(Note: This review has spoilers near the end. I will announce spoilers are coming before I get to them)

On March 8^th, Oz the Great and Powerful hit movie theaters. If you’re like me, you’ve been excited for this one since you first heard about it last year. After seeing it last night, I walked away disap­pointed. This morning, after thinking it over, I want to let you all know why I didn’t like it and see if anyone else agrees.

Oz The Great And Powerful

Oz The Great and Powerful follows Oscar Diggs, aka Oz, a clever but selfish circus magician who swindles his crowds with claims of true, powerful magic but when asked to actually help someone, he runs and hides. Oh, and he’s a womanizer who tricks pretty girls into being a part of his act (and falling hard for him) before he tosses them to the curb.

Oz has to run for his life in a hot air balloon after a girl’s husband finds out that Oz wooed her. Thank to the magic of tornadoes, he ends up in The Land of Oz where he’s quickly proclaimed to be the great wizard who will defeat the wicked witch and lead the people into a future of peace and joy.

The Review

I had 3 major issues with this movie. The first two aren’t spoilers, so keep reading if you’re curious. Continue Reading…

Second Friday has passed us and it’s likely you’ve been paid. If you keep track of how much money you’re making, you may realize that it’s suddenly shrunk. My wife noticed almost $40 dollars missing from her paycheck (a small amount until you consider that’s over $1000 a year).

Why is my paycheck smaller?

Turns out, the middle and lower class took a good hit under the new tax deal. A fairly substan­tial tax increase occured when Congress decided to let the payroll tax-cuts end.

In 2010, payroll taxes dropped from 6.2% to 4.2%. This gave my wife (and many others) over $1000 dollars in kept income over the course of a year (think of the things that kind of money could do in an IRA or going towards a nice vacation). Now that money is going back to the US Government.

If my taxes increased, why does everyone say there are only tax increases on the rich?

Congress and the President can tell you tax hasn’t increased for the middle and lower class because no new tax occured. Instead, they just didn’t continue a 2-year-old tax break. Basically, they can lie if they word it right

Why should I worry about $100 or so a month tax increase?

Because over the course of a year, $100 dollars turns into $1200. And $1200 dollars buys a lot. Think of what would happen if you put that money into an IRA, towards the purchase of a home, or saved it up all year to spend at Christmas time (saving yourself from the dreaded Christmas debt).

I’m not bothered by a tax increase, but when Congress goes around saying it has only raised taxes on the super rich while allowing everyone’s taxes to increase 2%, they’re lying and that bothers me.

This review is based on a free book I received as part of the Book­Sneeze review program. For info on how I do these reviews, check out my disclo­sure policy.

Who Do You Think You Are? Finding Your True Identity in Christ is the latest book by Mark Driscoll. In it, he works through the book of Ephesians using the letter to reveal the true Christian identity. The audience is anyone who struggles with their identity in Christ.

The Good

The infor­ma­tion in this book is solid. He deals with the test well and doesn’t take bible verses out of context. Driscoll’s heart is evident in the many stories he places throughout the book, stories of indi­vid­uals and families destroyed by sin, who have found their identity in Christ.

Also, he doesn’t make the “I follow Christ and every­thing is okay” fallacy. Many of his stories are filled with indi­vid­uals who are satisfied in Christ while still living in pain and misery. It’s a beautiful picture of the suffi­ciency of Christ and an encour­age­ment to all who are strug­gling with identity. Ulti­mately, Driscoll says, even if life sucks it doesn’t change who you are in Christ.

The Bad

There’s not a lot wrong with this book. If I had to find one critique, I’d say the writing style is sloppy. The sentences are written the same way Driscoll likes to talk (something he didn’t do in his other books). This means sometimes stories feel a bit confusing or the wording is jarring. It was sloppy enough for me to be bothered by it, but not bad enough for me to forgo reading it.

Final Thoughts

Who Do You Think You Are? is a great book written by a pastor to a hurting world. It isn’t the deepest theo­log­ical book to come from Driscoll, but where is it written that every­thing he writes has to be Vintage Jesus or Doctrine? I enjoyed this book and I will certainly give it to friends as they grow in the under­standing of their identity in Christ.

4 out of 5.

1. Most people with guns are good. Probably the most over­looked part of the debate. There is no evidence to suggest that gun ownership makes someone violent or more prone to using a gun. This is why gun advocates say things like, “guns don’t kill people”. They are afraid that the good people will lose their guns. But that still leaves us with the bad people, which leads into my next point.

2. Very few people need high powered rifles. A true ban of high-powered weapons would probably be a good thing. However, the logistics of a ban make it almost impos­sible. I’m not going to get into every detail, but this article explains why an assault weapons ban is almost impos­sible. The short version: either govern­ment has to ban almost every gun on the market (which no one but the extreme left would support) or they have to create mean­ing­less bans that gun makers can easily get around (which no one should support but many will).

3. A hard look at the data suggests gun laws don’t reduce crime, but gun ownership does. Guns were created so that the 6 and a half foot, 300 pound men can’t walk into the house of the 4 foot nothing, 100 pound woman, rape her and take her stuff. They are the great equal­izers. A knife can’t do that. Neither can words. Except for one, all mass shootings in recent history have happened in gun-free zones where the assailant knows he can make the biggest splash. In situ­a­tions where an average citizen breaks the law and has a gun, these shootings are quickly cut short. Criminals aren’t stupid; they attack children because kids can’t defend themselves.

Conclu­sion

While there is some good to the idea of gun control, it’s a logis­tical nightmare for politi­cians, it doesn’t ulti­mately protect anyone, and the true data suggests that when more average, good citizens are armed, these tragedies don’t last as long and don’t harm nearly as many innocent.

These are my thoughts after listening to the two sides over the past few weeks and consid­ering the realistic outcomes of either a gun ban or a return to the status quo. I do like the idea of having smaller clips, though I doubt that would make a signif­i­cant differ­ence in the tragedy in Connecticut where no one but the murderer was armed. I also like the idea of the average citizen being trained in the art of gun use, specif­i­cally cleaning, handling, and respecting guns. Could this help take off the stigma of guns or would it train up a gener­a­tion of murderers I’m not sure, but I would like to continue to talk about the idea.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

1. Studios are the past. There was a time when a musician’s best hope was to be noticed by one of the mythical studio executive fairies. These fairies would come from the heavens, flip open their magical cell phones, and make all your dreams come true.

Not anymore.

The studios are crippled and their tried-and-true methods have fallen apart like the house of cards they were. If you plan to make it as a musician, you can forget about a studio.

2. Enter­tain­ment first, music second. In the past, minstrels would travel from town to town, playing in bars and local estab­lish­ments, singing songs their audience could sing along too. If they were any good, a Minstrel might find she has a fuller purse and a full belly as reward at the end of her night.

Times have changed, but the ideas are the same. A musician’s audience no longer wants to buy CDs or wait in long lines, they want enter­tain­ment. Adele has one of the best shows in the business because she has mini-stand up sets between songs. Lady Gaga puts on one of the most outra­geous (and enter­taining) shows you’ll ever see, even if you don’t care for her music.

Your audience doesn’t come for your music anymore, they come for you. Musicians who don’t connect with their audience through comedy, show­man­ship, and espe­cially YouTube will find them­selves penniless and aban­doning their dreams.

3. More work than ever. There is more work for musicians to do than ever before. Business part­ner­ships are a must. Cold calling and marketing are new and necessary phenom­enon for artists. So is devel­oping a person­ality and learning the ins-and-outs of inter­esting video editing. When music is about connecting with your audience, the true musician accepts that their job starts at 9am, not as the curtains go up. Practice no longer stops at an instrument.

While it takes more effort, the oppor­tu­nity is greater than ever. A musician willing to put in the work, learn their market, and focus their entire lives on their craft will learn that oppor­tu­nity, money, and an audience are waiting.

To say there is more work is not a barrier but an encouragement.

There is more to be said, but this is a good place to stop. Give up your dreams of a studio magically giving you every­thing you want, work on enter­tain­ment with music as a piece of a greater whole, and do the hard work of marketing and part­ner­ships, and you can make it in the music business.

Otherwise, get out of the way. The walls have fallen and many others are doing what you won’t.

This review is based on a free book I received as part of the Book­Sneeze review program. For info on how I do these reviews, check out my disclo­sure policy.

Wisdom Meets Passion is the latest book by world renowned career coach Dan Miller. In Wisdom Meets Passion, Dan and his son Jared come together to explain the differ­ence between gener­a­tion X & Y’s career goals and work ethics and how the wisdom of the older can be partnered with the passion of the younger to create change in the world while earning a profit.

The book is written mostly by Dan, with Jared injecting stories into the various chapters to show how passion has directed his career and his life.

The Good

Dan Miller is famous for good reason — his advice works. He is easily under­stood and his encour­age­ments throughout the book will lead anyone into success in this new work envi­ron­ment. The stories by Jared are inter­esting, and usually are related to the point of the chapter. In addition, Dan Miller and Jared Angaza are inter­esting. They tell good stories, will make you laugh, and show you that work can be different than what your parents expected.

The Bad

This book isn’t necessary. Every­thing in this book is a rehashing of No More Mondays. I was excepting new insights and deeper inter­ac­tion with his son. It’s more like they took No More Mondays, cut out some of the how-to sections and threw in Jared’s stories. A good book with good infor­ma­tion, but not for those who have already read No More Mondays.

The other thing I didn’t really like were Jared’s stories. They were always inter­esting, but rarely enhanced the discus­sions going on in the rest of the chapter. I wish they explained more of the “how” it happened and less of “what” happened.

Final Thoughts

I give this book 3 out of 5. While an inter­esting read, it’s a mostly unnec­es­sary in a Dan Miller library. I wish Jared’s stories were more infor­ma­tive and less descrip­tive. But I still thought the infor­ma­tion Dan Miller gives is sound and it was a great shot in the arm for someone who hopes to live his life in the style Dan and Jared recommend. If you have to choose, I’d suggest picking up No More Mondays. If you don’t, it might be fun to pick up this book, read through it, and then enjoy No More Mondays with Jared’s expe­ri­ence in mind.

This review is based on a free book I recieved as part of the Book­Sneeze review program. For info on how I do these reviews, check out my disclo­sure policy.

Trent Butler’s Exploring the Unex­plained: A Practical Guide to the Peculiar People, Places, and Things in the Bible is a part of Thomas Nelson’s A to Z series of books which is basically a dictio­nary style look-up for the Bible.

Exploring the Unex­plained says it “answers all your questions about unusual, hard-to-explain, and difficult-to-understand stories in the Bible.”

I first got excited about the book when I read that I would “learn more about people like Enoch, Moses, and the Nephilim”, which are all subjects that interest and confuse me — espe­cially the bit about the Nephilim (One of the Bible’s great mysteries).

The book is written like a dictio­nary where subjects are broken down alpha­bet­i­cally by name. Next to each word is the book, chapter, and verse where the word is found. Under­neath there is a brief expla­na­tion of the word followed by an “issue” that you are asked to consider after you’ve read the explanation.

The Good

The book is easy to use. The first thing I did was flip to the part on the Nephilim and I found it without issue. Also, for new Chris­tians the book, chapter, and verse next to each name is helpful for finding infor­ma­tion on the same subject through multiple books.

The Bad

Most of the expla­na­tions are short and unhelpful. The longer expla­na­tions are for subjects like the Nephilim, but instead of explaining the confusion and discussing different ideas about the Nephilim, he dives right in and says they are “children of humans and angels…”. Really? You know that for sure?

In addition, the “issues” at the end of each expla­na­tion are unhelpful and usually have very little to do with the issues in the text and more to do with random issues loosely connected to a few words in the expla­na­tion. Since I’ve already talked about the Nephilim, I’ll use their issues as an example:

Tradition is filled with fright­ening horror stories of gigantic warriors. Be careful to note the reaction of your children to stories you tell or read, letting the children see the good side of the story rather than the fearful one. Why would the Bible want to scare us?

While that is an issue about “monsters” it isn’t an issue from the text and, honestly, isn’t an issue relating the Nephilim. Most of the issues I read were similar, having little to do with the text and mostly trying to create a family discus­sion. Also, this may just be me, but the answer the author seems to be looking for in “Why would the Bible want to scare us?” is “the Bible wouldn’t want to scare us”, which isn’t true. God scares us all the time. Jesus does too.

Final Thoughts

While I like the idea of this book, it fell short for me. Butler’s expla­na­tions don’t really explain much, and he’s too confident on the ambiguous subjects he explains fully. In addition, the issues aren’t helpful in explaining the text or dealing with real issues that text brings up.

I give this book a 2 out of 5. While seeing all the passages about a subject is helpful, and it’s possible to use this to find parts of the Bible you’ve never dived into before, the expla­na­tions and issues would hinder and confuse a new believer and leave a seasoned believer frustrated.

My first camera

If you knew me growing up, I have a picture of you. Probably dozens, if not hundreds of pictures of you.

I can’t remember how old I was when my parents first bought me a camera, but I couldn’t have been older than 6 or 7. It was an old film camera without a flash. Back then, every time you used a flash it burned out the bulb. My birthdays and Christ­mases were full of film and extra flashes – or the money to buy them. All of this was made more expensive by the diffi­culty of getting the film developed into pictures.

And yet, I still remember the joy of picking up my pictures from the developer. I would look through them and rejoice in the memories of the last few months of my life.

As I (and tech­nology) grew, I discov­ered the joy of dispos­able cameras. For cheap, I could carry around a camera in my pocket and not worry if it got banged up a bit. I must have gone through a hundred or more dispos­able cameras while in High School.

In 2004, I purchased my first digital camera with the proceeds of my first job. It was the most expensive thing I had ever purchased. I used that thing until it could be used no more, used it’s photos to get my first photog­raphy gig, and later upgraded to a Digital SLR camera – my first profes­sional camera.

This one was the one that took me to the next level. I learned how to crop photos, edit in Photoshop, and manip­u­late lighting. I started getting requests to take photos at events and even­tu­ally got paid for my time and my pictures.

But one day, I put my camera down and rarely picked it back up.

It’s not because I stopped liking pictures. Photog­raphy is still a joy of mine and every once in a while I take out the old camera and snap a few photos. However, I learned that life without the camera is much better than life with it.

There But Not

After years behind the camera I realized something: I wasn’t enjoying these events, I was chron­i­cling them.

The differ­ence between chron­i­cling and expe­ri­encing are massive. When I go to a friend’s wedding with my camera, I come back with beautiful photos but very few memories. My memories are or me, behind the camera, finding good shots and talking briefly about my camera and rela­tion­ship with my friend. But when I set down my camera and expe­ri­ence the event, the most wonderful memories are created! I have good conver­sa­tions with friends, I see all the funny and extra­or­di­nary events that happen, I am forced to open myself to people I can ignore behind my camera.

Ulti­mately, I realized I had to choose between my love of photog­raphy and my ability to expe­ri­ence life. After a lot of thought, I chose to expe­ri­ence life.

Now I spend time with my wife and friends instead of taking pictures of them, I enjoy weddings and other events without the hindrance of a camera, and while I don’t have many photos of the last few years I do have memories – wonderful, beautiful memories.

Expe­ri­ence Your Life

Next time your friend is about to do a trick, the fireworks are about to go off, or you’ve found a beautiful spot you’d like to remember put down your phone, your slr camera, and all your recording devices and enjoy the moment.

Watch the trick.

Enjoy the fireworks.

Expe­ri­ence the place.

These memories are better, and more powerful than any photo you will ever take.

And every once in awhile, after fully expe­ri­ence the moment, take a picture or two. Be satisfied with the few. You won’t regret it.

Today I have the pleasure of intro­ducing my friend Mike. He’s a deep thinker and a local sports writer (with regular posts on Yahoo! Sports and Nolan Writin). I always enjoy hearing his thoughts, and the topic of this one will certainly get you thinking! This is the second in a two-part series click here to check out part one.

This is why I don’t eat with Emile…

But that’s not all, my friends!

There’s more to this than the plus and the minus. In thinking about it for at least a couple of weeks now, I’ve come up with several more ways in which your diet and your budget mirror each other.

It Pays to Plan Accordingly

If you sit down in your kitchen at the end of the month, calculate what you’ll make in the next 30 days, and decide how you’re going to spend your money, what are you doing?

If you sit down in your kitchen at the end of the week, write down what you want to eat in the next 7 days, and then go to the store to buy the stuff from your list, what are you doing?

See my point?

Theo­ret­i­cally, if you do your homework and plan ahead, you should be able to control where and how your money is spent. In the same way, you can also plan out your diet beforehand.

There’s no reason that a smart, capable adult can’t avoid excessive amounts of sweets and junk food, espe­cially if you make your decisions before you even set foot in the grocery store.

You’re a Part of the Equation

How often does someone budget because someone else told them to? Almost never.

If you do sit down and do the work, it’s because you’ve decided that the way you were living your life no longer makes sense. Your prior­i­ties have changed and you’ve made the conscious choice to do things differently.

This applies to both your finances and your health. No one can nag you into improving yourself. It’s up to you to make that decision.

Do it for yourself and don’t blame anyone else if you fail. If you really want to change, you will.

Don’t Stop, Even When You’re Done

What do you do when you’ve finally paid off your credit card? Do you go apply for a new credit card and buy a bunch of stuff with it? Maybe you do, if you’re an idiot.

Unfor­tu­nately, this is what a lot of people do when they “go on a diet.” They eat right and exercise for a week or a month or 6 months; then they go back to doing exactly what got them into trouble in the first place.

Before long they’re right back where they started, but why does this happen?

Part of it, I think, is the way that our culture looks at dieting. If summer’s on its way and you want to look good in your swimsuit, then cutting out carbs for a few weeks is fine.

But a lot of people don’t need a sprint; they need a marathon.

For many people, it isn’t about quick fixes and “losing a few pounds.” It’s about deciding what your prior­i­ties are and then adopting a lifestyle that matches those priorities.

Crash diets generally don’t work long-term because they’re not supposed to work long-term. They don’t teach you how to eat better; they teach you how to cut corners without giving you the tools to live a better life.

If you really want to change, that change should be funda­mental, not temporary.

This Isn’t About John McClane

When you were born, were you already bad with money? Were you already a glut­to­nous slob?

Hopefully you answered “no” to both of the questions above because the way that you eat and the way that you spend your money are both learned practices. You might have gotten it from your parents or from the culture; maybe you developed some of it on your own.

Regard­less of where you learned it, you did learn it. If that’s the case, you can unlearn it too.

Habits aren’t impos­sible to break, but it takes time and effort and it won’t always be easy. Some of your habits may go back decades and you know what they say about old habits.

They die hard.

(See what I did there?)

Beware the Impulse Buy

Maybe this has happened to you before…

You go to Best Buy to get something that you need. Maybe your head­phones broke and you need a new pair of head­phones. You’re there with a purpose and you’ll be in and out in less than 5 minutes.

But then you see this sign over by the DVD section and it says that select movies are Buy 2, Get 1 Half Off. “Holy cow, what a steal!” you exclaim to yourself.

Before you know it, you’ve walked out of the store with 3 movies that you’d never intended to buy and, maybe, you were so excited about the unex­pected “bargain” that you even forgot about the head­phones that you came in for!

Maybe this has happened to you before…

You’re out eating with friends, having a good time. You’ve finished your meal and the waiter asks if any of you would like dessert.

You ponder for a moment because you did see the picture of the hot fudge sundae on the back of the menu and it looked really good and you’ve been really good on your diet for the last month and you’re an adult, so why shouldn’t you get a sundae if you want a sundae?!

Before you know it, you’re lying on the floor of your apartment in a sugar coma with hot fudge and shame smeared all over your face!

Generally you buy something impul­sively because you assume that it will make you happy. It isn’t planned, it just sort of happens, and it can completely derail both your diet and your budget.

It also rarely makes you happy because it doesn’t take long for you to realize that nobody really needs to own Monkey Bone on DVD, even if it seemed like a good idea when you bought it.

Even If You Get It, You Might Not Get It

Watching how you spend your money should be easy, shouldn’t it? Most people would agree that it makes sense to have an emergency fund and savings and to live within their means. In fact, what disad­van­tages are there to budgeting? Don’t the pros far outweigh the cons?

So it is with dieting and exercise. Nobody really wants to be unhealthy, but many of us don’t even bother trying to change ourselves, even if we know it’s for the best.

Why not? Is it worth trading a longer, more comfort­able life for the little bit of grat­i­fi­ca­tion that comes from an extra milkshake every couple of days?

Are you finally tired of rhetor­ical questions? Good, ‘cause I’m almost done.

One Final Thought

There’s more to the connec­tion between personal finance and health than what I listed above. The fact is that, if you’re 30 pounds over­weight, you’re costing yourself money down the road.

Being unhealthy takes its toll as you age. You might have knee problems later on in life, which could require surgery. You may also suffer from something more serious, like heart disease or stroke.

Some of those things may happen anyway, but some of it can be avoided. If you knowingly live an unhealthy lifestyle, you’re putting your life and your financial wellbeing at risk.

If you are going to put yourself at risk, don’t do it for an extra meat patty on your cheese­burger. Do it for something noble, like saving your ex-wife from German terrorists!

Are there other areas where finance and health inter­mingle? Are there other places in your life where the prin­ci­ples of budgeting can be applied? Let me know in the comments!

Today I have the pleasure of intro­ducing my friend Mike. He’s a deep thinker and a local sports writer (with regular posts on Yahoo! Sports and Nolan Writin). I always enjoy hearing his thoughts, and the topic of this one will certainly get you thinking! This is the first in a two-part series s0, come back Tuesday for part two!

Obesity is a serious problem in this country. Countless Americans are over­weight and many assume that they can’t do anything about it. They say that dieting doesn’t work for them, either because it’s too hard or they don’t have time or a hundred other reasons excuses.

But what if you started looking at it differ­ently? What if you applied the prin­ci­ples of personal finance to your eating habits? Would that change the way that you thought about dieting and losing weight?

The Numbers Game

Budgeting is simple, right?

You figure out how much money you make and then you spend less than that amount. There is more that goes into it, obviously, but that is the essence of budgeting. That is it at its core.

So, what exactly is dieting? It’s the same thing!

Everybody takes in calories when they eat, but they also burn calories. If you eat better food you can control caloric intake. If you exercise, you can increase burn.

To lose weight, all you have to do is burn more than you consume.

Math! That’s it!

My First Budget

I’ve heard Alex’s story of the first time that he tried to budget. If you’re a regular reader of Entre­pre­life, you’ve probably heard it too.

He sat down one night and guessti­mated all of his monthly expenses. He made a lot of assump­tions and, as it turned out, he was way off in some areas.

I decided to do the same thing a couple of weeks ago, but with my stomach instead of my bank account.

For 6 days I ate the way that I normally do and at the end of each day I added up the calories using myfitnesspal.com. I decided that 1600 calories per day was a good place to set my “budget.”

This is how it broke down:

• Monday +305
• Tuesday +104
• Wednesday +481
• Thursday –120
• Friday –73
• Saturday +392

All of these numbers are approx­i­ma­tions, mind you, but it was an inter­esting exper­i­ment nonetheless.

Just like Alex, when he reviewed his first budget, I started to see where I was going wrong. Things like pancakes (800 calories including the syrup) can dras­ti­cally affect your totals, though most of us wouldn’t think about it when we’re ordering a short stack at IHOP.

That’s really what this is about. If you stop and look at your finances, you’ll start to see that you’re not as good with your money as you thought you were.

Your diet is no different. Even if you’re pretty good, I’ll bet that you still have your trouble areas. I’ll bet that you can do better.

For instance, I drink too much sweet tea. It isn’t that I dislike unsweet tea. I actually really like it! I just like sweet tea better, even though I know it isn’t good for me.

Think about yourself for a moment. Are there parts of your diet that could be just a little bit better without much effort? Let me know in the comments!