Some of my faaaavorite thiiings (hey, I can do that; I was in the play)

Hello again, I've been meaning to write this for some time. And so, it's uh, here. Yay?

I like stuff, good stuff. Here's some of my favorite stuff. It may or may not be "good" stuff. but it will definitely be stuff that I like.  I mean to give here a brief overview of stuff I like. Later, I plan to perhaps dive into why I like them. Almost every thing/item I mention here is one of my "favorites." When I say I like/love something, I really mean it. Without further ado:

Movies:
 Anything made by Pixar. Really! Pretty much everything! Particularly, I really enjoy Toy Story 3,(aside from Barbie and Ken. They're uh, interesting.). Why?

Two words: Spanish Buzz.

Muppet Christmas Carol, Tangled, How to Train Your Dragon, Captain America, Singing in the Rain, A Witness For the Prosecution, Despicable Me, and Ben-Hur are all some great movies that I love.

  Please note, these are some of my favorites. I like or like parts of, Inception, the Muppet Movie, Kung-foo Panda,Terminator Salvation(the cleanest Terminator ever), and a lot of other popular movies(this principle applies to the other topics below).  But are they my favorites? Do I want to be known for liking them? Maybe. These are the few that I remember as of now.  There's likely a whole lot more. I'll probably bring them up some time.

Actors:
Mark Hamil!!!, Harrison Ford, Cary Grant, Michael Kane, Johnny Depp, Gene Kelly, Robert Downey jr,(well, kinda), Liam Neeson, Basil Rathbone, Terrence Mann.  These are some really good actors. I will definitely have to update this list though. I love a lot of actors, but I can't remember what movies they're from or what their names are, unfortunately!

Books:
The Great Divorce-C.S. Lewis,(and pretty much everything he's ever written!),  The Reason for God-Tim Keller, the Kingdom series-Chuck Black, the Dragon Keeper Chronicles-Donita K. Paul, the Circle series-Ted Dekker, The Redwall series, Jane Eyre, Lord of the Rings,(I'll finish that Silmarillion some day!) the Hobbit-J.R.R. Tolkien. I love 'em!


Tv shows: Phineas and Ferb!!!, Batman the Animated Series, the Muppet show, I love Lucy, Classic Transformers, classic G. I. Joe, Static Shock! Oh so good. Does anyone remember the cartoon called Recess? It's the one with the kindergartners acting like a huge tribe of Indians. I like that one too. I'm not sure if it's a favorite though.  Ah so many good memories.

Music: 
Mmmm, here's a big one. I could spend hours writing down these! David Crowder Band, Tobymac, Steve Camp, Keith Green, Flyleaf, Mat Kearney, B. Reith, Lecrae, Jon Foreman/Switchfoot, Audio Adrenaline, Monk & Neagle, House of Heroes, Shawn Macdonald, Relient K, NEEDTOBREATHE, F.M. Static, Owl city, Jimmy Needham, Britt Nicole, Trip Lee, Tedashii, Newsboys, Gungor, Brooke Fraser, Skillet, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Alan Menken (his work, that is).  I could go onto artists I like, not love, but I'll stop here and say that I completely love these guys/gals.

Video games:
This is a really big one too. Every game I put here I absolutely delight in. Mega Man Legends 1 & 2(mostly 1), Mega Man Zero, Paper Mario, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door,  Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time; Wind Waker, (ok, pretty much the whole Zelda and Mega Man series), Chrono Trigger, Half-Life 2, Portal 1 & 2, Sly Cooper 2 & 3, Starcraft 1 & 2, Star Wars Battlefront, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, these are some of my personal favorites, mostly because of nostalgia and personal preference. So MUCH I could say about them; So many games that I love, but didn't put for odd reasons or others,(like Gears of War, Halo, Suikoden 2, etc.).

I intend to blog in-depth about these some time. Take this as a list of things to come! I hope you enjoyed my list. Hoo boy, just you wait, I've got lots to say about these. Run while you still can!


Bahahahahah!

Merry (belated) Christmas everybody! Christmas is my favorite holiday, hands down. So I decided to make a list of my favorite things about Christmas. Ten or so.

Our Bumble.

( This list can change, don't put too much thought into the rankings. By the way, "being with my family" and "Jesus" I'm going to be excluded as of course those two should be the most important.)


10.Food.

Ahh, food. This is a good place to start.  Slow roasted ham with cinnamon and brown sugar, buttery mashed potatoes,apple pie with vanilla bean ice cream, Hawaiian sweet rolls, more pie, turkey, pudding, cookies, croissants, cinnamon rolls, PIE!, Need I say more?

My first slice of apple pie this season. Not the last.

9. Traditions/caroling
 I love all the little traditions, you know? We always number the presents and in between unwrapping a wave of them, our family does different activities to remember the story of Christ, or of Christmas in general. And it's fun too. Someone might get a charades card, having them act like pregnant Mary on her way to Bethlehem. Some one might get a card that has them Read the Christmas story, etc. Caroling is also kinda fun. I mean, what other time of the year are you allowed to demand figgy pudding from strangers?

8. colors/decorations/hats
Red and green, the first thing I think when I see those colors is Christmas. To be honest, I love that color scheme,(they are complementary colors after all). A normal house always looks better in Christmas decorations. Everything does! (well, almost. Some animals don't.) I guess I like how everything looks with a bit of green and red.

7. Lights
 Christmas is the only time of the year when strapping thousands of lights to your house is acceptable, for some weird reason. I don't know why we don't use lights like that throughout the year. I say why not use lights to decorate? I think using light to decorate your house is awesome. I suppose the small part of the year when we get these decorations makes them seem even better. (Careful what you wish for, huh) :)




6. Snow
 Do I even need to explain this one? Sledding, skiing, snowboarding, snowball fights, snow castles, igloos, there's so much you can do when it snows! And it's pretty cool to look at.

5. Candlelight services

 I didn't really know where to put this one, so I put it in the middle. Not too high, not low. I enjoy watching our choir and church praise team, (for lack of a better term), deliver amazing renditions of "Silent Night" and other carols by candle light. Also, I love my pastor's sermons every Christmas eve service. Yes, I'm biased, sorry.

4. Holiday specials/movies

gotta love 'em

"Miracle on 24th street", "Muppet family Christmas special", Phineas and Ferb Christmas special,etc, You gotta love you favorite shows/movies that get in the Christmas spirit. 'Nough said.

3. Music
 I love Christmas songs. Carols, modern versions, etc. All good. David Ian's Vintage Christmas, Reliant K's Let it Snow, Let it Reindeer, David Crowder Band's "Oh For Joy",Casting Crown's version of "Sweet Little Jesus Boy," and of course, the Phineas and Ferb Christmas album, are all what music I've been listening to lately. Not to mention Burl Ives' Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

2. Muppet Christmas Carol

Aaah, man do I love this movie. It is almost completely perfect in every single regard. It has fantastic music, wonderful characters, and communicates the classic Dickens tale clearly and effectively. Michael Caine, Christmas Carol, and Muppets, so good a combo. My favorite scene is at the end when Scrooge realizes that he's saved; the way how Caine portrays a newly regenerated life brings me great joy. "But the thing that made Scrooge happiest of all was that his life lay before him, and it could be changed."
Also, my favorite song would be tiny Tim's "Bless us all": I suggest watching at 9:37.

1. Gifts, (God)

Note: I didn't say presents here. Yes, getting gifts is good; I greatly enjoy it. But bringing joy to others has always pleased me significantly more than just gaining more stuff. Twice, perhaps more if I really think, has my family experienced Christmas almost without presents. This year and my eigth grade year Christmas. Both times it has been only because of God that we got anything. But God is always faithful, you know? This year, we've been kinda tight so we decided no presents, or significantly a reduced amount. But guess what, my dad got second bonus from the company he works for and he used that for our Christmas presents. He works for a Japanese company, very few companies gives out so many bonuses!

It's not about us, it's about Christ.

The other Christmas was when I was in 2007.  Life was... very difficult then.  My dad had no job, and it had been about a year since he lost it (all in all, it would be another seven or so months before he got another), and obviously all our money went to food and bills. Presents? Yeah right, maybe some legos. Turns out, various families at WB just randomly gave us money for presents. That Christmas was the biggest Christmas I ever had. Not just because of the presents, but of the love of our friends. I will never forget that.  The best part came as an anonymous present that some one left on our door step. It was covered in blue wrapping paper that had sparkling snowflakes embroidered on it, it also wrapped in a long, red ribbon that had gold trim and snowflakes upon it as well. One final thing to note, it had a typed letter, thanking my family for all our work in WB, and saying that we should open this present on Christmas day. It was a deluxe Wii package. That cost at least 300 bucks and that was at a time when Wiis were near impossible to find. Funny thing was, before my father lost his job, I personally had been saving up 200 dollars to buy one myself. Well, I and my father decided we should use that money for food. Thusly, The last thing I ever thought we would get that Christmas was a wii. It was like God planned it all along so that He could give us a beacon of hope in the midst of the storm. It was like He was saying "I know it's been terribly painful thus far, and it is only going to ge much worse. But, I am with you."
I love Christmas, because Jesus loves me/us, and I can't help celebrating His love!

There you go! Have a wonderful New year!  What's some of your favorite things about Christmas?

So what's going down?

Hey, just wanted upload a poem, (specifically a sonnet! It took forever). I wrote it a while ago (way before I wrote the first blog post. Also, if you're interested in my blog please do read the first post).  Personally I've bee really busy, had the SAT last Saturday, been doing homework, music, etc. But life is still good, or at least I'm content with it.
 I'm sorry that the first post was so long, btw. I -almost- promise I won't write another like that, at least for a while :).

Anyway, I wrote this poem a while ago for my literature class. It was originally supposed to be about Jesus music, but I eventually just decided to kinda roll with it. I wanted it to be about looking at our relationship with Jesus from the big picture, (kinda what my whole laughter dance thing is about).  Yes, Jesus loves us, but we have pain. We suffer! We 're sinful! How can He love us; how can we love him? Despite this,  and despite our broken world.  He still loves us. He still reaches out and cleanses us. So we, as His bride, can once more dance with Him. Anyway, it's just a poem I made late at night, not perfect, and there still somethings that bug me. Eh,whatever, no big deal.
I hope you guys enjoy it:

Laughter Dance

by Nathan Rollins

Many a man, bids to live life for God,

But love’s unseen, unknown. How may men praise

Their King ev’ry day?  Awake the dawn, give laud,

His light now seen! Divine grandeur’s His blaze.

Jesus, has died, for me. Now I livin’.

Not I, alive, but He in me. Dance I

Must. Sing next, laugh, then love with Christ. Forgivin’

Are we! How He has lov’d us, see. But. Why?

My God! How Long should grief, sorrow and pain

on me still reign? God, my first love, rescue

Your bride. Cleanse me from shame. Let’s dance again.

Aching, suff’ring, but here, always, were You.

Let’s dance on air, and laugh, and sing! All’re free!

Give to Jesus, life, heart, and soul, all three.