The best radio show you’ve likely never heard of happens here in Seattle from 7 to 10 pm in 97.3 FM: Too Beautiful to Live with Luke Burbank. Beyond the radio world’s heated debate over whether it should or shouldn’t endure it is simply darn good radio by a darn funny guy who once let me ride his powder-blue scooter around the block during college. Luke and my buddy Ben were fast friend-os and I enjoyed any time I had with Luke. I’ve been told I have a good sense of humor. Luke has a sense of humor you can make a living off. Along with Jen Andrews and Sean DeTore they offer wit and an endless supply of pop culture commentary that’s fresh radio air in Seattle. So today’s study break features a “fiendishly brilliant” bus ad they blogged about:

The Most Effective Advertisement Ever Made. Ever. Ever.

This is a bus stop ad for a Dutch gym. When you sit on the bench, it displays your weight. I’m torn between feeling awe at how brilliant this is and horror at how fiendishly brilliant it is.

Anyone else out there seen something this good? Hey, at least for the woman on the bench, I don’t understand the metric system! She’s light as a feather to my eyes! Anyhoo, when you’re in need of a break, check out their site and podcast TBTL. It’s worth it!

This is a classic from probably my favorite stand-up comedian, Jim Gaffigan. I dare you not to laugh. Then I dare you not to have “Hooooot Pockeeeet” sutck in your head all day.

Many of you (like me) have coughed up a lot of money to sit in classes, attend trainings and ‘continuing education’ courses all in the name of getting smarter and more qualified for…whatever. But have you noticed all the things you learn just going through everyday existence here on the 3rd planet from the sun? That brings up a good example! A friend, who shall remain nameless, and I were sitting on a beach and I said something about how amazing it was that the sun was a star and one day would burn out. This person got a funny look on their face and said, “The sun is a star? I thought it was a planet.” Now, eventually I stopped laughing, changed my wet pants and dried my tear-streaked cheeks, and found out they were serious. Ok, this is a smart person who has an advanced degree and a high-paying job that requires some good brain-power. But somehow, they’d made it to that point in life thinking the sun was a planet. And it was just an everyday moment that rescued them from their ‘astronomical’ error.

I’m convinced that the best lessons in life happen in the normal flow of things – and for free! Hence every-so-often, let’s devote time to sharing these little lessons. Think of it as a course / seminar / continuing ed.  in the school of not-so-hard-knocks. What simple yet important thing did you learn today? I’ll get us started with a few that have stuck with me:

1.    It doesn’t take much to attach the toilet tank to the toilet base. So did you know if you over-tighten the bolt on the underside of the toilet base where the tank attaches, the tank will just crack somewhere and spew water? Yeah, I learned this one the hard way. I now know you just need to tighten it a bit – gravity and compression do the hard work. This is related to another lesson I learned – a 14 volt drill is over-kill when installing one of those simple ceramic light fixtures in your attic. Oh yeah, it cracks fast. The funniest part is you hear the ceramic start to fissure about 2 seconds before it POPS! And you can’t do anything about it – except go back to the hardware store.

2.    That Krusteaz pancake mix is pronounced crust-eeze! Yes, for years I innocently made it gourmet and called it “Croos-T-Oz”. My college roommates, Ben and Josh, loved it the morning I asked, “Has anyone seen my “Croos-T-Oz” mix?

3.    I don’t care what your friends, doctors and nurses tell you ahead of time. Infant poop stinks really bad.

4.    If you take a car out of ‘park’ while on a hill – even for a moment to clean around the shifter – it will take off like a shot. And you can’t do much about it if you’re sitting in the passenger seat. I really dented the snot out of my dad’s new Buick that day…

Your turn!

I’ve really gotten into 30 Rock on NBC (might be the first comedey in 9 years to be on par with Seinfeld). One of the reasons it’s funny is that the main characters on the show really are caricatured cliches of themselves – especially Jack Donaghy and Tracy Jordan. I realize that in many ways I too exist as a cliche. One could even call mea caricature of myself (gasp!). If I tell you certain truths about myself, you should be able to logically deduce other truths… I’m a 32 year old pale male educated in public schools. I am a Christian of Protestant ilk and have spent time in both mainstream, relatively calm churches (Methodist, Presbyterian…); and even more time in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches (yes, I’ve done laps around a sanctuary during worship times and even prayed for the sick to be healed – right then!). I’ve been a pastor at an urban church and led a church plant (that’s “start-up” in normal-speak) for three years in Seattle. I’ve spent time in recent years as part of the “emerging church” conversation / movement / decon/recon. I’ve even organized events / conferences / missional learning days / non-conferences with folks like Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis. Now if you put all that into the hopper, you should be able to deduce one important truth about me. OK, three – yes, I’ve used clips of the Matrix in my sermons and I believe in white privilege. But more importantly you should be able to say with absolute certainty that I’m a huge Paul Hewson fan. Or as he’s known to all you pretender-fans out there: Bono. Anyone surprised? Didn’t think so. Now, I’ve got all the usual questions for God when I get to heaven – Why did such-and-such have to happen? Why do so many have to suffer? Why couldn’t there have been unbiased referees in the 2005 Superbowl? And finally, why have so many people I know run into Bono but me ? *sigh* I know of two people who aren’t even U2 fans who literally bumped into Bono on the street! The latest, possibly most unjust example will be my sister’s attendance at a small meet-n-greet with the man himself. She’s attending the annual IMPACT(R)2007 conference in Las Vegas put on by Charles Schwab. Bono’s giving his keynote address tomorrow and then will be at a small gathering afterwards that my sister, yes mysister, will attend. Please note: this is the same sister who failed to inform me that Bono was at a local restuarant just 20 minutes away from me because we’d made lunch plans that day and she thought I’d stand her up and go see Bono if she told me. Stand her up? Stand her up?! Yes, I’d stand her up. I’d leave her trapped at a Yanni conceft if it meant a chance to see Bono up close! I’m trying to be big about it, and yes, I’m happy for her. But she needs to know that if I don’t have something autographed by Bono in my hands by the end of the week, all she’s getting for Christmas is an mp3 of my sermon on Colossians 3 with that slimy scene of a naked Keeanu Reeves being “unplugged” from the Matrix. The chance to liberate thyself from old guilt is at hand, oh my sister! Do not fail me!

So our oldest son (2 1/2 y.o.) has figured out how to escape from his crib in about 3.2 seconds. He looks alot like this guy going over the obstacle course wall. I figured this would happen sooner or later (his mom’s pretty athletic ). But what I didn’t expect was him being able to also open his bedroom door with no trouble. I figured there’d be some lag time between these two dextrous accomplishments. I guess he is a genius – albeit a frustrating one. It presents a connundrum because on one hand I’m kind of proud of the little man for accomplishing this, while on the other hand I have to be the parent and put up a boundry around sleep times. It’s also one of the myriad of moments in parents’ lives where you have to stifle the laugh and put on the stern face. Instead of yelling, “That’s my boy!”, and slapping him a hi-five while dancing like Chad Johnson, I have to put him back in his crib. I wonder if God ever feels this way towards me? “Ok, Ryan, it’s great that you can earn some money. But stop wasting it on bottled water and new cars!” Anyways, we’re trying to stick to just picking him (son) up and putting him back in his crib without giving any response – as many times as it takes. So far the record is 18 times in one hour. 18 times in one hour. Eighteen times in 1 hour. I suppose it’s not that bad, but I’ve got a lot of bottled water to drink before I can justify buying more…

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1774718

I laughed, felt guilty, and laughed some more. Oh, and if you’re offended by swearing, brace thyself.