1.31.2005

Want some fries with that?

I've seen Supersize Me. Abigail has read Fast Food Nation. None of the health reasons have really phased me. I kept eating fast food. I've heard all of the horror stories of what the teens that work in these places do. I've even seen a dead rat in a Wendy's parking lot before going in to order food. I still ordered the food and ate it. But all of these things, especially recently, have been having a cumulative effect on me. This following story has almost convinced me to never patronize a fast food joint ever again. Time will tell.

"and then i took it to the window and gave it...."

1.30.2005

Having MP3 Players, They Hear Not

I've been a big fan of WordMP3.com for well over a year now. Last Christmas I bought the complete "through December 2003" 10 CD MP3 set and I have no regrets about doing so. I highly recommend WordMP3 to everyone I know and anyone that just happens to stumble upon this humble blog o' mine.
If you sign up to be on the email list for the site, then every few weeks or so you'll be treated to links to audio files. Of course these files are designed to lure you into breaking down and buying other mp3s, so be careful listening to them if you don't want to go on and spend a bunch of money.
Following are links to two of the mp3s that they are offering for free right now. I'm not sure if these links will work forever so download them now!

The first is the beginning of a series on reading the bible by James Jordan. True to Jordan's lovable style, his first suggestion for reading the bible is that you shouldn't read the bible! He does go on to say, also, that you shouldn't ever follow any of Jordan's rules for doing anything.

Reading the Bible (Part 1)

The second that I'm linking to is a Dave Chilton lecture on the Apocalypse and its historical context.

Armageddon AD 70

Enjoy!
European

I've been on the computer most of the afternoon dealing with my two web classes. Classwork soon became tedious, so I began to distract myself with blog-hopping. Anyhow, that's when and how I found this great blog post:

Proof positive that beer can save your life...

1.28.2005

Blue Frogs

I know that I've been high on links, and low on content lately.... This post is no different.

Egalitarianism has run amok in America.

No child left behinds means that Harrison Bergeron is amongst us.

1.25.2005

Lonely Links

Here's an article about homeless persons in public libraries:

library shelters

And here's an article introducing an opera about Puritans:

fat lady singing

1.23.2005

No R Way

I suspected it, but it took a nation of Norwegians to recognize it and call it to the world's attention.

Bush really is a Satanist.

Martin Luther walks into a bar.....

This post is for Joel Dunham.

"They are beautiful creatures, and we don't want to hurt them. We just want them out of our downtown," said Mayor Timothy Lattimore. "We wish them well - just somewhere else."

CAW!

1.22.2005

Everything Japanese

A link for my wife.

May she never attempt to make this for dessert.

Worse than you think.

It fascinates as it disgusts.


Legless Love

This morning I was looking over Gary Price's Resource Shelf. Gary Price came and spoke to my library class last sememster.
I roundabout found a link to this:

Streamload

You can sign up for a free account and store files on their server (the only downside to the free plan is that you can only download 100MB a month).

Streamload is probably only useful for someone with a broadband connection, but I'd thought I'd post about it anyhow for the few people that read this that do have a fast connection.

Who needs snobby gmail? If you sign up for a free hotmail account, free yahoomail account, free streamload account, and more, you can have some pretty decent online storage. I still wouldn't count on it as a primary storage area for anything truly important.

So, yeah, I still want a gmail account.

1.19.2005

Kmiec's Crime

Yesterday at work, one of my co-workers turned on Soft Rock 96.1 WJYE. I'm not sure why. I can only recall one other time at work when that station has been turned on.

Anyhow, I heard one of the strangest, most pathetic things I have ever heard. I heard broadcast an advertisement created and paid for by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo. This was an advertisement for men in the area to consider the priesthood as their vocation.

Yes, you read that right. The RC Diocese of Buffalo is looking for men that listen to soft rock. It wants these men as its priests. That is the condition that this Western New York diocese has fallen into.

Pathetic.

They might as well begin ordaining women.

1.15.2005

 Posted by Hello
E(ndless) O(bfuscations)

A lot of people I read (either in print or blog) are constantly name-dropping an Eastern Orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann. I decided to find out what all the fuss is about by actually reading something of his myself. So I went to Christ the King Seminary Library to pick up something of his (actually I went there to find Josef Pieper's In Tune With the World and picked up something by Schmemann as an afterthought).

There's plenty to think about in the Schmemann book that I'm reading, and maybe I'll end up posting my thoughts here, maybe not.

(I'm also 300+ pages into King's massive The Stand, but school starts on Tuesday and all of my extracurricular reading will suffer).

Anyhow, here's a random quote:

Baptism is forgiveness of sins, not their removal. It introduces the sword of Christ into our life and makes it the real conflict, the inescapable pain and suffering of growth. It is indeed after baptism and because of it, that the reality of sin can be recognized in all its sadness, and true repentance becomes possible. Therefore, the whole of the Church is at the same time the gift of forgiveness, the joy of the "world to come," and also and inescapably a constant repentance. The feast is impossible without the fast, and the fast is precisely repentance and return, the saving experience of sadness and exile. The Church is the gift of the Kingdom-- yet it is this very gift that makes obvious our absence from the Kingdom, our alienation from God. It is repentance that takes us again and again into the joy of the paschal banquet, but it is that joy which reveals to us our sinfulness and puts us under judgement.

from The World as Sacrament by Alexander Schmemann

1.14.2005

YA Reading.

Furthermore, I decree that if anyone changes this edict, a beam is to be pulled from his house and he is to be lifted up and impaled on it.
-King Darius

Ezra 6:11

1.13.2005

Simple.

Here's a video game for Scott. The best part about it is that even if you shoot off the chicken's head, it keeps running away from you.

Trapshoot

And here's another one, peculiar because it's a snowball fight game, but your opponents transform to a bloody mess after you've hit them with a few snowballs.

Snow Trooper

And, if you like Frogger, here's

Sheepish

I just found out.

Will Eisner, RIP (1917-2005)

1.08.2005

Librarian Avengers

Wow. We librarians are really super-human.

First animation?

No. It's interesting anyhow.

I'm not sure why these people insist on the word "animation," rather than something more accurate like "sequential art," or, "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer," or, "comic."

Burnt City Animation

1.07.2005

I love comics.

"By way of comparison with nudity in art and photography, I introduced comic books which I called obscene. I pointed out that the picture of a nude girl per se may be the opposite of obscene, as compared to one of a girl in brassiere and panties about to be tied up, gagged, tortured, set on fire, sold as a slave, chained, whipped, choked, raped, thrown to wild animals or crocodiles, forced to her knees, strangled, torn apart and so on."

(Wertham, 1953, pp. 297-298)

(some time in the future I'll put up my "comics in libraries" issue briefing paper on my UB server space for everyone out there to read)
Trial and Error

I have tried and I have erred.

tried and erred,

an experiment featuring a digital camera purchased at Dollar General.

Strong Scotch

scottish baptismal rite

Garver writes consistently good original stuff, and, maybe more importantly, is always pulling out little gems like this from the past and exposing them to the world on his blog. He has no idea who I am or that I exist, but I'm a regular lurker on his blog.

1.06.2005

They Drink Too Much

The following links are to a cable access show, featuring an hour long interview with Tim Powers. Powers is one of my favorite writers.

Spike picked me up an out-of-print Powers book at the Central library book sale. That's why this post is for Spike.

Other reasons that this post is for Spike:
The files are about 30MB apiece and Spike can handle them, since he's got a broadband connection.
The interview is mostly about writing, something that Spike likes to do, and wants to make money doing.

Right-click, and Save As:

Tim Powers Interview, Part 1

Tim Powers Interview, Part 2

Anyone else capable of downloading these, I highly recommend watching them.

1.05.2005

Ever wonder?

What does everyone else use the world wide web for? What are people searching for on all of those search engines? MetaCrawler thought you might ask that question, and decided to allow everyone to see the search terms that are used on their site in real-time. Go amuse/depress yourself for 5 minutes.

MetaSpy

Along similar lines, here are Google's Most Popular of 2004 results.

The top 4 most popular women queries also happened to be the top 4 most popular general queries.

1.02.2005

Children of the Revolution

Agnes, December 8th, 2004

You can bump and grind.
Have a good time.
You can twist and shout.
Let it all hang out,
but you won't fool the children of the revolution.
No you won't fool the children of the revolution.

Some time ask me to sing Violent Femmes songs to you all day.

1.01.2005

Some thoughts on ‘Salem’s Lot, with heavy use of quotes:
(So far I haven't had any comments on any of my Stephen King posts. Maybe this long post will fare better)

Father Callahan is one of the more interesting characters in the novel, casting a large shadow despite relatively minor page representation. He is a man with a drinking problem, a man having a crisis of faith, unaware of his own identity in the Church and in the World. He is a small town priest, once ready for great Challenge, now bogged down in relentless “small” evil.

----It was the actual presence of evil in the confessional, moronic evil from which there was no mercy or reprieve. The fist crashing into a baby’s face, the tire cut open with a jackknife, the barroom brawl, the insertion of razor blades into Halloween apples, the constant, vapid qualifiers which the human mind, in all its labyrinthine twists and turns, is able to spew forth. Gentlemen, better prisons will cure this. Better cops. Better social services agencies. Better birth control. Better sterilization techniques. Better abortions. Gentlemen, if we rip this fetus from the womb in a bloody tangle of unformed arms and legs, it will never grow up to beat an old lady to death with a hammer. Ladies, if we strap this man into a specially wired chair and fry him like a pork chop in a microwave oven, he will never have an opportunity to torture any more boys to death. Countrymen, if this eugenics bill is passed, I can guarantee you that never again—
Shit.

‘Salem’s Lot, p. 231----

It’s not hard to see that ‘Salem’s Lot is much more about these evils than any sort of Ultimate Evil, which comes to the town in the form of an ancient vampire. The vampire isn’t left with much to scare us with. We are frightening enough on our own. Dorothy Sayers deals with this in her wonderful book, Creed or Chaos?, in the context of the problem of evil.

----“Why doesn’t God smite this dictator dead?” is a question a little remote from us. Why, madam, did He not strike you dumb and imbecile before you uttered that baseless and unkind slander the day before yesterday? Or me, before I behaved with such cruel lack of consideration to that well-meaning friend? And why, sir, did He not cause your hand to rot off at the wrist before you signed your name to that dirty little bit of financial trickery?
You did not quite mean that? But why not? Your misdeeds and mine are nonetheless repellent because our opportunities for doing damage are less spectacular than those of some other people. Do you suggest that your doings and mine are too trivial for God to bother about? That cuts both ways; for, in that case, it would make precious little difference to His creation if He wiped us both out tomorrow.

Creed or Chaos?, pp. 12-13----

The town constable, a sympathetic character, disgusted and weary, weary most of all, ends up leaving the town rather than stay and fight a vampire for the soul of a town that has long been dead.

----“It ain’t alive,” Parkins said, lighting his smoke with a wooden kitchen match. “That’s why he came here. It’s dead, like him. Has been for twenty years or more. Whole country’s goin’ the same way. Me and Nolly went to a drive-in show up in Falmouth a couple of weeks ago, just before they closed her down for the season. I seen more blood and killin’s in that first Western than I seen both years in Korea. Kids was eatin’ popcorn and cheerin’ ‘em on.” He gestured vaguely at the town, now lying unnaturally gilded in the broken rays of the westering sun, like a dream village. “They prob’ly like bein’ vampires. But not me; Nolly’d be in after me tonight. I’m goin’.”

‘Salem’s Lot, p. 593----

But the reason our heroes do stay, even though what Parkins says seems so true, is voiced by the young Mark Petrie, “Because he’s bad, mister. He’s really bad. That’s all.” (p. 594)

The forces of light have the responsibility of slaying the dragon that God has sent to them, regardless of whether or not the village is worth saving, regardless of whether or not it means their certain death.

Back to Father Callahan.
The whole of ‘Salem’s Lot seems to suggest that the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church, the only agent with the powers to defeat this evil vampire. The crucifix terrifies the vampires, holy water and the Host easily destroys them. These holy weapons are unavailable in the local Methodist or Congregational Churches. It is the Catholic Church that keeps and guards these weapons.
Anyhow, Father Callahan is recruited, not only as himself, “But if I go with the Host… then I go as an agent of the Holy Catholic Church, prepared to execute what I would consider the most spiritual rites of my office. Then I go as Christ’s representative on earth.”
The problem becomes, that even though Callahan believes in the power and the mission of the Church, he has no real faith in Christ.
This is where the protestant vampire comes in.
Callahan and Mark Petrie have been isolated from the rest of the heroes at Mark Petrie’s house. Barlow, the ancient and Evil Vampire has come to kill Petrie’s parents and finds himself in a showdown with Callahan and Petrie. Barlow snatches up Petrie and threatens him, while Callahan, armed with the Host, holy water, and more specifically at the moment, Crucifix extended toward Barlow, threatens Barlow back. The two must barter. Barlow agrees that he will let Petrie go if Callahan sets down his Crucifix, “throw away your cross and face me on even terms— black against white? Your faith against my own?” (p. 523). Callahan accepts the terms. Barlow lets Petrie go, and Petrie runs off at Callahan’s command. The problem is that Callahan cannot set aside his crucifix, even when he has agreed to do so. He continues to extend it against Barlow, yet now Barlow begins to approach him, now seemingly unaffected. Why? Callahan has shown that his faith is entrusted in the crucifix he holds, a physical object, not in the God of the Crucifix, that bestows all might.

---- And the next sound would haunt him for the rest of his life: two dry snaps as Barlow broke the arms of the cross, and a meaningless thump as he threw it to the floor.
“God damn you!” he cried out.
“It’s too late for such melodrama,” Barlow said from the darkness. His voice was almost sorrowful. “There is no need of it. You have forgotten the doctrine of your own church, is it not so? The cross… the bread and wine… the confessional… only symbols. Without faith, the cross is only wood, the bread baked wheat, the wine sour grapes. If you had cast the cross away, you should have beaten me another night. In a way, I hoped it might be so. It has been long since I have met an opponent of any real worth. The boy makes ten of you, false priest.”

‘Salem’s Lot, p. 526----

And so, the protestant vampire wins over Father Callahan. I won’t let you know what happens to Callahan, but he is broken after this, unclean, yet somehow redeemed.
This section of the book is one of the most interesting to me. It seems like King’s protestant (Methodist) upbringing shines through. A Roman Catholic would not have, could not have, written that section in the same way. The Host (the bread) IS Jesus, regardless of the faith of the individual.
This part of the book has stuck with me, more than any other part, but it does have its own problems, casting doubt on some of the previous usage of holy items by unbelieving characters earlier in the book.

I’ve said all of this without once mentioning the name Ben Mears, ‘Salem’s Lot’s protagonist.

But I’ve said all that I have to say for now.

When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning. —Reiner Knizia