$1.99

Posted on: 11/20/08 3:58 PM | by Jonathan McKee

A decade ago I wouldn’t understand this at all… but I almost did a backflip yesterday when I went to the gas station and saw only $1.99 per gallon.

I thought the days of less than $2 were gone. Once we passed $4… I thought that was the point of no return. This past summer I did several speaking trips where i remember putting gas in the tank for $4.60 a gallon. (ouch… it hurts just thinking about it!)

Being from California, most other states’ gas prices actually look pretty good comparitively. When i’m speaking in another state, it can be up to 50 cents a gallon cheaper. California is usually one of the highest.

That’s probably why I was soooooo ecstatic when it hit $1.99 at my local station yesterday.  (I wonder how low it is in other states right now?)

Imagine how happy I was when my I filled my Nissan Sentra for only this much!

Woohoo!!!! We have grocery money left!

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I Want a “Virtual” Divorce

Posted on: 11/14/08 3:28 PM | by Jonathan McKee

This sounds like a Coen Brothers film (Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading…), but no, unfortunately, the story is very real. Reuters reports:

A British woman is divorcing her husband after discovering his online alter-ego was having an affair with a virtual woman in the fantasy world of Second Life, media reported on Friday.

Amy Taylor, 28, said her three-year marriage to David Pollard, 40, came to an end when she twice walked in on him watching his online character, Dave Barmy, having sex with other virtual women.

Sigh.

Yeah, you read it correctly. And if you peeked at the entire article linked above, you’ll find that this couple met online; then the wife had suspicions about his online activity, so hired a virtual private eye, who spied on him having virtual sex with a virtual prostitute. That’s a lot of “virtual!” 

Yeah. You can’t make this stuff up.

Funny enough… the story is getting a lot of press with a lot of people blogging about it. I’m in my hotel in Harrisburg, PA right now and I just saw this story running on CNN. The reporter was actually pretty sharp. After making fun of it a bit, he talked about how people should “get a life” instead of wasting so much time in virtual worlds. He went on to talk about the fact that this affair was probably a true emotional affair. I think he’s right on all accounts (they do need to get a life, and it was a real emotional affair)

Second life is a popular virtual world where kids and adults create characters called avatars and explore virtual worlds, meeting people, picking up on people, etc. Much like www.IMVU.com, the site that David and I wrote that Youth Culture Window article (The Hotest Virtual Teenage Hangout… a Little Too Hot) about a few months ago.

Hmmmmmm.

(ht to Alec in Scotland)

America’s Happiest People

Posted on: 11/12/08 4:31 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Do you wonder who enjoys their job the most?

A University of Chicago study offers a little insight into “Job Satisfaction in the United States.” And guess what came up as #1?

Clergy!

All you pastor and youth pastors, go ahead and celebrate… or maybe you already are… after all, you’re the happiest. You rate #1 for happiness with your occupation. You’re followed by firefighters, travel agents, architects, and special ed teachers.

Check out the whole article here.

(ht to David R. Smith)

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Problems With the Word “Porno”

Posted on: 10/16/08 12:43 PM | by Jonathan McKee

People are complaining about the ads for Kevin Smith’s new film, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”

CNN reports that one complaint came from a man watching a baseball game with his son. “He was explaining to his son what a squeeze bunt was. Commercial break, the ad comes on, and the kid asks, ‘Dad, what does porno mean?”

Dodgers spokesman Josh Rawitch responded to complaints about ads for the film during the game. “Dodgers baseball has always been about family, and we’ve always been sensitive to the type of advertising that runs on our games.”

Commericals for the film were dropped from Fox Sports at the team’s request.

Good for them!

The film, originally rated NC-17, is rated R on appeal for strong crude sexual content including dialogue, graphic nudity and pervasive language.

That sort of sums it up.

Kevin Smith, no stranger to raunchy movies, wasn’t about to let the NC-17 rating stand. “We didn’t set out to make an NC-17 film. That’s just commercial suicide,” Smith told The Associated Press. The NC-17 rating would have prohibited anyone younger than 17 from seeing it. With an R rating, those under 17 can see it in the company of an adult.

Isn’t that nice!

The sad fact is… Kevin Smith is a really talented writer, this film is already getting a lot of hype… it’s probably going to do really well.

It’s also one of the films where people can go onto the movie’s web site: http://www.zackandmiri.com/ and view the redband trailer (the “R-rated” trailer). Sure… our kids will say, “Mom, Dad… don’t worry… that trailer didn’t have any nudity!” And they’re right. But WOW!!!

Teenage guys are definitely going to want to see the film… they traditionally respond better to movie ads than girls do, and this movie is right up their ally.

Our kids our growing up in a different world than I did.

Sigh.

Sex… MTV Style

Posted on: 09/29/08 4:20 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Tonight MTV launches their brand new show Sex… With Mom and Dad.

What a title.

I’ve got two words about this show: Dr. Drew.

Dr. Drew is the doctor giving advice on the popular radio show Loveline. If you’ve worked with kids for a while, then you’ve probably heard a mention of this racy show. In my city, it aires at 10:00 p.m. on one of the most popular radio channels. It’s truly X-rated. Kids and young adults call up for sexual advice. It’s hard to listen to. If you are a parent or youth worker, I encourage you to listen to it once. You won’t believe your ears.

This is the kind of advice kids are getting when it comes to their sexual decision making.

Now, we can probably expect the same kind of discretion with the new MTV show. This week David’s Youth Culture Window article tells you all you need to know about it. Take a look at that if you haven’t already.

When Paparazzi Catch Miley… Going to Church?

Posted on: 09/23/08 9:23 AM | by Jonathan McKee

It’s amazing how many emails I get asking about Miiley as a role model for our young girls today. Yes, Miley’s been in and out of the news for good and bad. But you gotta love it when a celeb’s top news is, “Miley & Underwear Model Go to Church.”

Miley’s been getting all kind of flack lately for dating some 20-year-old guy (personally, I think that’s an issue to take up with her parents, not her). But hey… at least she took the guy to church.  🙂

I love this pic from msn.com’s gossip page!

This is also a pretty good representation of the “Gen Y” church apparel.

 (thanks to Jamie Locklin for the forward)

Girl Auctions Off Her Virginity

Posted on: 09/12/08 5:58 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Wow… this is sad on so many different levels. This is from my local news here in Sacramento, our CBS Channel 13:

A Sacramento State grad is trying to make money the old fashioned way, by auctioning off her virginity to help pay for her graduate studies.   And so far, bidding is up to $250,000.

The 22-year-old who is using the pseudonym Natalie Dylan for safety reasons is going through a legal brothel in Nevada to sell her virginity. “The main purpose of this is to finance a couple things in my life,” Dylan told CBS13.  “I think empowerment of women is picking yourself up and doing something on your own to better yourself.”

Better yourself? I guess she missed the point of the 1993 Robert Redford, Demi Moore film, Indecent Proposal.

Dylan says she’s already taken a polygraph test to prove her virginal status, and is also willing to undergo a medical exam.

The auction will take place at the Bunny Ranch in Carson City, Nevada with bids coming in through their website.  Owner Dennis Hof tells CBS13 that eBay rejected the auction, so he’ll handle the entire process.

Here’s the kicker.

Hof says Dylan is a bright, beautiful young woman who’s going to consider a number of factors in her decision because she wants her first time to be a positive experience. “Natalie is a very smart girl. All she wants to do is get her master’s degree in family and marriage counseling and be a psychologist.  She’s selling her virginity to accomplish that,” Hof told CBS13. “She’s smart enough to sell it.  This is empowering her.”

Hmmmmmm.   (click here for the entire article and the news video- the opinions people share in the video are intriguing!)

(thanks to Brandon for forwarding this)

Post VMA Regrets?

Posted on: 09/11/08 9:08 AM | by Jonathan McKee

There’s a lot of hype this week following the “purity bashing” and “slut bashing” that went on at the MTV Video Music Awards this past Sunday night.

If you missed the craziness, David and I summed it all up in our Post VMA Thoughts article Monday.

Basically, the host of the show, British comic Russell Brand, bashed purity all night, using the Jonas Bros as the main target of his jests. Then Jordin Sparks snapped back with a few thoughts of her own, defending purity pledges and ending with, “Not every guy and girl wants to be a slut.”

Now we’ve seen a myriad of articles and blogs chiming in on the aftermath. OMG! Yahoo reports:

The Jonas Brothers have no beef with Russell Brand after he mocked their virginity on Sunday’s 2008 MTV Video Music Awards.

“For us it’s cool to see that he recognizes we are gentlemen,” Nick Jonas told BBC’s Radio 1.

Sparks says that she wishes she would have worded things differently, but doesn’t regret that she said something. Hollywood Insider gives the scoop:

Attending the show for the first time, the American Idol winner went off-script after being agitated by host Russell Brand’s repeated mocking of the Jonas Brothers’ promise rings. “It’s something I feel strongly about,” she tells EW.com. “I wish I would’ve worded it differently — that somebody who doesn’t wear a promise ring isn’t necessarily a slut — but I can’t take it back now. It was a split-second thing, and it came out kind of wrong. Still, I don’t regret it.”

I don’t regret that she said it either. Her comments can’t be torn out of context. She stood up after 90 minutes of crude jokes, sexual references and racy songs… her comments were the lone voice siding with purity (because no one else spoke up). Her message had to be that polarized to even break through the smoke. It didn’t insinuate that people who aren’t virgins are sluts at all. It communicated that those who were making it light that night probably were sluts.

It was a risky move for Sparks. It wasn’t a popular opinion to verbalize. It was the highlight of the show.

Scientists Spend 10 Billion to Discover Origins

Posted on: 09/10/08 1:17 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Wow… that’s a lot of cash for something that I could tell them by just reading Genesis 1:1.

But I guess some people aren’t convinced. Hence this historic “big bang” experiment. Scientists plan to smash particle beams together at close to the speed of light inside CERN Research Center’s tightly-sealed Large Hadron Collider to create multiple mini-versions of the primeval Big Bang.

Reuters has an article about it here, and thanks to blog subscriber Tom who sent me the CNN article here. A blurb from the CNN article:

Experts say the collider has the potential to confirm theories about questions that physicists have been working on for decades including the possible existence of extra dimensions. They also hope to find a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson, which has never been detected, but would help explain why matter has mass.

The collider will recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, when there was a hot “soup” of tiny particles called quarks and gluons, to look at how the universe evolved, said John Harris, U.S. coordinator for ALICE, a detector specialized to analyze that question.

Hmmmmmm.

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MTV VMA’s Poke at Purity All Night

Posted on: 09/8/08 8:10 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Last week we prepped you for the MTV Video Music Awards show that aired last night, one of the most reflective and predictive youth culture barometers of the year. This year, British comic Russell Brand was the host… and I guess he was intimidated by the purity pledge of the Jonas Bros.

The Jonas Bros are not only the hottest thing to arrive to the tween world since Miley, they actually have a pretty clean slate. Last night Brand ridiculed the Jonas Brothers’ public stance on sexual purity. All three of these pastor’s kids wear a promise ring and have vowed to remain celibate until marriage.

In his opening remarks, the British funnyman pointed out to the audience,

“In case you are unaware, each of the Jonas Brothers does wear a tiny ring as a mark of their commitment to God. I’d take it a little bit more seriously if they wore it on their genitals. And also, it is a little bit ungrateful, cause they could literally have sex with any woman that they want…they’re just not gonna do it. That’s like Superman just deciding not to fly and to go everywhere on a bus. Bless em, though, them lads.” 

The jesting went on throughout the evening, until American Idol icon Jordin Sparks hit the stage and had a chance to retort. All these details and more in this week’s Youth Culture Window article on our website.