The Replacements

Every once in a while, someone has an idea so good, you have to tell people about it. This is one such occasion.



Last Saturday night was our annual fantasy football live draft, held every year in my living room. Our league commissioner is one of my dear friends since college, Kyle Letner. He works for an A/V company as an engineer and always brings a projector along to show the big board on our massive living room wall. Over the years (as is the case throughout this great land), we have come to love Draft Night. It's reaching high holiday status as one of my top-5 favorite nights of the year.

So at the end of the draft - an evening full of laughter and pain as we made good and bad moves, my wife Cre remarks how she wishes we could do it all over again, but maybe this time with the leftover players....

Thus, The Replacements was born

The premise is simple, for a second league, the members of our first league will redraft. But this time, we're taking all the top players off the board: the Lock Outs (ah la 1987), leaving us to draft the replacements - players who are good, but not stellar. So this Monday night, we'll be drafting again in my living room for our second draft minus...

• The Top 10 QB's


• The Top 25 RB's


• The Top 25 WR's


• The Top 10 TE's


• The Top 10 Kickers


• The Top 10 Defenses

...as rated by ESPN's pre-season fantasy board.

I'll report back on how I did and how it went.

Btw, for those interested, my first fantasy team (Onside Kick League) can we seen here, and my Replacements team can we found here.

Cheers - cause I'm so British,
tango

The funniest thing I've read in a long time

I needed a laugh and Jason Yakelis provided the following: http://emailsfromcrazypeople.com/2009/08/15/view-obstruction-part-deux/#more-357

You're gonna want to read this.

Because football is coming soon and we miss it

Cheers - cause I'm so British,
tango

MobileAppDev in Zambia

The Messiah College Mobile Application Development project is on the ground in Zambia for its initial field test. You can follow the project at http://blog.mobileappdev.org



Cheers - cause I'm so British,
tango

BetterThanMarmaduke.com

Cre and I just launched a new website. http://betterthanmarmaduke.com.



From the homepage of the website:

This website is based on one core belief: Marmaduke is the worst comic known to man. This is not meant to insult the author; it is merely a fact that must be addressed. It's time comedy was held to a standard. That's why we're here.

Perhaps Marmaduke has the potential to be funny, perhaps not. Our goal here is to find out. So several times a week, we will post the latest Marmaduke with its given caption. You be the judge. If we're wrong, let us know. Otherwise, suggest an alternative. So, to recap:

• Write a caption that makes Marmaduke funny


• Rate the caption of others


• Redeem the idea that funny is something earned

Enjoy,

cre

Cheers - cause I'm so British,
tango

Visit Cleveland!

Cheers - cause I'm so British,
tango

You wouldn't take medical advise from Lucky Strike, so...

As is occasionally my pattern, the following post is overtly religious. If you're not interested, don't read further. Feel forewarned.

This is an advertisement...



...and this is an article.



We can see these two things next to each other in a magazine, and when we read them, our brains naturally understand that the difference between the two: what they're purpose is, what they're meant to communicate, how reliable the content is, etc. So you wouldn't take medical advise from a Lucky Strike ad.

Newsflash. The same is true with the Bible. No. You won't find health food articles there, but you will find very different forms of literature. The 66 books that comprise the Christian Bible (or the 39 that compromise the Hebrew Bible) were each written in very different literary styles because they were meant (originally) to communicate in a very contextual way to the people of that day and even to specific audiences.

So ask yourself why someone would ever think it was logical to blankly, blindly, and uniformly read the Bible and assume that the words hold some ethereal truth that exists outside of their context. Does the Bible contain universal truth? Yes, I believe so, BUT that universal truth is God's character, not the specific instructions given by Paul to the church of Thessalonica or even the specific laws handed down by Moses to the Isrealites in 1400 BC. The Bible can teach many things, but it mostly clearly communicates one thing: the character and actions of God in the course of human history. If you believe God was involved in its writing (and I do), then you can believe that if you understand what was written and why, you can know something about the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and maybe get to know Him better.

In a nutshell, that's why I study the Bible, and why I get very angry when I see others who claim to be speaking for God misusing it, picking and choosing which verses apply to people's lives today, completely missing the point, and ultimately misrepresenting God to the people who (I believe) He cares for. The issue is not which words in this book apply me or even to us today and how but what does this writing teach me about God! If you can seek to understand that, THEN you can start to understand how that word applies to God's intention and interest for life.

As I've done that very thing, I've found that it makes all the difference in the world. In Paul's letter to the Romans, he challenged the 1st century church there to engage their faith in this way:

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God."

Happy 4th of July, and thanks to Mel for inspiring me to write this.

Cheers - cause I'm so British,
tango