I've signed up with Marketocracy recently - finally found what looks to be a decent way to run a hypothetical portfolio and see how you do with fake money. And they use the site's top traders to develop a portfolio that runs better than the fortune 500. Eeeenteresting.

I freakin love this freestyle walking stuff. Seems like its one thing the French are good at, too, which is strange, but fine by me.

More walking: fat man walking.

One of my favorite phrases, as defined by What Does That Mean, a cool cross-culture idiom explainer.

MetaEfficient: A guide to the most efficient things in the world.

The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide - buy with caution (I noticed you can get a discount when bought with Real Ultimate Power - who's site I've linked to in my sidebar since I started this blog).

This is only funny if your an online gamer, like...some... people...I...know.....of. Ok its hysterical. What WW2 would have been like were it an online real time strategy game.

Aimfight. I entered mine against some of my friends and they all kicked my butt. So if you're a friend of mine, and you're reading this, don't pit my screen name against yours, just take my humiliated word for it: you rule, I suck. But I do have a personal SN and a work SN so if you add them both up that should count for something...right?

Tom and Katie link o' the week: The Handy iwanttobeascientologist.com Guide to the Height Difference Between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes

The 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die - the listed the burger joint at le Parker Meridian on there, which is a totally sweet place to get a burger. I was surprised Corner Bistro (NYC) and Hamburger Mary's (shout out to Sactown) didn't make it, though. I've been to a couple places on the list but still have a good number of them to knock off. Might try to hit Houston's and The Counter in Santa Monica when we do our family beach thing in Pismo next month. What's up with Santa Monica getting two and Sacto gets nothing...?

In the "there's one of everything on the internet category": some guy collecting pictures of toilets in video games. God bless the web.

If you're feeling bad that you missed my birthday, you can always buy the "Even God Knows It" tee-shirt. Drop me a line at allkindsoftime at gmail dot com and I'll give you my shipping info. No, really...I will.

Martha Stewart makes the mistake of cooking cookies around Cookie Monster. Hilarity ensues. Part 1 and Part 2.

I've got more but that's enough to keep you busy for now. Who knows what tomorrow, it'll be after a long day and I'll be wiped out.

You are blessed with photobloggery tonight as I'm all worded out. Just random stuff from the past couple months, as I've been poor at posting them when they came around...starting with the most recent:


At the Sandy Hook beach with Matt this past weekend. Lame waves, but a nice beach / state park.


Sandy Hook is situated almost directly across a giant bay of sorts from lower Brooklyn and Manhattan, which can almost be made out in the distance in this picture.


Just off the beach, hidden in the dunes, are the remains of an old war fortress from WW1 (I think) where they tested cannon velocity and the like.


This is my buddy Paul at his going away party - I worked with Pauly with the youth group for the full 3 years since I moved here, last month he moved back home to Texas to start his dental practice. He's a good kid.


From our trip to the Max Q student leadership conference in Atlanta - we spent one morning at the MLK Jr. museum / burial site.


Parishioners still attend the original church he spoke at.


More of the reflection obsession.


And again.


Ti and I with our Varsity Diner hats.


The group headed to a cemetery for one of our last activities.


Cregan with the coach of Georgia Tech (who at one time had something to do with the Dolphins, apparently).

That's all for right now, likely more photobloggery on Friday as I'll be spending all day at a water/rollercoaster park with the youth group.

I completed my 27th trip around the sun today. Its the first birthday for me, perhaps ever, that really felt quite poignantly meaningful. Birthdays are usually just a fun day - an excuse to party, but for perhaps the first time I've approached the milestone with a great deal of introspection. And this is what I've come to:

I have not redeemed my days.

One thing that's led directly to this conclusion as of late is a matter of comparison. I've been reading Flyboys, a "heartbreaking and horrifying saga of eight American airmen who went down during bombing runs over the Pacific" in World War 2. In the first half of the book the author did a painstaking job of setting the scene - describing who these young boys were and what fates awaited them in the hands of their enemies. While focused on these eight, you begin to realize the gravity of the sheer volume of life lost in the conflict. And they were just boys. Most of the main characters focused on were around the age of 19 when they were shot down, captured, executed, and even cannibalized.

But not a single one of them ran from their fate. Each and every one marched toward it with the bold resolution that can only be gained through the absolute knowledge that you are doing what you were created to do, and it is right. These boys saw their destiny to defend their families and country, and nothing would stop them from doing it - not even the promise of torture and death.

I realize it is a great leap to lay such a claim, but I envy that absolute knowledge. Though eternally grateful for the inheritance I claim from the blood they spilled, and though I would seek to be content in my time - I yearn for the complete assurance that I am fulfilling what I was created for. And to die having that comfort - to know that you took all that God gave you and laid it on the altar...a life not perfect but a life complete. The psalmist David asked the Lord who would praise Him from the grave - I believe it is lives so sacrificed for justice that do just that.

I've been given a different road to hoe. And, as is natural to the state of affairs today, I've taken it rather at ease. I've had a good life and taken things as they came to me. I've worked hard and perhaps done a few good things (relatively speaking) here and there, but I have done nothing great. I intend to start changing that - to start making a difference, to take what I've been given and redeem it and somehow find my destiny through that.

I suppose to have your destiny thrust in front of you, in stark relief, is both a blessing and a curse, in some ways. Perhaps to have to seek it out through the many days of a long life isn't all that different. To fulfill your purpose either way takes great effort, its just the time-frame you have to complete it in that differs. In the end, it won't be anything that I did that gets me into heaven - my ticket was written long ago by Christ. And so, seeking out what it is that I am here for is not something I do for a reward - it is something I must do, because I was created for it.

I've waited, and it hasn't found me, as it did the Flyboys. Perhaps my purpose is simpler, and harder to see - a life lived in the workplace, perhaps raising a family, no heat-of-battle war hero, no blaze of glory. But there is a greatness of some sort out there awaiting its accomplishment. This is the year I set out to find it for myself.

There's something deeply satisfying about seeing an American so completely dominate the French equivalent of the Super Bowl. 4 minutes and 40 seconds. Wow.

The festival is still going on - St. Ann must have come out and seen her shadow or something, no idea why it didn't end last night. After church a large contingent headed for the festival to indulge in meatballs, sausage hoagies, zeppeli's (sp? - Italian equivalent of a donut, but not round), and the like. As per tradition, we all ended up on our deck enjoying the evening and daring one another to throw a doughy concoction off the roof (didn't happen this year).

Hit the beach Sunday morning with George, we're probably going to go again this weekend, and probably the weekend after that, for good measure. Saturday was lame, I did nothing.

Oakland swept Texas this weekend to put them within striking distance of LA and the AL West title. It also puts them a game and a half behind the Red Sox, who lead the Yanks by about the same. So we're about the 5th best team in baseball right now, by my count. Go go go.

Meanwhile the Kings got rid of Bobby Jackson. I can't even imagine that the management has brains at this point. I think Adleman's the only thing left to get rid of. To think we had a contender-level team just a couple years ago. What a shame.

That's all I can muster. Today was more working from home, looking for a position. As will be the rest of the week, except for Friday, when we take off with some of the kids from youth group for our summer trip to Dorney Park (waterpark / rollercoasters).

I hate these update-about-me posts.

Weeeeeelllll the Toys R Us project fell through today. I had a feeling it would. So, yeah. 3 weeks down the drain, my HR rep is gonna be so happy to hear that on Monday. Que Sera - that makes it 3 months and 3 weeks unstaffed, as opposed to just 3 months. So big deal. I've been doing as much as I think is humanly possible. And for almost 4 months, I've been feeling like I'm on the cusp of something finally happening. So even though I still feel that way now (Home Depot in Atlanta is looking promising) - who knows?

The festival has been shutting down before midnight, which is impressive. I seem to remember it going later in the past, but perhaps it was because I was on a more normal schedule in years past.

Weird to think that I've been in Hoboken for over 3 years now. No desire to leave any time soon, although the possibility now exists - looks like my friend Karyn, who also recently left Federated for Accenture, is going to transfer back to the Pittsburgh office. Which is something I'll never be doing - don't get me wrong, PGH is a cool town and I hope to visit my good friends there on occasion - I really liked living there.

But I love living in Hoboken / NYC. The same way I love Sacto / Norcal, or Denver...except that the thing I love most about those two is exactly what NYC lacks - quick access to a large mountain range. Which is why someday I'll leave here. I'll miss it, I'll come back and visit, but I'm going to leave.

Its just a question of when.

I have a goal next week, and that's to get serious about my HTML again in addition to avidly seeking out the next position with work. I want to kick start my floundering first attempts at building a site from the ground up, and see how far I can come in a week. I've got a nice long weekend to prepare for it, so next Friday I should be able to log on without excuse to blog all about it.

Fast and furious, my pretties. Work is crazy. Let's hope next week I can find some decent time to browse and post something more than what a quick jump around the net could troll up.

Urban Dictionary: Define Your World
- used this to look up "jump off," thankfully one of my kids was using it for one of the cleaner definitions it gave me.

TipMonkies

Hotel California: Inner geek - you'll notice that my links on the side-bar are now expandable. I have Witw over at Hotel Cali to thank for that, took me long enough to make good on my promise.

the-cloak looks interesting, or possibly not.

The Miniature Earth - just like the old email forward that used to go around, but still interesting to see.

The Shirt - I remember once at one of my old jobs some vendor gave us a few of these and we thought it was cool because we worked fashion/retailing and he was a shirt vendor and blah blah blah now I think its stupid. Enough to link to.

Cool pic of Paris by night. Too bad Paris is in France. At least they didn't get the Olympics.

Come Clean appears to be a clean version of some of those confessional sites out there. Hence it gets boring quick.

FOUND magazine has an interesting idea - finds of the week.

Haven't had much time for surfing, so I'll need to get on that sometime between tonight and tomorrow morning. Its back in the office again for me tomorrow so who knows when I'll actually get to it. I slipped back into previous-three-months laziness mode this week but its been good in some ways as this new cold has been a tough one to shake, though I think I'm on tail end of it now.

Nothing big going on this weekend, except its the weekend before my birthday so maybe someone will want to take me out, who knows. Youth leader meeting on my birthday then we're going out after that, too bad its on a Tuesday night. Second birthday I've had with the blog. Hmm. I'll be officially in my late twenties (and still 100% single - rapidly spiraling towards "weird old single guy status" in most parts of the suburban world, I'll still fit right in here in the city that never sleeps. Still relatively young, even. I don't like some of the mind-sets this city imposes on culture. About being single longer, working harder than anywhere else in the world seems to expect you to work, and the way so many people find their salvation in their figure, to name a few...

Every time I go to weddings anymore, the people at them (the couples in question and the guests in general) seem younger, which in turn makes me feel older. I have to go to one when I'm home in August. Thankfully its on the night I leave so I have an excuse to bow out by 10 or so.

I always find myself wishing I had started the blog years ago, but then I'm not the kind of guy that likes to admit regret. C'est la vie.

Oh and the PITA festival started today. That's what we call it, for Pain In The... its actually the St. Ann's Festival - St. Ann is the patron of the big Catholic church on the far end of our block, and every year they have this 5 day long festival that basically starts around dinner time and goes late into the night with carnival games, food (Italian) an drink, booths, lots and lots of people, and the centerpiece: a stage set up directly across from the church that blares very very bad music and very very loud volumes, every night. The poor quality of the music never ceases to amaze me. But its kind of fun, these local anomalies we have. Have to love them for what they are, I suppose.

See ya tomorrow.

Insofar as the word of [King Lear] is a tragic word, it rings out in its fullness when Lear comes upon Edgar standing half-naked on the bitter heath and asks for all of us, “Is this man no more than this?” and then gives the answer to his own question. “Thou art the thing itself,” Lear says. “Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art” (3.4.105-11). Then the old king starts to tear off the few rags he has left as if in the awful lucidity of his madness he knows that if there is ever to be a true healing and helping, a true sheltering and clothing for any of us, it is with our nakedness and helplessness that it has to start. Almost the last thing he says as he is dying is “pray you, undo this button.” (5.3.310), of all incongruous and enchanted words, as if all the moments of his life the one he relives there at the end as most precious is the moment when in his nakedness he was most kingly, when in his helplessness he was most invincible, in the madness of his despair most lucid. Shakespeare strips his characters bare, and great preacher that he is, he strips us bare along with them…. Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions, beneath our religion or lack of it, we are all vulnerable both to the storm without and to the storm within, and if ever we are to find true shelter, it is with the recognition of our tragic nakedness and need for true shelter that we have to start. Thus it seems to me that this is also where anyone who preaches the Gospel has to start too—after the silence that is truth comes the news that is bad before it is good, the word that is tragedy before it is comedy because it strips us bare in order ultimately to clothe us. – Fredrick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, & Fairy Tale

Those who imagine they can attain to holiness by any wisdom or strength of their own will find themselves after many labours, and struggles, and weary efforts, only the farther from possessing it, and this in proportion to their certainty that they of themselves have gained it. – John of Avila

(no CC post tonight as a) I didn't get to it in time, and b) I'm not really sure there is a CC this week, the normal email never went around...)

If your in your mid- twenties (and chances are strong that you are, if you're reading this), like me, you're bilingual. Well, kind of. First off, we assume you know the English language, at least if you've gotten this far. Secondly, despite any other foreign languages you may know, you also speak "tech." The language of the computer era. Its interesting, if you think about it...

Your parents didn't grow up speaking tech. Tech is a language that basically grew up with you. It was practically unknown when you were a youngster, but it was there (like you), growing day by day. It hit its adolescence about the same time you did, but instead of zits and hair in new places, it had its www's and @'s and dot's. And it kept growing, until it hit its savvy, fast-paced, high energy 20's. And who knows where it will go from here. Just like you.

You may consider yourself less hip to the tech talk than others your age, but the fact remains - you grew up with it all around you, and you're much more familiar with it than 95% of the people who are older than you.

One place that you can see the tech language barrier in full effect is in the home. You know how it is - you go home to visit the folks for a few days and you feel a familial (perhaps even patriotic) duty to install Firefox and Spybot and a couple ad-blockers on their poor, vulnerable new Dell. Well, hopefully they got a Dell. Parents are sadly susceptible to marketing (unlike their more jaded children) and often will buy a computer because they saw that "it comes in a box that looks like a cow!" Or perhaps yours were the price-savvy type that bought an Orion or some other obscure Japanese brand because it was half the price of all the other computers at Comp USA (wonder why that was). Either way, there it sits, whatever kind it is, and its new, and pitifully under-utilized.

Perhaps no where is the dichotomy between those comfortable with computers and those who didn't grow up in the tech era more visible, however, than in the office. Its interesting, being the guy who was subtly being taught by Dig-Dug and Word Perfect 1.0 on a bright green screen when he was 12 years old. You didn't realize how much you learned along the way, until one day you're sitting there pretending to work really hard on a Monday morning, and your boss' boss walks up to you and tells you his email broke again. Like its a shoddy toaster oven or something that just wore out after too many slices of rye. Right. It just broke. You had nothing to do with it.

But you don't say that. You jump right on the opportunity to become the Divisional Manager's pet - the guy he always goes to when he needs someone to talk tech to his computer for him. He normally just kind of haggles with it in broken tech, like he's trying agree on a price with a Chinese street vendor. You barely even notice that he never in fact asked you to fix it, he only told you that it broke. He didn't ask because he's not entirely sure you can do it, until the first time he watches you. And it wouldn't matter if he video-taped your every move, the next time he forgets to compress his 3 bajillion undeleted emails, he's gonna be right back at your sad excuse for a desk (and hopefully you won't be on PartyPoker.com when he shows up). Its still kind of fun to tell them what you're doing, and listen to them "uh-huh" you like they're catching on. The same way that you talk to them when they're discussing the higher functions of the business that you don't usually have to deal with. Ironic.

You walk back to your desk and write down his passwords and put them in your "in case I ever get fired..." safety folder.

The responses you get from the older generation can vary a lot, it seems, depending on the person in question. Parents usually have that blithe approach of "oh I had no idea you could do that...that's amazing...show me again what you just did...wait where are my glasses...". That's endearing and lovable, because hey, they're your parents. So you work with them time and again to show them how to attach the picture to the email, over and over and over. It can be a different story in the workplace, though - lots of other things can enter the picture. First off, you have your normal duties to do, and if you spend half your day killing the spyware that "just started popping up" on the boss' computer, you're also killing precious net surfing minutes in your soon-to-be-non-existent evening. Secondly, the pride is often a factor. They know enough to know what they don't know, and it can be embarrassing to have to go to someone half your age to get them to help you do your job. Sometimes it might even be just plain old jealousy - they wish they could do what you can, but all those '.exe's are just a little to intimidating.

And often times you get the just plain stubborn. "I did it before this way and it works and that's how I'll do it again." There is, perhaps, nothing in the world so frustrating to watch as a person set in their ways, refusing to accept the higher, faster, wiser, better path that you can so quickly point them too. The gospel of Google falls on different types of soil as well.

The funny thing is that my little brother, not a decade younger than me, will never really deal with these types the way I have to. By the time he's done with college and hits whatever industry he falls into, guys like the managers of today will be the last of the wandering dinosaurs. Some of them will have made it into the upper echelons of senior management (shudder), some will have managed to retire, who knows where the rest will be - maybe trying to figure out why their register at McDonald's "just broke." But the dichotomy will be long gone. People like you and me will be where they are now - sitting in the management positions, but able to speak tech - to varying degrees, depending on our experience and attraction to the culture itself. That (or wanting to talk to a foreign girl) is usually about the only reason you bother to learn a language in the first place, right?

I think that perhaps people my age will be able to stay up with the trends, if they try - understand the changes that computers and the net and whatnot will go through, and embrace them. What scares me, a little, is what new stuff, tech I can't even imagine right now, or perhaps something even beyond the realm of tech, might come along that perhaps might make us dinosaurs a little before our time. Which is entirely possible - who knew 30 years ago, before we were even conceived, that the modern world would be speaking this new universal language? Artificial Intelligence, digitized living experiences, total connectivity, whatever the new things may be - they're coming. And some day you're going to have to ask someone half your age to show you how it works.

I've been splitting my time this week between wonderful Florham Park, NJ and our Avanade office in the West Village. Still haven't figured out quite who the Avanade guys are or what they do, but the offices are nice. And right down the block from Corner Bistro. I like the West Village, for the most part.

Work is...interesting. Not the work so much as figuring out the language and semantics of the consulting field. I like my career counselor a lot - he's a partner in the company and has taken me under his wing, so to speak. I have trouble interpreting his guidance, but that's probably just as much my rookie ears as it is his cryptic stylings. The project I'm doing some high-level work on was supposed to be signed today, at which point I would have been officially chargeable on a project, for the first time since joining the new company. But now its pushed another week, which gives me plenty of time to get more work done on it...and that's all I've got to say about that, after all the hoopla lately about jobs and blogs and whatnot. As I've said before, I'm thankful to be here at the new company, and it goes without saying that I'll work my arse off here to get ahead, just like I have everywhere else that I've been. Only here I have newfound hope that it might actually work.

Today was hanging around the house reviewing a lot of previous company work that's been done with clients, getting a feel for how we're gonna structure this project. Other than that, not much. Drinking a lot of water and grapefruit juice, trying to flush this bug out of my system. I've been so lazy today that the only thing I've bothered to eat is some Cheetos, though I have a pizza in the oven as I type now.

What else, what else...I don't really have a post in me, for the second night in a row, and I still blame this virus or disease or whatever it is. So you're getting a sample of the hodge-podge that is my life right now. Need to book my JetBlue flight home to Cali for next month tomorrow, kinda pushing the envelope on that, and paying the bills, too. So tomorrow is a desk/room cleanup day. The roommate gets back from Alaska, I believe. I won't be playing golf with Cregan or going dancing in the city for Amber's birthday with everyone else as I'll still be trying to rest.

Maybe I'll get around to uploading some pictures, or maybe even updating my sidebar. We shall see. I've obviously listened to *something* new since Christmas. I feel like one of those rednecks that never bothered to take the X-mas lights down...shame on me. And I've been plowing through Netflix, as well...most recently finished the Godfather trilogy, tonight is the second half of Disney's "The Rookie" and possibly the compu-animation "Antz" - after that I'm going to give the HBO series "Oz" a shot, see how I like it. And after that a bunch of MST3K is scheduled. Can't go wrong there.

What else...the A's are playing Texas this weekend, the only team that stands between us and the Angels for the top seat in the AL West. We took them out last night, and put up 4 runs in the 2nd and 3 runs in the 3rd so far tonight - its 7-0 in the 3rd as I type. Go Oakland.

What else...my new phone...naw maybe I'll make a whole post out of that one. I like it so far.

That's it, I guess. I was really hoping for more, as its the Friday before the weekend deal, but there you have it. I suppose as work ramps up, Fridays will be even more likely to suffer such a fate. I'll just have to work hard to get ahead of schedule, have stuff ready to post in reserve, or something.

You were this close to not getting a post tonight. Woke up sick this morning - sore throat and hacking cough - that green stuff that makes you feel like one of those dinosaurs that could spit poisonous venom. Makes me feel like that anyway. A dinosaur with a throat so sore it gives him a day-long headache.

So I was in the West Village offices for a bit but the building's AC was shot, so I stopped by my career counselor's apartment to go over the stuff I'm working on for an hour or so, then I came back here and lazed the day away, just trying to super-hydrate this vicious virus out of my system.

Like you freakin care. You're just here for the links. You don't care if I'm sick. You'd care if I died though, cause then who would you have to get your links from? Shame on you. Just for that, you get minimal links:

Cellphone Numbers Overtake Land Lines

Dogblog

Google Guide: Help with Searching

Tricks of the Trade

Visited States (see my map, above - the non-visted are all ones I'm fairly certain I haven't been to, Florida, Maine, Hawaii, and Alaska I know for sure. I'm guessing the ones I have said I've been to are accurate within 1-2 states, at the most...link thanks to Hotel Cali.

Oh and double Google goodness again - this one for us NYers:
onNYTurf : Google Map NYC-Subway Hack

The traditional approach within the Church has been to minimize any positive contribution that the arts can make but, in a bizarre contradiction, publish books about the bad influence rock music has on our youth. For many years, the cinema was an anathema, and many people grew up without televisions. The obvious reason was that these things could transform for the worse, but no one looked at their power for the better. -- Steve Stockman

And Grace calls out: you are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle-aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. You may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken, or potbellied. Death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. But you are not just that. You are accepted. Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted. -- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

Someday, someone will walk into your life and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else. -- Unknown

Just 3 things that have hit me lately, the first two from Dawn's away messages. Boy am I lazy today.

If, unlike me, you're a loyal Rolling Stone reader, you might have noticed an article a couple weeks ago by Jeff Sharlet, entitled "The Young and the Sexless." Sharlet's article focused on how a "new generation of young men and women are embracing the celibate life."

That's interesting. Its like Christian kids just found out about the ancient practice of abstinence and thought they'd revive it like some defunct fashion statement come round for another whirl. The article was posted in Rolling Stone's News section, I might note.

"Chastity is a new organizing principle of the Christian right, built on the notion that virgins are among God's last loyal defenders, knights and ladies of a forgotten kingdom..."

To Sharlet's credit, by the fourth paragraph he made the admission that the practice of celibacy is one dating at least to the early church, but he quickly moves on to say that its a practice that Protestants are "reclaiming."

I just don't get it. While its a decent article, its quite focused on the sexual aspects (ironically) and written with an air of almost imperceptible disdain. At times, it even touches on some very good points. But how the author or anyone else can wonder and marvel at this crazy new fad is beyond me. I admit there were the very sexual cultural rebellions that took place a few decades back, but even then, is it impossible to think there were young people out there choosing not to engage in what the rest of the world was carelessly experimenting with?

The issue here is that at any time (at least that I can think of, in relatively recent history), the movement for celibacy has been quiet, small, and abnormal. But not new. Very much like scientists discovering a "new" species - its only new to them - how long its been around is, in large part, beyond their ability to determine. Its quiet because it feels no need to laud itself - and perhaps at times its somewhat ashamed of not fitting in with cultural norms. Its small because its not something that's well-taught and admired, sadly even within the church, at certain times. And its abnormal because its not easy to do. Not in the slightest.

As sexually focused as the article is, I found it poignantly sad that it never really even got to the core of what Christians believe sex is: the clearest humanly-possible foretaste of our ultimate heavenly communion with God himself. The virtue of chastity itself was so exalted at points that the Gospel message felt rather left by the wayside. Which, of course, is an easy thing to do - I don't maintain that the Christian message of sex as our ultimate earthly picture of the eternity that awaits God's elect is an easy message to convey.

I suppose it presents quite the lacuna in modern Christian published thought - if society (and indeed the church, first-off) could understand what it is that Christianity understands sex to be, and why, the abstinence movement might not suffer the fate of being continually discovered as such a shocking news item.

We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity - like perfect charity - will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection...

Finally, though I have had to speak at some length about sex, I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that the centre of Christian morality is not here. If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither. -- C.S. Lewis

Three months of not really working will make you forget quite acutely how much you dislike Mondays, quite acutely. Work has to start sooner or later in the week, I suppose.

On the drive back from Ocean City, it was Russ, sitting in the passenger's seat as I drove, who first voiced what we were all thinking, those of us who were awake, at least.

"I wish tomorrow wasn't Monday."

"Yeah," I said, "I wish I was still out in the water right now."

Our rental was a brand new Dodge Durango and heaven knows how much I like driving, so I couldn't really complain - it had been a great weekend and I was having fun even just driving back.

Friday after work I caught a ride down with Mindi, Kuz, and Grant - Jenny, Peggy, and Russ driving along with us in Jenny's car. Cregan, Titus, Spring, Phil, Amber, and Daisy were all down there already. We had our first planning session Friday night then hit the sack. Saturday was more planning, then off to the beach for the afternoon.

As I usually do when I get to the beach, I started swimming away from the continent as soon as the sunscreen dried. I usually go a few hundred yards just to put some fear in to me, and most times it pisses the life guards right off, but this time we found a nice empty stretch of beach that was actually state park and hence free of life guards, although we were only a few yards from where their territory started. About 150 yards out or so, I stop to take a look around, make sure I'm not in any kind of rip-tide, etc, and I put my feet down and almost completely freak out when I realize I'm standing on something. The shock only lasted a second as I realized I had found a sand bar out where the larger waves were breaking, and it was awesome - at points the water between waves was only waist deep. It was like having my own personal beach a football field and a half away from the rest of humanity.

I tried to get some of the guys to venture out but the swim was a bit intimidating. Amber finally made it out near the end of the afternoon - she grew up in Florida and so, like me, has the surfer's confidence in the ocean. I think it can be an intimidating thing for people who didn't grow up around it. Lots of good body surfing, then back to the hotel for showers, and out for a great dinner at the big seafood joint in town. More planning/meeting Saturday night and Sunday morning, then a couple more hours at the beach before hitting the road again. Laundry last evening and work all day. Tomorrow I'm headed out to middle of nowhere NJ to one of our satellite offices for some meetings. So who knows when I'll be back or if I'll get the normal CC post up in time. We can hope...

Well here we go, as promised. This has to be a 15 minute post as I have to hit the road for the weekend. So its gonna be a quick one.

First off, a quote from London's mayor Ken Livingstone (courtesy of the Londonist):

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

Great stuff and it certainly falls in line with what I've written in the past couple months about the gospel approach to the city mindset/lifestyle/phenomenon/etc...

Ok, the following links mostly wrote themselves, because I found a new Firefox hack - if you have favorites in your favorite menu, you can drag them to a text field in the page you are on (like my blog posting field, for instance). It throws down the website and the favorites title (the name it gives the site in your favorites menu). All you have to do to link to it is throw the HTML tags on. Sweeeeeeeet.

Acronym Finder: Find out what over 2,421,000 acronyms & abbreviations stand for.

del.icio.us looks totally rad, but I've been too busy this week to start using it. More on it next week, in the meantime check out this handy guide to it.

Snowflake and Snow Crystal Photos I freakin love this stuff.

inner.geek » Blog Archive » HOWTO: Save nearly any multimedia file in your web browser to your hard drive Sweet hack for net geeks like me.

CNN.com - Man charged with stealing Wi-Fi signal - Jul 7, 2005

Wired News: A Tool to Wake Up Wi-Fi Zombies This looks rad.

O needs your prayers.

What is the Invisible Web?

Next time you see a major city's public transit bombed (and I doubt it will be long, now...), buy stock in bicycles.

How to Become an Early Riser

And last, as promised, lots of map goodies:

Today's Front Pages - Map View

Map24 - Map24 has some cool features that Google maps should steal to make Google maps even better. Either way Google maps still rules, because people can do stuff like:

This! gwifi: Using GoogleMaps to find free Wi-Fi ...this is totally rad.

And this! Google Weather Map ...also totally rad, some day I think Google will grab this and there will be webcams everywhere and we'll all be batteries in the machine by then anyway...

Annnnnnd THIS!!! Gmaps Pedometer
...this is even radder than totally rad and this guy lives in Hoboken and runs a lot, just like me! so this is like a personalized totally radder-than-rad google find for me...

7/7 became the UK's own little version of 9/11 this morning, as terrorists orchestrated mass murder in the public transit system during the morning rush hour in London. I trolled through more than enough pictures on it just now, thanks in part to Flikr's 7/7 site. Wikipedia seems to be keeping an extremely detailed up-to-the-minute page going on the events across the pond, as I write at least 38 have been confirmed dead, in what is believed to be 3 underground train blasts and one bus blast. There were multiple other controlled detonations throughout the day around London, and there's the general chaos that comes with such an event, although a lot less than we saw here a few years back. Let's hope that this is the worst taste they ever get of the terrorist hatred.

Ironic that there's been talk of Britain pulling forces out of Iraq over the past few weeks. Doubt that's still a lock-in at this point. Check out the bottom of the Londonist's day-long recap of the events over there and you'll see the same instant rage that was felt state-side in the aftermath of 9/11. Note to terrorists: pissing off England = bad idea.

Today was not fun, finding out about London, then noting the police presence at the PATH kicked right back up to RNC / 9/11 anniversary status. PA cops with German Shepherds above ground, barking at people's suitcases, PA cops with more sheps on the train platforms two levels down, PA cops in full battle gear with M-16's and MP-5's strapped to their chests standing around the middle levels.

I have lots of links but...I'm still at work. Needed a news/blogging break before I try and finally kill this evil Replenishment/Allocations beast project. I simply can't leave it alive and waiting for me over the night. And I have to pack tonight as I leave for the beach weekend with the youth leaders directly after work tomorrow. Joy.

So...you get double linkage, tonight and tomorrow. If I can make it happen, tomorrow. Otherwise you might get drivel tomorrow, or a quote, or butkis, who knows...

About halfway down SpaceWeather's page, you can find out all about Potentially Hazardous Asteroids. There's over 700 of them, but don't worry - astronomers are finding new ones all the time.

Simply genius response to the Supreme Court's ruling on eminent domain.

Another good way to support the troops. I've linked to others, previously. Find yourself a soldier to adopt, if you don't have one already.

"Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" 100 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time. For now...

(The last three links are courtesy of Banshee Blog - a fellow GCC alum of mine - you'll find her in my sidebar and I'm glad she's back up and blogging, btw.)

Remember the Darwin Awards emails? They have a web page now.

Unfortunately the complete list of Photoshop Tips is only 39 tips long.

Internet Traffic Report.

Link I just found and it looks cool but I haven't explored it much yet: Notes from the road.

Tomorrow: lots of map goodies, especially as it pertains to Google.

So I'm walking home from work today, I have my Qdoba in a bag ready to sit on the counter while I take a nice long run in the after-the-rain cool of the evening, and I notice the guy walking next to me down the street is staring right at me. Its an old buddy, Rob, from my college days, who worked with me at Kaufmann's for a couple years after school and then took off for Filene's in Boston (staying with the same parent company) when I left to come to New York. I asked him what in the world he was doing here, he lives in Hoboken now and works for a vendor in the city. He asked me how I was doing, and my response was instantaneous.

"I'm great."

I live a semi-charmed life. We headed to Willy's and traded beers and stories from the past couple years - we're both still single and just enjoying life as twenty-somethings. He lives 2 blocks from me now, which is a trip. We were never really on the same path in life, which is why we never really kept in touch once we left the 'burgh, but we recognize that in each other and enjoy each other anyway. He's about where I would have expected, and I suppose I'm the same to him.

I am great, though. It was a poignant half-second that I had to reflect on that answer as it became verbal in my mouth, one of those moments that you'll probably never forget. You see all this history standing in front of you, think about where you were and how far you've come, and what you have now. You see that only goodness and mercy have followed you all the days of your life. Things are great. No complaints.

Not even the brutality that work has turned out to be these past couple days. Not fun, but no complaints, right? Its good to have something to do again, and even though Toys R Us will be a terrible company to work with, and I feel little to no direction in my first couple days, I'm glad to be doing something. If I had to metaphor it...well, imagine if you were a writer and they asked, on your first day, that you start writing a novel. Well, you start banging out ideas, right? They don't tell you what its supposed to be about, or how long, or when they want it...you just guess at all the details. Oh, and one more thing...they want it in Mandarin Chinese.

Whatever. I'm at a better company, with better people, I'll be challenged for a change, and I'm supremely thankful for the opportunity. I just hope I don't screw it up.

Nothing to report of the weekend, after the movies on Saturday. Sunday was lazing, a run, church, some hanging out down by the waterfront with church folks. Monday was more lazing, running, then watching the fireworks from our deck (see above) since I was too lazy to walk down to the waterfront. Gives you an idea of what it would look like from my place were the aliens to begin their assault in NYC. Which makes sense - they'd probably hit us, DC, maybe Chicago, San Fran, and LA simultaneously. Maybe Miami too. That's how I'd start the invasion, if I were in charge.

Then Tuesday started work. How I banged out a CC post after working from 9am til 10pm, after not working a day in 3 months...well that's grace, right there. This week will mark the start of that new trend I predicted: Mon-Fri posts, weekends off. You were only getting here's-what-I-did drivel anyway, you'll survive. I'll try to do meatier Friday posts to give you something to suckle on 'til Monday rolls round. I've been working on organizing my favorites on the work comp this week, plus doing a little surfing, so who knows what internety goodness may await you this week.

Friday I'm taking off either around lunchtime (if possible) or dinnertime (again, if possible) for our annual youth leaders planning retreat weekend deal, this time down near the beach. I deserve some beach, I've been diligent in working on my tan and my waistline in my time off from work.

Look out, Loretta.

Daniel is one of my favorite books of the Bible, right up there with (but not in front of) the Samuels and the Wisdom Literature. I've written before about my favorite 3 words in the book: "but if not," and the cool story of their timely use in military history, at a time that the culture was familiar enough with the scriptures to recognize their singular usage.

But perhaps one of my favorite stories in the whole book is that of "the writing on the wall" (yet another modern phrase of Biblical heritage). Daniel 5 is rife with the intricate details of Belshazzar's profane orgy and the immediate and visible response of an angered God. After seeing the hand writing on the wall in response to his sin, the king is reminded of Daniel's ability to interpret - those Babylonian kings seemed to have serious memory problems. The king offered Daniel the third most powerful position in the land, and Daniel's response was fascinating - though he had accepted kingly rewards before and would again later - he told the king to stow his rewards and then began translating all the same. He was swift and harsh with the king, in stern contrast to the tender and affectionate ways in which he begged Nebuchadnezzer (Bel's father) to repent.

And while the reasons for his behavior and attitude may remain somewhat mysterious to us, he made quite clear the offense that Belshazzar had committed, and then translated the writing on the wall just as clearly. Belshazzar was true to his word and rewarded Daniel immediately, and God was true to his word, as Belshazzar didn't live to see the next morning, when his kingdom was divided.

In my most recent study of Daniel, I noted an interesting similarity between the Babylonian kings and the people of Israel. So many times, reading through the Old Testament, you see the continual, repetitive, incredibly stupid acts of the Israelites as they return, time and again, to their sin. Like a dog to its vomit, as the proverb said. And they are admonished, and they repent. And sooner or later, every time, they go back to their sin. And the cycle continues. I've long thought that God provided us with the constant repetition of their history to drum into our heads what our lives of sin must look like in His eyes. We are no better than the Israelites, no better than the kings of Babylon.

And yet we have the joyful knowledge that when we, like Belshazzar, are weighed on the scale, we will not be found wanting. Much of the rest of Daniel covers his prophecies that point to the "son of man" that Jesus later identified himself to be - the Son that stands with us as we are weighed and pronounces us to be without any want.

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Great day in the morning, as the geezer used to say. Wild and crazy Friday night, up for most of it, alone and bored. Couple hours of sleep then up to help Carrie move - there were a lot of us but she had a LOT of stuff. Wow. I drove the truck over to the new place on the way back and caught the front corner of some old fart's Cadillac when trying to park it at the new place. Bumper stuck out further than I thought. Wasn't really bad, but wasn't fun. Carrie had the insurance on the truck so hopefully that will all be fine. Made me feel like crap most of the morning, though. Took a run then took off for War of the Worlds.

Go see it.

Came home, chilled out, worked on some fixes for the home comp. Headed out for dinner at P.F. Chang's (I always have a great time at that place, I don't know why I don't go more often) and then off to Cinderella Man.

Go see it.

Absolutely nothing whatsoever planned for the rest of the weekend. Maybe a little necessities shopping but I'm over budget as is so not much. Probably a lot of sleeping on the deck tomorrow as I'm starting to feel like not much sleep is in the picture for tonight, either. Don't know what this bug is I've caught.

I've been meaning to blog about a few things in particular that would be worth reading, but keep forgetting whatever they may be. One thing I finally remembered, though: I went with Nance and Gayle on Wednesday to see Jules in Phantom. I've seen the road show in a few cities but never on Broadway. It was, of course, stellar, and Jules was even more incredible than I could have imagined. It was kinda weird seeing her there, and being like, "Hey, that's Julie...". Anyway it was a great time and she and Janet (another gal at church who is in the show) took us on the whole backstage tour right after the show, which was simply incredible. They run that thing like a Navy ship, 8 times a week by my count. Wow. We walked out the back and waited to the side as Jules signed autographs, then rode the bus home with her again like our normal friend, just on a bus ride. Fun times.

I've got a few things to say today, so strap in...

First off, I'm gonna rant here about Toby for a minute. If you check his website, you'll see that there's a new deadline for Toby. He was supposed to become stew yesterday - for the last year or so the date listed on the site was yesterday, June 30th, 2005. Sometime in the past month or so, the date was subtly updated, the rest of the page remained exactly the same. I emailed them to express my displeasure. Back before paypal shut down their account, people had donated almost $20,000 of the original $50,000 ransom for the bunny's life. Its pretty clear now that these guys put one over on a foolish public.

Secondly, the WSJ had an interesting article on how the road ahead is getting more and more difficult for Google as they seek to make all information everywhere accessible online. Copyrights and freedom of information and whatnot, especially as they continue to develop Google News, Google Print and Google Video. Video is the newest one - isn't really video yet but screen shots and partial transcripts - play around with it if you haven't already. You can see where it will go, though - it will be video with advertisements, essentially TV will become obsolete. So naturally the networks and cable companies and whatnot are in total recoil - screaming bloody copyright murder. But its going to happen. No one can stop it. Its not going to be a pretty process, though. Some interesting excerpts from the article:

"...Google's stock has risen briefly above $300 from its initial public offering price last year of $85..."

"Consumers spent 1,625 hours each on average viewing TV, home videos and movies in 2004, compared with 176 hours with the Internet and 108 hours reading books, according to preliminary data from Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a media investment bank."

"Google's chief executive, Mr. Schmidt, calls Google's mission a long-term one. 'It will take, current estimate, 300 years to organize all of the world's information,' he says."

Its almost scary how this is unfolding just like the Epic guys projected...

Later...

Just got back from George and Germ's where we watched "Waiting for Guffman," and...oh my. That's all I have to say about that, really. Its like the Napoleon Dynamite for the theater community, or something. Oh my. Lions and tigers and bears.

Spielberg's next big film is about the Israeli response to the Munich Olympics. I've always been morbidly fascinated with the whole atrocity - growing up we had an incredible documentary about it on a VHS tape and I must have watched it 5 times. It makes me sad to watch. The article I was reading about the movie recently had the picture above, and it haunts me to this day.

Its one of those Fridays. I get maybe 3 or 4 of them a year, but they definitely happen more when I'm working regularly, then have a slow Friday, which makes this one kind of odd, as I haven't been working regularly. Anyway the way it usually works is that there's a slow work day in the office, very often associated with a holiday weekend. Like this one. Yeah...so I wake up with too much energy and sit around with it all day (really should have gone for a run). I don't eat, because I'm not hungry. I just feel kinda off, but the wits are sharp and the energy level is high. It stays this way all day. 10:30 at night rolls around and I've still not really eaten much, am not hungry, and won't be for a few more hours (conveniently after everyone that's any good stops delivering for the night). I'll read, I'll blog, I'll surf, I'll game, I'll clean my room, I may even go for a midnight run. I won't sleep all night, and I'll start eating voraciously in the wee hours. I may even fold the clean laundry. I usually end up sleeping a few hours in the morning, like 7-10. That's going to be a problem tomorrow because we're moving Care bear down the street to her new apartment, at like 8:30 in the morning. And I have to go, or suffer the wrath of the guys when we meet up for our War of the Worlds matinee tomorrow.

That's all for now. Well, not really. All the typing I have left in me, though.

Happy July, have a safe and patriotic holiday.

The dark stone walls were wet with the mist of the morning, as if the damp grayness in the air outside crept through the open windows and spread itself across the walls.

He lay in his bed, speechless now in his old age, clutching the layers of blankets piled to keep him warm. He could hear them chanting in the distance.

His attendant peered through the window into the fog. He too could hear them, and though he saw nothing but the occasional flicker of a torch in the distance, he could make out what they were saying. And he could tell that this was a mob of irresistible size. He would be guilty by association, they would drag him out behind his master and...

A cough from the bed caused the attendant to turn his head, though his hands remained frozen to the sill. His eyes locked with the bedridden master, and he saw his sire's fearful inquiry, wordless but clear: "What are they saying?"

"Your majesty," his voice wavering, "they want..."

"They're coming for the links, my liege."

Eating pop rocks while drinking soda will kill you. If you were a child of the 80's, chances are, like me, you lost a friend to this horrible concoction, that for many years was as readily available to an innocent public (children, even!) as...candy and soda. Believe the hype. Ignore the naysayers. Need I point out that they never found Mikey?

Hopefully by now you've googled up the footage of Tom Cruise going completely bonkers on the Oprah show. It really happened, so if you don't know what I'm talking about, google around and read up on it before you watch Tom kill Oprah. Instant classic.

Its been a while since I linked to a game, so for the love of Aunt Jemimah, please don't spill the beer.

The meaning of life now has an FAQ on the internets. I didn't really read it but what little I did was funny, right off the bat. I probably find it funny because I'm afraid it might be meant as serious, which makes it that much more funny. Am I the only person chuckling at this point? Ok.

I've been preaching the gospel of FireFox for a while now, but these guys take it to a whole new level.

Your Google link of the week really isn't, but kinda is. Anyway its Twingine, and its kinda cool. You'll notice that the guy who thought this up gets a couple more hits on his site than I do on mine. BONUS GOOGLE LINK: look what the Canadians came up with. Just figures...

My inner hyper-libertarian nods in knowing sadness when it sees the sheer stupidity of how much we're wasting in the war on drugs.

I don't use or endorse Fusemail at this point, but it looks interesting.

Late sleepers like me now have a banner under which to rally.

Whether you've been a long time clicker of links, or you click on one now and again, or this is your first time reading one of my link dumps, clicking on any of them will open the link in a new window. That's because I choose to write the html for the link in that manner, so that you have the convenience of having my blog open in its original window. I personally like this feature when I'm browsing online because it allows me to explore new sites without worrying that I'm going to lose the original site I was on, forever beyond the grasp of my "back" button.

This last link, however, will not have that specific html code. Instead, you will leave my blog, and be completely redirected to this link. This is ok, because this post is over, and I trust you can find my blog again (I suggest you bookmark it if you haven't already done so). I implore you not to right click on this link and open it up in another window (which is what I would myself do, even after such a warning). I believe that you should be completely focused on this link, and not distracted by anything else on the internet, or in the universe, for that matter. Ladies and gentlemen, without further adieu, I give you: the internet's crowning achievement.