Wiki-surfing

Wikipedia has grown to be one of my favorite websites. Next to Google, I think it's one of the most useful tools on the web. Hardly a day goes by, it seems, when I don't look up multiple things on Wikipedia. I haven't yet found a topic that didn't have at least a short article written about it.

Wikipedia can also be dangerous, however. I've found that when I look something up, I rarely stay just on that one article's page. Every Wikipedia page contains numerous links in the text to articles on other, related topics. I often see another link that looks interesting, click on it, read that page, click on a link to yet another article, and so on. Sometimes it can eat up a lot of one's time, and sometimes the trail of links can get pretty long. By the end of my Wiki-surfing (when I finally force myself to get back to work), I'll often be on a topic that has nothing to do with what I originally came to look up.

Here's a recent example. I heard about a particular dog breed, the Tosa, and decided to look it up. That to the following string: Tosa-->Sumo-->Yokozuna-->Onogawa Kisaburo-->Jujutsu-->Karate-->Syngman Rhee-->Cold War.

From dogs to the Cold War, by way of Japanese culture. Weird. And I've had even longer and stranger Wiki-surfing chains.

Favorite Songwriter/Album

Thanks to my brother-in-law, I've recently discovered the work of singer/songwriter Andrew Peterson. I've only listened to his most recent album (The Far Country, 2005) so far, but that one album is excellent.


I don't generally make a habit of listening to contemporary Christian music. Most of what I hear on the radio is shallow and trite at best; at worst, there's nothing distinctively Christian about it or it's downright blasphemous. However, once in a while, I come across a Christian musician whose work displays a profound understanding of the gospel, love for the church, and a outlook on the world that is soaked in the understanding that Christ is King. Andrew Peterson is one of these.


The Far Country is mainly about death, dying, and the life to come. Not nice or comfortable topics even for most Christians these days, especially not those whose tastes run to what's "safe for the whole family." But Peterson has put together a compilation of songs that shows he understands this life is not as good as it gets, that something far better awaits those who are in Christ, and, paradoxically, that the anticipation of that life makes this life worth living.


Peterson's vision is no pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by sentimentalism, nor is it the product of a depressed, ascetic otherworldliness that sees everything in the present life in shades of grey. He expects that, "when you lay me down to die," he'll miss his family and the memories of a good life lived in the blessings of God. He knows that parting with friends is "the price that I must pay to sail beyond the arms of the havens grey" (a Tolkien reference that will please fans of the Professor's work). Still, he understands that the good things we enjoy in this life are meant to be a foretaste of the joys of the new heavens and the new earth.


The One who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and has already begun the rewnewing work of His kingdom, which will have no end. Andrew Peterson is caught up in it, and with The Far Country, he is helping renew a little more of God's Creation.

Favorite Blog

If you have a taste for satire, especially for satire that sends up the ridiculousness that plagues much of modern evangelicalism, check out a new blog called Tom In The Box. Headlines include: "Extreme Home Makeover Church Edition Hailed A Success," "Robertson Declares Himself the Winner of the 2008 Presidential Election," and "Amillenial 'No Behind' Novel Suffers from Lackluster Sales." It's quite funny stuff, but doesn't feel as sacreligious as sites like Landover Baptist

Favorite Site

Sometimes, in my current employment, I do work that...well, let's just say it doesn't require intense concentration. To stave off boredom, I've found a great resource to help me pass the time: . Similar to Project Gutenberg, LibriVox (the name comes from the Latin words for 'book' and 'voice') hosts audio recordings of scores of classic books that are now in the public domain. Like Wikipedia, it's an open-source, collaborative project, so anyone can expand the site's catalog by recording chapters of books and adding them to the collection. I'm slightly ashamed to admit it, but this is how most of my reading has gotten done in the last several months. Here are some of the LibriVox books I've consumed recently

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Ghost Story collections (1) (2)
Gift of the Magi, O. Henry
King Solomon's Mines, H. Rider Haggard
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Iriving
My Man Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories, Ambrose Bierce
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Psmith in the City, P.G. Wodehouse
Right Ho, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

Goals

Like many people, I believe that having goals and intentionally working to achieve them is important. It's a useful way of ordering my life rightly for meaningful ends. The Bible clearly paints a picture of the Christian life that is ordered, disciplined, and working toward one great goal--knowing and loving and glorifying God in Jesus Christ. This is the great end that every Christian is called to, and in some sense all our other goals should be things that aid us in the task of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever.

One interesting and potentially useful web tool for keeping track of goals and desires is 43 Things. It allows you to see how many others are working on the same goal (to a limited extent; they have to be phrased in exactly the same way). I've made a list of goals--some great and all-encompassing, many smaller and less weighty--that you can find here. They appear in no particular order. Whether I use this tool for keeping track of my goals or not, at least the process of thinking through what I want to do and writing some of it down was very helpful.

Nostalgia

Remember the good old days when Napster was free, and you could tie up your home phone line for hours at a time downloading music at what now seems like a snail's pace?  Well, the good old days are back, sorta.  In an effort to break into Apple's stranglehold on the music-downloading business, Napster now allows registered users to listen to a song five times for free, after which you can buy it or pay Napster's subscription fee for unlimited access to music.  Not quite as good as the days before RIAA went crazy, but that's still a lot of free music.  Check it out.

 

Hat tip: Stephen & Sarah.

T4G Blog

I don't often plug others's blogs (I let my blogroll in the sidebar do that for me), but here's one you must see: the Together for the Gospel Blog. Mark Dever, Al Mohler, C.J. Mahaney, and Lig Duncan, all blogging together. Great stuff. Hanging out with any one of these men is quite an experience (well, I haven't met Lig yet), but get two or more of them in a room together, and buckle your seatbelts! Read this blog, and it'll be almost like spending time with them.

Honestly, I'm just amused by the fact that Mark Dever--who doesn't even own a cell phone--is now blogging.