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Friday, December 25, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Art of Worship
Take a moment to ponder the word “Christian”. If you pull it apart into two separate pieces, you get “Christ” and “-ian”. We know Jesus Christ to the savior of men, but the following half is more ambiguous. It tends to mean “-like” in almost every instance it is used. So, putting the pieces back together, we have “Christ-like” as an alternate interpretation of the phrase.
Now consider the idea of Jesus and God as one being, torn apart by incarnation. At this point, the word “Christian” can be effectively viewed as “God-like”. As of Year One (Not really, I’m just playing… It was way before that.), creation went down like this:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, blah blah blah…” Genesis 1:1-2a (NIV)
God was a creator. In fact, he was The Creator. However, he blessed us with the ability to mimic that characteristic in a way.
“Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.” Ephesians 5:1 (Message)
Every time we take something from within us and turn it into a piece of art (no matter what it may be), we become creators with God.
Show God you want to be more like him. Make the world a better place. Let art become a part of your everyday routine. He appreciates it.
Not to mention it’s pretty flippin’ rad.
-CJ-
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
RawRock Christmas Mix
The fans over at the Raw Rock Militia forum have created the 2009 edition of the RawRock Christmas Mix, which includes 13 of the most fun (and also disturbed) Christmas songs they could come up with. Here we have it for your listening pleasure!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Nevada Pre-Order Chaos
In 2006, I had the privilege of reading Josh's first book, The Spinal Cord Perception. It was a thought-provoking and dark journey through the eyes of a broke substitute teacher. Ever since I finished it, I have awaited a new release from Josh. When I heard the news that Nevada would be released toward the end of November this year, I knew right away I had to order it as soon as possible.
The book was originally only expected as a paperback edition, but soon after the announcement of Nevada's release, fans were made aware of a limited edition of the novel. It was said to be only printed in one run of 50 hardcover copies, hand numbered and signed by the author for fifty dollars.
As soon as the announcement was made, the internet was rife with buzz about the deluxe edition. I had planned from the beginning on gladly offering up my fifty bones for a copy (mostly for those coveted 1-50 numbers). As a Showbread fan, I knew that the numbers would, in effect, give me status or bragging rights in the Bread Head community.
Josh told the world on Wednesday, November 18th that pre-orders would be made available the next day. A fellow fan and friend of mine, Sir Jeremy Waterman, was utterly disappointed by his obligation to previously planned appointments, scheduled for that day. Through the course of that Wednesday evening, I convinced myself to be the good friend and offer to order the super-special edition for him since he was going to be busy. He accepted and appeared to be totally stoked.
When I made the decision to make this pre-order happen for the two of us, I felt the need to order a copy for Jeremy prior to my own purchase simply out of what I considered to be good friendship. This way, if something happened and one of us didn't get the book, I would end up the one without a copy and not my friend.
As it turns out, Josh grossly underestimated the interest in his hardcover edition and the books oversold in about five minutes. The good news was that I made it through both transactions safe and sound. Just a few minutes later, however, I was notified via email that my order had been refunded. Here was the message:
Jeremy got the hardcover, hand-numbered, author-signed limited edition and I didn't.
I was crushed for a moment in time. Honestly, my body was filled with every sort of emotion one could be filled with. Sadness, anger, frustration, relief, happiness, laughter, madness. It was all there in some form. I thought to myself "How could this happen to me? I'm not supposed to be the one who loses out on these things..."
I gave myself time of reflection. Did I really need to spend my spare cash on a super-extra-special edition of the book? No. Would I be any more of a fan if I had one of the numbers inside the cover? No. Would I enjoy the standard edition just as much as the fancy copy? Yes.
Could I learn something from my experience? Yes.
The Holy Spirit had been with me that whole time, teaching me a lesson that needed to be learned. From Jeremy going out of town to me offering to order in his stead. From the impression I had earlier that day to order his first to the swift sale of the novels. It was all done for a reason and I'm here to tell you why.
Selflessness.
I had been given every opportunity to give the gift of selfishness to myself from the get go. The human instinct is to do for self first and for others second, but I felt a strange desire to do the opposite that night. Although Josh's book is hardly valuable to most, The Holy Spirit was teaching me that none of the things I thought were important really mattered in the grand scheme--that it was all orchestrated for me to learn the value of humility and self-sacrifice.
Through all the frustration, it was a lesson I very much appreciate even now as I'm writing this entry. Christ has called us to endure and to put others' best interests before our own. Don't forget... That's exactly what he did when he was beaten and killed for us.
At that, I will leave you with this:
The book was originally only expected as a paperback edition, but soon after the announcement of Nevada's release, fans were made aware of a limited edition of the novel. It was said to be only printed in one run of 50 hardcover copies, hand numbered and signed by the author for fifty dollars.
As soon as the announcement was made, the internet was rife with buzz about the deluxe edition. I had planned from the beginning on gladly offering up my fifty bones for a copy (mostly for those coveted 1-50 numbers). As a Showbread fan, I knew that the numbers would, in effect, give me status or bragging rights in the Bread Head community.
Josh told the world on Wednesday, November 18th that pre-orders would be made available the next day. A fellow fan and friend of mine, Sir Jeremy Waterman, was utterly disappointed by his obligation to previously planned appointments, scheduled for that day. Through the course of that Wednesday evening, I convinced myself to be the good friend and offer to order the super-special edition for him since he was going to be busy. He accepted and appeared to be totally stoked.
When I made the decision to make this pre-order happen for the two of us, I felt the need to order a copy for Jeremy prior to my own purchase simply out of what I considered to be good friendship. This way, if something happened and one of us didn't get the book, I would end up the one without a copy and not my friend.
As it turns out, Josh grossly underestimated the interest in his hardcover edition and the books oversold in about five minutes. The good news was that I made it through both transactions safe and sound. Just a few minutes later, however, I was notified via email that my order had been refunded. Here was the message:
"We are terribly sorry to inform you that the NEVADA LIMITED EDITION BUNDLE has sold out before your order was processed. please accept a full refund and visit showbread.net to read about an offer as a token of our apology."The first thing I thought to do was check to see if Jeremy's order had received the same refund. After several times refreshing his account... Nothing. Sooner or later, I came to a hard realization:
Jeremy got the hardcover, hand-numbered, author-signed limited edition and I didn't.
I was crushed for a moment in time. Honestly, my body was filled with every sort of emotion one could be filled with. Sadness, anger, frustration, relief, happiness, laughter, madness. It was all there in some form. I thought to myself "How could this happen to me? I'm not supposed to be the one who loses out on these things..."
I gave myself time of reflection. Did I really need to spend my spare cash on a super-extra-special edition of the book? No. Would I be any more of a fan if I had one of the numbers inside the cover? No. Would I enjoy the standard edition just as much as the fancy copy? Yes.
Could I learn something from my experience? Yes.
The Holy Spirit had been with me that whole time, teaching me a lesson that needed to be learned. From Jeremy going out of town to me offering to order in his stead. From the impression I had earlier that day to order his first to the swift sale of the novels. It was all done for a reason and I'm here to tell you why.
Selflessness.
I had been given every opportunity to give the gift of selfishness to myself from the get go. The human instinct is to do for self first and for others second, but I felt a strange desire to do the opposite that night. Although Josh's book is hardly valuable to most, The Holy Spirit was teaching me that none of the things I thought were important really mattered in the grand scheme--that it was all orchestrated for me to learn the value of humility and self-sacrifice.
Through all the frustration, it was a lesson I very much appreciate even now as I'm writing this entry. Christ has called us to endure and to put others' best interests before our own. Don't forget... That's exactly what he did when he was beaten and killed for us.
At that, I will leave you with this:
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." - Matthew 25:40CJ
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Nothing Matters Anymore!
Thanks to The Gothic Guardian for this one!
Click the image to view in full resolution.
Alphabet-mapped visualization of Showbread's "Nothing Matters Anymore." I split the song into second-long segments, marked each segment with the lyrics that occur within it, and then mapped the first letter of each word to a color. 252 segments. 24 colors. 12 hours to make.
-The Gothic Guardian
Friday, November 20, 2009
Butterflies & Moths
It was about 6" across... I thought it was pretty big.
Anywho, I find it funny that moths are now a memory trigger for Showbread in my mind. In our dorms we have moths everywhere at night, so basically I can’t leave my room without Showbread popping into my head – which I think is pretty sweet.
Speaking of memory triggers and flying insects, every time I see a picture of a butterfly with some kind of technology associated with it I think of terminator… for instance there’s this billboard for a hospital on i-4 that has a photograph of a butterfly and in its wings is a picture of doctors performing surgery. I maintain that the hospital is somehow related to Cyberdyne; no matter how crazy my sister says that is. Also, a fellow Showbreadian (formally known as Breadpudding) lives next to a business called Skytech, or something like that; which I believe is a cover-up for Skynet. Pretty trippy eh?
Not sure how I am going to tie that all in will raw unless you think the fact that Skynet really exists and runs our hospitals is raw - which it is… then yea, my job is done :D
Oh btw here’s proof:
http://www.cdats.com/default.html
http://www.cyberdyne.jp/English/
On a side note the email addy for the blog is now fixed so if you had previously submitted anything to it you should probably do so again to insure that we got it :)
Monday, November 16, 2009
Introducing the Raw Rock Blog!
Welcome to a place where YOU (Showbreadians, Bread Heads, or whatever else you call yourself) can publically express your love for Raw Rock!
Starting this week you will be able to submit artistic writings such as poems and short stories; review based writings such as album reviews, concert reviews (for both Showbread and others); and visual art such as drawings, photography, and graphic design or anything else you can think of that represents Raw Rock.
Each week I will select a submission to be posted on this blog for all to read/see.
Send all submissions to submissions@blog.rawrockmilitia.com. Please include the name you want to be displayed with it.
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