Riddle Me This...

Why, when Fox has cancelled Arrested Development due to low ratings, do they show extra, repeat, episodes of it?

The Christian on the Road

One thing I never hear preached is about how Christians ought to drive. All things considered, given that even Mother Therasa would have to confront her baser side behind the wheel, I wonder why nobody ever talks about it. If we are serious about our lives being changed, let us change here.

Maybe it's that there is a wall and tint between us and the other drivers that allows us to indulge in a little selfish driving because noone can see us. I dunno. But if there ever was a place for us to show compassion, it is now, in the holiday season, when a frustrated grandmother is trying to get out of a parking lot in a busy mall after finishing her shopping, and she has been stuck in once place for 20 minutes...

An Interesting Theological Question

What if someone prays that someone gets hit by a car and then they actually do?

Does this mean you should feel guilty, or does it mean that God thought you really were right?

Food Court Fraud

I have discovered another heinous display of food fraud in the Texas Medical Center.

Today some colleagues and I went to the Commons. There I saw a store called "Sushi/Great American Cookie Company".

Now, one would expect that a sushi cookie company would, in fact, serve cookie dough--what else would a sushi cookie be? No, all they had was fish and COOKED COOKIES!

Who cooks sushi? C'mon!

The Ultimate Grad Student Morning

A dialogue between me (M) and my advisor (A):

A: Did you compile this code yourself?
M: No, you did.
A: Then how do you know it works?
M: Because it gives me the results I expect and because you've used it extensively.
A: How do you know I didn't give you the wrong file?
M:

The Bitter Ironies of Life, Part 17

Tomorrow I have two engagements--a luncheon and a celebration--each of which I am bringing a dessert to. Normally when I cook something stupendously unhealthy, the required process of testing food as it is being prepared causes my bodily condition to decay just a little.

But the thing about cooking is that the amount of effort required to cook is, shall we say, a nonlinear function of the amount of food being cooked. For example, one substantial penalty is when you only have one bowl that is large enough to permit effective use of eggbeaters and you need to use it multiple times in a very short period of time. Between the elbow grease and general frantic pace, I think I managed to get a workout while cooking fudge and Mississippi mud pie.

I think this is more of a sweet irony, upon reflection ;-)

Dustin the Heretic

Today we had another session of our Alpha course at my church--for those not in the know, it's a "back to basics" discussion style Bible class, frequently populated with thinking agnostics. After the lesson, one of my partners and crime and I discussed how relieved we could feel comfortable speaking freely because everyone else was just as big of a heretic as we were.

In a room of seven people, we had one monotheist and nobody who believed in scriptural inerrancy.

I would say that next week we would deny idea of an eternal soul, but we already have an elder who wrote a book on that. (This is a shocking statement--the crux of the belief is that eternal life is a gift, from God, unto his children. The damned do not suffer, but simply do not get returned to life.)

Looking a Gift Pen in the LED (with remaining good eye)

So found a package in my mailbox today.

And then I noticed that it was from Physics Today--if you don't know what that is, just read the title again.

I open it to find a pen that is lit up by a blue LED. Naturally, I find this terrifically cool. I've already taken it apart once.

Naturally, I've already come up with a few suggestions. First, give it a laser option. Heck, make it a high-powered laser. I want a pen that I can use to defend myself with both in close combat and at range.

Secondly, I want a stained glass sleeve so that it looks really, really cool...

Christmas Specials are Screwed Up

So yeah, I'm watching "Rudolph's Shiny New Year".

The plot is that Santa sends Rudolph to find the Happy, the New Year Baby. It goes downhill when Rudolph has to get help from a camel to cross a desert--which they do, on foot.

And then he goes to an island where the old years retire to, and there are singing dinosaurs. And the vulture is a bad guy.

And the sad thing is, it all made sense to me as a kid.