DVD

Rejecting The Yule Log Mentality

/ Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

FullSizeRender-13The Yule Log has become part of the Doriot family Christmas tradition.

If you’re not familiar with the Yule Log, it’s about as simple as it sounds – a single shot video of a blazing fireplace (usual with some relaxed holiday tunes in the background) set on a loop for hours on end.

You can get a Yule Log “movie” on DVD  or Blu Ray. A few cable channels show one on Christmas. There’s even one streaming on Netflix!

Now we also have a real fireplace. It’s usually ablaze as well on Christmas morning.

And yet we still put the Yule Log on the tv alongside the real fire as we open presents.  Continue reading →

Add More Weight

/ Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

photo-13Life is full of routines.

You have your morning routine, your evening routine. You’ve got your school or work routine, and your afternoon-when-you-get-home-from-school-or-work routine.

You have relationship routines, family routines, holiday routines. You have your church routine, your faith routine.

With all the routines in life, it’s easy to feel stuck. Oftentimes it can feel like you’re not growing as a person or as a Christian.

Sometimes you need to do something different. Sometimes you need to break from the routine. Sometimes you need to challenge yourself.

Sometimes you need to Add More Weight.  Continue reading →

Win Or Go Home

/ Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

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Win or go home.

It’s the mantra that will be in the head of every NCAA Basketball player as the annual March Madness tournament begins this morning.

If you don’t win the next game then you’re done. You’re heading home; there’s nothing left for you.

“Going home” is usually equivalent to losing. Only losers go home; winners keep on playing. Winners do not retreat. Continue reading →

Thrift Shop Gospel

/ Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

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Who ever thought the thrift shop would be in style? With his ridiculous ode to secondhand shopping, Macklemore has the hottest song in the country, a horn-heavy homage to the greatness of Goodwill shopping.

Seems secondhand stores are bigger than ever. Besides general thrift stores like the Salvation Army, specialized consignment shops are popping up everywhere paying top dollar for used clothes, DVDs, cds, and books. Even big businesses like Best Buy and Toys R Us are now giving away cash instead of taking it, buying back old video games and Blu Rays.

Just the other day I put together a pile of movies and books cluttering up my shelves and headed to the local thread of thrift stores in Augusta. I rode into parking lots pumping Macklemore’s hit on my speakers, expecting to walk into the store with twenty dollars in my pocket and walk out with a secondhand swagger, or at least with twenty more bucks in my pocket.

I ended up just keeping most everything I brought in as I saw the trade-in value come up on the screen when each item was scanned: 75 cents, 15, cents, 10 cents, 5 cents, 1 cent. How could a DVD that cost $15 have a trade-in value of just a penny? The stores didn’t even want some of my movies, rejecting them out right.

And then I remembered this always happens. I build myself up with dreams of easy money from trading in my unwanted things. Instead I walk out feeling cheaper than ever, the collectibles I valued so much now deemed worthless. Continue reading →