Man Talk: Qualifications for Elders

I got an email from my pastor this week that detailed the qualifications of being an Elder listed in the Bible.  As Christian men, these are things that we are supposed to strive for.  This week I figured I'd just list some of the stuff from that email, because it's worded much better than I could say it. 

Titus 1:5-9  Titus 1:5 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you-- Titus 1:6  if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are faithful and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. Titus 1:7  For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, Titus 1:8  but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. Titus 1:9  He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.  

 

1 Timothy 3:1-7 1Ti 3:1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 1Ti 3:2  Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 1Ti 3:3  not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 1Ti 3:4  He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 1Ti 3:5  for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? 1Ti 3:6  He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 1Ti 3:7  Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

And here's a summary of the qualifications laid out in those verses.  Men, think about these.  Pray that God will show you how you can improve these areas in your lives.  These are practical qualities that we can all work on.

The first 15 deal with moral issues:

1. Above reproach.  - literally means "unaccused". “Reproach” is to bring down. If we are "above" reproach, then there is no justifiable way to be brought down by accusation. That is the key to this position, because even Jesus was accused, and so was Paul among others. So, it is not just that one be without accusation from anyone for anything, but that there be no justifiable reason for accusation of wrong.
2. Sober-minded – This refers to the ability to think clearly and spiritually about important matters with balanced judgment.
3. Self-controlled - He must also exhibit self-control over the desires of the flesh, and have the discipline of patient, and wise judgment.
4. Respectable – Literally able to be respected. This is by others both inside the church and out. He must have a character that others desire to emulate and follow.
5. Hospitable – His life must be transparent and accessible to others. It requires that his home is open to minister to the needs of others. It is an “others-centeredness” that follows his Christ-centeredness.
6. Not violent, but gentle – Kind, gracious, fair, mild, appropriate. He is patient with others, never returning evil for evil. He should not be easily irritated or have a temper problem, whether displayed physically or verbally.
7. A lover of good – Loving others and desiring their good. As Jesus said, “only God is good”, therefore to love good, is to love God, because all that is truly good comes from God.
8. Upright – Being a pursuer of righteousness and desiring to live according to God’s Word. This man will be able to make righteous and fair decisions in the church.
9. Holy – Pure and undefiled and set apart for God to obey His will.
10. Disciplined – literally means “strong” or “having power over”.  This is self-discipline in all aspects of life, and is shown in his fight against ungodliness in his flesh.
11. Not a drunkard - There should be no abuse of substance that would bring shame to the church. Dependence on these things contradicts self-discipline.
12. Not quarrelsome – He must be able to defuse disputes in the church and not add to them with his own opinions. He must be a peacemaker, always seeking to be a minister of reconciliation.
13. Not a lover of money – Scripture says you cannot serve both God and money, and the love of money is the root of all evil.
14. Not be arrogant – He must not be a self-focused person, always insisting, boasting, or manipulating to his own desires. He must, like Christ, consider others more important than himself. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
15. Not be quick-tempered – To be slow to anger and abounding in love is to be like the Lord who deals patiently with sinners.

The next 3 are situational qualifications:

16. Able to teach – This is the primary distinguishing mark of the office of elder relating to his duties in the church. He must be able to accurately handle the Word of truth, and know it well enough to be able to rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine. This duty is essential in maintaining the spiritual health and growth of the church. This is not necessarily referring to public preaching, but does require the aptitude to communicate truth to others, individually or in groups, for the glory of God and the good of the church.
17. Not a recent convert – When a recent convert assumes an important role in leadership, he may succumb to the temptations of pride to the detriment of the church.
18. Well thought of by outsiders – Outsiders are non-Christians before whom an elder must maintain a good reputation. The opinions of outsiders should be of utmost respect for the elder based on what is known through their relationship.

The next 2 qualifications relate to the family of the elder

19. Husband of one wife – This does not mean that an elder must be married. If that were the case it would disqualify the writer, Paul, not to mention Jesus from being an elder in a church. This phrase refers to the man’s faithfulness to his wife once he is married. Elders are to lead in setting the example for devotion to their wives. Obviously, this prohibits polygamy, but does not necessarily exclude a man who has remarried after his wife dies or an unbelieving wife divorces him.
20. Manage his own household well– relates to a man’s role as a father and his relationship to his children. An elder must have respectful and obedient children. If he cannot manage his household, then he cannot manage the household of God.  

Bird bath and Grimm

I meant to post these pictures last weekend. Ricci went out of town and my brother came into town to hang out and go to Island Party. The first pic is a bird bath that my brother and I painted and put together.  Thanks Zach!

It's a fish! When the birds are in the bath it looks like a huge bass is eating it.  We made it by putting a terra cotta drainage pan on top of a terra cotta pot.

And here's some more pics of Grimm.

He's a fan of Island Party.  You can tell how fluffy he is by seeing how much skinnier his front half looks when the shirt is pulled tight. What a goofball.  Well I gotta go mow the yard and play with this dufus dog.  Have a great weekend!

Man Talk: Fundamentals

  For my first Man Talk Thursday (I know it's Friday but I started writing it last night), I wanted to start with the basics.  There are so many things I want to talk about that it's hard for me to organize them and put an order of importance on them.  So I'll start with the problem and the prerequisites for how we fix it.  This is long so take a big breath.

Here's the issue:  Where are the men?  Specifically in the church.  A large majority of the faithful church members in America are women.  Most of the members who serve in a ministry are women.  Don't get me wrong, women need to serve as well, but in the Bible God clearly sets out leadership as the role for the man.  We've sissified the way we do worship and even the way our churches are decorated to accommodate women, because that's who mostly attends.

The next book I want to read is one we mentioned a couple of times recently in "The Man Class" at church, called Guyland by Michael Kimmel.  Here's the synopsis which does a pretty good job of defining the problem, even from a secular standpoint:

The passage from adolescence to adulthood was once clear. Today, growing up has become more complex and confusing, as young men drift casually through college and beyond—hanging out, partying, playing with tech toys, watching sports. But beneath the appearance of a simple extended boyhood, a more dangerous social world has developed, far away from the traditional signposts and cultural signals that once helped boys navigate their way to manhood—a territory Michael Kimmel has identified as "Guyland."

Coming from somebody who just recently graduated from college, I definitely understand the appeal of this "guyland" we've created.  In the past as a boy grew older he was given more responsibility and eventually became a man.  But now, you don't really have to if you don't want to.  A variety of issues have led to growing up not being necessary until a male is almost thirty if they choose.  

1.    Society has redefined masculinity and pushed us to embrace our "feminine side". WHAT?! As men we can have feelings, we can laugh and cry together at the appropriate times, but we shouldn't have to become women to do that.  Or there's the other extreme where we try to show off how macho we are all the time.  Who hits hardest and burps the loudest? He's the man. Wrong. Mark Driscoll has a great sermon here about where real masculinity is and how it's neither of those. 

2.    Another issue is how we spend our time, especially college-aged men.  I'm not saying older guys don't deal with this too, but in college (and even high school) I wasted a lot of time on video games, browsing the internet and watching TV/movies.  We don't accept responsibility and we spend every free second we have on fleeting stuff. I like video games. A lot actually.  But when we stand before God to be judged will we be able to say that the time we spent playing games actually meant anything?  When I start playing a game I have this unexplainable impulse to know every detail of the story and beat all the sidequests to 100% completion. WHY?  Does it develop my character? Does it help me love my neighbor or my wife?  Does it bring me closer to God?  But that's getting into another subject that I want to talk about some other time: idolatry
   What this boils down to is laziness and selfishness.  We aren't pushed to work hard or take responsibility so we play all day.  We're old enough to be grown ups, but we've settled for acting like little kids.  




The Solution:  We need boys to grow up and be men.  Men who aren't afraid to fight the good fight for integrity and purity, both personal and for their families.  Men who teach their boys to grow up and be men and who teach their daughters that they are loved and shouldn't settle for immature little boys.


But how do we get there?


1. Salvation.  Jesus was the ultimate man.  Not the lame girly Jesus with silky hair and a soft glowing radiance that we always see in Sunday School pictures:

This guy. Not really masculine. But the Jesus who was the ultimate counter-culture figure?  Who told society that women and children were worth more than just property;  the same Jesus that made a whip and drove money changers out of the temple; the same Jesus that will come back with his robe dipped in blood, out of whose mouth will come a sword to strike down the nations? He's definitely masculine. Sounds awesome right?  We are promised all of His power through the Holy Spirit if we will ask Him to forgive our sins and be our Lord. Until we have Salvation through Jesus Christ's death and resurrection we are incapable of doing anything different.

2.  Take responsibility.  Make Christ your (our) priority.  We spend time reading the Bible and praying, and being involved in the local church body.  The more we know him and adjust our lives to true Biblical manhood, we will see a change.  What does that look like practically? Stay tuned for more Man Talks to find out.






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PS - I just saw this commercial for the new Double Down from KFC.  If this isn't an insult to manhood I don't know what is.  This is so laughable.  First, this has to be the most unhealthy thing on the planet for you. And then they write the commercial so they may as well be saying "If you're a man, you better get to KFC pronto and start shoving these in your face! You girl!"  Please.  If you have any self respect you will not let fried chicken determine what is manly for you. That is all.

 

Food, Inc. and the unholy excesses of America

WARNING: Rant Ahead!

We just finished watching "Food, Inc." I have to say it's pretty shocking and appalling.  From the way meat is processed, to what's in the filler, to the way immigrant workers and farmers are treated, to the way Mansanto has a near monopoly on seeds.  Seriously you guys should check this movie out because it's scary what's behind our food industry.

And on top of this is the way the government rolls over because the lobbyists rub their bellies with money.  I have huge issues with the justice system in this country right now.  I'm conservative on a lot of issues, but I also have big problems with big business.

Well, let me step back.  In my opinion a HUGE portion of the problem is how we as Americans want the cheapest version of whatever, without asking what the cost is on the other end.  Where do they cut those costs?  What is the effect on the nutrition of our food?  What is the effect on the people in the developing nations around the world who produce what we wear?  Here's the issue in my opinion: it's more expensive to eat and shop healthy and morally (meaning not disenfranchising people).  People act like they can't afford veggies because they are more expensive than Hot Pockets.

Try giving up your cable.  Or getting a cheaper phone plan.  Carpool.  Do something to cut your costs elsewhere.  We need to put in effort somewhere or one day when we finally wake up to the huge problems and demand something be done about it, the corporations will say, "But you've been buying this stuff from us for 50 years!" Isn't it worth paying a little more for something healthy? Try thinking of it this way: when you buy the cheap junk food, it's cheap because there's no nutrition in it.  When you buy the good stuff (maybe it's organic, maybe it's just local) you're paying for the vitamins in it.  Food Inc, does a good job at the end of telling the viewer things they can do to help influence the industry.  Not that we can really make them have a heart change, but we can influence business by buying local and organic so that they the at least have to start putting it in there stores.

By the way, this same rationale goes for the people who complain about outsourced jobs and then go buy everything at Walmart.  *Facepalm*  Der! You want everything cheap, so they outsource what they can to cut costs. Then you complain that they outsourced the jobs.  What did we think would happen?  And I know that I said "you" a lot in this post. I'm not excluded from this.  But I will say that Ricci and I have recently been making the effort to be aware of the work conditions and what is in our food, clothes, etc.  We get our meat from Yonder Way Farms in Brenham now.  And we try to get our produce from local farmers markets for the most part. We still go to HEB when we need something quick, because yes we still settle for convenience sometimes.  But I'm proud to say we haven't been to Walmart in two months. Sure it's inconvenient but I sleep better, so I'm okay with it.

We're also working on a garden to grow what we can on our own.  Once I get a shock wire, hopefully we'll be able to plant some veggies.  Thanks for reading this til the end, and hopefully this helps you take a closer look at where your food comes from.

Shameless plug

While organizing all of the photos on our external hard drive I stumbled upon some pictures of the checker sets I did for my father-in-law and my brother-in-law. Enjoy

This one is blue and gold with Shiner Blonde and Shiner Heifeweizen caps

The next one is traditional black and red, with Shiner Smokhaus and Zeigenbock caps for playing pieces

Many thanks go to my awesome wife Ricci, who helped me with color schemes and touch up painting.  And she also gave me the idea to keep the caps in mason jars, but that's totally optional.  So if anybody thinks these are neat and wants one let me know what colors and what kind of caps.  If you provide the caps it will definitely be cheaper, but I can usually get some from friends, family, HEB or World Market if you have an idea of what you like. 

If you see me standing in the bottled soda aisle at HEB for 20 minutes, you know I'm checking out caps.  I'm working on some Mexican flavored water ones right now that have a lime on one cap and a cluster of grapes on the other.  Only the lime one tastes gross so it's taking a while to muster my strength.

Gardening and Man Talk

I was holding off on posting about this until I knew that Grimm hadn't destroyed it. I think it's safe to say he now has the understanding of what will happen enough to stay out.

This past weekend we put together the frame for the raised bed and planted some plants in pots in the garden. We (by which I mean Ricci) got all the mulch and dividers straightened out. We planted tomato, marigold (thanks Adam), petunias, citronella, mint and lamb's ear in pots, and we have jalepeños and bell peppers that are waiting to be put into the raised bed. I just don't quite trust my dog enough to leave them alone without some sort of border so we don't have any dirt or plants in the raised bed right now.






And here's the table my folks got us for my birthday. Check out the sweet Texas star base for the umbrella.




Also get ready because I think I'm gonna start have Man Talk Thursdays. I'm taking two classes at church (Experiencing God and The Man Class) as well as co-directing Cubbies and I'm learning a lot about Godly manhood and leadership. So next week I'm going to start passing along the little bit of wisdom that I've accumulated.

Actually I will say this for Man Talk right now:

I think every guy should read Wild at Heart by John Eldridge, Every Man's Battle by Stephen Arterburn, Fred Stoeker, and Mike Yorkey and Six Battles Every Man Must Win by Bill Perkins.

All three tread on similar ground and some even repeat each other but it's all Godly advice so we call that reinforcement. Every Man's Battle deals with how sexuality has permeated our society and how we as men allow God to free us from sexual sins. Wild at Heart and Six Battles go more into Godly masculinity. WaH speaks more about how God has designed men, how we deal with wounds in our past and how we start acting like mature Christians. Six Battles is similar but with an emphasis on David's Mighty Men as examples of how if we put our lives in God's hands and stop settling and being passive He can make us into bad dudes. And by bad dudes I mean men that don't compromise and who get angry and fight not for stupid things like sports teams but for what matters to God.

It's been a tough semester of self examination and ironing out a lot of little areas where I say no to God or just roll over and settle for passivity. But I can't remember a time in my life where I've grown as much. Okay I have to stop for now or I'll go on forever. Thanks for dropping in.

Presents!

Hey kiddies!

In spite of all the recent chaos around here, some really cool stuff has happened. Even though it wasn't a surprise anymore, Ricci and my family threw me a really awesome birthday party last weekend. My cousin(in law?) Ryan and my cousin Jenny's boyfriend Derek built me a workbench for the garage and brought that down.

They even set up the peg board organizer and put in most of my tools for me which was really nice. As you can see, it's wired for electricity and has a fluorescent light. They even put a surge protector on it and hooked up my power-drill battery charger. Woo woo!

So that's neat. I also got a table, chairs and large umbrella for the back porch. Ricci and I had breakfast there this morning. So fun.

In other news, the AWANAs program at our church is starting a recycling drive to raise money and buy bicycles for GFA missionaries. So sitting next to my new work bench are all the cans mom and dad brought. If you're in the BCS area and want to donate your aluminum cans, please do!



Also, now that I have a workbench I'm kinda itchin' to do some more bottlecap checkerboards. If anybody is interested in having some made let me know what you want and I'll try to figure out an estimate. Although I guess I should wait a couple of weeks until I finish taking my MCAT. Anyway, that's it for now.

Long Overdue Facelift and Update

Wow. I took a look at my last post. September 29. Haha.

So much has happened since then. If you read this I assume you know me because this isn't that interesting of a read. Moving on, since September I got a job working at TVMDL (Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Labs) in the Serology department. We've also rearranged the house a bunch of times and I tried (and more or less failed) to convert some standard nerf guns into awesome looking and higher powered versions. I haven't given up completely, but I have put it away for now. The last time I tried I couldn't get the mechanism working when I put it back together so I rage quit.

If you didn't notice, Ricci made me a sweet header for the blog. It's actually blueprints from the Batmobile. How sweet is that?

From now on this blog will be more about actual projects and plans. It seems dumb to say that but it wasn't actually about that before. Right now I'm working on a couple of things. Ricci and I tried to set up an herb garden but Grimm decided that he thought it looked better when he dug up the mulch and tore apart the tarp underneath. So now I have to keep pulling out weeds. Eventually I'll get it put back in order and we'll plant some things. But there's no rush since he also managed to eat or destroy all of the seedlings Ricci was growing to plant out there. For a couple photos of the traumatic incident look here. Keep in mind the photos were taken the same day.

I also have the wood cut to make a 4 x 8 raised bed for veggies in the backyard, but after the last incident, I'm not sure I want to put anything back there until I have a shock wire or something to keep Grimmace the Menace out.

I did finish making bottle cap checker boards. One for myself and three that I made for Christmas presents. I like them but again, a lot of work so it might be a while, or at least a really special occasion before I make another.

I'm not sure when, but at some point we bought, and put together a cheap set of bookshelves to hold most of our books. That's all I can think of for now. I'll keep a list of my projects on the right so maybe I'll do a better job of keeping this updated. We'll see. I think I've used almost all of my tags in this post, haha.

Bottle Caps!

So I've been collected bottle caps for the past year or so. I started out just keeping a cap of everything I tried, which kinda led me to start trying more and more different things. But as with most people I have certain drinks that I prefer and I thought "What could I do with all these caps?" I remembered seeing a checkers set that my dad had made once out of epoxied pepsi and dr pepper bottle caps and figured I'd try my hand at it. So I've been collecting more and more over the past six months or so and filling certain ones with epoxy.

I'm proud to say that this past weekend (with lots of help from Ricci's Gramps and her dad, Bill) I made my first checker board. Gramps helped with the design and did most of the sawing with Bill. I actually only helped in that part. But I watched carefully so that now I can do it myself. Then I painted the squares and stained the whole thing to look old. I'll put pictures up later. Assuming that the last couple caps finish drying by this evening I will have a full set to play "Corona Extra" against "Corona Light".

Quick Disclaimer: I drink beer from time to time, but I don't get drunk. I think the Bible is pretty clear that being drunk is sinful, but drinking in itself is not. I don't hang out at bars either because of the associations people sometimes make. Nuff said.

Moving on, my general policy is to take the first bottle cap I get from a drink and add it to my collection. After that I just add duplicates to another jar/ziploc/whatever container I'm using. I hope to have some way to display them one day but for now they sit in a closet. As I was sorting out a batch of bottlecaps my in-laws had saved for me (yeah I sort them, order is a good thing) I was feeling pretty good about my collection. I knew it wasn't the biggest but I was kind of proud of my modest little collection.

Then I stumbled across Bottle Cap-O-Rama and was put to shame. I probably have between fifty and a hundred different bottle caps. Whoever runs this site (I would assume a guy, but there's a girl on the top banner so I'm not sure...) has nearly 2500! Wowsers! Looks like I have a ways to go.

Also he/she had links to John T. Unger's bottle cap mosaic fish site. Awesome. I watched the video of how he does it and it looks pretty tedious. It seems pretty steep to charge $500 for some wall art but as I learned this weekend making that checker board, hand made stuff is expensive and time consuming for the person making it. Granted, he doesn't buy all the beer himself, but the wood, metal, and nails plus the time and energy he puts in definitely make it worth more than you might think on first glance.

Back to Bottle Cap O Rama, I haven't quite finished absorbing all attainable knowledge from their "links" section so I may post more.

I also started my training class at work on Adobe Photoshop so look to better designs for this page in the future and less bleak cyber wastelands.

*update*
I just found a link from BCoR to bottlecaps.de and it made me slightly more depressed about my collection. hundreds of thousands.....

Transformers 2

So I have really made an effort to not let this blog become a page for ranting. You can ask my wife, I am good at ranting. I go off and it will sometimes be almost an hour later that she stops me because she just doesn't want to hear it anymore. So if you don't want to read a long rant skip this post. Also if you don't want spoilers (though in my opinion this movie is already spoiled) skip it. That said, let's begin:

I wasn't going to write this up for the aforementioned reason of trying to not be whiny all the time. Unfortunately I got a forward from my boss because A&M always shows movies on campus for two bucks after they leave theaters and this Friday it's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Here's the review that was in the email:

The battle for Earth has ended but the battle for the universe has just begun. After returning to Cybertron, Starscream assumes command of the Decepticons, and has decided to return to Earth with force. The Autobots believing that peace was possible finds out that Megatron's dead body has been stolen from the US Military by Skorpinox and revives him using his own spark. Now Megatron is back seeking revenge and with Starscream and more Decepticon reinforcements on the way, the Autobots with reinforcements of their own, may have more to deal with then meets the eye.

And here's the review from Netflix:
Unlikely hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his foxy girlfriend, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), return with tough-as-nails Capt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel) to assist the Autobots in another epic battle against the evil Decepticons in this supercharged sequel to the 2007 megahit. Blockbuster impresario Michael Bay brings his trademark pyrotechnics to the proceedings, while comic whiz Rainn Wilson joins the cast as a college professor.

Please do NOT go see this movie because you love Rainn Wilson. I think he's hilarious but (1) he's only in five minutes of the film and (2) it's straight up garbage. I'm going to take my time dissecting this so be prepared to read for a while.

If you haven't seen the first movie, don't worry. It was decent. Worth watching even.
Here's basically what happens in the second movie (sorry if some of this is out of order):
-5 minute narration from Optimus about how he and a bunch of other Autobots(henceforth "A") teamed up with an international group of human soldiers to hunt down the remaining Decepticons(henceforth "D") for the past two years.
This drug on way too long, and it attempts to catch you up on a bunch of background they didn't want to actually film.

-This team bungles some mission in Hong Kong or Shanghai (I can't remember which) and ends up causing a lot of collateral damage. The D here is ENORMOUS and as he's finally dying he utters out something about "The Fallen". There are a couple of Autobots here from the old show like Arcee that are seen but there is no character development so people who never saw it have no idea. Also the introduce the obnoxious twin robots that are "ghetto" and spend the whole time cussing and fighting each other. And by whole time I do mean the whole movie.

-The government decides to shut down the project and suggest the A's go home because, since the AllSpark is gone, the D's are only sticking around to kill A's. The A's consent but believe that the D's are planning something based on what the D in Shanghai said about "The Fallen". Meanwhile Sam Witwicky is leaving for college and his girlfriend Mikaela (who has the IQ and personality of a meter stick but can somehow rework cars and motorcycles?) attempts to breakup with him. He says they can work it out long distance, blah blah blah.
Where are the transformers in this scene?

-Sam drops a piece of the AllSpark from the hoodie he wore in the first movie, gets blasted in the eye with symbols and spends the rest of the movie freaking out and spouting off gibberish. A bunch of household appliance come to life and Bumblebee has to blast them. One remote control car-bot gets away.
-Sam moves to college and leaves Bumblebee.
Somehow, even though Bumblebee's voice got fixed at the end of the first movie, it is broken again and communication with him is forced to rely on cheap laughs from related songs and radio clips played through his speakers. Yeah, because that didn't get obnoxious by the end of the first one.

-Insert thirty minutes of overdone college move-in humor. He meets some fellow nerd/techies and the form a gang to make money uploading viral video.
Again, where are the transformers?

-Evil tiny car bot attacks Mikaela for piece of AllSpark. She captures it and decides to take it to Sam. The thing cusses at her a bunch. Actually the whole movie cusses a bunch. Like over the top, unnecessary for a movie based on toys for little kids.

-D's patch into government satellite and watch conversation where military details all the secrets they don't want D's to learn. D's then find Megatron's body, revive him and take him to their secret moon base where an ancient D, The Fallen, is residing with a bunch of D's trying to creating a D factory.
WHAT?! None of this made any sense. The satellite D was named "Soundwave", who was an actual D in the old show. He was like a boombox or something and had a bunch of mini-D casette tape robots that would help him out. This was the one time where they took the name of an original character and put it on something else that made more sense for the story. Okay that's cool. You can hack into the government's most secret satellite, I'll accept that. But that took you thirty minutes. What were you doing for TWO YEARS???? Just floating around in geosynchronous orbit waiting for this exact conversation??

-There's a bunch of backstory about the Fallen being Megatron's master and that's why Megatron came to earth. The Fallen wanted to use the Matrix of Leadership (MoL) to start a machine on Earth that would create Energon (transformer energy-food/fuel) but destroy the sun and all life on Earth. Ancient "Primes" stopped him by taking the MoL and killing themselves to seal it away. He's been waiting on the moon for thousands of years for revenge.
What's all this stuff about The Fallen? The fallen was never in any Transformers show before now. And in the first movie Megatron just came to Earth for the AllSpark so he could make a massive army of D's. If you're gonna create something original at least follow your own story. Continuity fail. Also the MoL was from the comics and old show. I didn't read the comics but in the animated movie it bestowed a fancy upgrade on Hot Rod and made him into Rodimus Prime after OP died. In the animated series it is closer in function to the AllSpark from movie 1, not just a key for the SunHarvester. The SunHarvester plot isn't bad it just doesn't really mesh with the first movie.

-Sam goes to a party and starts doing the symbol freakout when he decides to leave. Bumblebee has shown up for some reason (I can't remember)and as they start to leave, some college "hottie" gets in and starts trying to blatantly seduce him. She pretty much tries to prostitute herself out to him while some jock is chasing him out of the party. She climbs into the passenger seat and starts seductively describing cars and stuff. They get back to his dorm and she conveniently gets him onto the bed around the same time Mikaela is arriving to show Sam the evil toy car. Insert overdone "She tried to kiss me" scene - (WHERE ARE THE ROBOTS THEY NAMED THIS MOVIE AFTER?! What does this have to do with anything?!) - but wait! Turns out the girl who for some ridiculous reason is way too attracted to shia labeouf is actually a D! A chase scene ensues which ends with Mikaela smashing Robot McSkankgirl against lightpole in her car. Okay...so you somehow pretended like the last thirty minutes were not irrelevant and were actually an assassination attempt...but...if they could look like people, why didn't they just impersonate AirForce personnel and get all the government secrets TWO YEARS AGO??

My memory is kinda fuzzy about the details of what happens next. I was kinda losing interest on account of no robots fighting.

-Somehow Sam gets separated from the group and captured by Megatron. The D's try to torture him into giving them the information from his symbol brain blast and then try to take it by force by cutting his head open. I was thinking about doing it myself so the emotional appeal was kinda lost on me here.

-The Autobots show up and Sam gets away with OP. They end up in some forest and the best scene of the whole movie takes place where OP pulls out two swords and fights off four or five D's including Megatron to protect Sam. I think he kills a couple and then ends up getting killed. Yes, that's right Optimus Prime dies. The other A's show up and carry Sam away to safety. Nice timing, where have you been?


-Somehow (again, losing interest so I don't remember as well) Sam and Mikeala end up at the Smithsonian, while the A's are being told they have to go home by the government. Sam and Mikaela end up ressurecting an SR71 Blackbird who happens to be a really ancient D (but for some reason he doesn't mind helping.) He gives a lot of backstory on the Fallen and somehow they end up in Egypt looking for the MoL, with that annoying government guy from the first movie, Sam's nerd friend and the ghetto bots (Skids and Mudflap).

-After finding the MoL, Sam sends a message to AF Capt. Lennox from the first movie who sends a message to his CO. Lennox and Tyrese change course of some cargo planes that are carrying the A's and ejects a government guy with a parachute into the dessert. (This was funny, but I assume he will be discharged at some point). Sam and gang begin making their way to meet up with Lennox, thinking MoL will revive OP. The MoL crumbles into dust, which Sam scoops up into his handy small cloth bag. (Where did he get this? This might have been explained, I just don't remember.)

-In an effort to slow down some D's following them, the ghetto bots, gov. dude, and nerd friend stop to fight in a construction zone (?). Enter the Constructicons, another reference to the old toys/show/comics. These are a bunch of construction vehicles that transform together to form a giant D called Devastator. He pretty much trashes all of the good guys without actually killing anyone (unfortunately, because these are the most annoying characters, besides Megan Fox). Devastastor starts destroying pyramids to find the SunHarvester.

-The A's with Lennox start fighting a bunch of D's. Sam is trying to get to OP with his magic dust. (I'm fuzzy here because it was about two hours and I was just tired.) I think that at some point Megatron or the Fallen gets a hold of the fairy dust which does nothing for him, and then the MoL magically reforms in Sam's hands. He brings back OP. OP fights the Fallen with some extra parts from the Blackbird (I still don't know what the point of this guy was. I think he was just some comic relief and story telling. I'm not really sure what side he was on. He is called a D when they ressurect him but then he helps the good guys?)

-The gov dude calls some ship off the Mediterranean Coast that just happens to have a secret weapon that he knows about. He gets them to shoot it at the coordinates and kill Devastator. (Really? You killed Devastator in one shot? Two A's with alien guns got thrown around like rag dolls but your secret human weapon killed him in one shot?)

OP kills the Fallen. Megatron and Starscream and any other D's flee like little girls. Everyone is happy, blah, blah, blah. OP has some closing monologue about freedom, etc. There will probably be a third movie that I will not see.


Okay to fair there are a few things I liked about this movie. The fight scene with OP in the woods was sweet. Soundwave was cool. I liked that they actually showed the tension between Starscream and Megatron. Sorry I didn't talk about that but it was only a sentence or two here and there.

Megan Fox is the worst actress ever. There was waaay too much cussing in this movie. Also there was too many unfunny sexual references even beyond Megan Fox and the Prostituticon at Sam's college. The RC-D humps Megan Fox's leg, Sam's dogs hump each other, Devastator just happens to have two hanging wrecking balls between his legs, etc.

In reference to the synopsis above I assume they get this information from the people that made this movie because most of that is impossible to discern from the movie:

*The first line talks about the battle being for the universe not for Earth. Which is true except that it's all about draining the sun and killing everyone on Earth. But that's all.

*About Skorpinok, you can hardly even tell what's going on when they are resurrecting Megatron at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. They rip apart someone in the background and shove parts onto M, and then bring him back with a piece of spark the stole from a gov facility.

*Also it says that Starscream returned to Cybertron, which is possible, but it didn't say it was Cybertron. It looked like the moon to me. But that's giving them the credit of following the animated series where there was a base on the moon.

*I'm sure there were a lot of things like this, where they intended something but it was never said outright, so we don't know.

Also there is no character development with anyone new, except maybe the Fallen. Starscream and Megatron are developed a little. Nothing is developed with the relationship between any of the A's, especially since there are a bunch of new ones. They just all get shoved into the background. I assume we are supposed to know Skorpinok's name from the old shows or the toys. That's the only way I knew it since they never said it.

I guess maybe I just had my hopes too high for this film. I thought there would be character development and rational plot lines. I was wrong. Just a bunch of senseless explosions, swearing and sex. If I wanted that I would watch something from Terentino or Frank Miller. Actually those guys put a little plot in there though. So Sin City may have been better than Transformers 2.

Feel free to leave comments disagreeing or clarifying any of the parts I left fuzzy. Again sorry this was so long and angry I just felt like I was going to bust every time somebody brought up Transformers 2. I'll be good now that I have it down on paper. Or blog. whatever.