Category: Of Random Interest

Usually when Christians talk about roleplaying games you can expect a lot of heat and very little light (artfully mocked by the Dead Alewives’ classic bit Dungeons and Dragons). That’s why I was so thrilled to run across the article Roleplaying the Faith which contained several fascinating links.

Roleplaying is a part of geek culture, and Stanford is a bit of a geek campus, so I thought these might interest some of you: Religion and Roleplaying, the Christian Gamers Guild, and Tracy Hickman’s essay on Ethics in Fantasy (for the record, Hickman is a Mormon).

I noted earlier that one of our our alumni was a finalist in the Miss Singapore Universe competition.

The finals are Saturday. Paula and I can’t wait to find out if she’s Miss Singapore Universe. Paula was quite close to Adeline last year, and misses her so much she actually began crying while looking at photos of her online.

Anyway, I stumbled across the official page today. She’s the first gal (top left photo).

Of course, we already have two Miss Universes in our house…

In honor of today’s very special nature, I thought I’d mention The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes download sight . There’s some funny stuff there.

Glen & Paula had their first child today at 4:03pm. Read more and see photos!

Hope you’re having a great spring break. Of course, if you are then you’re probably not obsessively checking this website…

Anyway, Andrew’s off to Russia and Lynette’s on her way back from Oxford. Andrew got pickpocketed in London–I hope he blogs about it.

As you’ve probably heard, alumna Adeline is a finalist in the Miss Singapore Universe competition.

Finally, if you haven’t seen the previews, there’s a new teen movie coming out called Saved that pokes fun at the Christian high school scene. Tim Bednar has an interview with the director (thanks to Andrew Careaga for the lead).

Rick Warren (pastor and author) is the subject of a very favorable article in Time.

My favorite excerpt: Remarkably, Warren has managed to spread his approach to the gospel without extensive national media coverage or a TV ministry. He turned down an invitation from Oprah to be on her show, though he says he’d like to meet her someday. “Too many ministers start out as servants and end up as celebrities,” he says. “I want to use my influence to do some good, and I can get more done out of the limelight.”

Most of the controversy about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was predicated on the assumption that at worst it would provoke profound anti-semitism and at the best it would leave people unswayed (as regards the culpability of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus).

Looks like everyone was wrong–just ask the San Francisco Chronicle. The film seems to have nuanced people’s views and made them less willing to assign specific blame.

See a related article in the Washington Times download dive bomber movie .

Note: the survey was pretty small. Read the Chronicle story to get the scoop on the methodology.

No baby yet.

Oneida Shen, a Chi Alpha intern in Arizona, just spent the last few days with us checking out campuses in Nor Cal and Nevada. She’s seriously considering coming to work alongside Paula and I here at Stanford. Pretty cool.

Also, apparently one of our alumni is currently in the Miss Universe Singapore finals (according to another Singaporean alumnus). How wild is that?

And I just learned one more really strange thing about the Bay Area–there are flocks of wild parrots that roam San Francisco. Seriously–there’s even a book about it. Apparently they just fly around the city. Read the FAQ. It reminds me of a chapter in the Life of Pi.

I saw a neat t‑shirt while I was walking around campus today:

“I Thank Therefore I Am.”

Food for thought.

For some strange reason, the MP3 encoding of last night’s message was completely blank. Not a single sound was captured.

Oh well, it wasn’t the best message I’ve ever preached anyway. It’s still frustrating.

We do have other messages for download, however.

On an unrelated note, is it just me or did everyone start wearing a lot less all of a sudden? I swear that some of the people on the Farm painted their outfits on, and didn’t use much paint in the process…