The World According To Chris Brewer

Last night my beloved Portland Trail Blazers beat the Toronto Raptors 101-96 for their ninth straight win. The youngest team in the league is shocking a few people this year at 14-12. Not bad after we started the season 5-12, and I think we were 3-10 at our lowest point.

I personally didn’t expect the team to win more than 30 this year, just due to the fact our #1 draft pick, the beloved Greg Oden, is out for the year due to microfracture knee surgery. To see them halfway to that point only 26 games into the season is a huge source of happiness for me. If this team makes the playoffs, watch out for when Oden comes back. We’ll be even scarier.

My motto for this year was “Beat the Blazers now, because you won’t be doing so in a few years.” But I guess a few teams are finding that a bit tough to accomplish. Roll on Blazers!

Here’s a video of our shooting guard Brandon Roy absolutely abusing three Raptors on a drive to the basket. You can’t NOT get excited watching this guy play.

Thanks to Blazers Clips for the video.

Recently I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that though I have a small circle of friends, my interests are completely different than everyone I know here and my life is going a different direction. That is okay though. I have taken a greater initiative recently to better my life and already I have benefited by meeting new folks and making some new friends around here.

I began to ask myself this question last week, and it’s the proverbial question we always ask regarding our outlook on life.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that question, because in my opinion, it depends whether someone just poured water into the glass or just drank from it.

So seeing as that question didn’t work as I couldn’t come up with an answer that would solve my problem, I began to sit and ruminate and wonder things I could do and have done to improve my situation. I prayed a bit, read the Word, rocked back and forth on the floor, typed some stuff out, pounded my desk, paced back and forth, and all the while I was thinking of why a bunch of my friendships in recent years has hit a barrier, with it all coming to a head here in Springfield.

I found the solution, and Nick helped me finally put an end to my wondering as we went to get Starbucks on Tuesday night.

The solution is this: I am an entirely unique individual. So unique, in fact, that my interests are completely incompatible with most people I know here. Having moved here to Springfield to restart my life, and having hit a brick wall where I am at socially at the moment, it is up to me and me alone to improve my situation. With God’s help of course.

That’s the basic gist of it. You can’t force friendships that are merely acquaintanceships, and that’s not because I’m a loner or anything (quite the opposite). It’s just that you can’t expect to walk into a group that has an established presence, break the wall and join right in the conversation, so to speak. It takes time to be drawn in — naw, scratch that, if your interests are completely different from theirs, the only common bond you share is gonna be God.

Great people, different interests. The arts as opposed to sports. Watching someone dance as opposed to watching someone bounce off tacklers and run 99 yards to paydirt. Watching The Office as opposed to football. Oil as opposed to water.

These physical differences can also hamper people spiritually too. Based on what I’ve written above, if you can’t get to know someone well enough to find out a fraction of what makes them tick, you’re not going to be able to help them spiritually unless you’ve got a good dose of the Holy Spirit. And even then it’s gonna be a one shot thing because you won’t be the first person they seek out for your company. Once again, that’s just due to different personalities.

So my struggle lies with ME and ME alone. I need to go out and find a group that shares similar interests, continue to involve myself in a second church body in addition to the one I am called to, and just throw myself out there and network. I’ve got nothing to lose, in all reality.

Good thing I discovered the solution just in time for Christmas, huh?

Well, that’ll be it for now. I’ve got to go pour some water into this glass sitting on my desk.

I thought six hours of sleep was enough each night. Apparently not. Tonight I am gonna shoot for 7.

On another note, thank you Nick Crider. You know what for.

I figured I’d take this post in a fun direction and post some videos of some guilty musical pleasures of mine. I will also give you all an opportunity to share what music you listen to but really wouldn’t want anyone else to know about…come on guys, we can all bond over this.

Let me start off with a wonderful track that came out my freshman year of high school — 1998. I was 14 years old and had just started discovering the dance genre of music. This was also only a few years after Will Smth stopped making summertime jams with DJ Jazzy Jeff, and he had quite the solo career going. Unfortunately nearly all his music was sampled from 70s disco hits. The one I am about to show you was sampled from Sister Sledge’s disco hit “He’s the Greatest Dancer.”

It’s none other than the eponymous hit “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.”

So that was cool — back in 1998, at least. Will suffered a career decline until he released “Switch” recently. How recent I don’t know because I don’t follow Will Smith anymore, I just have his song and today it was a random play on my iPhone as I drove down the JRF (the James River Freeway).

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Usually when I walk into stores, I can’t help but notice the music playing over the speaker systems. Sometimes there’s just one track that keeps playing in my head, so I’ll jot down the lyrics, do a search and download the track when I get home.

Case in point was Saturday afternoon, when I heard a remix of Feist’s track “Mushaboom” playing over the speakers in the Express store in Battlefield Mall. Whodaguessedwhatitledto.

I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I searched the iTunes Music Store for Mushaboom remixes. Three of them came up, one by the Postal Service, one by VV and one by some dude named Mocky. I played the Mocky remix and liked it, so I decided to check out more of his music on the iTunes store. What I found was pretty interesting.

Some of his music has some audible swears, but other than that Mocky’s got some pretty good stuff. It’s more spoken word than rap — you’d have to listen to some of it, and the only place I can find some on the ‘Net without having to pay for it is on the iTunes store (30 second samples), and also on Youtube.

Mocky did a collaboration with Feist called “Fighting Away The Tears,” and that video is after the jump. I will also include a link to the video for his track “Catch a Moment in Time,” but beware as there is a swear in there. (So don’t click the link if you don’t want to hear it.)

Other than the unnecessary swears, Mocky’s music is very good and I have to thank whoever puts the music on at Express for indirectly helping me discover his stuff.

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Yeah, I know I’m a little late on this, but it’s time for me to watch my first Christmas movie of 2007. Home Alone is the movie of choice tonight. Classic Christmas movie.

Don’t hate.

Today was a good day. I was accompanied by Jason and Amy, whom I met in Republic for pizza last night, to both their church in the morning and mine in the evening. It was a good experience. Great people at both places, and the Word was good. Got to take communion twice, so I should be covered for the entire next twelve months.

I also had a great opportunity to talk to my friend Tori from my days back in Virginia. I remember when I first arrived there, her and I clashed like oil and water, we didn’t mix. But we ironed everything out and became great friends. I even remember the last youth service before I deployed to Iraq, she came up, gave me a big hug and we must have cried it out for about five minutes. She’s a great person.

Anyhoo, this week is shaping up to be a pretty busy week. A full forty hours of work coupled with a few visitations. I may not have too terribly much free time except for the late evenings. Which is good, it’s been awhile since I had a full schedule. I am also very anticipant for some huge things to transpire this week. I would definitely appreciate any and all prayers you could toss up to God on my behalf.

I’m signing off, but a neat little video by one of my favorite groups, Kings of Convenience, awaits you after the jump.

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Today the snow started falling in Springfield and the surrounding area at about 1:30 PM, and though it didn’t pile up, it was fun to watch. We got about an inch if that, and it’s this real fine powdery stuff that makes driving dangerous because it blows all over the place and leaves patches of ice in its wake.

I’ve got some photos I will share of the event below, courtesy of Bert the iPhone.

I also would like to thank Jason and his fiancee’ for the invite to join them at Rocco’s Pizza tonight. They’re great people and it was really neat to meet two dedicated Christians who really love and have a heart for God. We had a great time getting to know each other and I will be visiting their church tomorrow morning.

Here are the snow photos, hope you enjoy them, as little of the snow as there is.

It is snowing. It is cold.
I want out of the house.
The roads are icy, canceling our Saturday night plans.
I am about to go insane.

–Chris Brewer, “A Collection of Poetry in Motion,” published 2007 by Poor Man’s Press. All rights reserved.

None fell. Whatever that stuff was that accumulated on my windshield late last night…oh, that was SLEET.

They’re calling for 1-2″ of the powder to fall today, but everyone was wrong last night and I’ll believe it when I see it.

I have petitioned Santa Claus to put everyone who prays and asks for the snow to go away to be put on his “naughty” list. Which means I am not only buying Christmas gifts today, but returning ones I had previously bought for a couple people as well.

I have to go to work now.

A couple of days ago it was confirmed that the Rose Garden in Portland will soon no longer be one of the few stadiums in the United States with no corporate naming rights. Apparently the bidding is open for a new name for the arena. So what to call it? Something unique to Portland, hopefully.

Next time I step into the Garden, er, whatever it will be called, to watch a Blazer game, it had better be named one of the following:

- Columbia Sportswear Arena
- Memorial Coliseum Redux
- Columbia Fieldhouse
- Widmer (or any of Portland’s major breweries) Rose Garden
- Rose Garden, powered by Intel

Any other ideas?