Links of Joy...and Joyness

I thought I'd share some interesting - yet thouroughly random links.

• An article about what Sufjan Stevens is up to lately: a symphonic piece about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.


• An interview with a Major League Baseball pitcher about his struggle to follow Christ.


• This last link requires a bit of set-up:
  Last summer, a bunch of my friends were highly entertained by a certain YouTube cartoon (involving unicorns, obnoxious repetition, and stolen kidneys) called Charlie and Candy Mountain. We were all pretty sure about 2 things: first, that this cartoon was made by guys with too much time on their hands and also that I was always completely irritated by the whole thing. However, today, I was reading about Heaven (for the upcoming worship series) and I came across THIS. Stunning. If anyone wants to explore how the creators of Charlie may have been actually commenting on the afterlife while making literary references to Orwell...go for it.

Take Take a Cha-Chance

I frequently get songs stuck in my head, and usually it irritates me. However, today I decided to give in to it and see what would happen. See, last week's episode of "The Office" had a great scene with Andy asking Angela out by singing "Take a Chance on Me" to her - it was probably my favorite part of the episode. Then, I was in a store this week and heard ABBA's version of the same song playing in the background. After that, the song was stuck in my head. So, I decided to download it on iTunes. And let me tell you, it still cracks me up! (My favorite is the opening with the backing vocals singing "take a chance, take a chance, take take a cha-chance...") So far I've listened to it 12 or 13 times today, and I'm not tired of it yet.