During the 30 days of September, 29 other bloggers and I have joined together to see if our different communities could collectively raise $30,000 for charity: water, to provide clean water for people who don’t have it. 30 Bloggers, 30 Days, $30,000.  Pretend like I posted this 5 days ago, cuz it’s actually more like 30, 30, 25, which has a horrible ring to it.

Check out this amazing video from the founder of charitywater.org .  It is an amazing organization, and a little goes a long way.

The story of charity: water – The 2009 September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.

Here’s what you can do:

+ Give. $20 gives one person clean water for 20 years!
+ Share. Tell your friends on Facebook and Twitter about what we’re doing. We’re using the hashtag #30water and pointing people to http://mycharitywater.org/30 (shortlink: http://bit.ly/b1eht9)
+ Blog about it.  I know a bunch of you also have your own blogs. We want you to write about it too and get your readers involved. Just point your readers to our site: http://mycharitywater.org/30

Of all the things I love about charity: water, here are some of the details that really stuck out to me:

+ 100% of all your money will go to water projects. Not just profits, 100%.
+ Our money will go towards building water projects in Central African Republic. Again, here’s their homepage detailing their September project.
+ After you give, charity: water will keep you up-to-date with the status of the project you gave to, provide you with GPS coordinates of exactly where the well is being built, and take pictures and video along the way.
+ Our page has a status bar at the top that shows up-to-the-minute progress of how much money has been given.
+ Like I said earlier, $20 provides one person with clean water for 20 years. An average water project costs $5,000 to build and provides clean water to 250 people. If we raise our goal of $30,000, we’ll help 1500 people get clean water!

So please check it out and give… It’s a few bucks to save a lot of people’s lives.

And check back here in the next weeks for the stuff I’ve been chewing on the last 2 months.

This week’s nostalgia comes from everyone’s favorite genie…Shaq.

Thanks for the memories.

A couple thoughts:
1. Favorite line: “Who’s that sorry wannabe that disturbed my Z’s?” So street.
2. Sport celebrity movie rule #1: Include the sport in the movie, no matter what.  (i.e. slam-dunking the bad guy)
3. I’m pretty sure the main kid is wearing a fishing jacket.
4. The greatest emphasis of his power is at 0:21.

That was a commercial I heard while watching the Academy of Country Music Awards. Is there some large, unmet demand for floral designs on Faded Glory jeans? Or are people clamoring to have their initials permanently placed on there shirt pockets?

What’s the worst advice you’ve heard lately?

Now, prayer huddles, or “spirit vortex receptors,” are nothing like real football huddles and everything like football huddles in the movies…as in, everyone gets to say their idea.  Of course, everyone knows who is going to get the final prayer–the quarterback–and if you want to say something, you better fit it in before that guy.

In this case, the quarterback was my mom.  She called the huddle, so she would be “hanging up.” But this isnt the point of my story.

As we were praying, everyone was praying for favor, success, and for some sort of supernatural connection that we could all share, no matter the time or distance that passed.  So all of a sudden I got this desire to say  ”we believe that blood is thicker than water.”  Get it?  Blood of Jesus?  Ocean water? Ireland?  It was too good!

Pause.

Two things. Thing 1: I had already prayed. If I wanted the prayer to go on for two more hours, then no deal.  However, we were standing, touching (sweat), and had been in the sun all day.  I was secretly eating blueberries the whole time.

Thing 2:  Analogies and metaphors are the gold mines* of today’s prayers. [You can tell one is coming, as the pray-er will start getting louder and breathing in great gusts--all powerful things must be loud.] Seriously, no matter our motives, we secretly want the recipient to remember our analogy and carry that vision of them being a budding flower into the fires of hell, never doubting it because it came from the vortex of the greatest intercessor they ever knew.  It’s ok, we all feel that way.

So should I have said it?  I don’t know, but I decided not to. In the end, it was almost too good. It would have seemed like I had planned it or something, and I didn’t want that. That, and my mom had already started praying.

What are some of your own best, or worst, prayer moments?

*There are “land mines,” the things you want to avoid doing, which I’ll explain next time.

AJP wreaking havoc on the wakeboard from AJ Passman on Vimeo.

2. Traffic on the interstate
Living in Atlanta, you’d think I’d be used to it.  It’s not all traffic that is messed up to me, and I even understand it on the perimeter and on interstates through cities.  However,  on a road with no traffic lights and plenty of room in exit lanes, cars in a standstill will never make sense to me.  Thank God for the iPhone.

3.Why things don’t work
Really, it’s more like “why I’m not surprised at all when things break.”  Need any convincing that we live in a broken world?  Let me ask you this:  the last time the internet went out at your house, were you utterly shocked at this unfortunate turn of events?  Unlikely.  You probably have religiously memorized what to do in these situations (always involving the smallest “reset” button on planet earth). I’m surprised when I actually can get online without having to search my basement storage for my IP address.   That’s just one example. Don’t make me bring up AT&T’s dropped calls.

4. Why my phone is a prison
Speaking of phones, let me just say this: I don’t have to answer when you call.  I might be in the shower, changing my sweet baby’s diaper, or –gasp– just tired. Oh, and I will probably not call you back unless I get a voice or text message telling me what you wanted.

What are some other things that don’t make sense?

*unless you are pregnant.  In which case, I’m sorry.

Due to popular demand (my cousin said “I don’t get it”), I have some new rules for the classic 1-10 rating system.  The first list was more for the Scalers, but I have some rules for those who are on the other side, the Raters.

1. Pick one number.
The whole point of this is to get you to make a solid choice.  I wasn’t asking for a range of emotional non-commitment, so don’t tell me the sweet tea at Medieval Times was a 6-8.

2. No sub-rating.
This one’s a bit tricky, because some scalers want as much detail as you can give.  As a general rule, though, stick to the question.  I’m asking for your overall opinion of Kris Allen’s 2010 remake of the 2009 song “Heartless” by Kanye, so don’t rate the verse, chorus, drums, vocals, originality (1), and your approval rating of his winning American Idol over Adam Lambert. I didn’t bring a calculator. And I don’t really care.  You’re just really hard to have a conversation with.

3. I gave you a range for a reason. Honor it.
I asked you to rate on a scale of 1-10 because I like order, not chaos.  I know you’re an outside-the-box kind of thinker, but please refrain.  So, even if you honestly believe something is “a certified twenty,” please just give it a 10, because that’s what you’re really saying. (but see rule #4 first)

4. 10 is precious, and 1 is an abomination*.
Don’t just throw out the extremes. This is the major downfall of the rating system. Don’t believe me? Ok, go to the iTunes Store and try to figure out whether a new song is good, bad, or decent. You can’t. Every review is either 1 star, “OMG, worst song ever. I wish I could give it zero stars! -trucritik” or 5 stars “OMG! BEST SONG EVER!! LOL 4EVER BFF!!! -bumblebee14xoxo.”  There has to be an in-between.  I mean, Hillbilly Bone is fine for a line dance, but a 5-star song it is not.

I advise that you be very picky with your “10′s.”  Save a little glory for those. Make a mental list of the things in your life that are truly 10′s, then rate in comparison. It makes you seem sophisticated when you give, say, Coldplay’s new single a 9 (because it will never touch “Fix You,” a true 10).

If you follow these rules, your judgments will be respected, and your highest rating will be sought out by  celebrities the world over, and the economy will recover.  Or at the very least, you can tell yourself (and other people) that you probably could be a professional critic if you really wanted to, but it just wasn’t what you wanted.

*totally random side note: I’m really surprised that my ultra-conservative friends (aka my brother), haven’t picked up on how much abomination sounds like Obama Nation. I really thought I would have seen it on a bumper sticker somewhere by now.