.  People should just accept that dogs see seasons, years, and days the same as people; but unfortunately they die quicker.  Perhaps in a perfect world dogs lived longer, but in a fallen world life is short. I like dogs, but I wish people would quit aging them older than they are.

Obama is a modern Savior

Remember the day?  You probably stood by a tv, watching CNN.  You knew it was a historical event, and when you saw it on TV you were sure it was.  Thousands of people gathered in Washington to see Barrack Obama sworn in as president; not to mention thousands around the world who weren't even American.  Since then cool t-shirts have been printed.  He won a Nobel Peace Prize; and no one is really sure what for.  Isn't Obama great?
Obama is another sign of this crappy world we live in.  How can a man that people know so little about be glorified and held on a mantle of praise?   Now maybe Americans are wiser, but there are so many Canadians that think this man is a savior to America and in turn us, but really don't have a clue about him or his policies.  Does anyone know his stance on different issues or policies?  Does anyone know what promises he made and kept and which he has broken?
I could babble about different facts line after line, but it's best if you find it out for yourselves.
If you have time watch this movie:Obama Deception
It's 2 hours, but worth the time.  Another thing to check out it this article: Obama's birth certificate
I am not stating these things as cold, hard facts, but they do make compelling arguments.  Ultimately, it shows that no one man can be a savior, there is already one man who came to do that in our bleak world, and that's Jesus Christ.  The others that pose to do so are products like us of a fallen world.

Satan loves line-ups; I don't

I hate line-ups, and I know everyone does; but I'm not saying that because I'm impatient, but I honestly think line-ups are part of the curse of sin.  "Because you ate the fruit you will work the ground, child birth is gonna suck and you will feel the wrath of line-ups."  I don't necessarily mind having to wait for something, someone, or to go somewhere; the thing that really bothers me about line-ups is how everyone acts in them.  Take for example my days at Briercrest; line-ups were my daily nemesis in the cafeteria.  Three times a day I would line-up with everyone else in go in and eat, but there were always some boneheads who would just budge in line.  Now I don't know if you are someone who budges, or lets people budge, but here's my problem with budging: when you budge you are telling everyone behind you that you're better than them; it doesn't matter that they patiently waited because you're going in ahead of them.  What is it about line-ups that will disregard everyone around us in such a way?  Or when the door opens on something and we push and shove our way through everyone; what's so important? Not only do line-ups bring out the worst in us, but our most annoying characteristics come out:  we'll humm some annoying tune, tap something, tell some boring story, or gossip about everyone around us.  Aside from our rudeness, annoyance of those around, there's the monotonous boredom of waiting in line and wasting our time.  Add up all these things and I think that line-ups are the devil's delight; part of sin's curse.  I can picture hell full of line-ups; torturing people for an eternity.  So line-ups are just another one of those things that leaves a bad taste for this world and makes me long for a better life beyond.