The most cheating case of Nintendo computer cheatingness ever.

My relief from the punishment of the world, or at least the stress of seminary, is super tecmo bowl on my original NES.

If any of you grew up in the original NES generation you know all about the computer cheating. It doesn’t happen all the time and usually you can conquer a game if you play it long enough, but every once in a while the computer cheats and the computer cheats bad.

Last Friday I came home from work and played the next game in my Atlanta Falcon regular season. This game happened to be the super bowl. For those of you who don’t know this is how tecmo bowl works. The computer usually does little to challenge your team at the beginning of the season. However, throughout the season the computer gets better until you reach the crescendo of winning the game that will clinch your division. When the playoffs role around the difficulty level usually lessens a little. So having cruised passed the 49ers and the Giants I played the 10-6 Stealers in the super bowl.

I was crippled by the fact the season MVP running back Mike Rozier was injured, but I still had back up quarterback and pro-bowler Hugh Millen and an all star cast of defensive players including Deion Sanders, Tory Epps, and Jesse Tuggle.

Things were a little sticky by half time when I found myself down 14-7, mostly on account of a few computer forced turnovers, but in my fabricated halftime interview I told Stuart Scott that when we play our best football we can’t be beaten and that was exactly what was going to happen in the second half.

I’ll take you straight to the drama. With about two minutes left I’m down 21-14, yet putting together a promising drive. I called a pass play and ran with my pro-bowl quarterback who gets the first down and is subsequently injured on the same play. Now I’m without both my all star running back and quarter back with about 2 minutes to go and 30 yards to drive. Bring in former starter Chris Miller and on the first hand off to Steve Broussard I fumble. Amazingly Michael Haynes comes flying through a pack of about 6 Stealers recovers the fumble and gets another first down. One play later Miller finds Andre Rison in the end zone to tie things up. I kick off and they return it to about the 40 yard line. They make a couple of key plays and get inside their 30-yard line, well inside of field goal range. With about 15 seconds left they kick the field goal. Amazingly I block it. Merrill Hodge who normally runs about 10 second 40 somehow gained superman speed and ran for about 200 yards, recovered the fumble and ran all the way till he was two yards shy of the first down. Great turn over right? Nope, clock ran out.

To over time I go. I win the coin toss and elect to receive. The Stealers decide to kick an onside kick and get it. At about the fifty, furious, my defense drives them back 3 straight plays to about the 42-yard line. Anticipating a punt, I get mentally prepared. Nope they decide to kick a field goal again. What is ridiculous for those of you who don’t know football is that this would be about a 75-yard field goal. The record in the NFL is about 63 yards. I’m thinking even if Gary Anderson, by the way who has and atrocious post season track record, kicks it perfect, it will certainly fall short.

The impossible.

Distraught, I headed to the elite bar and grill to share my woes to my Friday afternoon friends.

family pics

mission accomplished

It is strange how some things can make us feel. Let me share. For about two years now I’ve need two new windshield wipers for my Toyota. They simply don’t get the water of the windshield when it rains.

When we had this ice storm last week, I daily practiced my duty of warming up the cars and getting them ready for use. In the process of cleaning of my windshield I ruined the driver’s side wiper. The jaggedness of the ice pulled the rubber off of the blade. So after about two days of having no use out of the driver side wiper, I purchased a new one at Wal-Mart finding it in one of the those, “let’s make money of some recent phenomenological happenings” type endcap.

Purchasing the right wiper blade is only half the battle. After all you have page through one of the oil filter type books to find the right make and model. I’ve always found these books a bit intimidating. Not because they are actually complex, but more because anything mechanical seems way too technical and overwhelming to me.

The second half of the battle is to actually install the wiper. Naturally after purchasing the wiper I threw it on the floor of my car, having no idea of when I’d actually get around to trying to figure out how to install. Well, in the chaos of my daily schedule, I found myself about 15 minutes early to class one day, so I decided to give it a whirl. After three rounds of not looking and the direction and trying to jam the new wiper on to the old fixture I fell pray to reading the directions. Realizing that I wasn’t even close I implanted the one easy step that was instructed of me by the directions and had a new working wiper in no time.

I guess it’s probably because I haven’t had a wiper that has worked correctly for some time now, but let me tell you how much I love my new wiper. Rain or shine, I always start my drives by giving my windshield a squirt simply to watch my wiper do an impeccable job of cleaning my already clean windshield. And when I do I swell with pride. I have such a sense of accomplishment. In fact I think I would go as far as to say I enjoy this routine moment more than I did watching the Bears/Saints game today. More than I enjoy my mediocre turkey sandwich for lunch. More than enjoy the current Clark Pinnock book I’m reading on Biblical Revelation.

I think we often complain about life’s small hurdles, but I think God throws them in there for a reason. Good Lord, I almost sound like John Piper. I’m bad!:)

who's the funny guy?

Most of you who know Lindsay and me well probably think of me as the funny guy. And for the most part that is true, especially in our more public settings. However, once in a while Lindsay drops one-liners that kill me. Here is an example of the most recent. I was sharing with Lindsay one of my findings from seminary that went something like this.

J: “Want to hear something interesting?”

L: “Sure”

J: “I found out today that the noun used to describe Eve in Genesis chapter two (helper) is the same noun used to describe God’s relationship to Israel. So if someone wanted to use Genesis two to demonstrate man’s authority over woman, they’d have to essentially say that God was Israel’s B****.”

Perfect amount of pause…

L: “or that woman is more like God than man.”

I thought that was funny.

For my more conservative readers, both theologically and politically, namely my family, please excuse the explicit language. Here I think it help drives home a pertinent exegetical point.

2007

I’ve never been one for New Years resolutions, but I have made two. The first is to wear my seatbelt every time I get into my car. For some of you this is like “yeah, well duh,” and I wish it was for me too, that is why it is a resolution. I remember our high school band teacher (pertinent side note: I was not in band, I was too cool for that sort of thing) mentioning that if you do something 30 times it becomes a habit. I hope so.

Secondly, and very un-uniquely I’m going to try and eat healthier in hopes of loosing a few pounds. Because I’m a park ranger most of you know that I have the luxury of exercising substantially 4 times a week on my mountain bike. Turns out that depleted metabolism levels renders that not enough. I’ve half-heartedly tried this in the past, without much success, but I need to change my eating habits. My method is baby steps since I love most of the food I eat and am fairly routine at it.

So far…

Step one- one bowl cereal in the morning instead of two. Success

Step two- switch to skim milk…I can’t really tell the difference anyway. Success

Step three- this is tricky--Blair Browning tells me that by merely switching from a regular to diet soda he was able to drop a good amount of weight. Conversely, my co-worker/ranger Lanny tells me his health experts he reads say they would rather have him drinking regular soda because of its comparative lack of chemicals. My compromise has been to stick with regular Coke, but shoot for only one a day. Kind of success

Step four- Alcoholic beverages on the weekends only or on special occasions. Success for both my health and checking account☺. Success

Step five- fruit and vegetable—mostly carrots and bananas—for lunch every day to fill up on instead of other sides like cookies and chips. Success

Step six- this is going to be my next step. I’m going to try and switch from my usual sugar cereals Cpt. Crunch and Coco Pebbles, to a healthier brand/fiber based crappy tasting cereal. I’m also going to buy some raspberries to put on the top. I’ve seen that in the commercials.

Do you have any suggestions that could be small steps for me, while not entirely turning me into someone who can only eat crappy food?

Life...yesterday

My Christmas reading was almost entirely given to Voltaire’s Candide. At the books end, after enduring many of life’s evils, Candide and the book’s supporting cast of characters end up working on a small farm that Candide was able to purchase. The story is saturated with philosophical concepts, and in one of the last scenes one of the characters asks which fate is worse, the one they have all previously experienced, including rape, being brutally beat, enduring execution attempts, etc. or being board by the mundane activities of their new found life.

I find this question strange when juxtaposed to the attitude that often characterizes the attitude of us (the human race) as we near the end of a vacation, much like the Christmas one a good deal of us just came off of. Most of us can’t wait to get back to the routine of life. We want to get back to our homes, and into the routine of work, supper and our evening ritual.

I think this is right. I think God designed the unfolding of earth and our participation in it exactly like it should be. Work is a good thing. The routine of life is a good thing. Let me give you an example of an extraordinary day in the midst of ordinary life.

Yesterday Lindsay and I went to a church we love, and saw the people we love. Afterwards, we went to Rosa’s with Craig and Jen and the twins. Then home to finish painting Roy’s room. At four Potter picked me up to go to church football only to find out that no one else came. This happened to be ok though because I was pretty sore and Potter and I were able to have the kind of conversation that I tend to treasure. At about 5:00 Lindsay and I left to go to Wal-Mart to pick up some gifts that people had sent to the store from our shower in Tomahawk. Afterwards we went to the Outback Steakhouse and were able to buy two nice dinners for about $20, which was paid for by a gift card that the Seelig’s gave us a while back. And to cap off the evening, we went to the Dugan’s to eat our luscious meal and watch Desperate Housewives, an all-new episode, with our friends the Dugan’s.

I don’t know how a day could get much better than that. It was the type of day that Disney Land couldn’t compete with. And that’s our life.

some pics for my family

Dearest family,
here are some pictures. One of my foxy wife and I at Christmas. You can put this one in your pregnant scrapbook. The second is from our game night last night. Third, our newly painted room, or should I say Roy's painted room. Notice the colors of the quilt. They are supposed to match the wall. Hopefully we got close. Also in the picture are a few items from our T-hawk shower. Notice the “under the water theme.”

love us