The Prodigal Blog

Strange events happen to me sometimes, and I recently had an urge to put some of them to digital paper. It was late at night a few months ago. I don't remember what I was doing that night, but I was returning home at around 11pm. Driving down the street that leads to my apartment complex I saw a strange sight. I made out the shape of an older woman in her nightgown - she was standing on the inside of the gate facing out and had both of her hands on it. I opened the gate using my clicker and the woman stumbled forward into the middle of the street. As she approached closer I could tell that something was wrong. I lowered my window and asked her if she was OK. She came up to my window, grabbed me, and told me, "I am not feeling good." She was definitely very drunk. I parked my car and proceeded to talk to her for a bit; Stanton is not a safe place for anyone to be wandering around at night, especially drunk. I introduced myself to her and she told me her name. I'll refe...

I just got home from picking my aunt up at John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa. Her flight was scheduled to arrive at 10:50pm; I arrived 30 minutes early just in case. I've never picked anyone up at that particular airport before, so I was somewhat bewildered and dazed beyond what might be normal for me. I walked around, checked the flight information, and then made my way to a bench off to the side of the more trafficked parts of the airport. That is to say that I was not hidden from view, merely on the fringes of the main thoroughfares. I sat down, and instinctively pulled out my phone to thumb through the cheap games that come bundled in with any phone that is not intelligent enough to be considered a 'smartphone'. After failing in Snake3 for the third time, a strange thought came to my mind. "Why am I so instinctively interested in appearing busy?" I returned my phone to my pants pocket, said a prayer, and looked up and out. Someone had taken a seat on the same b...

OK. Maybe it would be better to say that music can be dangerous. Let me preface this post by saying the following: 1. Music is not evil. 2. Me calling this a rant, isn't an attempt to escape genuine criticism. Fire away! 3. God has often used music to lift up my soul from the depths of indifference and sadness. 4. I believe that God uses music, and those who play it. So what exactly am I trying to get at then? I think I am trying to voice concerns about our Christian liturgical culture. Music has always been part of the worship of the people of God. Throughout time, and even into eternity we will not only be worshiping God with our hearts and our minds. But also with our singing and playing of instruments. The worship of God through music is printed throughout the entire bible. Consider the following: "David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with songs and with harps , lyres , tambourines , sistrums and cymbals ." 2 Samu...

I am currently star struck. I don’t know when the last time was that I felt this way. I just saw two celebrities…in the flesh…and they interacted with me…answered my question…nay even signed my book. Honestly, I haven’t been at such a loss for words in sometime. I just met Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of PENNY ARCADE. Yeah. I know. Freaking awesome. That’s my assertion at least anyways. Don’t assume though that it was a raucous party. Because, well it was in a Barnes and Noble, and it was really just a book signing for their latest book. But still. Given their fame I’m surprised there weren’t more than the hundreds already there (ok there were maybe 100+ people there). They took questions from the gathered audience for an hour. I asked a question! They answered all sorts of questions. Mostly all heavy hitters: favorite game of all time, direction of the gaming industry, favorite novels of all time, who their romantic interests were in certain RPG’s, how they deal with games and...

.../theprodigalblog.blogspot.com/ant start projects . . . start: Hi everyone just writing to post up some things I'm up to and that have been exciting me. . . warning: LOST starts in 3 hours. . . verbose: I've been a wee bit busy with work and a few side things... Went hiking around Chantry Flats and checked out the waterfall up there since the recent rains. Pretty awesome. [no photo found] Played through Mass Effect 2 (very fun, definitely makes it pretty high on my favorite games played list) . . . Projects: things I will be up to... . . verbose: So I've got a few things that are coming out of the factory of my mind that I'm thinking of wrangling down 1. Wanting to read more. I am going to read the following books, starting from left to right. From left to right...Love or Die, Crazy Love, The Prodigal God, a Shelter in the time of Storm The plan is to read these books by the end of March. None of them is particularly long. I will report back with the results...or not....

All my best ideas come from the shower. I’m not kidding. All my worst ideas and anxieties come out in the shower also; again, no joke. Should I call these waterborne day dreams revelations? Or an early morning curse from my subconscious? Or maybe it’s connected with the fact that I’ve just woken up and my mind is barely sober enough to determine what it wants to think about, and what ‘I’ want to think about. Or perhaps it is a partnership between the aforementioned and the Holy Spirit, meant to rouse me from my stupor. Trust me; no alcohol is involved, because as most people know about me, one drop of that stuff can put me in a world of hurt (allergies). This morning as I scrubbed my oily hair clean with my standard Head and Shoulders a thought boiled up to the surface of my mind. And I use the term ‘boil’ quite metaphorically because that what happens with ideas and me. They sit, and I ignore them as long as I can, until I wake up one morning in a hot shower and the idea is poppi...

I'll try and upload a photo once in a while to break up the text, and also, for the people who don't come here to read (which is strange to me). I took this photo in the Huntington Estate Gardens. I'm definitely not a great photographer, but I do like to try and capture cool things in cool lighting. Hope you agree. Also. I have a far higher res of the image here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/jr.houn/TheHuntingtonEstate08#5287260254074143058

I came, I blogged, and then I realized that there is a fortune to be made in carving out my niche on the internet. Yes. I'm sorry to announce it..but after seeing the advertising earnings and profitability options, I've decided to sell out. Be careful...the image after the jump may startle those of weaker financial constitutions... Continue... Yep. Clearly I'm making the big bucks here. I'll be shutting down the writing portion of my blog to focus soley on selling you, the good reader, everything I possibly can. Will be renaming the site promptly to - The Consumerist Blog. **Edit** This is about as many advertisements as I can have...I can't BELIEVE the types of ads they are automatically serving me.