Author Archives: Randy Peterman

She Said…

Jessica told me about a conversation she overheard at Victoria’s Secret’s Semi-Annual sale while rummaging through bins of undergarments:

Girl 1: So, do you think other women try these on?
Girl 2: I like to to live in the fantasy that they don’t.
Girl 3: Yeah, you just keep living in that fantasy.

Wow. The things that people say in public are almost as crazy as the stuff I write much more publicly on this blog.

So, what did you overhear?

A New Site is Coming

I’m bound and determined to update the look of this site after the turn of this year. I’ve come up with a good site prototype, but I had another idea just earlier that I’ll try to implement. We’ll see 🙂

In other news, pray for the folks who have been absolutely devastated by the earthquake and tsunamis. Right now.

OK.

Amen.

My Small Part

If you haven’t heard about the Tsunami in Indonesia and effecting large parts of the Indian Ocean, you can get an overview here. Nick Bradbury is offering 100% of profits until the end of the year to help relief. If you want to help support other ways, my buddy Tony and I have started givetwice.org [UPDATE: The server is down! Try using this link to order, temporarily], which will take the portion of the money that Amazon.com gives in revenue to site owners that are part of their associates program to several humanitarian organizations. It’s small, but my partner and I have talked and we want to get this up and running to help others out!

Google Favelet

Favelets are links that only contain javascript that manipulate the content of a page or might possibly do other cool things. You can find a good explanation and some other useful favelets at http://tantek.com/favelets/ However, I just created one that should hopefully be pretty useful. This one should insert the link count in Google for results. Yahoo! adds rank numbers into the HTML, but Google, for whatever reason does not. Hopefully this is useful:
Drag this link into your toolbar or favorites.

Please report any problems with this in the comments.

Windows Rehab

So, I’ve been using the iBook for all of my non-Windows required development. It’s painful. Well, no OS-X isn’t painful, it’s Windows that’ is painful. I keep hitting the crazy Alt key while I’m trying to do things. Why? Because the Apple key is right there on the iBook. The real problem is that I’ve developed new habits and now I’m starting to feel the consequences of my actions. I’m reminded of a statement Jesus once made: You can’t serve two masters. So, I’m having to try to straddle the fence, but it feels like it’s a bad plan. If only they made some sort of Microsoft Visual Source Safe plugin for OS-X (if they do, please post a comment).

Successful Christmas

Flickr Photo

Jessica and Abby

Today was a good day, lots of Presents were exchanged, but most importantly we had a good time with family and friends and enjoyed having Jesus’ birthday party 🙂 This is Jessica helping Abby with her first present in her stocking. More pictures to come.

Super Duper Good News

God, being the great, awesome wonderful God that He is delivered my Nikon 5700 today, the day before Christmas. It’s in GREAT working order and I’ll be pleased to upload more pictures soon to the site. This is the best Christmas Eve present I think I’ve ever gotten!

OK, I’m too excited to blog any more so I’ll go do something more constructive 🙂

Update: Here’s Abby!
Abby In the Tub

James Clay

James Clay is a new artist that I just discovered. I read up on him on his site and discoverd that he’s a young whipper-snapper at 22 but with an aged feel because he’s been working since 14. The feel of the album is what I would describe as a combo between Hootie and the Blowfish and Counting Crows. While I don’t agree with all of his theology* I found it generally acceptable and think that most mellow rock listeners will find it pretty darn good. You can hear low quality MP3’s on the site with their integrated flash player.

The strong songs on the album (which I’ve listened through to a couple times) include the first track, I Still Believe, the catchy, rasta tune ‘Send Salvation’ and Franklin Park. The whole album is pretty strong and consistent in sound so I can’t really say, “Just get a couple tunes on iTunes.” It was produced by a personal favorite, Phil Madiera, who is a brilliant musician in his own right. The whole album feels somewhat familiar so I instantly liked the songs and found myself wanting to sing along with the chorus – not a bad place to be for a new artist and new album.

Ratings:

Musicianship
3.5 out of 5 – good mucisianship but nothing insanely amazing – solid mellow rock sound
Lyrics
3 out of 5 – The Lyrics are good, bourne from James’ life lessons and tough dealings of his youth. The guy has been through some crazy stuff
Accessibility to the Masses
4 out of 5 – Like I said above the music sounds enough like it’s a blend of Hootie and the Counting Crows that if you like either of those bands you should be able to like this album pretty quick
Over-all recommendation
4 out of 5 – this album is fun for the most part with a few catchy tunes that will get folks tapping toes or singing along. People in passing cars will most likely look at you funny as they see you singing along.

*I find that most theology in the ‘Christian Music Scene’ is at least different from what I find in scripture. Sometimes it’s from rhyme schemes, sometimes its from actually having bad or questionable theology.