The Smoak House
Music, God, The World....Where There's Smoak, There's Fire
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Verizon hosting Droid event on October 28

Since the release of the iPhone, every other smartphone has looked like a total dud. I currently do not have a smartphone nor a data plan. All along my mantra has been two-fold: 1) I will not leave the Verizon network; it is too reliable and 2) I will not pay for a data plan for any smartphone except the iPhone because no other phone experience seems worth my money.

That may all change tomorrow. Google is just about the coolest tech company out there (besides Apple!) and I love everything they come out with. So it stands to reason that I will be stoked after tomorrow’s Droid unveiling by Verizon and Motorola.

It Was a Good Weekend

So I worked yet another Vida Nueva weekend, a ministry to Christian teens, this past weekend. There was the usual mayhem and laughing and hanging out and talking and singing and eating and “weekend jokes” (those gags that seem to catch on during the weekend and become a sort of inside joke).

And of course there was plenty of worship and teaching and learning and fellowship and praying and exhibitions of Christian charity (love).  The theme for the weekend was “Consider Jesus.” 

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

In a world when even ministry (which is always for God, in the power of God, to the glory of God) can become self-centered, this theme was timely. I believe that everyone present this weekend gained a renewed sense of the Lordship of Christ and of every human’s need for His divine grace.

Burger King Japan selling Windows 7 burgers

This makes my arteries hurt. And I thought they grew ‘em big in Texas!

Now being a Mac user I can not help but wonder how the “I’m a Mac” ad guys would handle this one. There’s just something that seems very desperate about this. Maybe I’m just biased.

Sincerely,

an Apple fanboy

via phandroid.com (Hi Res) Leakwd details of Verizon’s forthcoming Google Android phone (the Motorola Droid).

via phandroid.com

(Hi Res) Leakwd details of Verizon’s forthcoming Google Android phone (the Motorola Droid).

talkingoutofturn: ragbag: receiving robo-facials the fact that modern day photo programs like picasa and iphoto have the ability to recognise my face gives me the heebie-jeebies. i have tried to disguise myself by: growing a beautiful mustache, wearing XL hipster glasses, and shaving off my exquisite unibrow to no avail—picasa can still somehow distinguish between me and my many handsome associates. how far would i have to go to keep these systems from recognising me? furthermore, what is the threshold of abstraction for a face to still be understood as a face? enter scott mccloud and his graphical abstraction scale from understanding comics. before i start presenting this groundbreaking chart at siggraph, i should note that the function of facial recognition in photo programs is to help catalogue your photo database, it is NOT for helping you organize your manga collection. thus neither iphoto’s literal view of the world or picasa’s high tolerance for icon is better than the other. __ many many thanks to my taekwondo sparring partner, mills baker for running this image through iphoto and reporting back the results in the scientific manner that this issue deserves.

talkingoutofturn:

ragbag:

receiving robo-facials

the fact that modern day photo programs like picasa and iphoto have the ability to recognise my face gives me the heebie-jeebies. i have tried to disguise myself by: growing a beautiful mustache, wearing XL hipster glasses, and shaving off my exquisite unibrow to no avail—picasa can still somehow distinguish between me and my many handsome associates. how far would i have to go to keep these systems from recognising me? furthermore, what is the threshold of abstraction for a face to still be understood as a face? enter scott mccloud and his graphical abstraction scale from understanding comics.

before i start presenting this groundbreaking chart at siggraph, i should note that the function of facial recognition in photo programs is to help catalogue your photo database, it is NOT for helping you organize your manga collection. thus neither iphoto’s literal view of the world or picasa’s high tolerance for icon is better than the other.

__

many many thanks to my taekwondo sparring partner, mills baker for running this image through iphoto and reporting back the results in the scientific manner that this issue deserves.

I try to be good, hard worker man but refrigimator so messy, so, so messy.
Suggestion Box suggestion from Meelos, Newsradio janitor

My New Orange Tiny Terror

I found this photo of the band Needtobreathe. I really like this South Carolina band. They have some great blues influences coming through in their modern rock style and their lyrics cover some seriously spiritual terrain. But I was enamoured with this photo for a different reason. Namely, the lead guitarist is playing an amp like the one I am getting: the Orange Tiny Terror! Check it out. Over to the left (your left) sitting on a beige 2x12 speaker cabinet back there is the small, white Tiny Terror.  This joker has some seriously good tube tone. It’s a 15 watt amp head so I can crank it and squeeze all of the good tonal quality from it I want without rattling the windows. I can’t wait till my comes. Just one more day!

I found this photo of the band Needtobreathe. I really like this South Carolina band. They have some great blues influences coming through in their modern rock style and their lyrics cover some seriously spiritual terrain.

But I was enamoured with this photo for a different reason. Namely, the lead guitarist is playing an amp like the one I am getting: the Orange Tiny Terror! Check it out. Over to the left (your left) sitting on a beige 2x12 speaker cabinet back there is the small, white Tiny Terror.  This joker has some seriously good tube tone. It’s a 15 watt amp head so I can crank it and squeeze all of the good tonal quality from it I want without rattling the windows. I can’t wait till my comes. Just one more day!

The Smoak House on Tumblr

It seems every year or so I get really “blah” about blogging (blah-gging?) until something happens to reignite my interest. Tumblr has done that for me this time.

I grew tired of writing “articles” and I want a blog that’s more of a place for me to share what I’m doing and what’s going on with me but in a more personalized way than Facebook or Twitter. Tumblr was the answer because it allows for so many different ways to update with text or pictures and even audio posts from my phone or my iPod.

So I can not say that you should expect any more long articles (though there’ll be some) as much as an informal bulletin board format here at the Smoak House.

One downside is that transferring from Wordpress to Tumblr was not easy. And even then I still managed to lose the ability to show past comments on old posts. They are still intact over at Disqus (my comments management system) but you can not view them from here at the blog. Bummer.

I am still learning about the capabilities of Tumblr. This post was sent from my phone. Let’s see if it works.