Calling all Lexicographers

there's gotta be a specific word describing the kind of panic that sets in when you realize you're out of coffee filters days before your next trip to the store for supplies...anyone know what it is?

Monday Morning in the Funnies

• There's a good deal of truth there...
• Roman numeral comedy--does it get better than that?
  

Does it Get Any Cuter?

Somewhere between Wicked Funny and Just Plain Cruel

...lies this:

(H/T: Ken Levine)

I (heart) Jon Favreau!

The first Iron Man trailer is up!

that is soooo money, baby!

Well, Blow Me Down!

I coulda sworn this was in the spring....

International Talk Like A Pirate Day is right around the corner! Thanks, Jules, for the heads up! (and yes, I hotlinked her name mostly as a historical reference...)

been looking for an excuse to finish that other Gideon Defoe novel....


Update: I put the date up on the white board for school, trying to come up with some ways to integrate that into the school day. The Offspring get very excited and (without any prompting from me, mind you) start yelling "Arrrr!" and "scurvy!", etc. And then, in a cockle-warming moment, Samwise starts talking about a book of his that can help them prepare--complete with special pirate words.

From the "Even a Stopped Clock..." file

Hear, Hear Ratzi Benedict!!

Thought for the Lord's Day #8

The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus is that he was constantly talking about himself. The self-centeredness of the teaching of Jesus immediately sets him apart form the other great religious teachers of the world. They were self-effacing. he was self-advancing. They pointed men away form themselves, saying, 'That is the truth, so far as I perceive it; follow that.' Jesus said, 'I am the truth; follow me.'

- John Stott

Thought for the Lord's Day #7

I bow down toward your holy temple
and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness,
for you have exalted above all things
your name and your word.

- Psalm 138:2

Dear Mr. Gore...

Please read this.

This always cracks me up...

...and now Frodo and Sam are laughing and asking to watch it again...good way to cap off a morning of work :)

First Day

You ever have one of those weeks where everything--and I mean everything you start or intend to start just doesn't work? Well, I'm having one of those (getting better, tho--I think). So the homeschooling I was so looking forward to getting underway with on Tuesday? Mostly started today. Some parts will start on Monday (Deo Volente)...others will start sometime after that.

We've taken more time off this summer than we usually do, and the kids are having a hard time readjusting (me, too, come to think of it...and because things were so strange this morning, no coffee since we finished the pot at work 'round 4:30!)--particularly the attention-span-deprived Samwise.

We got a little workbook on letters and sounds for Arnold to start using--not a serious preschool curriculum, just something on paper for him to do. He loved it, you could really tell he liked sitting down with the others and have me work on a sheet with him.

Anyhow...we've started. By the grace of God, we'll persevere. Here's the obligatory/traditional first day of school blog pictures--enjoy! (you can really tell that Frodo likes me interrupting his thinking for this, huh?)

Not only would I see this in the Theater

(at least twice, including the midnight opening), but I'd buy the Special Deluxe Collector's Edition DVD(s).

You with me, Kletois?

Action Movies

Bubbly

Few weeks back, iTunes Free Single of the Week was the first single from this new artist named Colbie Caillat. Was in the mood for a new tune, so I clicked on it. When the phrase "female Jack Johnson" floated by my eyes, I started downloading.

That was a mistake.

Sorta.

I can't stop listening to it. The song, "Bubbly" is just that--bubbly--a veritable onomatopoeic song. A piece of musical cotton-candy that makes you feel all warm and sunshiny despite your worst, cynical, half-empty glass, is-it-gonna-be-Monday-all-week?, Eeyore-like, I-wish-I-had-a-cat-so-I-could-kick-it mood.

Sweet, simple, catchy--a perfect pop song. Terribly infectious, yet you don't mind getting it stuck in your head all day. The kind of thing you can hear and think "yup, that's why Pop Music exists." You can tolerate (in the sense of not hiring people to kill) Britney, Akon, and whatnot. Last time I can think of a song like this was Sixpence's "Kiss Me," or maybe the aforementioned Johnson's, "Upside Down"--but I don't think that was as widely played.

It starts in my toes
makes me crinkle my nose
where ever it goes
i always know
that you make me smile
please stay for a while now
just take your time

Quote of the Moment

When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of being childish, and the desire to be very grown up.

- C. S. Lewis

Nice little story for a holiday Monday

yeah, yeah, I know...been away for a bit (fighting off a death plague of some sorts [TLoML calls it a cold, but I know better]). Got a few things in the mental hopper, tho. Hopefully can find time for them to pop.

Anyway...Jeff Gordon (not that one) has some nice things to say about this summer in sports--it's not all ugly (and yeah, I'm lookin' at you Balco Barry).

We'd watched the team he mentions winning the Little League World Series lose horribly in the early rounds--heartwarming to see they recovered...I felt so bad for them. Incidentally, the LLWS is probably the best televised baseball each year period. The pros can match it occasionally--but it takes things like Game 3 of the 2001 ALDS to do it.

Me has been berry berry bad to Baseball

Back on June 6, it was noted that I hadn't been talking a lot about the Yankees lately. Now, I'm sure that Joel was trying to goad me at the time because the Yankees were falling apart--and if not for A-Rod, would've been mathematically eliminated from the rest of the season. That, believe it or not, wasn't the reason for a lack of baseball/Yankee posts. It was simply that I hadn't been watching any baseball then.

Actually, I haven't watched any baseball (save a couple of innings of the All-Star Game) since early May this year. Only keep up with a couple of Yankee blogs regularly (Pete Peter Abraham's Lohud Yankees blog is a 6-day a week read, ditto for Yanks Blog), barely have a clue about anything else going on in the League (did I hear something about a SF Giant hitting some home runs?)

But a good friend of mine realized he wasn't using his mlb.tv account while I'm at work. And the Yankees hosted the Red Sox today. Sooo....this is gonna be fun!

ahh....1-2-3 7-pitch first inning by Andy Pettite. What more do you want?

Update: (fixed spellings above--didn't want to verify them earlier 'cuz I'd probably accidentally get news on the game)
Now, that's the game to break a drought with! Pettitte rocked, Matsuzaka was good but not great (so, so glad the Yankees didn't overpay for him like some other team did), Jeter broke a slump, everyone looked solid, Damon was good in LF, finally got to see this Joba kid everyone's raving about--and now I can start raving about him (and, I know how to pronounce his name)--and the Yankees beat the Sox! Loved it!

Beauty's Mug Shots

This is a pretty cool video.

(I guess you could call this a veritable rouges' gallery)

Just SO Many Things Wrong with This

Hard to know where to begin--or stop--commenting.

From Newsweek's Beliefwatch:

China Regulates Buddhist Reincarnation

China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."

Now, the impulse here is to chuckle at those crazy commies, maybe make a joke about how long it'll be before our Congress tries it, while noting how interesting it is that the Chinese at least take religion seriously enough to try that.

But this is apparently a pretty serious effort by the Chinese government to pick the next Dalai Lama.

By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks.

It's likely that the monks will pick a Tibetan-exile, maybe even from the U.S. (like what almost happened to Bobby Hill), where Gallup tells us 20% of adults believe in reincarnation.

On the one hand, I thought the 20% was a little low, reassuringly so--but wait, we're not done with poll numbers--we can still be appalled by the findings!

Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view. (emphasis mine)

Granted that Barna's definition of born-again is a bit loose, and his respondents are self-identified as such, his numbers are generally seen as close to reality. We've got 10% of supposedly regenerate people disagreeing with the principle that:

it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment

It's disturbing enough that they believe in it, but I can live with that. It's the idea that it's their "favored end-of-life view." Favored. Ten percent of those who name the name of Christ would prefer coming back and doing this all again (including acne, high school, and driver's education) to passing immediately into glory and being with their Lord and Savior. Thankfully, the majority still agree with Paul.

to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain...My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

from my iGoogle page today

55 in August??


Curse that global warming!!