I always have this list of movies that I want to see or can't wait to see. Right now it's at record length.
Let's see, there's:
1) Inception
2) Robin Hood
3) Despicable Me
4) Toy Story 3
5) Tangled
6) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
7) Batman Begins
8) The Dark Knight (Yeah, I havent seen either of these, although I did see the Prestige which was pretty awesome)
There's more, but I can't think of them at the moment.
I've been working on some pretty awesome music these days. I should post it on my music blog (which by the way I am making some changes to) sometime around here.
Just saw this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZa7hU6tP_s
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
How to Train Your Dragon
Yesterday . . . no, the day before yesterday the family and I went and saw How to Train Your Dragon at the [two] dollar theater. I have to say, I loved it. Great story, great soundtrack, other than a very few things here and there, it is now one of my favorite animated movies yet. I was thinking of writing my own review of the movie but after reading an article by N. D. Wilson on it which pretty much says everything I would've, I decided to just post a link to his article.
Here's the article.
And here's the awesome trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUhygdAZIw
Here's the article.
And here's the awesome trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUhygdAZIw
Appalachian Fiddle Sticks
Over the past weekend my family and I went on a vacation with all of my Mom's immediate family to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It's been a tradition we've had going for several years now. I don't want to expound on this subject now, but I will give my favorite highlight of the trip. One day we headed over to the Museum of Appalachia, an awesome museum about an hour west and north of Gatlinburg.
Outside one of the buildings at the museum there were two musicians playing folk tunes on the violin and guitar. Naturally I was attracted to this performance (seeing I like both the violin and folk music). In between each song they would stop and talk to the listeners or ask for suggestions on songs to play. During one of these intermissions one of my relatives (I can't remember which one) mentioned to the performers that I played the violin (fiddle is what they called it). The performers expressed interest and asked if I wanted to join them in playing. Now I, being trained to play the violin mainly through classical music, was slightly hesitant. They went ahead and played a few more songs and once again asked if I wanted to play. I gave in. I played a few fiddle songs and they joined in with other instruments on the songs they knew. It was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed it and as far as I know I think they did too.
There's yer highlight.
I will leave you a song.
ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL from Bill Murk on Vimeo.
Outside one of the buildings at the museum there were two musicians playing folk tunes on the violin and guitar. Naturally I was attracted to this performance (seeing I like both the violin and folk music). In between each song they would stop and talk to the listeners or ask for suggestions on songs to play. During one of these intermissions one of my relatives (I can't remember which one) mentioned to the performers that I played the violin (fiddle is what they called it). The performers expressed interest and asked if I wanted to join them in playing. Now I, being trained to play the violin mainly through classical music, was slightly hesitant. They went ahead and played a few more songs and once again asked if I wanted to play. I gave in. I played a few fiddle songs and they joined in with other instruments on the songs they knew. It was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed it and as far as I know I think they did too.
There's yer highlight.
I will leave you a song.
ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL from Bill Murk on Vimeo.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Mini Things.
Yesterday - like I do on most Mondays - I mowed the yard. Our yard is quite large so it usually takes two to three hours to finish. During these monotonous hours of Monday mowing (I just came up with that on the fly!) I usually have two, or sometimes three, sided conversations with myself. I'll even base different sides of the conversation off of my friends. It can get pretty intense (basically, awesome).
If I'm not carrying on a conversation I like to use the time to do a lot of good, hard thinking. Not just ordinary thinking but thinking. Like thinking about what it means to have true happiness, or why people love to dump the the Law of Moses when Jesus specifically said that he had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-18). Yeah, thinking.
Other times when I mow I simply, well, daydream. Today was one of those other times. Now I will attempt to describe to you all that I daydreamed about (don't ask me why).
At the start, when I first got on the mower, I was already thinking about all of my various friends and their personalities (now you know where I get the idea to include them in my conversations). I noted how a sizable portion of my good friends are out-of-state. Not to say that I don't have any good friends locally; I do. I pondered this and after awhile came to the conclusion that the reason my out-of-state friends are really good ones is because in order for us to keep up a relationship we have had to make an effort to do so. And in doing so it has made the friendship strong.
With that conclusion, the previous thread of thoughts came to a close. For awhile I simply watched the grass being brutally run over, chopped to pieces, and then thrown back to whence it came. It occurred to me how tough a plant grass actually is. Think about it. That's what I did.
After that, my thoughts hopped from one thing to another for awhile. I cannot remember what all they hopped on. During this time I kept on hitting rocks that would, when run over, make a loud noise and launch through the grass chute, disturbing my thoughts. I became quite angry with the rocks and their rudeness of getting in the way of the mower.
Soon after this I finished up the section of the yard to be mowed with the riding mower and it was time to move on to the section to be done with the push mower (we mow the field beside our house with a riding mower and the grass around the house with a push mower).
Now, I have always been fascinated by small things, particularly scale model miniatures. I've thought it would be cool to have a whole room just for creating miniature towns or scenes in. Of course, even though it would be cool to have something like this, there wouldn't be a whole lot of practicality in it; it would be a hobby. Not to say hobbies are impractical, it would just be an impractical hobby for me. Miniature sets can become quite expensive to make and at this point in life I am looking for things that give me money rather than take. I'm looking for assets. I thought about mini things for a time as I push-mowed. Now you can see why I titled this post "Mini Things."
After awhile my thoughts of mini things disintegrated and went on to many things, which I don't remember. At any rate, soon after my thoughts went to many other things I finished up the last bit of yard, put all the mowing stuff away, and headed inside to freshen up for supper. I really don't know were I'm going with all this but in any event you've had a small peek inside my head and saw how I think when I have nothing else to do (mowing requires very little brain work).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLvsS6o0hJY&playnext_from=TL&videos=lPZ-BjcD3CA
If I'm not carrying on a conversation I like to use the time to do a lot of good, hard thinking. Not just ordinary thinking but thinking. Like thinking about what it means to have true happiness, or why people love to dump the the Law of Moses when Jesus specifically said that he had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-18). Yeah, thinking.
Other times when I mow I simply, well, daydream. Today was one of those other times. Now I will attempt to describe to you all that I daydreamed about (don't ask me why).
At the start, when I first got on the mower, I was already thinking about all of my various friends and their personalities (now you know where I get the idea to include them in my conversations). I noted how a sizable portion of my good friends are out-of-state. Not to say that I don't have any good friends locally; I do. I pondered this and after awhile came to the conclusion that the reason my out-of-state friends are really good ones is because in order for us to keep up a relationship we have had to make an effort to do so. And in doing so it has made the friendship strong.
With that conclusion, the previous thread of thoughts came to a close. For awhile I simply watched the grass being brutally run over, chopped to pieces, and then thrown back to whence it came. It occurred to me how tough a plant grass actually is. Think about it. That's what I did.
After that, my thoughts hopped from one thing to another for awhile. I cannot remember what all they hopped on. During this time I kept on hitting rocks that would, when run over, make a loud noise and launch through the grass chute, disturbing my thoughts. I became quite angry with the rocks and their rudeness of getting in the way of the mower.
Soon after this I finished up the section of the yard to be mowed with the riding mower and it was time to move on to the section to be done with the push mower (we mow the field beside our house with a riding mower and the grass around the house with a push mower).
Now, I have always been fascinated by small things, particularly scale model miniatures. I've thought it would be cool to have a whole room just for creating miniature towns or scenes in. Of course, even though it would be cool to have something like this, there wouldn't be a whole lot of practicality in it; it would be a hobby. Not to say hobbies are impractical, it would just be an impractical hobby for me. Miniature sets can become quite expensive to make and at this point in life I am looking for things that give me money rather than take. I'm looking for assets. I thought about mini things for a time as I push-mowed. Now you can see why I titled this post "Mini Things."
After awhile my thoughts of mini things disintegrated and went on to many things, which I don't remember. At any rate, soon after my thoughts went to many other things I finished up the last bit of yard, put all the mowing stuff away, and headed inside to freshen up for supper. I really don't know were I'm going with all this but in any event you've had a small peek inside my head and saw how I think when I have nothing else to do (mowing requires very little brain work).
* * *
Before I sign off I just wanted to say: Happy Sixth of July Everyone! I know, I know. I'm a little late for the Fourth. Speaking of the Fourth, I was going to tell you what we did on the Fourth. Here's what we did, ready? Nothing much. Come to think of it we really just hung around the house the whole day until my parents and older brother went to a wedding in the evening. I know what you're thinking: "how un-patriotic of them to not celebrate our very own country's birthday." But just hold yer horses and don't get yer panties in a wad, because we did celebrate . . . on the third. We went to some friends house, ate hamburgers and hot dogs and then lit some sparklers and in general, had a good time. Isn't that the point of holidays? :P
Well, I'm getting tired of writing so I will leave you with a cool song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLvsS6o0hJY&playnext_from=TL&videos=lPZ-BjcD3CA
'Til next time,
Yours Truly
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