the tindog coffeehouse

I’ll be honest, I debated for months over whom I’d vote for in the Texas gubernatorial race and even whether I’d vote at all. I knew I wouldn’t be voting for any of the Democratic candidates, so the choice came down to 10-year-incumbent Rick Perry, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, or ultra-right-wing newcomer Debra Medina.

In the end, I voted for Hutchison.

Now, if you’ve read my previous posts about Hutchison, you know I haven’t exactly gushed over her. Frankly, her campaign has been a mess, and I’m not exactly confident that could do any better job than Perry. Furthermore, for someone who has served in the Senate since 1993 (after pledging to serve only two terms), she has little to show for it other than a bunch of pork barrel spending she’s accumulated for her home state.

So why vote for her? I suppose it was a process of elimination.

Continue reading…

No long, drawn-out comparison of Lost to the Bible this week. Today, it’s Greek mythology, Jungian psychology, and Joseph Campbell:

• There’s quite a theme going this season with Jack and mirrors. Cue Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” (I’m staring at the man in the mirror / I’m asking him to change his ways / And no message could have been any clearer / (If you wanna make the world a better place) / Take a look at yourself, and then make a change).
• No, I don’t know that song by memory, I googled it.
• Look at Jacob busting out Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. I’d say Jack is probably in the “Belly of the Whale” stage right now: “the final separation from the hero’s known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person’s lowest point, but it is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning between worlds and selves. … By entering this stage, the person shows their willingness to undergo a metamorphosis, to die to him or herself.”

Continue reading…

Previously:
Windows launch party video: the perfect ad for OS X
Microsoft: Internet Explorer 8 perfect for porn addicts

Lost fans have been begging for answers and last night’s episode delivered them in spades, although I’m sure it left a lot of folks still scratching their heads. Personally, I thought the spiritual elements were really powerful, and there are so many parallels between it and the Gospel. So instead of my usual bullet-point braindump of random observations, I thought I’d spend a few minutes analyzing the episode from a Christian standpoint.

Major themes.

There are a couple of broad themes that Lost revolves around: (1) good vs. evil and (2) free will vs. determinism. You see these same themes played out in the Bible as well.

Certainly, it’s not hard to equate the battle between Jacob and the Man in Black to the battle between God and Satan. This is an eternal struggle that began long before mankind was created. Essentially, Satan is trying to defeat God, much the same way that MIB is trying to defeat Jacob, and we as humans are caught in the middle of this battle, just as the people on the island are caught in the middle. And as such, we must choose what side we’re on. Ephesians 6:12 says: “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” We are part of the larger eternal war whether we want to be or not.

Continue reading…

Once again, some random thoughts about last night’s episode of Lost:

• “Claire?”
• The episode was titled “What Kate Does”. So what does Kate do? She runs. She runs when she’s on the island and when she’s off, just like always. Kate has always been a 1-dimensional character, so honestly I was less interested in what she does than in Sayid and Claire. This episode was really more about them.
• Doesn’t it seem like Jack, Sawyer, and Kate have regressed since last season? In Season 5 Jack had grown from a cynical man of science to a hopeful man of faith. Now he’s back to cynical. “What’s that?” “It’s a baseball.” “What’s this?” “It’s tea.” “We’ll just see where trust gets us.” Meanwhile, Sawyer had evolved into a respected leader while stuck in 1977, yet he’s now back to the angry, selfish loner he was in Season 1. And Kate, who we thought had learned to stop running while caring for Aaron, is back to her old ways. I’m not sure this is a good thing. If Lost is ultimately a story of redemption, these characters have taken several steps backward.

Continue reading…

I love the Winter Olympics, which may seem odd for a native Texan who’s only been snow skiing once in his life (and by “skiing”, I mean awkwardly falling down down the bunny slope while trying not to break anything).

And now (as if the games weren’t already interesting enough), Popular Mechanics has a breakdown of the physics behind several Olympic events, including:

• Alpine skiing – “Alpine skiers’ knees sustain about 110 ft-lb of lateral torque during turns and nearly 300 pounds of total force at the joint—almost as much torque as can be found in the engines of a ski resort’s snow-removal trucks.”
• Hockey – “When a player blasts a slap shot 30 feet from the net with 125 pounds of force, the goalie has less than 200 milliseconds to react to the flying 3-inch-wide, 1-inch-thick puck.”

Continue reading…