Matt Selznick, author of the awesome coming of age/superhero novel Brave Men Run, is having a live concert from his house via U-stream on the 25th of January at 3:00 PM PST. More details here.

Matt is seeking as many revenue streams as possible, since he lost his job recently. I say that not to get a pity party going, but to point out that I think it's cool he can turn his musical talent to earning some money by having a concert over the 'net. I'm going to check it out good lord willing.

Here's a little promo. Feel free to spread it around!

I don't think abomination is too strong a word here, so I ran into these abominations at ToysRUs today. For a hair less than six bucks you could get a Jonah or a Daniel or a David all of whom seemed built like Rambo.

That's not surprising I suppose since the makers of this are also responsible for GI Joe. There are so many problems here I am not sure where to begin. Let's start with the name. None of these characters were "almighty". They were certainly mighty in their own ways. They were not built like WWF athletes. They survived because of their faith in God and his almighty power.

It's another example of someone marketing to well meaning Christian parent and both parties (the manufacturer and the parents who might buy) missing the point.

I mean look at David. In the Bible he was a kid. Is that powered armor he's wearing? And what's with those feet and the jewelry? Why is he wearing lipstick? Then there's the codpiece and the yellow cape. Good lord...

I have no problem with someone making toys from Bible characters. I don't even mind really kitschy stuff like Bibleman. This seems to be crossing a line for me. I'm not saying these people are committing heresy or anything, but it's just wrong.

This year has been ABSOLUTELY packed. We moved. I launched a couple of podcasts and my author site. I got on Facebook and hooked up with some old friends. We elected the right man for the job president-wise. It's been crazy. I figured this year I would kick it off with a look at my favorite posts from 2008.

January - I did some traveling at the beginning of the year and that was reflected in my blog posts, but my favorite, largely because of the conversation it brought was the first of two posts on predestination/election.

February - This year was all about the politics. I wrote some of my thoughts over at SpitballPolitics.com. Sadly I didn't write there enough. My post for this month was a little bit of a rant.

March - This post was inspired by a cartoon. I still refer back to it from time to time to remember that the life we live says more about us than the words we use.

April - A health scare generated a few posts, thankfully it was nothing. My favorite though, has to be the first episode of Archangel. It's been a fun trip.

May - This post was on spiritual hydration.

June - I had the pleasure of meeting the author of Samson and the Pirate monks and this post is a review of that book. We read it at our annual men's retreat. I highly recommend it.

July - I launched ArchangelNovel.com, but the best one this month was an inspiring video about allowing yourself to fail.

August - Leigh and I started our couple cast this month, but this month's best post was one inspired by an XKCD.com comic.

September - There was a lot of great content this month, but this song absolutely filled my brain for most of the month so it wins hands down.

October - I spent quite a bit of time prepping for NaNo, but saw this "Christian" board game and it flipped my lid.

November - It was a light month thanks to writing but there were some goodies thanks to Prop 8 and more political stuff.

December - Ahhhh December, I remember it well. This was inspired by a Will Ferrel movie of all things.

Well I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I look forward to even better stuff in '09. I'll be developing ScottRoche.com. I'll finish up Archangel Legion. There will be a new podcast novel, probably in the second half of the year. Stick around and watch me for the changes.

ht to sgrace for the ribbon

Check out www.scottroche.com. It's my new website. Spiritualtramp.com isn't going anywhere, this will still be my main blog. Not sure what I'll do with it. I might put up the occasional post there re: writing in general or my writing in particular. Future podcasts will definitely go up there as well.

What would you like to see over there? (I'm assuming that if you're reading this that a> you give a flip and b> you're not saying OMG ANOTHER WEBSITE? HE'S CRAZY!!!)

Why did I procure it? I think it's good when you're building a brand to own your own namespace. That's sounds vaguely like I know what I'm talking about...

Also you should look because it's pretty thanks to Jason at http://www.peektarlady.com/.

Episode thirteen arose from the Penn video I posted yesterday.

Referenced my post Communicate - when necessary use words.

Also played a promo for Excuse me, Ghidorah!

Music from3rd Man, called Blind Spot.

If Penn Jillette, comedian, illusionist, juggler, atheist, anti-bs artist, gets it then why don't we as Christians get it? Watch this video so you know what the heck I'm talking about.

ht to The Prodigal Jon

This is a special Christmas episode of Snark Infested Waters. Enjoy it and have a Merry Christmas!!

For those of you not following me on Facebook here's a video of a performance some guys in our church's vocal ensemble did on Sunday for our church's talent show.

Okay so Night at the Museum was a pretty cute movie. It was worth a video rental at least. It looks like the sequel will be offering more of the same.

I'm not a huge Ben Stiller fan, but I enjoy "his" movies. Really more often than not it's got to do with his co-stars. So we'll see.

Rick Warren has been asked to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration and that's got some folks' underwear in a collective bunch. Warren was pro-Prop 8 and some on the left see Obama's reaching out to him as a slap in the face.

Jane from Firedoglake compared inviting him to inviting the Grand Wizard of the KKK and called him a hate monger and a homophobe. Now I posted about name calling recently and this is a classic example.

One thing that interests me, she says that if Obama really wants to preach inclusiveness then why not have someone up there that represents inclusiveness. The answer? Obama does. His name? Barack Obama. Inclusiveness doesn't mean surrounding yourself with people that agree with you on every issue. You don't need to include actual "hate mongers" or despots in your cabinet or on your team to be inclusive, but at the same time you don't need to vilify those you disagree with either. We need to have the proverbial "big tent."

Lee Strahan says it best in his post.

I don't understand how anyone who listened to Obama during the campaign would be shocked that Obama lets Warren give the invocation. It's vintage Obama. It does not signal agreement with Warren's political positions, some of which are clearly at odds with Obama's. Warren isn't making policy or even giving a sermon., He's saying a prayer and then possibly dancing later at some inaugural parties. If anything, it's the possibility of this dancing that should be deeply troubling to all Americans.

So, if this has you upset then I think you need to reconsider how important this really is in the scheme of things. Get your priorities in order. Don't worry, Obama is a liberal. He will be a liberal president. He may not jump through every hoop you set up for him. In fact I hope he doesn't. He does seem like a guy who will try to do what he said he was going to do and so far I think he has. When he does something really stupid like pre-emptively starting a war with another country or okays the bugging of American's phones without a court order, we'll talk.

Oh and when you compare just about anyone to Hitler or a Klan member, you lose the argument automatically.