New Video Posted!

Yesterday I posted my latest video on youtube. It was the second video in the Trojanpear's Book Club series. This time I review The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. It is a shorter video and a more basic review than my last video on the Bunnicula series. I did this book at this time because of the Easter holiday and felt that this would be appropriate since I have already been working on this book. I hint at the end of the video that my next book review will be on a series of four books that was originally a trilogy, but was so long that the series had to expand to a fourth book. The last book itself is a really long book. What is the series? Let me know what you think.

Easter, Work, and Other Events

This has been a busy week for me. This is mostly due to work where I have had to deliver mail on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday this week. Monday I delivered route 11 which is part of Veteran's Parkway, Old Moon Road, and Moon Road. Tuesday I delivered my regular route 6 which is Columbus Park Crossing, North Stadium Drive, and Arbor Ridge. I did it again Saturday. Wednesday I delivered express mail to the 31909 section. Thursday I delivered to the block around Williams Rd, Fortson Rd, Double Churches Rd, and Lloyd Rd.
In the sports world, I have had time to watch a little of the Masters where today my guy Phil Mickelson surged his way back into contention at the Masters in what looks to be a very exciting 4th round tomorrow. The Braves lost on opening day, which was disapointing especially since they did what they always do best, fail to score runs.
Easter is almost here. As exiting as that prospect is, there have been some great events that have happened leading up to Easter Sunday. First, there was an Easter Party at the church today. Even though I was working and could not attend, I did get to see the pictures of the event and it looks like it went well. It was especially exciting to see three churches working together to make this event happen. It is like I said, its "Three churches. One mission." The night before I went to a Good Friday Service called Friday Night Fire lead by our two partner churches. I was glad that I chose to go because the Lord was at work in that building that night. I was able to see some interesting things that I needed to see from a diferent perspective. It also helped me get an idea of what our church is lacking and some of the things that I could expect to see when we begin our contemporary service later this year.
I hope and pray everyone has a great Easter Sunday. Remember why it is that we celebrate Easter, and celebrate with joy the opportunity to worship on Sunday.

Kentucky Wins!

Kentucky won the National Championship! That means my prediction was right and I just completed my best bracket of all time. Just call me the mystic messanger. :)
Now that basketball is over since Balor won the Women's Championship last night, it's time to move on to the next big event: Baseball's opening day! ... or the Masters! ... or Easter! All are happening at the same time relatively. Which event are you looking forward to most. I enjoy watching the Braves on opening day and Phil Mickelson competing at the Masters, but I always look forward to worshipping on Easter Sunday when we remember the most imoprtant day in history when Jesus rose from the dead after paying the ultimate price for our sins giving us the oppertunity to spend our eternity in heaven.

NCAA = Brilliant! NIT = Ouch :(

It has been several days since my last post and the tournament has taken two very different routes. In the NIT, Minnesota and Stanford won, and then Stanford beat Minnesota after I predicted Minnesota to win that game. Stanford won the NIT and I wrapped up my NIT by going 0-3 in the last three games going 20-11 overall with 44 points. All I can say is ouch.
The NCAA tournament is going much better for me. After getting three out of four of the teams correct in the final four, both Kentucky and Kansas won to put both of my championship game teams in the championship game for the first time ever! I went 2-0 giving me 20 more points. I have Kentucky winning it all, and their win would cap my best predicting of the NCAA tournament ever.

How has your tournament went?

Hunger Games Impresses

I went to see the movie Hunger Games last night. Let me first say that I have not read the book(s) by Suzanne Collins. This is important because I believe your experience will greatly differ depending on whether you read the book first or not. For those who read the book, the movie will be judged by how well it relates to the book. I actually think a movie that is watched before reading the book will be more fairly reviewed because it is not a comparison, but is judged on its own merits and flaws.
I first became interested in watching the movie when I heard that it made $155 million in it first weekend. That is amazing for a movie that is released before the summer season. I new that was a record in that category, but it was also a record for a non-sequel as well. It was also the third highest amount for opening weekend all-time. It also shocked me that this movie was from Lionsgate. This little company is known for the Saw series as one of its greatest successes. I never expected Lionsgate to be able to get a movie of the caliber of the Hunger Games, but they did. Good for them.
I was not sure what to expect from the movie as I have not seen much about the movie, but I knew that with Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role, the movie had a chance of being good.

Jennifer is a academy award nominated actress for her role in Winter's Bone who lost to Sandra Bullock (why?). Jennifer did not let me down in her performance. She was brilliant with a cast that was equally impressive. The movie itself was engaging from the very beginning. I was tense and nervous for the characters early on as the movie was very dark in the beginning with the selection process for the Hunger Games. Dark moments stayed with the movie at times throughout. One of the real nervous moments is when the games began and the characters became very scared for their lives as they got ready for thier first action. The best thing about this movie is that it does not take the deaths of the characters lightly as in many movies of this type, and in that respect does an excellent job of delivering the message that I belive they were trying to send.
After watching the movie, I and my sister both said that we would have to read the book now. I think that I will not read the second book until the second movie comes out, so I can experience the movie the same way I did for the first one. A very good movie and a great cast lead by an excellent performance by Jennifer Lawrence, I give the Hunger Games an A+.

Have you seen the Hunger Games? What did you think? I would love to hear from someone who read the book first and explain what they thought of the movie.

The Final Four

And now...

Representing the South and the SEC... Kentucky!

Represnting the East and the Big Ten... Ohio State!

Representing the West and the Big East... Louisville!

Representing the Midwest and the Big Twelve... Kansas!

Another perfect day yesterday of predictions going 2-0 with 16 points awarded. This offically gave me three of the four teams that I predicted to be in the final four from the beginning. Later this week I will give my predictions on who wins in the final four, but if you want to know right now, you can look up my bracket which I posted back when march madness first began. For now let me give my picks for tomorrow's NIT final four matchups.

Washington over Minnesota
Umass over Stanford*

*No points awarded as Miss St lost to Umass.

My next post will not be about basketball. I will be post my review of the Hunger Games which came out this weekend. As always, I encourage you to follow my blog and comment frequently. I enjoy the responses.

Elite Eight Part 2

After another undefeated day, where Louisville beat my Florida Gators and Ohio State beat Syracuse in a game where I receive no points, I look to today's machups which will give me either three teams in the final four, two, or one. I went 2-0 with eight points. Today's predictions will set up next week's final four machups. Here they are:

Kentucky over Baylor
Kansas over North Carolina

Results tomorrow. I have church meetings today, so not much time to spend blogging. Don't forget to check out my new youtube video.