Technology, Speaking, and Entertainment
Northpoint Church has some of the most creative Christmas music available. It’s quite an enjoyable time to spend watching some of these with your family during the holiday season.
2013 Kids write the best Christmas music
2012 Les Miserables
2011 Toy Pianos and more
2010 iBand
Planet 51 is a funny movie for the child at heart. It’s a film set on an alien planet with comedy and exciting action. It reverses the roles of a 50’s sci-fi film by
making the “alien” an astronaut from earth that the “people” creatures from another world quite like ours. I found the primary message of the film to be fascinating.
At the beginning of the movie, everything is going great for the main character, Lem, a teenage type of martian. He gets a new job and is on the way to a great life and the girlfriend of his dreams. Lem give a lecture at the local planetarium: “Thanks to science we now know, the universe is nearly 500 miles long and it contains…you’re not gonna believe this…over one thousand stars. The only known intelligent life is right here on our planet.”
Then Lem runs into the “alien” astronaut Chuck who lands on their planet and upsets his entire view on life. Chuck challenges all the preconceived ideas about the world he knew. Lem is open enough to listen, learn, and build a relationship with Chuck even though it threatens his entire worldview. After learning the truth about things he hadn’t considered before from Chuck, Lem exclaims…
“Space isn’t 500 miles. It’s not. It’s so much bigger than we can imagine. There’s billions of galaxies and each galaxy has billions of stars…And next to that, our planet is just…” Then he storms out of the planetarium on a quest to make things right.
The General is the military commander that does everything in his power to try and get rid of the “alien” astronaut Chuck. In the final showdown, Lem explains to The General what motivates him:
“I know what you’re afraid of [General] … and it’s not Chuck. It’s not monsters or aliens. It’s the UNKNOWN. I’ve spent my whole life running from it and I think maybe you have, too. But I’m telling you the unknown isn’t something to be afraid of. It can be your best friend and just when you think that it means the end of everything you know…It’s really just the beginning.”
As Lem and others go on with a new perspective their lives are changed…for the better. It was all in how Lem decided to respond to the things in his life that made the difference. The General’s heart is changed as well through listening to the youth and considering his ideas.
Get the Planet 51 DVD on Amazon.com.
Yesterday, I went to our local Hollywood video. I was looking for a movie by Nick Park (of Wallace & Gromit fame) called “Shaun the Sheep”. At the time, I didn’t know the exact spelling and couldn’t find it on the shelf under “S”.
The guy at the counter couldn’t find anything similar in the computer. He looked with several different spellings “Shawn, Sean, Sheep, Baah,” etc. He couldn’t search by director, either. Then it dawned on me. I have the internet on my iPhone. I should search there! I pressed the Google button, followed by the “voice search” button and spoke out loud into my phone “Shaun the Sheep”. Within a few seconds I was looking at the official fan site and all 6 of the DVDs (only 3 are available in the U.S so far). Shaun the Sheep: Back in the Ba-a-ath In fact, within a few seconds more I could order the DVD and have it on my doorstep the next day.
The moral here: If companies don’t have excellent technology support within their shops, they will lose business. It should scare you as a business owner when the customer has more power on their phone than the person behind the counter does with a high speed connection and full computer. It’s time for some technology investment. It’s smart business.