Throwin' it around

As I sit here on Saturday night and watch The Ten Commandments for about the 50th time, let's throw it around a bit, shall we?

- Tomorrow is Easter and on Friday USA Today reported how more and more believers are choosing home worship over traditional churches. The newspaper cited a Barna Research survey of 1,005 results--oddly, from 2007--to note the following: 89% engage in faith activities at home, 75% are active in a house church, 68% tune in a religious program on radio, 45% participate in interactive faith websites, and 42% participate in interactive faith events online.

- Americans spend over $2 million on Easter candy, second only to candy sales at Halloween. Each year, over ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies are produced. (Source: American Confectionary Association)

- Who says that the baggy pants sported by young men these days don't have an advantage beyond being fashion forward? Kendrick Williams, a 17-year old from St. Petersburg, FL, recently was walking home from work and heard a strange hissing sound emanating from a pond. He realized it was an alligator who came after him, snapped at his leg, and only managed to get a snout-full of Williams' baggy britches. Williams credits the baggy look for saving him from serious injury.

- A Harvard researcher proved what most of us would have guessed--a large percentage of congressional press releases are devoted to taunting the other party. He studied over 64,000 press releases, most of which claimed credit for a success or staked out a position of one kind or the other. However, 1 in 4 included such statements as "(The other party) is not listening to the American people."

- Speaking of The Ten Commandments, why does ABC air a movie about a story from the Old Testament when Jesus' resurrection--the reason for Easter--is in the New Testament? It could be that there is no movie which has focused on the crucifixion and resurrection and achieved mainstream acceptance like the timeless movie about Moses.

- R.I.P. Flip. No, Flip is not a person--it's the portable movie camera which Cisco decided to stop producing last week. And, while everyone these days has a movie camera in their phone, the Flip was ultra easy to use--simply turn on, point, shoot, then plug in to your computer via the camera's pop-out USB.

- It's the Six Million Dollar Man's birthday today--Lee Majors turned 72.