the lamb (cake) of god

Melissa and I hosted our very first holiday get-together on Sunday. That's a big deal - there is a lot of pressure to not screw things up, especially when 15 people show up! It was crazy - both of our families came along with some extended family and a few friends. We made a ton of food including my famous mandarin orange-glazed pork roast (the same roast that Oreo ate off the counter a few months ago) and, what is quickly becoming an annual tradition, the Easter Lamb Cake! Yes that's right, it's a pound cake in the shape of a lamb with candy eyes and coconut fur and Easter in the Turney household would not be the same without it.

These are pictures from last year. As you can see, the lamb cake must have a theme. Last year we had the Tyler Hansbrough "Psycho L" Lamb. See how fierce and determined he is? He is unquestionably the hardest-working lamb cake in the history of lamb cakes. . . .

Melissa will probably not be happy with me for putting this next picture on here, as it is not her most flattering, but I feel it is necessary in order for you people to understand not only the scale of the lamb cake's size but also they uncontainable joy the cake brings to the faces of all who come near to it.
So that was lamb cake 2008, which brings us to lamb cake 2009. This year the theme was different. Seeing the good fortune the Tar Heel lamb cake brought on the team the following season, I decided to bestow that good fortune on another of my favorite teams - a team that desperately needs all the good fortune it can get: the Chicago Cubs.

I present the (Mark) Grace and Peace Chicago Cubs Lamb Cake:



Mark Grace was a former first-baseman who is a Cubs legend and whose last name fits well with the reason for the celebration. Out of the 15 people who attended our shindig on Sunday, only my Dad understood what the lamb was supposed to represent. Melissa thought that the lamb was a captain? (captain of what? I do not know. . . ), my mom thought the red C stood for Carolina, and Melissa's dad thought the lamb was a dog. Despite the haters and misunderstanders, the Cubs lamb cake 2009 was a big hit and tasted very good.

If you are wondering why we make a lamb cake, there are a couple reasons. 1) Jesus is the Lamb of God. He represents the Passover Lamb that was sacrificed to atone for the sins of God's people. We mean no blasphemy by eating it. 2) A lamb seems like a Spring animal - Easter occurs near March which is the month that comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. 3) My Grandma Sheila, who lives in Chicago, used to make one every Easter when we were growing up and my sister Carolyn gave us our lamb cake mold as a wedding gift in order to carry on the tradition. It was definitely one of the best gifts we got and I'm excited to keep this going for many more years with my family.

where the wild things are

So I came across this, and it immediately jumped to the top of my "must see" list: (make sure you click the HD button!)



To be honest, I really don't remember much of the storyline from reading the book as a child, but the imagery of the kid wearing a bunny suit and a crown on his head and the big old wild thing brings back really good, old memories. I get similar feelings of nostalgia when I see books like Harold and the Purple Crayon or Goodnight, Moon. I can't really tell you a lot about what the stories are about, but I know they are awesome and I'm sure I learned some sort of timeless truth or moral from them. Reading to your kids is so crucial. I'm really thankful that my parents took the time to read to me, and also encouraged me to read on my own as I grew.

Apart from the sappy fuzzy feelings this film provokes, I'm also really excited about it because Spike Jonze is directing it. Who is Spike Jonze you ask? Well, he is simply one of the greatest music video directors of all time! OK, that does not really seem all that impressive, until you take a look at some of the iconic videos that have sprung out of that man's mind. . .

Watch more Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars videos on AOL Video

and this. . .

Watch more Weezer (Blue Album) [Deluxe] videos on AOL Video

and this crazy one . . .

Watch more Post videos on AOL Video

He's done a lot of really cool videos and he's obviously creative conceptually as well as the shots he gets with the camera. So I'm pretty interested to see what kind of angle he's going to take with Where the Wild Things Are. Already from the trailer you can see that some of the shots look gorgeous.

Another plus is that the song from the trailer is "Wake Up" by the Arcade Fire. They're awesome.

how we got really good seats at a bobcats game

I just finished making a science test for my students at Agape. This is the second night in a row that I've been up late preparing stuff for my classes. I did not realize that teachers have to do more homework than students. Maybe it means that I should be giving more homework. Hmm. . .

So a couple weekends ago, Melissa and I headed down to Charlotte to attend a Bobcats game (Just in case you are a part of that 97.6% of the population that have never heard of the Bobcats, they are an NBA basketball team that plays in Charlotte. . . no, the Hornets aren't there anymore, they moved to New Orleans like 7 years ago . . . and no, Mugsy Bogues doesn't play for them anymore. . . ). I am a closet Bobcats fan. I'm not really sure why or how it happened, but I keep tabs on them every now and then and have been secretly rooting for them for a couple years now. This year though, the team may actually make the playoffs for the first time in their short history and to generate excitement and get more than 17 people to attend their games, the organization had a brief ticket sale where you could get tix for 40% off the regular price. Well, TicketMaster screwed up my order and I ended up not getting my discount. Perturbed, I contacted the Bobcats' ticket office and after several emails back and forth to a team representative to convince them that I was not lying about when I made the purchase, they decided to reward me for going through all that trouble and mental anguish by refunding all my money and moving our seats to the lower level! The seats were great. The team played close to the worst basketball I've ever seen and they got smoked by the Pacers. It was still fun.

Here are some pictures:

Melissa's parents' car broke down and we had to walk about 2 miles to the stadium.
A couple days prior to this I rolled my ankle attempting to dunk on an 8 ft tall basketball hoop at school.
Walking 2 miles on a badly sprained ankle is not recommended.

See we were pretty close to the action. . .


A Sean May sighting!
{insert fat joke}


Somehow the family remained in the good spirits
despite the merciless beaten being taken by the Cats.

And now we come to one last picture. I was uploading this batch of pictures from the camera to the computer, and I noticed that Melissa had taken some pictures of Oreo. . .

Yes, that is my side of the bed. Thanks Melissa. There are about 10 if these pictures from various angles and with Oreo doing different poses. I'm worried about Melissa. I'm worried that she has a little too much time on her hands. I'm also worried for any future children we may have, and all the "fun" they are going to have to endure if this is what Melissa is putting our dog through. . .

if i was a better blogger, you'd already know this. . .

So as you may have noticed, I'm pretty bad at keeping up with this thing. Some pretty big things have happened in the past month and a half and here are the top ten things that have happened to me since the last time I blogged. . .

1. Our new President was innauggerrated? (two n's? two g's? two r's? I dont know!) He's seems pretty cool, he plays basketball and he likes to spend money. I think we'd get along really well. Oh wait, he likes the White Sox, what an idoit. . .

2. I got fired - I mean, "laid off". It sounds so much nicer and so much not-my-fault-er when you say it that way. . .

3. Melissa and I finally succumbed to the J.D. Greear Empire. We decided to commit to the Summit Church's West Club Campus. . .

4. I cooked a pork roast for the first time. It was good. Then I left it on the counter and turned my back, and Oreo ate it. Close to 2 lbs. of meat disappeared in a little under 90 seconds. It was impressive. . .

5. Despite being unemployed for a month, I still haven't read the books I got for Christmas. . .

6. My dad and I built a fence for our yard, so Oreo won't run away. It's a little crooked and Oreo still finds ways our of it, but it was a fun father-son bonding experience. . .

7. I started watching Lost for like 2 episodes and then I gave up. . .

8. I got a new job at Agape Corner School with my boy Logan. Pretty soon Logan is going to replace Chad as my best friend because he's way more musically talented and better looking. . .

(If you don't know who Logan is, just listen to the song "The Future" on Chad's The Overlapse CD - Logan is the one that doesn't sound terrible. . .)

9. I started tweeting on Twitter. Logan convinced me to do it - not really because of anything he said, but more because he does it himself and I want to be like him. When I'm on Twitter it makes me feel cutting-edge. I'm not really sure yet why I do it, but something tells that people's lives will be better if they know what I'm doing every moment of the day. . .

10. The driver-side door handle on my Buick LeSabre (that means "the sword")inexplicably stopped working. I have to open the back seat door and reach to the front and open it from the inside. It is annoying. . .

So that pretty much sums up the last 6 weeks of my life. Be my Twitter friend!

i like you, but i LOVE the whopper. . .

So as I was screen printing the day away at work this afternoon, it dawned on me that I really wanted to write a blog entry tonight. I thought about all the things I could talk about and all the funny jokes I would make and all the new friends I would have because they read my funny blog. Now as I sit down to actually do it, I don't remember much of anything I wanted to talk about, but here it goes anyway...

Yesterday I noticed an article on-line about Burger King's new ad campaign. Being an advertising major, I guess I'm supposed to care about that kind of stuff, so I followed the link and read it. Burger King's new ad campaign for its "Angry Whopper" includes a Facebook application where if you "de-friend" 10 people you receive a coupon for a free Whopper [I was going to link to the site to get the app, but it looks like Burger King took it down]. "Cool", I thought to myself, "I easily have 10 people that are "Facebook friends" but aren't "Real-Life friends". But as I read on I was informed that, unlike regular Facebook, when you "de-friended" someone by using this application, it sends them a message that notified them that you are no longer their friend. This kind of made me pause and really consider if possibly hurting 10 peoples' feelings was worth a free charbroiled hamburger. . .

After 2 seconds, I concluded that yes, getting a free hamburger is a totally legitimate excuse to offend 10 people, so I continued on my quest for a free Whopper. However as I perused my Facebook friend list, I continued to have an uneasy feeling about how people might react when they received the message that I was no longer their friend because I desired the taste of a quarter pound of hot ground beef instead. In my head I pictured disbelief and devastation flashing across the faces of these chosen 10 at the fact that they could no longer look at my profile or pretend they were a part of my life by looking at my photos. Reality soon set in that these 10 (along with probably at least 30 others on my "friend" list) would, upon receiving that fateful message, probably instead say to themselves, "Who the hell is Brian Turney?"

It was a humbling thought, but one that motivated me to follow through and strive after the promised treasure. So I did it. I "de-friended" 10 people for the sake of a Whopper, and this is my confession. Does that make me a bad person? Is de-friending someone on Facebook really that big of a deal? I don't know the answers to these questions, and I probably never will. Such is the moral ambiguity that Facebook has bestowed on our culture. . .

[I realize that my story was long-winded and really anti-climactic. Like I said, I felt like I had stumbled on gold this afternoon when I was going through it in my head.]

On a related note to this story, I feel like the ad campaign was pretty brilliant. I mean I will be going to Burger King for the first time in like 2 years because of it. As somewhat of a connoisseur of fast food, Burger King really doesn't fill a niche for me. When I'm looking for something cheap I hit up McDonald's - Seriously is there anything better and filling for cheaper than a McDonald's Double Cheeseburger? Then there is Wendy's, which for some reason in my mind, seems like its the "healthy" option - it probably is healthy when you get a salad and a baked potato, but no so much when you get a JBC, 2 orders of nuggets, and a large order of fries, eh? And then there is the granddaddy of them all, the best tasting and least healthy of them all - Cook-Out! And that's just looking at burger places and not including the chicken places Bojangles and Zaxbys.

So there you have it, there is just no place for Burger King in my hierarchy of fast food needs, but I will be going there soon to collect my reward for being a self-centered jerk.

And as long as we're on the subject, I think these Whopper, Jr. commercials are hilarious.

reading in the new year

I don't really have anything interesting or important to say, but I figured I'd post something since it's been awhile. Besides, what good is a blog if you can't post uninteresting and unimportant stuff?

So its 2009 huh? pretty wild...where are the flying cars? I'm just going to keep asking that question every year until I have one sitting in my driveway... or will it be called a "flyway"? hmm...

Christmas was good. Every year I try to really remind myself that Christmas is about Christ and I ought to reflect on the fact that he humbled Himself to be born a child so that He would save humanity from the clutches of sin, but but by about the second gift that I've unwrapped that pretty much goes out the window. Later on, as I lay down to bed it will hit me and I will feel like a jerk because I didn't so much as pray that day to thank God for sending His Son. That's pretty much my Christmas tradition.

Speaking of Christmas, I did get some pretty sweet gifts and that's all that really matters, eh? Apparently the gift of the year for Brian this year was books. I think I ended up with four. And they all have to do with Christian faith, so apparently I'm doing something wrong. Anyway, I will now talk about them briefly in order from most excited to read to least excited to read.


1. Death by Love: Letters from the Cross
by Mark Driscoll

Mark Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle and is pretty much my favorite pastor ever. This book is lot more serious and a lot less sarcastic than most of what comes from Driscoll - it is a series of letters that he wrote to various members of his congregation regarding various sins and struggles they are facing, and each letter focuses on a different aspect of Christ's act of atonement on the cross. I've read the first chapter som far and its really powerful and he uses to very striking imagery to convey the power of Christ and his death on the cross. I'm pretty stoked to read this one.

2. Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals
by Shane Claiborne

I've heard really good things about Claiborne and his book The Irresistible Revolution, but truthfully don't know that much about him. This book is about Christians, the Church, and their role in American politics. This is a topic that really intrigues me and that along with the really cool and unique design of the book is what really has me excited to read this one. I've only read the Intro and so far he talks about how the Church has fallen into the lie that the state has more power to change peoples' lives than the death and resurrection of Christ. Sounds like the truth to me, so now what do we do about it?

3. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
by Francis Chan

This is a book that came out last year I think, and I heard good things but don't really know a lot of specifics. From what I gather, Chan is a pastor in CA and his book is about living out one's faith boldly and dynamically and not being afraid to take risks for the sake of the Gospel. Sounds good and sounds like something that I need to hear. This one falls to third only because of my unfamiliarity with it and because I'm so pumped about the first two.

4. The Love Dare
by Stephen and Alex Kendrick

OK, so maybe I'm a hater but I'm not very excited about this one. Maybe its because it is inspired by a seemingly cheesy Christian movie starring Kirk Cameron. Or maybe its because it requires homework and discipline to complete. Whatever it is, it was a thoughtful gift that is meant to strengthen my marriage and help me learn to love unconditionally, but I'm going to have to feel really motivated to dig into this and attempt the "Love Dare", and knowing myself pretty well, I just don't see that happening.


Not to be overlooked, but falling into a different types of category of books, I also received a commentary on the Gospel of John from my beautiful wife, and a book on how to begin a career as a freelance graphic designer from Clayton. I'm excited about taking a look at both of those as well.

I think that will be all for now.

Hopefully I will read these and return with some comments/reviews soon.