We saw Hero this evening. Great movie! The photography was beautiful and the story featured some sweet martial arts action. As usual, some of the funnest stuff to watch is when the characters defy gravity and run on water, or stand on the sides of buildings. I love it. I remember in Korea, I had students who were quite certain that in parts of China, there lived accomplished martial artists who were capable of such feats–that it wasn’t purely creative license. Maybe that’s something Troy and Ruth could look into…

Also, I sent off my slacker manifesto this afternoon. Matt was kind enough to pass a critical eye over the final draft and I made some changes base on that input. The funny thing was, when we got back from the movie, I checked email and had a note from the ChangeThis folks. I had sent them my document, but it was blank! Not sure how that happened, but they asked the obvious question as to whether that was the slacker statement I was trying to make… 🙂 It wasn’t and I sent the right version… Now it’s time to wait and see whether they’ll publish it.

Last, just helpin’ out with Seraphim Proudleduck.

Because I’m fair, I offer the following…

My Slacker@Work entry has been scraped off the ChangeThis website and they’ve asked me to write the full manifesto. They’ve got a special Word template that is used to help them reformat the manifesto into their PDF layout. They made it clear that there are no guarantees that what I write will actually be published on the site and if it does get published, it’ll be placed in a “slushpile” section of the site which is devoted to submissions like mine, and not the commissioned stuff that you see on the front page. Regardless of all the caveats, I’m kinda stoked to get the chance to write the thing. I also recently finished a book called “Thinking Like Your Editor” which was super-helpful in getting me to understand how to write a book proposal. That knowledge will come in pretty handy when writing the manifesto too. In my understanding, a book proposal is simply a toned down business plan. You’ve got to sell the idea and identify the market and the competition. The ChangeThis manifesto will just focus on selling the idea, of course, but the advice in the book will go a long way toward helping me distill my swirling thoughts. Anyway, it’s good news. I’ll post the text of the manifesto here when I’m done writing it.

Okay, not very fair and balanced, but funny nonetheless. And for the record, if anyone finds a similar graphic for Kerry, I’d be happy to post that too.

So, I put my car up for sale this weekend. Got lots of interest off of postings to CraigsList, PDXForSale and del.icio.us, so that’s good. However, this morning I get this message:

Hello,

I saw your advert placed online for the sale of your 1995 Subaru Legacy and i will really like to buy from you.

Please let me know if the Item is still available forsale and also the last price you will want to sell it to me.I will appreciate it if you can send me pictures too,so to have a glance on what i want to buy..

I will await to read from you as quickly as possible so to proceed.

God bless you.

Regards,
SAMUEL.

Sounded weird, but I figured, what the heck, I’ll reply. So I sent this:

Hi Sam–

We’ve had a lot of interest in the car and one guy seems pretty
serious about buying it for his mom, but the Subaru is still available
and we’re flexible on price…feel free to make an offer.

You can reach me via email, or on my cell phone: 503-xxx-xxxx. The
car is in Newberg and available for showing or test driving any time.

–Brendon

About three hours later I get the following reply from “Sam”:

Dear Friend,
With thanks i acknowledge the receipt of your mail and i noted the contents very well.I am happy the Item is still available forsale and also i will need you to let me know the last price you will be willing to sell to me…I will be happy to give you an extra offer on the cost price,if you can assure me you will sell to me..

I already have the shipping to be taken cared of by shipper,on coming over to your place for the pick-up of the Item,but this will be done after you have gotten the payment..Hope this is okay with you…

Finally,i will need you to send me your Full details on how the check will be issued by my Banker and the address where it will be sent to for your collection,including the contact phone number also…

Expecting to read from you soonest.

Regards,

Samuel.D

Now my scam radar is off the chart, so I write back:

Sam, I can assure you that I’ll hold the car for you for $6,200. I
must insist on conducting the transaction in person with either you or
your agent, considering I’ll need a signature on the title transfer
and sales agreement. Also, I won’t accept a personal check, but cash
or cashier’s check will be fine.

–Brendon

After writing that last bit, I did a lookup on Sam’s IP address (81.199.85.91). You won’t be surprised to find that it originates in Nigeria. I guess it’s just another variation of the Nigerian email scam that has been going around for a long time…just customized to make it seem more legit. I’m a little weirded out that I gave him my cell phone number, though. Crazy…

Jared has picked up his writing over at blogger. You can get there this way. He says it’ll be infrequently updated, so it’s probably worth dropping in your RSS reader…

Following is the text of an email I just sent out. I’d be happy to receive any responses here, too.

So, I was walking home for lunch and passed a nicely coiffed woman
sitting patiently in her large SUV in front of a certain private
school. I assume she was waiting for her (only) child to exit the
building and enter the safe confines of the gas-guzzler. Not that I’m
being judgemental or anything. 🙂

Anyway, as I passed by, I wondered what her response would be if Jesus
knocked on her window and asked why she was driving such a big
automobile. I imagined her reciting the usual litany of space and
safety reasons. Then I imagined Jesus pulling a socratic (yeah, I
just coined it) and walking her through some questions that guided her
into considering how her life, perhaps, was structured to make her
believe that she needed that car.

By this time, I was home and I enjoyed my reheated Chinese food from
last night. While I was eating, I searched around the web for
references to ‘right living.’ There are some, but not much. This
made me think that I sure would like to read other folks’ thoughts
about ‘right living’ and how I wished there was some kind of community
weblog where people could write stuff and respond in kind, etc. Then
I thought about how easy it would be to make something like that, but
the tough part would be finding high quality contributors.

So you see where I’m going here. It’s pretty easy to make a
straight-up weblog where many people can write about a finely tuned
topic. The bigger problem is finding people who are willing to write
(even occasionally) and think about the topic. If such a place
existed on the web, I’m relatively confident that it would attract a
sizable readership over time.

So here’s the pitch: are any of you interesting in sharing the burden
of writing about ‘right living’ on the web? I am not suggesting any
particular political agenda here–I’m just interested in smart people
writing about their thoughts on ‘right living’, how it is manifested
in their lives, what it means to them, how they struggle with it, how
it ties to their faith, and so on. If you aren’t interested, do you
know anyone who might be? How ’bout passing this along to them? If
there is sufficient interest in such a project, I’d be happy to make
the place exist–and to contribute in my own inimitable way.