Another Round of The Brew; Jogging the Mind and Useless Knowledge

So The Brew is finally back up! We'll be working to repost all past articles over the next few months as well as move into September's Education Issue.

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So I was running today around my expansive apartment complex when running towards me was a guy I was an RA with while at Moody in Chicago. Now, being a Bible school graduate and still running in Christian circles, it's a reality that I'll always run into people who will jog my memory of college. So this was no surprise for me.

This may have been a surprise for this guy, who noticed me but may not have recognized me. Perhaps his mind had been sprinting through his workout and didn't have time to stop for a breather to remember way back when. I didn't become short of breath when I realized that he wouldn't say 'Hey' so I said, "How's it going?" as he ran by.

No response.
No biggie. I wasn't on any marathon to get every person I ever went to school with to remember me.

On a different note, I had some boosts and edits when it comes to my useless movie knowledge.

I went to a midnight showing of Pulp Fiction at a sort of artsy theater near my new store. I figured most of my friends wouldn't have been able to handle going to a midnight movie, much less Pulp Fiction at midnight, so I went with some friends from the Coffee Chain That Shall Remain Nameless.

Before the film, which didn't get over till 2:45 a.m., they had some trivia for free movie passes and for a collector's edition DVD of the movie. While I was debating if I wanted a copy of the film that made Quentin Tarantino famous, they started the trivia.

"Which three Tarantino films feature characters eating Big Kahuna burgers?" People started raising their hands and belting out all of the movies. Four people got the answer wrong and, by this time, seeing that Tarantino only has around six or seven major films out there, someone else figured it out pretty quickly.

I was lost on this, and the next question. "Vincent Vega's character in Pulp Fiction is related to which character in Reservoir Dogs?" I've yet to see Dogs so I had to let someone else get the DVD.

But the next day, I was playing Scene It with the college group from my church and am a little ashamed to say that I dominated there. I picked out a picture of Sigourney Weaver from Ghostbusters and picked the movie Silence of The Lambs from these three clues: Size 16 dress, fava beans, and Clarice.

And now I'm also in a race against two other guys from my college group on Facebook's Never-Ending Movie Quiz.

All this makes me wonder what I would do if I didn't have all this useless movie knowledge.

New Brew; Word Pictures

A New Method Of Evangelism on The Brew.
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Word Pictures

So I had a pretty sweet road trip and men’s retreat with guys of all ages from my church.

The easiest way to describe it would be to paint some word pictures of the early morning trip to Graceland and then to the Shepherd of the Ozarks retreat center in Arkansas.

Graceland gift shops sold 100% organic, fair trade coffee: the ‘Silent Night’ Decaf blend and Evis’s House blend.

An entire exhibit displayed at least 50 of Elvis’ jumpsuits, ranging from the simple and white to the ‘Red Dragon’ be-jeweled.

A TV room in the Graceland mansion looked as if it was pulled out of the Thunderball or Diamonds Are Forever sets. A living room, entitled the ‘jungle room’, featured tiki chairs, couches and shag carpet on the ceiling.

I had BBQ nachos and a BBQ sandwich Memphis-style (with coleslaw on top) at a place called “Showboat Barbeque.” A chalk menu board in the store featured the daily specials; but all were below the words “Jesus is Lord” written in chalk on the top of the board.

I stayed in a lodge set deep in a valley of the Ozark Mountains, with high cliffs, bluffs and mountains surrounding the cabin. A family of mountain goats walked in and around the cliffs in the evening.

To end a great couple of hours of paintball during the retreat, two guys had an old-fashioned duel. They each took ten steps away from each other, turned and then let rip whatever paintballs they had left.

I went down in flames while trying to play “Heart-Shaped Box” on Guitar Hero for the PS2 during one night of the retreat. I did equally horrible while attempting “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce on Karaoke Hero. I almost redeemed myself while attempting “American Woman” but was booed off of the video game stage.