Foney Fridays: This Post Unintentionally Written
It's not going to happen this week.
The fact is, I'm not coming up with any quality snark at the moment. True, I had a cool idea about a man failing his emissions test, but his car passing it (hint: the emissions weren't coming from the car). I even had a good title: Sins of Emission. Didn't take. I gave it three tries, and it now lies dead in my Drafts. (I even get how "drafts" is really ironic.)
There was also one I thought of about a man trying to spend his way out of debt. And it was just not going to be political or anything!! Would government ever do something like that? Please. So that didn't work. How could it?
I even discovered the existence of Kitty Wigs (http://www.kittywigs.com/). You'd think I could use that. Nope. Nothing. Apocatlypse. How great a word is that? Cats take over the world in response to the wigs. How wouldn't that work? And yet I got 250 words into it and pulled the plug.
I'm just trying to be real here while writing under a pseudonym. In baseball terms, I've lost my fastball. And I'm not throwing again until there's some heat on it. I think I need a satirical vacation. So maybe I'll just head over to my place and hang for a while. Oh, I'll be back sooner or later, but I think I just need a break from the pressure of these deadlines and the fame and fortune. Well, it's mostly the deadlines. The others would be nice-to-haves.
Anybody want to guest author a Foney Friday? Take my topics. Make them work. I'm taking a break until the Snark Muse visits again.
Artificially Yours,
O.Handwasher
MMM: Traffic Shockwave, Submissions, Datasheets
A while back, a friend told me about a Youtube showing how a Traffic Shockwave is created. Have you ever been driving along, minding your business, and then traffic suddenly comes to a standstill? You keep driving, hoping to see some reason for the logjam. And what do you see? Nuthin'. Why? Well, who knows why...but this video shows it actually happening:
Cool, huh? So basically, this stuff happens because people don't know how to hold their position in traffic.
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I've set up a new page for Submissions. Obviously, I love to write, but I'm occasionally short on topics or content. Please don't let this happen. I'm looking for suggestions for Too Funny Tuesdays, Theology Thursdays, and Foney Fridays. I'll even take just random web-gleanings upon which I might Muse on a Monday. Just go over to the Suggest a Topic link (top-right) and fire away (or click the link in this sentence if you're really lazy).
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In the course of my workday, I read a lot of specifications and datasheets (and so infected with them is my mind that I've asked The Fair Elaine about them in my sleep). You know your day is off to a good start when you get a review copy of a new datasheet sent out specifically to help you get your work done and you end up sending back an email with this line in it:
"In short, my feedback is that I don’t find that this datasheet helps me complete my work in any way."
Yeah, it's gonna be a good day.
MMM: Rubber Band Kill, Apostrolypse, Restroom Blog
Ethan got his first Rubber Band Kill last Wednesday. I'm extremely proud. He stood on his bed, aimed carefully, and destroyed a spider. It was a perfect shot (not an easy one, either...probably four feet). It's our version of hunting. True, we basically do it for sport, but we don't take trophies. My collection of taxidermized flies, mosquitoes, spiders, and skeeter-eaters would be impressive, but I just always felt that kind of thing was kinda tacky.
I'm a great shot with a rubber band myself, but I don't think I was as good as Ethan at his age. I'm announcing it right now...Ethan for Gold Medal in Olympic Rubber Band Marksmanship in 2016!!!
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Perhaps you're worried about terrorism, or maybe even Climate Change (snicker...sorry, can't help it). But I'm telling you right now that we face an even more dangerous danger...the Apostrolypse. Perhaps you've never heard of such a thing. What is it? It's the end of the world, brought on by the misuse of apostrophes. Oh, I mean apostrophe's. If you don't get it, you'll want to do some reading.
Why do I think we're in danger? Elaine and I went to the Murray Hill Café the other day (just for dessert) and found this gem on the menu:
Lindsay's' Dessert of the Day
At least she didn't go with "Desert," which one encounters more than one might expect.
I didn't find a dessert menu online, which was disappointing. I did happen to look at the dinner menu and found a few things I'd like to try. But I'm going to have to say something about that Dessert item.
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I've done it. My webhost sent me a coupon for a free domain hosting package, and I set up my Restroom Blog. There, I'll start doing exploratory posts on the subject of the Restroom, in pursuit of my dream of publishing a book my mother would so NOT approve of. If you'd like to help out with my research, head over there and keep an eye out for questions, surveys, and general mayhem.
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And now we're heading for the Coast. Buh-bye.
Site Redesign!
Perhaps you've noticed this page looks different?
I've switched over from bBlog (which is no longer maintained) to WordPress, and thus far, it's kewl. I was able to migrate my bBlog posts, as well as my older LiveJournal stuff (mostly rubbish).
The name change is due to the fact that I just couldn't get used to posting American Idol recaps on my Bible Blog (with a Scripture verse for a name). So, there you have it. Poke around and make sure everything works, and let me know (comment or email if you know it) if you see anything amiss.
Reactivated comments!!!
In the beginning, there were comments. And comments multiplied and became evil. Spam was in the blog in those days, when spammers saw the comments of men (and women), that they were beautiful. And the Blogger saw the thoughts of the spammers, that their every intention was evil.
Then the blogger said to CAPTCHA, "Build for me an ark of php code, and stop this incessant spamming." And CAPTCHA was installed. But the ark was leaky.
The Blogger saw that only he could patch the ark. So did he cover the ark over with pitch, turning off all comments for the sake of stemming the tide of spamming. And the spam was stopped. As were all comments.
But the Blogger was grieved that his reader could not communicate with him, even if he (the Blogger) had written something just incredibly brilliant, unlikely though that might be.
Therefore, in his mercy and forbearance, the Blogger caused Comments to be re-enabled. And he vowed to never again destroy all comments.
However, the Blogger will still moderate comments.
Final 2007 reading list and total
Unfortunately, I didn't make my predicted total of 56. I fell one book short, even though I finished Alas, Babylon (fantastic, by the way) on January 1st. But I can't count fractions of a book, or it'd all get a bit cornfusing. So, I go with Finish Date as the marker for a book in a given year. Of course, this means that the book I started in 2005 and got 125 pages into will show up on my 2008 list when I finish the remaining 250 pages, when in fact I'll only have read 66% of it this year.
Curious about what, exactly, I read this year? Here's the list:
My Year in Bad Books
It's that time of year when I take a whole post (or three) and dedicate them to bragging about how many books I read. I know there are many out there who read *more* books that I do, but most of my friends seem to think I'm strange for reading as many as I do. So I choose to be proud of it.
I don't actually have my total for the year yet, but I can project it with a small bit of accuracy. Right now I'm sitting at 50, and I will definitely finish my Bible and my "How to Read the Bible" book. I'll also definitely finish the Koontz I'm reading, the Asimov short story collection, and probably one or two minor books I haven't started yet. So I'm going with:
New Temporary Motto!
Given my current inability to get over this silly cold/sinus thing I have, I've decided to take up a new motto:
Expectorate the Unexpected!
Like it?
Blog moved
For those (plural, yeah right) who read this thing, I've relocated my blog to my "seth" subdomain, in preparation for perhaps allocating my wife a blog on her "elaine" sub.
So, if you're reading this under heasley.net/blog, update your bookmark to http://seth.heasley.net/blog.
Thanky.
Oh, and I've solved my comment flood problem (major spam), so real, genuine comments would be mucho appreciatedo.
Unorthodox Read-Through…DONE!
So, if you didn't read my inaugural post, you don't know that this year I had planned to read the NT, and listen to the OT. Then I finished the NT. And I decided that since I had gotten a new Bible for Christmas ($4 ESV), I should just read the whole thing.
Well...I finished yesterday. Ezekiel came last. Here are 10 observations from my reading this year:
1. I love Job. The book, and the man.
2. Genesis 34 is a chapter that only a man with sisters can understand. And it's kind of hilarious.
3. I need to memorize James. If I could only have one book of the NT, it'd probably be James.
4. Numbers is actually an interesting book.
5. Psalms is best read one chapter at a time (read this, Sunset Word Traveler organizers!). Otherwise it dilutes.
6. Solomon is one of the more depressing characters in the Bible.
7. John 1:11 is still the saddest verse in the Bible to me.
8. Reading the Law (most of Exodus-Deuteronomy) aloud helps. Not so dry then.
9. Daniel 3:16-18 are probably the most inspiring words in the OT. Especially 18.
10. There's still no Antichrist in Revelation. Seriously...go look.
There still remains the little Resolution I made to read something from the Bible every day. Still doing that. I'm already working on next year's NT reading (with John and Brent). And there's always memorizing James...