Random Thought of the Day

I know funny, because I make funny.

Random Thought of the Day

Of all the things that robots and machines could take over from humans, I think the one I am most comfortable with is washing dishes.

What Animal Would I Be?

Far more important than your favorite letter (R), or your favorite number (3), or even your favorite Teletubby (Tinky Winky), is the question of your favorite animal. But I'm going one step further, and I am going to ask of myself, and make a case for what animal I would want to be.
I would want to be a turtle.

Upsides:

- Turtles don't give a crap what you have to say about anything, they're just always mellow.

- Ability to change into "Leave me the f- alone" mode without much work/fit throwing.

- Hard candy shell prevents melting in mouth and hand.

- Only needs to know how to count to four, afer that, no more digits = unimportant.

- Works on land and water.

- Drop babies in a hole in the ground and walk away.

- Not as harvested as chickens.

- Everyone thinks it's cool when they see you

Downsides:

- Almost guaranteed not to win an Olympic Gold Medal.

- Genetic mutations not quite as cool as other species. (Splinter > Leonardo)

- Worse hops than white men.

- No more steaks.

All in all, I'd say not a bad swap. I'd be alright being a turtle.

Jesus in My Cookie?!?!

You be the judge...

I would like it to be known that this photo was not doctored in any sense of the term, nor was the cookie manipulated in any way to create a face. This was naturally occuring on the inside of a peanut butter patty cookie.

A Quick Lesson on Equivocation...Sort of

A: Oh, vicar. How was Amy when you went to see her at the hospital today?

B's response either:
1) By the time I had arrived she was already gone.
2) When I got there she was already out.
3) She had left the hospital before I got there.
4) She was discharged and went home Sunday morning.

Here we note the importance of choosing words carefully. All of these answers actually say the same thing, and of course would be properly interpreted with an appropriate tone of voice. However, answer one could be interpreted as death. Answer two could be interpreted as: "Amy was already sleeping", or maybe that she was already being prepped for surgery. The third and fourth answers are a bit more clear, although they could both be stretched and interpreted to mean "put on hospice". And so, the final conclusion, which has been figured out by many before me(if you notice, everyone uses this response when asked how they are doing), but possibly not examined, is as follows:

A: Oh, vicar. How was Amy when you went to see her at the hospital today?
B: Good.

The Post to End All Posts

You would think that after waiting for over a month to post something that this meant all the humor, all the theological excellence, and all the witty wittiscisims I could muster would be compiled into one, concentrated, Super Post. Well, I aim to please so, after reading this post, just add water to your computer, and I guarantee you will have a reaction unlike any other.

Post Topics:
- Virginia Sucks
- Say Something Random, DJ
- Virginia Is the Best
- Why You Shouldn't Forward Emails to Me
- Virginia Sucks
- Why Religious Wars are Better than Football Rivalries

VIRGINIA SUCKS:
I swear, every time I look outside it looks like junk. It gets dark around 4:30 because we are on the East side of the Eastern Standard Timezone. It rains a whole heck of a lot more than they promised me it would. While I concede that Ohio may be bleaker more days of the year, I can only remember a handful of storms in my life that brought down trees. I've seen 3 here already in 3.5 months. Some they call hurricanes, some they call Nor'easters, some they call Friday.

SAY SOMETHING RANDOM, DJ:
I don’t know if I will ever answer what someone asks to their appeasement or to the satisfaction of God Almighty, but I will always be able to fill the silence following a question with words.

VIRGINIA IS THE BEST:
These people feed me. I don't mean invite to the house for a nice meal feed me, I mean professional chef cooking in our kitchen "gonna maka you some-a nice-a meat-a balls" feed me. Every Wednesday we have dinner here at the church, and I have yet to eat something that I have ever eaten in my entire life, except for a Savannah Shrimp Boat. And it's freakin good.

WHY YOU SHOULDN'T FORWARD EMAILS TO ME:
I fear for the people whose lives are in danger when these emails don't get sent. I have a bad(subjective judgment) habit of deleting those emails after I read them. I think so far I have been responsible for killing around 50 people including soldiers in Iraq, some kid with cancer in Vermont, and I think at some point, Jesus. So please, if you have any concern for these people in your hearts, let them live. However, if their lives depend on me forwarding their email, you better read them their last rites.

VIRGINIA SUCKS:
There are maybe 5 people who give a crap about the UM-OSU game. If we use Dr. Jim Childs' "concentric circles are good for everything" diagram, those five represent the inner core. There are people in that group that include UM grads and people with family that work at OSU, and one guy that wishes we could watch College Football on Easter. The next level are the marginally interested. I think there might be about 20-40 people. There's an even smaller group among this small group that are merely interested because I have told them how important this game is to me. Next is the larger group of people who think that the Big Ten is always overrated. You got your SEC fans, your ACC fans. I'll buy that the SEC is pretty solid this year, but the ACC fans need to wait until Bball gets in swing before I want to hear from them. I don't have an estimate for the number in this group, but it's the majority of sports fans here I think. Last but not least is the largest group, which is the people who just don't care. These are the ones that bug me the most. Why? Because these people don't exist in Toledo. Or if they do, they hide in a hole about this time of year. It's a sad day. I'd even settle for a "F- Michigan" yelled at the church if it meant a little more excitement. Now I'll go get geared up for the third "Game of the Century" this century.

WHY RELIGIOUS WARS ARE BETTER THAN FOOTBALL RIVALRIES:
Because religious fanatics kill people because they think it's right. Football fanatics "accidentally" kick the crap out of people. They certainly don't go on a killing tirade and say that they're "cleansing". So it's about intensity. In my attempt to pull together material for Sunday School, I came across these two pictures which I think sum it up quite nicely. I think the guy n the far right might be Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace. You gotta love Christianity:

The Temporary Solution...

Erie Insurance was kind enough to secure a rental car for me, due to the demise of my beloved Maxima. Since, due to high demand, they were literally signing in cars and immediately signing them back out to people waiting in line, I got the next one in line. I never wanted to own an SUV, and I doubt I ever will, but for the next few days, I'll have one. This is a side by side analysis of the cars actual sized so you can see the difference between the two machines, sort of. Keep an eye out for the new car pics soon.

DJ was wrong?!? But That's Only Happened One Other Time in History!

I know, that's what I was thinking. Well, it comes with an apology...sort of. You see "The guy who sold me my car" has to be pulled off the list. While he did have grand ideas about leaving me outside in the rain (see previous post), he did fix my car at reduced cost even though he didn't have to, and suggested some preventitive maintenance as well. This was enough to make me ambivalent as to whether or not he should be on the list, and so I decided to err on the side of grace (thank you Senor Luther). So the list has become one shorter, and if Ernesto wasn't dead already, he'd be quick to fill in the vacant spot. Expect more on that later, but for now, suffice it to say that the list has been truncated. Oh and on a side note 49ers to win the Super Bowl!

The Lists Continue...

Thanks to Dave and his People Who Should Get Rabies list and Chrisy and her 2x4 list, I have been inspired to continue my "People Who Need to be Punched in the Face" list.

Current addition: (play on the word edition (I chuckled once then realized it wasn't funny)) The Guy Who Sold Me My Car.

The story begins with him being in the unfortunate situation of trying to replace the Green Dragon, which is a spot I wish on nobody. The new car ran smoothly until about a week ago (two weeks after purchase) when the window stopped working, locking it in the "rolled down" position. I took it to a local shop, they said, "$360 bucks", I said, "I'll talk to 'The Guy Who Sold Me My Car'". There was an issue with the door when they sold it to me that they said they'd fix so they agreed to fix the window too, in case they were related.

Well, as you may have heard, Tropical Storm Ernesto is creeping its way up the coast, and is currently making Virginia rainy. The brilliant idea of "The Guy Who Sold Me My Car" was that I should drop the car off to them the evening before their mechanic came in, so he could look at it first thing. Which is a good idea, unless it is raining and your window won't roll up.

I drove 45 minutes in the (not pouring but definitely coming down) rain. Then when I got there, he had already left for the evening. After standing outside for a half an hour, assuming that I had misheard his words for the meeting, I called the building. We could hear the phone ringing inside, and the answering machine pick up. Well, on the answering machine there was an additional number to call, so I dialed it. He picked up promptly, and told me that he had called our house about 5 minutes before we got there to tell us he wasn't going to be there, and we could drop the car off and leave the key in the slot. This being after I talked to him the day before and confirmed that he would be there at the appointed time.

Now I'm not saying that there couldn't have been an emergency, but I'm gathering from the drunken voices of men yelling on the phone when I called that he wasn't in the hospital worried about his baby girl. Jwek. He's so on the punch in the face list that it isn't funny.

The Greatest Story Ever Told: The Worst Movie Ever Filmed

For Adult Vacation Bible School here at St. Mark, we have been doing a series called "Jesus Goes to the Movies". The premise behind it all was to show movies that were made about Jesus and then discuss the theological implications that followed. Monday we watched Monty Python's The Life of Brian, Tuesday it was Jesus Christ Superstar, Wednesday The Last Temptation of Christ, and then came the treat to end all treats: The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Apparently, this thing had a $20 million budget in 1965! Like holy smokes, man. It was an absolute flop though, and with good reason. Imagine if you got inspiration to make a movie about Jesus, and then thought, "I want to take all the dull and exciting moments in the life of Jesus and synergize them with the captivating emotional power of the genealogy narratives." Yeah. There was one redeeming quality to the movie. John Wayne plays the centurion who says, "Truly this man was the Son of God," after Jesus is crucified. The reason this is entertaining is that he says it in typical John Wayne fashion: stoicly, and as if he was staring down a bank robber.

In the race for worst film ever, Brother from Another Planet(yeah, it's about a black alien) held a strong lead until I saw this movie. The redeeming quality of the alien movie was that the guy pulled out his eye, planted it in a flower, and used it as a spy camera. And so, The Greatest Story Ever Told, you take the cake. Congratulations. My only hope is that tonight's movie, Jesus of Nazareth, won't make me rename the title of my post.

The heat...THE HEAT...MY GOD, THE HEAT!!!

Sheep on the right goats on the left. What does one do when they find themselves in the middle of heat that singes the skin if you spend more than an hour in direct contact with it, barring protection of course. There seems to be an element of goat-like environment here in that sense.

And before I get too far into the hell analogies, I should note that there is very little weeping and gnashing of teeth going on. We hit 100 today(Wednesday and Thursday) with a heat index of 115, 100% humidity. As choir director Dan Landis put it: "I don't know how you have 100% humidity and still be able to breathe."

My congregation sent 20 people to help me move in. If there were any more excitement around here, the "Pee your pants terror alert" would be sunburn red. I find myself, as well, overly excited about being in this place, if only they could develop the technology for effective external air conditioning.
Here's some pictures of my Hizzle:

Reflection on July 4th, 2006

A couple of things popped in my mind:

1) Watching the third Terminator movie is kind of ironic on the 4th of July.

2) Mucho thankso to North Korea for celebrating Independence Day with us...jweks. They are so on the punch-in-the-face list it's not even funny. The next few days should be exciting to watch quick slingin' Bush Cassidy from the podium (or is it a lectern?).

3) Fireworks are exciting because they burn, and flash brightly, and make big bangs; three things which every youngster should not take part in, but they get exposure to every year. Maybe we'd have less burn accidents if we celebrated the Fourth of July by tying our feet to the bumper of a car and trying to do a handstand on a skateboard behind it. I admit, I blew my hand up with a bottle rocket once, and it wasn't because I watched fireworks the night before, but because burning, flashing, loud things are cool (thank you beavis and butthead); but i still have a right as a geezer to complain about how kids were smarter in my day and how they had more productive things to do than throw fireworks at eachother (don't take that as a suggestion).

4) How can we celebrate when our *snicker 5th ranked soccer team got annihalated by two, shall we call them, non-superpowers. We should be suspended from celebrating our nation in any way until we can at least tie the fourth graders from Iceland.

I've said my piece, Happy Fourth!

The Declaration of the Jubilee Week

Samplarian has ended, and the score is: DJ - 12, everybody else 0. If you want an explanation, you're asking the wrong person.

It occurs to me that aside from feeling very old at times (which has made for the declaration of the Jubilee Week), this group that has just packed up and left has given me great hope for the church of the future. We had a full cross-section of the fruits of the spirit represented: those well versed in scripture, those with the gift of speaking very very quickly (some might say in tongues), the jokemakers, the scholars, and those with the gift of smelling badly.

I now prepare to pack as the summer has almost come to a close for me, and I am tired, but I trust that all necessary energy and strength will be given to me, when a lack of time and rest demand that I go with the pull of the spirit.

Why does Yahoo news give me ideas?

So I wake up this morning, get through my standard half-hour of drooling over myself as I look in the mirror, and march gallantly off to chapel. When what to my wondering eyes should appear¹ but freakin nothing cuz my eyes were all blurry.²
Sure enough, as soon as I sit down in front of a computer, Yahoo news shows a story about how vision loss is going to double in the next fifteen years. Why don't I jab my eyes out now, and help move that statistic along. I blame Yahoo news, who, in their attempt to monopolize the internet search industry, crept into my bedroom while I was sleeping and sprayed petroleum jelly in my eyes with an aerosol can. Expect a news story tomorrow about how communion bread that makes you cough could be giving you kidney problems.

¹ Wrong season, but it was freakin cold outside recently.^3
2 Are you sure that doesn't rhyme?^4
3,4 Footnotes suck.
⁵ Endnotes suck too. ⁵

Episode I

Remember that one time at seminary when we did that funny thing in that one place, it was freakin sweet.