Big Stuff

Well this is going to be my last post for the year 2008. I only started this blog 3 months ago and yet I already feel so attached to you as my readers. Granted I only have a couple, which I am completely fine with, but I want to thank you for reading my thoughts and even giving me feedback every once and a while. I started this blog initially because I had alot on my mind and I needed someway to write about those thoughts, and honestly when I started I could've cared less if someone was reading it or not, as I still could care less. But I also just wanted to start a blog that was consistent. And by consistent I mean at least 1 post a week, usually 3 or 4 a week. And I think I have achieved that goal of consistency over the past 3 months, and I hope to continue that consistency in 2009.

As I have continued writing on this blog I have found myself thinking more and more throughout the day about certain things, and then coming back and writing about them. Without this blog medium I don't think I ever would have caused myself to think like I have over the past couple months. I've wrote about behavior of people, advances in technology, and sometimes just my everyday life and what I do on a daily basis. So I think it has been a nice balance of thoughts. But I really do enjoy that time when I think about something that I have never thought about before and then I have the opportunity to come back and write about it and share with you, and then get your feedback.

As I was thinking about writing this year end post I was planning on just doing a year review of major events that have happened in 2008, and I might still do that, but I have realized that that it is really cliche. So then I decided to just write about my blog, and the purpose of it and such. But I think I will give some 2008 major event reviews. I will do it by category. And I will start out with my favorite of course:

Technology: Hard for me to think of a single biggest event, but one that sticks out in my mind (besides the release of the iPhone 3G and the ability to put applications on the iPhone and iPod touch) would be the proposition from Microsoft to acquire Yahoo at $31.00 per share. Yahoo then turned down the offer, but this was huge in the tech industry, I'm pretty Yahoo will be bought by someone in the next year, the question is, who will it be? Full Story here

Note: I know the most about Technology therefore that section is longer than the rest.

Political: Obama wins the Presidential election and becomes President Elect. Full Story here

Sports: Michael Phelps wins 8 Gold medals in 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Full Story here

Music: Kinda hard to narrow down, but here's a link to a list of the top 100 songs of 2008. Take it for what its worth and that may not be much. Song list
Also here is a link to Billboard's site

Those are all of the categories that I feel like doing. Feel free to add more to this though. More categories, or what you think were the biggest stories for these categories that would replace mine.

Happy New Year to everyone.
Keep close to Christ.
I love you all.

Josh

:) Marley & Me :(

WARNING:
The following post may provide information or spoilers for
the movie "Marley & Me". If you have not seen the movie and are
worried about hearing spoilers you may not want to read this post.
Don't say I didn't warn you.

I saw the movie "Marley & Me" yesterday with my family and I was
pleasantly surprised to say the least. I was with my family because
my little sister was just dying to see it. At first I wasn't really
looking forward to this experience just because I knew that the movie
was about a dog and that was about it. Later I found out that Owen
Wilson co-starred in it with Jennifer Aniston, so that raised my hopes
a bit because I love Owen Wilson.

So let me just cut right to the chase. About halfway through the movie
I found myself asking the question "How have I been entertained this
long by this movie and am continuing to be entertained? All this movie
is about is a dog." To be more specific the life of a dog. But it is
more than just the life of this dog, it is the life of this dog living
with this family.

And once again I find myself asking another question about three
quarters of the way through the movie, "How am I so attached to this
dog?" I'm so attached to this dog that tears are welling up in my eyes
as I watch this dog get older and suffer from a twisted stomach and
then eventually die. And it wasn't just me that was holding back
tears, well actually it probably was just me because the rest of the
audience had already lost it. All I could hear across the entire theater
was the sniffling noses and people just crying.

The creators of this film did such a great job portraying real life
with the family, and the dad's job, and the birth of three children,
and through all this the dog "Marley" is there chewing stuff up and
causing trouble wherever he goes and the family still loves him.

All in all this was a very refreshing movie. As you can tell I think
it was very well made movie. And for those of you who know me, you
know that I am not the biggest fan of dogs so I was amazed myself at
the fact that a tear was rolling down my face by the end. It was one
of the few movies I've ever cried in and the first thing I wanted to
do by the end was write about it. So here I am sitting in the mall writing
this post on my iPod while my sister is shopping. You'd be amazed at
how fast one can get at typing on this touch screen keyboard. LOL.

Anyways, hope I didn't ruin too much for those of you who are planning
on seeing the movie and for those who aren't planning on seeing it,
you might want to rethink that decision. That's all I'm gonna say.
I'll let the post speak for itself.

Hope you had a great Christmas.

Happy New Years!

A Note:
It took me about half the movie to realize how they came up with the name "Marley" for the dog. Earlier in the show Owen Wilson's character starts playing a song from a Jamaican singer and starts talking about him. If you can't figure it out after that hint then God help you.

Christmas to me

One thing I've realized over the past couple weeks is that I'm
beginning tontiink less and less about Christmas every year. As I was
studying for finals I realized, wow, Christmas is less than 10 days
away. I hadn't even been thinking about Christmas let alone done any
Christmas shopping. All I was worried about was passing my finals. But
even when I did begin to think about Christmas this has been the most
laid back I've been about getting my shopping. In fact as I'm writing
this it is Christmas eve and I still don't have gifts for everyone in
my immediate family. LOL. I don't know what it is but I think my
priorities have just shifted over the years and Christmas has just
become smaller in my mind. My priorities this year have been on
soccer, school, relationships and therefore I just think less about
holidays.

I think another thing that has contributed to the smallness of
Christmas in my mind has been that naturally the concept of gifts has
less significance because at this age I already know what I'm getting
before I get it. In fact I'm usually the one who buys it. I don't know
if I'm going to be surprised with anything this year, which is
completely fine with me. I'm just saying that I think thisbis another
thing that has contributed to what has happened.

Really I'm not too heartbroken by the fact that Christmas isn't a big
deal to me anymore. It Is just something that I've really noticed this
year in my own life. I've been thinking about whether this is right or
if there us something I need to change. I still haven't come to a
conclusion. It is just something interesting to think about.

Has anyone else felt like this recently? Or does anyone feel the
opposite? Does anyone feel like Christmas is a bigger deal to them
than ever?

Ho ho ho

"Guitar Praise"??

I was out today with my parents getting some Christmas shopping done. Well I wasn't getting much shopping done considering WalMart didn't have the chia pet that my little sister wanted and I have no clue what to get for my other little sister, so it was really just me walking up and down aisles and finding things that I wouldn't mind having. LOL. I mean I'm really not too worried about not being able to find something for them so it's all good. But I did run into my friend Micah Landers, the author of the Remedies blog and it was good catching up with him and talking his past job and his future plans.

But in our shopping adventures my parents decided that they needed to stop by Family Christian Bookstore to get some things so we ventured out to Florence. As soon as we pull up to the store I notice a sign in the window, it says "Guitar Praise". As soon as u saw this I just cringed. Obviously this is a Christian spinoff of the ever popular xbox 360 game "Guitar Hero". The first thing thought that came into my mind was "Why can't these Christian companies just come up with an original idea?" If these companies would just simply come up with an original product they might actually sell some stuff or imagine this, they might actually influence some kids in a positive way. Sure they might have some success selling a product but that doesn't mean that the kid is gonna like it. Usually these parents just buy these kind of things for their kids as a Christian alternative to the real thing and usually the kids hate these products simply because they've already had experience with the real thing and they know what the experience should be like and when they don't get that experience they are disappointed.

Here's an idea. Get some good businessmen to come up with some good original concepts and then get some good marketers for a Christian company and then see what happens. I'd bet that there'd be some success with whatever product they came out with.

As I continued perusing through the Family Christian Bookstore I also noticed some other things that really seem to be some poor business decisions as far as the customer experience go. First of all I picked up a cd to see what the titles of the songs were and half of the back of the cd was covered by this plastic electronic alarm. I couldn't even read the titles of the songs. Now, this may not be the fault of the store, but it most likely is. I mean, I thought the alarms were on just like one cd, but no, they were on every single cd, I couldn't read the titles of any of the titles on any of the cd's. It was annoying to say the least.

The next thing that would definitely hinder me from buying a cd from this store was the fact that they took out the "cd listening stations." These were small scanners that allowed a customer to scan the cd's barcode and then listen about a minute of every track on the cd. These were in the store, but since they have been taken out for some amazing reason. These two things I noticed almost immediately. And I wouldn't be surprised if their cd sales have gone down durastically. Now I could see someone saying that these cd listening stations kept people from buying cd's because all they do is listen to the cd in the store and leave. But this isn't a good argument because its only a sample of the song and I'm definitely more likely to buy a cd if I can listen to it in the store.

These are just some of the things that I annoyed me about the Family Christian Bookstore. This caused me to think about the concept of "Christian Bookstores" and their purposes and what not. This is a different post for a different time, but it is an interesting thing to think about. Hope this post interested you a bit.

Comments, Thoughts.

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