The Thang turned 3 years old this week. Happy birthday to us.

As our regular readers know, a focus of the posts here at New Cool Thang has always been trying to more deeply understand Mormon doctrine, theology, and scriptures. We have spent a lot of time trying to better understand things like the atonement of Jesus Christ, free will/agency, foreknowledge, personal revelation, eternal progression, and all sorts of other intriguing but difficult theological and philosophical subjects. Along the way there have been many wonderful comments and discussions. My life has been greatly enriched by these discussions and I feel simultaneously more knowledgeable about the things of God and more acutely aware of how much I/we really don’t know about God and the eternities. (more…)

Alright, I just installed a new YouTube plugin so I figured I share it with y’all. Here are a few clips from Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. My older brother told me about this movie and he was right — it is really really bad and yet I couldn’t stop laughing when I watched it. It was done by Steve Oedekerk — the same guy who brings us much joy with Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. I guess he took a bad kung fu movie and inserted himself in it then changed all the dialogue to make this film. So without further ado…
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Ok, we’re back on a new server and with an upgraded look to match the recent WP upgrade. We may tweak the template a little for a while but I think we are pretty close. Welcome back to the Thang.

(Don’t forget to read and comment on Jacob’s last post. It got cut off in the change over.)

As a wise man once said: There ain’t no party like a West coast party, ‘cuz a West coast party don’t stop.

After a few weeks of having Jacob guest post here at the Thang we decided that having a talented additional blogger like him around is a good thing. Besides, every blog could benefit from an Oregonian touch… So Jacob has agreed to join us permanently around here. Welcome Jacob!

Well things have slowed down here at the Thang a bit this month. For the first 28 days of June we only managed to come up with 5 posts between the two of us. It might be a slow down due to the blog muse avoiding the heat of the Arizona summer or that we are simply experiencing a little blog burnout. Whatever the case — the Thang has hit a slow patch.

It’s not like I don’t have plans… Here are some of the posts I hope to get around to: (more…)

No, I haven’t forgotten that I started a series of posts on Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. We’re on to Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. I mentioned in the introductory post of this series that I think this is the hardest of the 7 Habits to pull off correctly. I actually think the difficulties associated with this habit are what cause many people to throw in the towel on the whole 7 Habits model. Further, I think that Covey does not (perhaps can not) provide enough assistance and guidance on this habit in the book. (more…)

I just finished installing radio.blog in my sidebar and oddly enough it appears to work. I figured this would be a nice addition here at the Thang since we are sort of a blog about Mormon theology, Mormon life, and of course, Rock ‘n’ Roll. Not that I anticipate a lot of posts specifically on rock ‘n’ roll but the subject comes up often enough that I figured this might be a good idea for our blog. (more…)

I’ve written quite a few songs in my day and I like some of my old lyrics are better than others. Before I left BYU I wrote the chorus of a song I intended to use with my BYU band Sam I Am. Here’s how the lyrics went: (more…)

You might have noticed that Kristen is posting here at the Thang now. She started her own blog and I couldn’t stand the idea of the coolest and funniest person I know posting elsewhere when I could probably get her to make the Thang her permanent home. So after a little begging that’s what I got!

I figure she will help bring a little humor and humanity to the Thang. She tells a mean story and there’s nothing like a good story to lift the soul.

So welcome Kristen J! This Thang is suddenly looking better.

PS — Thanks to Kaimi and others who have already welcomed her or linked to her recent posts.

When the Cat’s Away the Mice Will Play

Some of you fellow bloggers may be wondering what has happened to New Cool Thang. Where are the highly thoughtful posts on Mormon doctrine and why do I have to keep sitting through this crazy woman’s stories about her naughty children? (more…)

Well whaddya know! I got my new blog live… It’s a work in progress still but it appears to be functioning so far. Stay tuned mis amigos — this oughta be fun.

Well I made it back from a fun family trip to Utah. I see that the comments are hanging up forever with Blogger still so my first order of business is to find a new home for my blog. I expect to have www.newcoolthang.com up and running by this weekend. More on that to come. (more…)

Naming a blog is a lot like naming a band. I’ve named a lot of bands in my day, but only one blog. It was pretty common in the past for me to do a couple of gigs under one band name and then change to a more appropriate name based on the sound and personality of the band. I’ve been thinking about changing the name of my blog now that it’s been live for about six weeks. So when I saw that Jonathan had mentioned that the name “New Cool Thang” was a little disturbing I knew the time had come… It’s time to seek advice and votes on the blog name! (more…)

I just got officially connected with the Mormon Archipelago - a group of top-notch Mormon blogs run by really cool and smart Mormons who I’ve never met but I like anyway. You’ll notice the fancy new logo and feed from my new sibling-blogs in the sidebar. I like it because I’m always visiting their blogs anyway so this saves me having to use that pesky bookmark dropdown. You’ll like it because their blogs rock. (more…)

Wondering if anything interesting happened since my last post… Guess not.

Well howdya like that? I got my new Blog up and running…

(chirp… chirp…)

I hope I can come up with something to say eventually…