New Blog Site

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Thank you!

Chocolate Time Paradox

Took two pieces of chocolate.

Dove’s first piece of advice: “Try something new tomorrow.”

Dove’s second piece of advice: “Love like there is no tomorrow.”

According to my love advice, there is no tomorrow, so I can’t do anything new, but I’m supposed to do something new tomorrow, which means I’m not loving properly today, but if I love like there’s no tomorrow…

Now my head hurts so much, I don’t feel much like loving or trying anything new.

I guess too much chocolate can be bad for you…

Just my thoughts,

Sean

Glimmer of Hope: Seconds of Beauty

A collection of one second long films with the theme of "beauty."

Enjoy.



Seconds Of Beauty - 1st round compilation from The Beauty Of A Second on Vimeo.

Duck

The video below is nothing special; just a duck following a dude. Amusing.

I'm posting it because it stirs up deeper meaning for me.

The only pet I've had in my life that was just mine was a duck. Used to follow me around too.

Second grade, I won a contest that allowed me to take home one of the little fellows that we hatched as a classroom project.

Found out after the fact that parents would define that as "losing" a contest, but oh well.

I liked my duck for the short time I had him (he was a victim of our house burning down. There are some good stories that go with that - remind me to tell you them sometime.)

So, for the memories, here is a clip of a man and his duck.

Just my thoughts,

Sean

Christology of Who: Dalek

A look at a few of the spiritual themes in Doctor Who, episode “Dalek” by Robert Shearman.

SPOILER ALERT:  I will be giving away the end of the episode.

Episode bits pulled from Who Transcripts.

One of the ongoing themes of Doctor Who is the question of “what does it mean to be human?”

(Before I go on, I realize that this line of thought might seem like a cheat – the blog series I am writing is supposed to be about Christology after all. But it does/will tie in, as the claim my faith makes is that Christ was fully human and fully G-d. So a study of “what does it mean to be human” plays to both The Humanism of Who and The Christology of Who.)

The Doctor has always been fascinated by humanity, bordering on an unhealthy obsession. He dithers on about how special they are.

How special are they?

The 21^st Century reboot takes a long look at that question by starting with a race that is very, very much not human: the Daleks.

The Daleks are, well, here’s the Doctor to explain:

THE DOCTOR
A nightmare. It's a mutation. The Dalek race was genetically engineered - every single emotion was removed except hate.

The Daleks have one function: to exterminate anything that is different, that is not a Dalek. They live to kill.

The Time Lords (the Doctor’s race) and the Daleks wiped each other out in the time war, with only the Doctor surviving. (That’s not quite true, but it was the common wisdom of the day.)

In the episode “Dalek,” it is discovered that one Dalek somehow survived, was thrown to earth, and is being held captive by a collector of such things.

Rose touches the weakened Dalek (out of sympathy), and the creature absorbs her DNA and uses that to regain its strength. Then the Dalek proceeds to break out of its prison, going on a killing spree along the way.

A problem arises though – the Dalek is no longer pure Dalek, but now has a slight case of the Roses: the absorbed human DNA is affecting the creature, as shown when it prepares to exterminate Rose:

ROSE
And now what? What're you waiting for?

DALEK
I feel your fear.

ROSE
What do you expect?!

DALEK
Daleks do not fear. Must not fear.

It shoots its death ray wildly at the wall either side of Rose.

DALEK (CONT'D)
(slightly hysterical, even scared)
You gave me life. What else have you given me? I am contaminated! 

The poor creature finds that it can not kill without feeling (killing now has a cost), knows fear, knows pity, knows compassion.

At the climatic moment of the episode, The Dalek, long held underground, blasts a hole in the ceiling, revealing the sun. Noticing that Rose longed for the sun, the Dalek exposes itself to the beams – to feel the warmth of sunshine.

That is a joy that the Dalek can not live with; such feelings are to be disdained – they are messy, uncontrollable, not pristine like the killing machine should be. 

The television series will continue to explore what it means to be human – but the first step was made here in this episode:

Humanity feels.

Just my thoughts,

Sean

Next up: The Parting of Ways

Sling Baby

I worked on the team for two commercials for the "Doritos Crash the Superbowl" contest. Pretty proud of them, especially the first (I was more involved with Sling Baby).

Enjoy.

Sling Baby

Kitty Heist

Revealing-ations

Self explanatory. Enjoy.

Blowin' in the Wind

If the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, then So Cal just got a whole lot of answers.

I hope somebody was taking notes.

jmt,

Sean