Man, today has been Renown work frenzy. I’ve done proof reading, tons of graphic editing, page making, data base entry, e-mails, and the list can go on and on. But it’s all going to be worth it, stay tuned Monday for a pretty big update. We’ve got four album reviews, a giveaway, and tour information regarding an upcoming Ontario tour. Yeah!

My copy of Roaring Lambs came in yesterday, so I picked it up. I’ve read the preface and the first few chapters, and I can already tell that I’m going to LOVE this book… I love it already actually. So far it is exactly how I’ve felt for a long time now, but didn’t know how to communicate it as clearly. Why didn’t I read this book sooner? It came out in 1993.

I’ll let you know my final opinion on it once I’m done reading it, which I’m sure will be by the end of the week or close to it. ha ha. It’s really good, and not long at all… so I’m quite entranced so far and will no doubt read it through quickly.

Okay, sorry for being short again, but I’m beat… I’m heading off early tonight. I hope you all are having and will have an awesome weekend!

Godspeed.

As promised, Renown Magazine was updated today. We had four new album reviews, plus there ended up being two last minute interviews added as well. Normally I have stuff prepped and ready to go by Sunday night, however because of the concert I went to I wasn’t able to do that… so I spent about two hours and forty five minutes straight getting everything in place and updated. So check it out, see what you think.

The weather was pretty crazy around Ontario today. Freezing rain. For a while the roads and driveways were basically pure ice, so it was tons of fun to walk on… ha ha. Not so much fun driving though. It ended up schools were cancelled because of no buses, so I didn’t have to go in and work the lunch hour at the arena.

Incase you didn’t know, we are right across the street from the high school, and when school is on the high school kids come over for lunch. It gets pretty busy for about 45 minutes, enough that you need three people on at once just for the hour window or so. Though sometimes I’m there for an hour and a half. I’m the fry guy, fear me.

But I did have to work tonight… It wasn’t that busy, so I did some massive and thorough cleaning. For almost two hours straight I was on my knees on the hard floor, they are so shot right now… and my arms are sore too. I’m such a wimp. Ha ha.

So I finished The Screwtape Letters… awesome book. It’s cool to have everything reversed, and you are reading from a demon’s perspective on things. You have to keep thinking, because they’ll say things like the “Enemy” (which is actually God), “our Father Below” (Satan), or even just “our Father.” So you have to remember which angle you are reading this from, otherwise it can get confusing. Ha ha. But it was cool and is one of my favorite books now, you should read it. Seriously, it’s not long at all.

Okay, well, I’m off for now. Three long days in a row… it’s bed time. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have a more interesting entry for you, it seems like it should be a less hectic day.

Peace out.

So both the GMA Music Awards (aka Dove Awards) Nominees and the Juno Awards Nominees were announced today. Regarding the Juno Awards… hooray for Greg Sczebel being nominated!

As for the GMA Music Awards… other than a few nice surprises, for the most part I was disappointed. It’s your stereotypical, industry driven award show where everything is incredibly predictable and you can already tell who will be taking home a lot of awards this year. We need a more stable award program that will give any and all artists in the industry a fair chance, not being submitted to block voting and what’s “hot.” Maybe something like that will be coming down the pipes… hmm…

So I finished the book “Faith. God. And Rock + Roll” last night… It was pretty good. I definitely agree with the concept and what a fair chunk of the artists were doing, but there were a handful of artists I didn’t really agree with how they were going about and doing stuff either. But it was still a good read nonetheless… if you have any thoughts about Christian musicians in the mainstream industry, it might be worth your while.

What I’m really looking forward to now though is Bob Briner’s “Roaring Lambs” which should come in on Thursday or so. That one will be a good read. I’ll let you know what I think about that, I’m sure I’ll have a whole entry about it one day. I mean, I could already do a whole entry (if not a couple) on the issue of going into the mainstream market… but I figure I might as well wait until after I read it, incase my opinion changes or I’ll have more info to add.

That being said, since I have a few days, I’m going to go ahead and start reading C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters tomorrow. I’m looking forward to that one too. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of things Uncle Screwtape has to say. Ha ha.

Anyway, it’s been a long day. Lots of work. I’m tired. So I’m going to stop there for now.

Godspeed.

Today has been an exceptional day, though tiring. I did end up going down to the city, gallivanting around malls, Christian bookstores, hockshops, and other multimedia-infused outlets. I looked at some books in the Christian bookstore and found some interesting ones, but they were expensive for what I could afford or felt like spending. And since they also didn’t seem to have the ones I was looking for ahead of time, I was just about to give up until it caught my attention. “Faith. God. and Rock + Roll.” I picked it up and started looking through it… I read the synopsis, I read the quotes from various people (including Dan from Jars of Clay), and I decided to buy it. It’s about Christian artists in the mainstream industry, so I’m definitely interested to see what it has to say since it’s somewhat of a controversial issue.

It ends up that its sort of a continuation from another book though, but the first book was pretty similar and you don’t need to read it before you read this one. So if I like this one, I might order the first one too – but who knows.

I’m also interested in checking out that “Roaring Lambs” book that was fairly big a while ago. It also deals with this as well as similar issues. It basically speaks of Christian going out into the mainstream world and actually doing something instead of sitting around talking about it, or sitting around pointing fingers at people who aren’t doing it right. That’s something I’m really passionate about right now, so I really think it would be a good read for me.

Plus I wouldn’t mind reading some C.S. Lewis stuff – especially “The Screwtape Letters” since it has the whole satire and mock the devil type thing. I love satire stuff, especially in lyrics of songs.

All of these books are kind of going in a different direction from what I was originally thinking of getting into though. I still want to read some books about topics like absolute truths, relativism, theology, and so on. I’m interested in that sort of thing a lot, and like reading up on theological type issues. However right now these other books have caught my eye, so I think I might read them first.

Anyway, when I got back from the city I was welcomed by a few e-mails from various people that needed to be addressed fairly quickly. So I spent a lot of the evening talking to concert promoters, band managers, bands themselves, and so on via e-mail, phone and even MSN. A few of them are real good friends though, so I didn’t have a problem with it. It was fun actually. I haven’t talked that much on the phone in a long time. Ha ha.

From the various conversations I’ve gotten a lot of new information regarding some things coming up, with some exciting possible endeavors coming down the pipes for Renown. I can’t talk about anything right now, but if something does happen I’ll definitely let you know first – as always!

Other than the aforementioned things, nothing else of interest is really new under the sun for me. I am tired though yet again…but like I said, it was fun.

Anyway, sorry to bore you with another entry. I know I’ve said this a number of times, but tomorrow I’ll seriously try to post something more interesting. Well, not try, try…I’ll let it be whatever seems to be fitting at the time. Something that’s on my mind instead of just “a life in the day” entry – whatever that will be it.

Until then, nighty night. Don’t let the bed bugs bite… or steal your pillow.

Have you ever had one of those days? It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not necessarily good either. But then something happens as it nears it’s end and then that’s what finally turns it into “blah”? Well, that pretty much sums up what today was like for me.

Today I had normal stuff to do… decisions to be made with Renown stuff, e-mails to reply to, talking with some friends in the day. Then I also had to go to the doctors and get some blood work done and what not, which was fine. My blood is really red, in case you were interesting in knowing.

And that was the extent of my day basically, other then stepping out after supper to Walmart and Future Shop and watching American Idol and The Amazing Race. So obviously nothing too exciting happened, which means I really had no personal feelings toward the day. It just seemed like another day.

But then something kind of annoying happened this evening that pushed the day over to the “blah” side. Perhaps if it was any other time it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I just really didn’t have the time or energy for it tonight. I was doing a few other things and then suddenly this popped into the picture with all of its different problems and aspects. I’d get into it in more detail, but it’s not really worth it. Plus it’d be boring to you anyway. Ha ha. But yeah…today was decent enough I guess, but now I’m just kind of spent and blah. Sorry I don’t really have any interesting stories for you this time around.

I watched David Letterman last night as it was a tribute to Johnny Carson. Aside from some crude jokes at the beginning (though they were to be expected), I really enjoyed it. I haven’t seen much Johnny Carson to be honest, but Letterman and his guests seemed to do a good job at portraying the kind of guy he was and show how many people respected him. I also saw a number of clips from different Carson skits – both on his show and on Letterman. Some of them were pretty hilarious.

I’m not entirely sure what is going on tomorrow with me. Rumor has it I might be going to the city. No complaining here really… maybe I’ll see if I can find a CD I’ve been looking for at Future Shop since I have 6 bucks on gift card to use there.

I’m also thinking of looking for some more books to read. For some reason I’m really in a challenging/thinking type mood and wouldn’t mind finding some more books to help aid in that aspect. I’m thinking of possibly picking up “The Case For Faith,” as I enjoyed Lee Strobel’s “The Case For A Creator” a while ago – due to it’s technical roots. So it could be cool to see what he has to say in Case For Faith… it looks not too bad.

The Christian bookstore down in the city has a lot bigger selection then the one in my town for books, so I’ll be doing a fair amount of browsing I would imagine. Maybe I’ll find something else as well. Or maybe I won’t find anything at all. We’ll have to see.

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling again. Sorry this entry isn’t really that exciting, my brain doesn’t feel like thinking too much tonight. Ha ha. So I’m heading to bed I think… I’m beat.

Godspeed.