Remember The Rumble

January 28, 2017February 28, 2017 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

santino-rumble This Sunday is the 30th anniversary of the Royal Rumble, the WWE’s most exciting hour of action every year.

30 Superstars compete in one match – each man drawing a random number and entering the ring in order every 2 minutes. The only way to be eliminated is to be thrown over the top rope and have BOTH feet hit the floor. The last man standing after all 30 men have entered wins a WWE Championship match at WrestleMania, the grandest stage of them all.

I love the Royal Rumble because it’s always full of surprises including debuts, returns of injured wrestlers, and one-off appearances by retired hall-of-famers. There’s a great sense of unpredictability in the air. For at least 60 minutes there’s wall-to-wall action and entertainment.

I also love the Royal Rumble because at its essence it is a grace-filled affair. Continue reading →

My 15 Seconds With Springsteen

December 6, 2016January 27, 2017 / Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

It’s a little ironic that I ended up meeting Bruce Springsteen at a used record store.

Last week I had the incredible opportunity to attend a meet-and-greet with The Boss at a store outside of Atlanta called 2nd and Charles – a place where you trade in used cds, records, books, movies and games for a fraction of their original value.

I’ve been a Springsteen fanatic for close to 8 years now. But it wasn’t always that way. When I was in high school I went through a phase of trying to expand my musical tastes. In doing so I purchased a copy of “Born In The U.S.A.” to dive into the world of the E Street Band.

I listened to it for about a week before I decided Bruce Springsteen wasn’t for me. I traded in the cd for some spare change at a store just like 2nd and Charles.

I had no idea that one day years in the future I’d be so obsessed with the New Jersey rocker that I’d be willing to stand in line for nearly 4 hours simply to shake his hand and take a picture with him.

Even though I paid $40 to only get about 15 seconds with my idol (more on that later) I thought the experience was worth so much more than I paid for it. Continue reading →

Finding Dory and The Importance Of Being Forgetful

June 29, 2016December 6, 2016 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

thumbnail_24066 By the end of “Finding Dory”, the latest wildly successful, hilarious, and heartbreaking Pixar movie, it starts to become clear that the forgetful blue tang’s memory is stronger than she realizes.

Throughout the film Dory is sparked by flashbacks of her childhood and the brief time she spent with her loving parents before she was fatefully separated from them.

It’s not clear exactly what type of condition causes Dory’s forgetfulness. She claims to have short-term memory loss, but I’m not sure a marine biologist or any other underwater doctor would diagnose the problem quite like this.

I think Dory’s problem is actually more like one many of us can relate with. Her issue isn’t with her ability to remember; it’s with what she chooses to remember. Continue reading →

Chasing The Championship

March 31, 2016April 6, 2016 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

(It’s WrestleWeek on POP GOD! In celebration of WrestleMania 32 this Sunday we’ll be looking at the intersection of faith and wrestling. You don’t have to be a fan to hop in the ring on this journey. Read on to see how this fake sport provides real lessons for anyone who’s ever grappled with God.)

WWF Belt “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. Jake “The Snake “Roberts. The “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase. Razor Ramon. Mr. Perfect.

What do these wrestlers all have in common?

They’re all iconic performers. They’re all WWE Hall Of Famers.

And none of them were ever World Champion. Continue reading →

The Run-In

March 28, 2016April 6, 2016 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2016-03-27 at 10.17.26 PM

The momentum in a wrestling match can swing in an instant.

All it takes is one right move or one reversal to bring a competitor back from the brink of defeat to a momentous victory.

Sometimes though a wrestler is so exhausted they can’t fight anymore. Their only hope comes from a run-in. Continue reading →

The Stray Dog Mentality

January 25, 2016February 2, 2016 / Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

2016 didn’t start out with a bang for us. It started with a bark.

On January 1st my wife woke up before me to head out to the mall and do some post-Christmas shopping. Just as I was waking up and heading to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee, I saw her walk back up to the door in the garage.

She was holding something completely unexpected – a puppy.

The dog had ran out into the road as she was heading to the store. Being the incredibly kind-hearted woman she is, she pulled over to see if she could help the dog back home.

The dog had no tags, no collar and no one was outside looking for her. So Kate brought her home. Continue reading →

3 Plus Ways To Reboot Your Relationship With God

September 18, 2015September 21, 2015 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

Are you suffering from reboot fatigue?

It’s a new phrase for the current entertainment landscape where it seems you can’t get on Twitter without reading about a new reboot or remake of a classic TV show or movie.

You’ve seen the stories about shows like “Full House” (now redubbed “Fuller House”) and “The X-Files” coming back to our screens. Shows you didn’t even realize anyone cared about are being relaunched for a new generation to not really care about them all that much.

(Me? I’m just over here waiting for a new “Double Dare” series. Come on – we need more Super Sloppiness on our screens.)

Though I may be suffering from a little fatigue from reading about reboots and relaunches and remakes every day, that doesn’t mean they’re a bad thing.

You might say they’re just a side effect of our MORE MORE MORE binge watching culture. Instead of being satisfied with a great story we demand another and another.

But I think something deeper is going on. I think the reason we love reboots and remakes is because we are relational. Continue reading →

What To Do When You Lose A Toe

August 26, 2015December 8, 2015 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

My dog is missing a toe.

His name is The Roc. He’s a tough, old miniature pinscher. He didn’t lose his toe through any fault of his own.

You see, I adopted him a few years ago. And for as long as I’ve had him one of his toes has given him problems. Eventually an infection popped up and our vet thought it would be for the best to remove the toe.

What started out as a simple surgery turned into a maelstrom of problems. Continue reading →

Autocorrecting God

June 11, 2015June 24, 2015 / Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

Ever notice something when you type out “god” on your iPhone? Go ahead and try typing it in a sentence if you haven’t recently.

While an iPhone will automatically capitalize most proper names and nouns, it won’t always autocorrect “god” to “God”.

Hey Apple – can we get a fix for this at the next WWDC?

Maybe your phone doesn’t do this. I’m sure some of you will tell me there’s something I can do in my settings so that I don’t have to go back and capitalize God every time I type it out (I may be under 30 but that doesn’t mean I know how to do 95% of the stuff on my phone).

Unfortunately just fixing my autocorrect settings won’t fix the real problem. The reality is that the failure of my phone to recognize God’s name is symbolic of a bigger issue in our culture.

As Christians we must stop assuming that the world sees God the same way that we do. Continue reading →

How the Bible Taught Me to Be More Creative

June 2, 2015June 9, 2015 / Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

(GUEST POST: Today I’m excited to share with you a guest post from Jackson Dame. Jackson is a young writer I’ve been following over the past few months who blogs at JacksonDame.com. He’s in the process of self-publishing his first book Ex Materia about the impact of faith on creativity. I jumped at the chance to have him write a guest post here on the blog so that you can learn more about him. Check it out and be sure to check out the Kickstarter page for Jackson’s new book to see how you can support this up-and-coming author.)

A couple of years ago I couldn’t come up with a good idea to save my life.

I wanted to exercise my creativity, but it was almost as if I had none. Was I really cut out to be creative?

Fast forward to today, and I’ve never been more confident in my ability to generate ideas and execute them with excellence. What changed?

Well, a lot of things, but overall it was one crucial action. And it was an action that I discovered while I was reading my Bible of all things.

My faith actually taught me that I was skipping over the first and most important part of the creative process: consuming. Allow me to explain. Continue reading →