My virtual travels in the past week… let’s see, where have I been? Well, I’ll spare you the links to lulu.com and the methods of procuring an ISBN in Canada and the online ISBN barcode generator and the plethora of PayPal documentation pages and shopping cart systems that don’t quite work, but are close. Much more interesting links below, if a slightly shorter list due to the time spent at the aforementioned sites. My Google Reader is sitting just shy of 700 items at present, and my wife about whom I kept saying “wise woman that she is” has become a bit of a wiseacre. Never mind. The week ended with a group viewing of the movie Luther. Main observation: it’s amazing that Christianity has survived at all.

On to the linkage.

1. New meaning to “short story” — 55 A Day – Short Stories for Short People posts stories in 55 words a day, no more, no less.
2. Mark Priddy’s blog at Allelon has posted Exploring Your Neighbourhood: An Exegetical Walk, by Simon Carey Holt… good ideas for exegeting your neighbourhood.
3. John La Grou gets to play with the best toys… and on a very cool project too.
4. NYT: Sweeping the Clouds Away… says Sesame Street is out on DVD now, early episodes back to 1969… but wait:
   

   According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

   Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. “What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

5. Jim Martin has been on the must-read list lately: don’t miss him this week on Graciousness.
6. Len points out Berean Lionel at SheepComics.com. Fair warning — a single click could lead to an hour’s exploration.
7. Two fridge-magnet images with quirky resonance (via oldbill)
8. A compendium of topics covered in Brian Russell’s quest for a missional hermeneutic. And the Grand Narrative of Scripture.
9. Trevin Wax Interview with N.T. Wright
10. John Wimber died ten years ago this past week, which anniversary prompted the questions of how Wimber’s Vineyard would have related to the emerging missional church today, and whether the Vineyard is now past its expiry date (as foretold by Wimber). Robbymac remembers, as does Sam Storms. Interestingly, I’ve noticed a lot more talk about the Kingdom of God within ‘the conversation’ just in the past few months.
11. Chuck Warnock rounds out a good post referencing several others with the observation that “While lots of evangelicals are circling the wagons, popular culture (TED.com) is celebrating people who are exploring creation, art, and faith in ways that bring respect and openness to the conversation. What are we afraid of?”

That’s the list for this week — short as noted, but check out my post from Thursday for a few more posts on recently-recurring themes. Oh, and of course as I said yesterday on my 1500^th post, the Advent Daily Office book is out — pray the themes from the prologue to John’s Gospel through Advent.