These two magazines showed up in the mail the other day and I can’t tell them apart. On the left is American Funds’ Investor magazine. On the right is the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s Decision Magazine.
Wow, how weird is it that they’re so similar. And what does that say about their respective designs?
So Flickr, my favorite photo-sharing site (to the tune of 8,450+ photos), has added video.
My initial reaction: What are they thinking?!
Everyone knows that’s the slow, painful path to destruction. Adding extra features that are outside your expertise. Feature creep. And video? [Shakes head sadly and disapprovingly.]
This just cracks me up:
Leave it to the Simpsons to poke fun at old media (though aren’t they getting kind of old?). Ha-ha, indeed. (link via Carl Bliss, and my apologies for the crappy video site—couldn’t find the clip on YouTube)
Last week we took a family trip to the Children’s Museum. Lexi had a blast and spent most of her nap telling her stuffed bear everything she did.
I think one of my highlights was riding the bus (it was also one of Lexi’s highlights). I used to ride the bus to work every day and loved it. I talk about this all the time, but I think public transportation is great. I like to drive, but it’s just as nice to sit back and let someone else do the driving. You get a chance to interact with people and see things you just can’t see when you’re concentrating on the road.
It sounds goofy, but I just feel more connected to humanity when I actually interact with them. Even if it’s just a quick nod and smile, it’s more than staring at someone’s bumper.
I think Lexi and I will be taking the bus more often.
Matt Snyders spent an entire week at the Mall of America and lived to tell about it in a City Pages article. From open to close, Snyders was there. He even spent the night once.
It only fuels my obsession with local haunts like the Mall of America. The place is just kind of weird. Especially when you hear odd details, like the fact that the mall has no heat. The skylight over the amusement park (currently dubbed Nickelodeon Universe) and the body heat of shoppers and employees keeps the place warm. So warm that they run the air conditioning year round. Yes, the Mall of America runs the air conditioning in January when it’s below zero outside.
I told you it was weird.
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t show much behind-the-scenes action. Snyders’ overnight in the mall was a legit ‘sleep with the sharks’ at Underwater Adventure. I was hoping for a hide-in-the-bathroom, avoid-security-guards-all-night adventure (kind of like Career Opportunities, only not really). It’d at least be cool to see what’s in the basement.
The City Pages recently went undercover to expose the secret of Teens Encountering Christ, also known as TEC. If you’ve never heard of it before, that probably doesn’t sound like big news. But it is. TEC is a Catholic retreat weekend for teens. A lot of denominations have a variation of it, including my own church which calls it Teens Encounter Christ. But it’s all basically the same thing—a weekend where teens are supposed to, uh, encounter Christ. Think of it as Acquire the Fire minus the whole show biz feel and plus a lot of candles.
The reason it’s big news to expose TEC is because it’s supposed to be a secret. Attendees are sworn to secrecy and told they can’t tell others what happens at TEC (“The first rule of TEC is—you do not talk about TEC. The second rule of Tec is—you do not talk about TEC.”) Apparently it would ruin the experience. But on the upside it makes it all sound incredibly cultish. Just hope they don’t serve Kool-Aid.
It’s interesting to read about a complete outsider (and non-Christian) experiencing the whole thing, but they don’t expose anything shocking. I just get a kick out of the fact that they did expose it. Whenever our youth group does it the TEC alums get all weepy and implore the newbies that they just have to go. “Why?” “Can’t tell you, but you just have to go.”
It’s the most cliqueish, cultish, creepiest thing. I’m sure great things happen at TEC and I know and trust some of those TEC alums when they say it’s an incredible experience. But the entire way it’s communicated is what drives me nuts. I’m all over how churches market themselves, and this is not one of the better approaches.