Cities Preview

What an exciting time to be an Anberlin fan! Their third studio album will be released February 20. The second track on Cities, "Godspeed," is available for download on iTunes, as well as for listening on their Myspace. I have heard clips of that song, "Dismantle.Repair." and "Adelaide" from a couple different places, and I am very, very excited about this album release!

Anberlin's newest artist biography on their label's, Tooth and Nail's, website, includes some very neat and insightful information. Among them are the following revelations:

"For the somewhat unorthodox, ten-minute long "Fin*," for instance..."

"I think a lot of times, it's kind of draining on me that people only have one kind of interpretation. I put a lot of thought into what I do. With our last album, I'd get emails from fans about the song "Symphony of Blasé" and people would say, 'I just broke up with my girlfriend and that song helped me through it.' And I'd be like, 'It wasn't a break up song at all. It was about alcoholism.' I mean, these songs aren't about the basic pop, 'Ooh girl. I love you.' They're much deeper than that."

"As for the band's mission as Christians, Stephen says matter-of-factly, "It's not like we have a huge platform. We're not Coldplay or U2, but I want to touch people's lives. I've got two routes to go. I can either go the sex, drugs, and rock & roll route - which is so temporal - or I can invest in people's lives. When I look back on my life, I want it to have meaning."

That's all good and well, but..."THE SYMPHONY OF BLASE" IS ABOUT ALCOHOLISM?! I'm hurt. I'm the most devoted Anberlin fan you'll find in Baton Rouge, and I had NO CLUE.


click here for full review.

Dream Conference

A couple of my friends and I discussed some dreams we've been having...

3rd Place, Me, A Rumor of War: All the sudden I was told I was right in the middle of a war. No one could tell me what the opposing sides were or what they were fighting for. I was just given a rifle and told to fight. My immediate thought became the desire to just stay alive, which also made me feel cowardly. I remember pressing forward slowly over the battlefield, which looked like southern Louisiana. I fired my gun a few times, missing every time. Apparently there were only six bullets, and then I was SOL because I didn't have any reloading capability. I saw Valerie Mautz at one point in my dream, and I asked her how the war was going. Her response was something along the lines of, "It's a war, need I say more?" After we won that battle, we prepared for a sea invasion. I told an officer I needed a new weapon, so he told me to go look for one in the garage of a residential neighborhood. I got one, but the "supply" was already picked over, so my gun was pitiful, and it too only had 4-6 bullets. I asked someone where extra ammo was. He told me we would resupply ourselves with ammunition we took from the enemy as we pressed forward. I thought, "Well this sounds like a suicide run." When we invaded, I waded ashore and got 2 kills before I ran out of ammo again, hid behind an obstacle, and the dream ended."

2nd Place, Jacob Benda, Kid Anti-Christ: Jacob and his cousins and sisters were having a secret meeting and it came to their attention that the Anti-Christ was out and on the loose...and had been positively identified as a little skinny blonde-headed girl. "She's at the playground," someone said. So they went to the playground and began to try and assasinate her with knives and other sharp objects. But she was a tough little 5-year-old and good with a knife herself. Jacob cornered her at the kiddie slide and tried to stick it to her but missed and so she called his leg "the good samaritan" and stabbed him in the thigh. He inflicted a few wounds on her but she repeatedly drove the knife into his arm. I can't remember the rest of it.

1st Place, Danny Hotard, Professors Gone Wild: Danny was in his math class, and the professor was preparing to hand back graded tests. But he said he was only going to hand out half the test on that particular day. So he literally cut the tests in half...with a chainsaw. Then he added with a thoughtful glance around the room, that since the future plans for the LSU campus called for the demolition of Lockett Hall, they would go ahead and cut it in half, just like the tests. So Danny tried to duck the falling stairwells as his professor proceeded to drive a massive tractor with a Statue-of-Liberty-sized chainsaw attached to the front. And Lockett was cut in half.

I'm Engaged and Stuff

I know I dropped off the face of the earth during finals week, seemingly.

Ok, brief update. I got 3 A's and 2 B's last semester. Pretty good considering the fact I was very sick toward the beginning. The next week I went with the Mautz family to Colorado and had a wonderful time, the best Christmas ever. I met most of Amanda's family. Colorado was beautiful! A blizzard had just gone through when we arrived, so a couple feet of snow was waiting for us. I built snowmen, had snowball fights, et-cetera. We also went snow skiing one day. I was on the bunny slopes all day. I was able to stay on the skis and stop, but turning was still a problem toward the end of the day. I barely missed hitting several small children as I flew down the slopes, unable to "apply the brakes." It was frustating at times, at other times hilarious. Loads of fun.

Christmas Eve was wonderful, with a candlelight service. Christmas Day involved mountains of presents and a massive dinner with most of the family. We went shopping a lot, and also watched a lot of movies and did a 1000-piece puzzle. For New Year's Eve, we went cosmic bowling. We finally got back to Louisiana yesterday (Wednesday). Now Amanda's friend is getting married this weekend, so we've been spending time with her family.

And last but not least, Amanda and I are engaged, as of December 30, 2006. If it's that important to you, e-mail me and I'll tell you more details. As you can imagine, we're both on "Cloud 9" and rejoicing in the Lord! It is an indescribable and dreamy time in one's life to have made the final decision with the person you love to announce to the world your lifetime commitment to each other. God has been so good to us!





Postscript: Amanda saw the title of this blog post and exclaimed, "Engaged and STUFF?!" I want to clarify that is there for laughs. Obviously I am the happiest man on earth right now.