Somthing to Think About - Blogging...

After receiving a bit of criticism (whether deserved or not) over giving Communion to two men who were dressed as sisters, Archbishop Niederauer (of the Archdiocese of San Francisco) had this to say about the impact of blogs:

"The blogsophere is a kind of dangerous, endless recess in a global schoolyard, where the bullies with the biggest bullhorns can shout whatever they want." (seen in this week's St. Louis Review)

This statement can often hold truth, as the blogosphere is full of reactionaries and people who's mission it is to exaggerate in order to create interest in their own blogs. And the most popular bloggers are often those who are most reactionary. I try (often without success) to make sure all my posts are well-reasoned and well-sourced, but not all bloggers are like me. So be sure to always take bloggers' writings with a grain of salt (just as you would an article in any major newspaper, such as the New York Times, or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch—everyone has a slant; there is no such thing as unbiased journalism.

Bella Tomorrow; New Trailer Today

Tomorrow is the release date of Bella (a great movie I've blogged about earlier), and I just noticed a new theatrical trailer [Quicktime file, from Apple.com] for the movie (which, I think, is much nicer than the earlier trailer).

New Website for the Archdiocese of St. Louis

At long last, the new St. Louis Archdiocesan website has gone live. There are a great many new features of this website, and one of my favorites is the Mass/Adoration/Reconciliation time search for all the parishes (I haven't seen any other diocese with this kind of functionality on their website).

The website is much more pleasing to the eye than the old site, and has a quite a bit more content, including many blogs that will likely be updated very often!

Bella (the Movie) Coming to St. Louis Theaters!

The movie Bella (which I reviewed earlier) is coming to theaters in St. Louis next weekend (Starting Friday, October 26). The movie will be playing at the St. Louis Mills Stadium 18, Ronnie's 20 Cinema, AMC West Olive 16, Chesterfield Galaxy 14, St. Charles 14, and the Plaza Frontenac. (This list is subject to change—check here for the latest).

I plan on watching the movie with a few seminarians; I encourage everyone to see this excellent film!

2007 Kenrick-Glennon Lions Soccer

Remember the KGB Lions? Well, we're back in gear for another season... and by 'back in gear,' I mean we have an entirely new set of gear! Hopefully our new uniforms will be able to help us get the psychological advantage over the other teams in our CYC league and put a few wins under our belt:

Through the generous support of a few donors, our team finally has new jerseys, with Archbishop Kenrick's crest (with a lion) embriodered on the chest. You can come support the Kenrick-Glennon Lions by watching one of our Sunday games (at 2:45 p.m.). Here's a link to the schedule.

(We've already played 3 games, and have a perfect 0-3 record! Seminarians always look at the bright side—we've been very consistent in our record so far ;-).

Search Added to Life is a Prayer.com

After reading this post on Strobist, I finally found a way to get sitewide search capabilities for the great price of $0! Now, instead of somebody having to go to Google to find something on my site (or click through many archive pages... a very cumbersome process!), he can simply type in his search in the little search box at the top of the page. Quite intuitive—kudos to Google for this!

The only problem I'm having (which I hope to resolve soon) is on the results page; there's an inordinate amount of extra white space after the search results and before the page footer; does anyone know why this might be?

If you'd like to put a customized Google search box on your website, visit Google Custom Search Engine.

2007 Alumni Day & "The Rectory"

Yesterday the Seminary held its annual 'Alumni Day,' during which priests from the St. Louis Archdiocese and many other dioceses who are graduates of the Kenrick-Glennon Seminary celebrated Mass and entertained and were entertained by the Seminarians. I've posted the few pictures I took at the reception and dinner, but they pale in comparison to the excellent (and very humorous) video that was put on by a group of Kenrick seminarians (mostly in Theology II). The video is a humorous take on a 1950s film by the St. Louis Serra Club (click here to watch the old video. You can watch the video (on YouTube) by clicking the play button below:

Pictures of the Stained Glass Windows in the Chapel of St. Joseph

Today I finally had time to complete a project I've been working on for a few weeks now—I posted all the pictures that I've taken and spruced up of all the middle and lower scenes depicted in Kenrick-Glennon Seminary's stained glass windows. The middle scenes depict events in Jesus' and Mary's lives, while the lower stained glass incorporates important events in the history of the St. Louis Archdiocese.

Due to my inability to get a ladder in and out of chapel (so far) in a timely fashion, I have yet to take pictures of the upper stained glass window sections, which depict the lives of many different saints. I hope to do this sometime soon... but I make no promises!

Since I'm sure someone will ask, "How did you get all those pictures to look so realistic and colorful?," I will answer here: First, I waited until the right time of day (morning for the east side, and evening for the west side) in order to have the full sun shining through the windows. Second, I took the pictures with my D40 set to manual mode, which allowed me to make sure the camera didn't over- or underexpose the pictures. Third, I played with the colors in Photoshop's RAW importer to make them pop a little more. Finally, I cropped the pictures and straightened their perspective (because I was shooting the pictures from the ground, and the windows are quite tall) in Photoshop, and corrected for the small amount of lens distortion my lens created by using the 'Distortion > Lens Correction...' command in Photoshop (CS2 and higher). Really, it's not too hard to do; it just takes some time.