A Very Cool Wedding

It was a rather relaxing weekend at our house. I just added several reviews of some great movies (Grand Turino and Tetro being the best of them) - I hope you check them out.

I can see why there is a trend toward outdoor/less formal weddings. Aren't we all sick of formal weddings? We attended the wedding of good friends Cara and Matt on Saturday. It was set outdoors at a local park at the casino (and in case you're wondering, we did not see any single gentleman looking to "meet" other single gentlemen). There are just so many pluses to going that way. I think there is such a greater feeling of community and relaxation when guests are free to mingle. The regimented and outdated traditions of formal weddings (especially the stupid dances) just suck the collective life out of the attendees.

And I do have to say that secular weddings are that much better. And I'm not necessarily talking about the mumbo jumbo that takes away from the union of the couple (just as the same mumbo jumbo dominates a funeral and doesn't let us celebrate the person - see this blog). There is just something beautiful about having your friends and family right on top of you without being burdened by tradition or superstition. I know that I've said this before but this is where people do not understand the secular world. I firmly believe that the world is far more beautiful as it is and that all of this other hocus pocus only diminishes this beauty.

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We caught the latest installment of Penn and Teller's amazingly awesome series Bullsh_t. The great thing about this show is that it makes you challenge ideas that you hold because society says that you should hold them. Some examples on this are the hatred of Walmart and fast food. This week's show is on martial arts. What could be wrong with that? So you teach your kids some discipline and maybe they could defend themselves at some point. They made some really great points that I had not thought of.

The first point is that the worst thing that you can do when you are challenged by someone is to fight back. If someone puts a gun in your face you just hand over your stuff and walk the other way. There are few situations where you should ever look to use what you have learned (and chances are there is a far bigger problem if you have to use the skills).

The second is that these courses really don't teach you how to act if such a scenario did present itself. You can sit there and have all of the fake fights that you want. If you've ever been in a real fight you know how violent and brutal they can be. If you're not mentally able to handle such a scenario (and most people aren't), I can't imagine these techniques helping you. I can't stress how... raw... a real fight can be.

Besides, when was the last time you read an article about a karate student foiling a crime? Same as me - never.

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I do have to throw in a deuce-chilling moment from the wedding.

As you probably guessed, Rebecca and I also had a (delightfully) secular wedding. My mother-in-law asked if she could read something from Paul's (alleged) Letter to the Corintheans and we agreed. That's a small thing, right? "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things." It is funny that I now completely relate to that statement.

So we're at the wedding on Saturday and I thought I would give the in-laws a little bit about how nice it was not to have to sit through another reading of that letter. It seems like they do it at every wedding, doesn't it? "And now, a reading of some other passage that sounds nice". Nobody ever reads about Moses coming off the mountain and killing hundreds of sinners (which is ironic because he had just been given the order not to kill - go figure".

Anyway, just as I was starting in on some teasing I remembered that my mother-in-law had read this passage at our wedding. She was hurt for a minute and then I mumbled something about it being a joke. It was a joke and I meant nothing by it but I obviously wouldn't have made it had I remembered the reading. I'm a dummy.

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My "other" website will finally launch sometime in the next week. I was having an awful time thinking of the right URL. And then it came to me, with a little help from Carlin.