NO MORE SPAM!!!

This entry was originally published at Jeremy Hudson

I HATE SPAM!

No, I am not referring to the meat in a can (although I must say I don’t particularly like it either) but the junk that comes in my email EVERYDAY. Thank you very much, I don’t need to add inches to my “manhood”! As a matter of fact, my manhood has nothing at all to do with the size of any one particular body part, I’m not suffering from E.D., I’m not depressed, I’m not overweight, (Ok maybe I’m five or six pounds overweight… but that’s water weight so it doesn’t count right?), I don’t play poker online, I am not interested in an online lottery, and no thanks… I don’t need to see your naughty pictures, your webcam, or your dirty home videos! STOP sending that stuff please!

It was bad enough when I got the email variety, but now it comes in the form of comment spam. Yes now “bots” post spam directly in the comments of my blog. Almost everyday I have to delete posts advertising Calais, Viagra, online poker, and a host of other things that have absolutely nothing to do with my blog. I am so sick of it. It’s ALMOST enough to make me want to log out and not come back. (I said “almost”, stop hyperventilating, I’m not going anywhere.)

The last few weeks have really taken the cake though. I call it “Contact Form Spam”. Yes, people are now actually using my contact form to spam me. I have now received three different variations on the “Nigeria Scam” through my contact form. I set that up so that the scammers and spammers couldn’t harvest my email address from my blog, and now they have the audacity to use the contact form to try and get me to send them my money. Here’s a little hint to everyone out there. I DO NOT BUY BASED ON SPAM… YOU CAN NOT HAVE MY BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER… I DON’T WANT YOUR FREE SAMPLES! Any spam, scam, virus, hoax, etc. sent to me via email or contact form (still email folks) gets forwarded to the US Government. Yup, I let my good old Uncle Sam know about your wonderful offer. So when the men in black show up at your house and take away your computers and everything else you own and lock you up in a tiny cell with a BIG guy named “Bubba”, yeah, don’t bother blaming me… you brought it upon yourselves. As for those of you who wrote the “Comment Spam” bots. If you want to advertise your wares on my site, you are going to have to pay. It’ll only cost you $400,000 (US) plus $100,000,000 (US) per page impression to sell your services and or good on my site. I don’t have a huge readership… but that’s my rate. So, don’t be suprised when you get my bill. If you comment on my site and advertise any product, good, or service, you are acknowledging and agreeing to my advertising fee. Initial Payment is due in full within 48 hours of receiving your comment and the page impression charge will be billed each day and due within 48 hours of billing. That’ll help keep this site free for my legitimate readers. You think this is a joke? Try it and see if I don’t send you a bill. These rates also apply to EVERY website I administer or host. This includes but is not limited to, www.jeremyhudson.org, www.gatheringamarillo.org, and www.gatheringamarillo.com.

Last move I promise… maybe…

This entry was originally published at Jeremy Hudson

Here the deal. MySpace has become the most used “social networking” site on the internet. Sandy set up a MySpace profile for us at www.MySpace.com/JeremyandSandy and at first I didn’t want anything to do with it because MySpace is soooooo ugly, and its sooooo unprofessional. Well, turns out I was wrong about one of my assumptions and found a way to change the other.

1. MySpace is soooooo ugly.
A. By doing a little research I discovered how to make MySpace look good (even the blog page). Don’t believe it’s possible? Go look at my MySpace and see for yourself. It looks good! Yup, and if you have a MySpace and would like it to look good too, I can do that. I won’t even charge much.

2. MySpace is unprofessional.
A. More and more bands, celebs, and companies are setting up MySpace profiles everyday. Yes, most of them are pretty ugly, but some are pretty good. The features are there to build a community of friends, fans, and family. There are a few drawbacks to using their canned content management, but I can deal with the drawbacks. Since my pictures and other media are hosted off site anyway, the restrictions on media hosting are not a concern.

What does this mean for jeremyhudson.org?
A. I’ll be setting up a redirect soon that will automatically send you to www.MySpace.com/JeremyandSandy. My Xanga and Blogger accounts will be maintained for a little while as well, but my main focus will be on the MySpace profile and www.gatheringamarillo.org. I hope to add podcasts, more pictures, and maybe even video blogging in the near future.

What if another site becomes more popular than MySpace?
A. When that happens (and it will eventually) I will decide at that time if I want to keep chasing the trend.

Currently Listening Back to Bedlam By James Blunt see related

Sunflower Seeds - A Lesson in Church Tradition

I really like Frito-Lay Sunflower seeds. Just thought you should know. There is just something about this time of year that starts me munching on the salty goodness. Before I know it I have a rough patch of skin in the side of my mouth and my breath gets musty. I know that it’s a snack that promotes bad habits like spitting on the ground and that all that salt can’t be good for me, but it’s nearly summer… the Dillas are getting ready for another season, the air is hot and dry. I need my seeds. Without them it wouldn’t be the same.

I try to remember when I first started eating my beloved seeds, but the memories stretch back far enough to grow fuzzy and vague. As far back as I can remember I would take a handful of seeds and throw them in my mouth, suck as much of the salt out of them as I could before slowly and deliberately shelling and eating them using nothing but my mouth, teeth, and tongue to manipulate the tiny beauties. (I wonder what I’ll do when I’m old and toothless… I guess I’ll just have to gum them to death.) I know I’ve eaten more than my fair share of bugs, but that knowledge just isn’t enough to make me stop eating my seeds.

We all have things we do without a good reason other than the fact that we’ve always done them. Something like eating sunflower seeds through the summer is harmless enough, but what about the things that we hold dear enough to us to fight over? to die over? What about the religious stuff we hang on to just because it’s what we’ve always done?

As the pastor of a new church I am constantly re-evaluating everything we do. I have found that there is very little Biblical reason for much of what we call “going to church”. I understand why we do many of the things we do. I just can’t find a Biblical reason for much of it. Church tradition dictates much more of the average church-goer’s experience than the Bible does, while all the time the church leaders are talking about wanting to do this “Biblically”. Where does that leave us? I think it’s time for us to really look at why we do the things that we do.

If “going to church” doesn’t prompt us to go out into the world, what good is it? Isn’t the point of “going to church” to be equipped to go into the world? Maybe the reason the world doesn’t go to church is that the church isn’t going to the world. I have known of people who live across the street from a church and have never even talked to any of the church’s members. Is that what Jesus meant when he told us to love our neighbors? Why is it so hard for us to talk to other people about what we believe? Is it because we don’t know what to believe?

I know that my upbringing in the conservative-evangelical-protestant world has colored the way that I view church. I want my relationship with Jesus to help me overcome that tradition. There are things that we do as a church that I love and don’t want to give up. I wonder sometimes though if those are the vary things that hold me back from knowing God the way that I should.

I hope that tradition never gets in the way of my relationship with God, my fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus, or my family. I think that’s why I keep hacking away at my religion. To borrow Jesus’ analogy of a tree, I want to cut off any branch that isn’t bearing good fruit so that the whole tree can be healthy. I want to make sure that everything I do is done with purpose, on purpose.

Behind

This entry was originally published at Jeremy Hudson

ok… so it’s been a couple of weeks since I posted any thing of any substance… I have been entrenched in research for a series of talks on The Da Vinci Code. I love learning about history and art so this has been an especially good time for me. I gave my fist message of the series last night. I will be posting some of my notes on theGathering’s new forum.

Caleb’s 12th Birthday Party

This entry was originally published at Jeremy Hudson

I know that this slideshow has been on MySpace for a while, but I decided that I needed to put on my blog too. Enjoy!