fyrdncr

So is it "fire dancer" or "Fyrd Knocker"? This is why I hesitate to get a license plate for my silver car, nicknamed the Silver Fox. I could either go with slvrfox or silvrfx. The former could be sliver fox and the latter could be silver fix. That is why I would want to go with rhubarb, no misunderstandings there.

Stay Classy San Diego.

Maurice Maeterlinck

"The great mischief, the one which destroys our moral existence and threatens the integrity of our mind and our character, is not that we should deceive ourselves and love an uncertain truth, but that we should remain constant to one in which we no longer wholly believe." The Buried Temple

Bless Your Beautiful Hide

I'm a lonesome polecat. Can't make no vows to a herd of cows.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is still a great movie. Watching the "making of" documentary, I learnt that Julie Newmar played Dorcas, Benjamin's bonamie. She also played Catwoman in those "great" Batman TV shows with Adam West. So by degrees of separation, Chris Blake's grandmother also played in Batman, Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics for Seven Brides which Jane Powell also starred in. She is a spokesperson for Polident denture seal, and my Grandpa Hank has dentures, and 'round the circle goes.

Thanks for everything and Merry Kristal Nacht.

Frankincense

Irony in the Apiary

I'm now done with my Christmas shopping. My sister wants to go to El Salvador on a mission trip this Spring, so I thought I would get something from Ten Thousand Villages from there to prime her for the souvenir markets. Central America is terribly underrepresented at that store. South Asia however, over represented. Africa, just right. And to close this thought, there is a lot of really pointless merchandise at the store; it makes me think if there were a corresponding store in some other place in the world they would sell US dollar store items (nevermind, we have that store here, it is called Pier 1).

Of course a trip to the Haymarket requires a visit to everyone's favourite ice cream boutique, Ivanna Cone. They had Ambrosia Nectar on the flavour list again. This time the worker knew what it was made out of: raspberry, peach, and coconut. She said that it tasted better than she expected, but that it wasn't her favorite. I then said something about how her expectations weren't appropriate for something so named. I then said something about how the name might be redundant because ambrosia is the nectar of the gods (I'm really bad at flirting). I purchased a dish of pumpkin pie, egg nog, and peanut butter.

Then as I am wont to do when enjoying ice cream at Ivanna Cone, I looked at their dictionary circa 1954. The first thing I looked up was the actual definition of ambrosia. The third or fourth definition was "beebread." Naturally, I wanted to make sure what beebread was, because because because because, because of the wonderful things it does. That and you can never be too sure, beestings is the first milk, the colostrum if you will, so who knows what beebread is? While looking for beebread, I happened on Basic English. This was invented by Charles K. Ogden and has boiled down English to 850 words found here. I found this an interesting proposition, and even more interesting act. Finally, I got to nectar. Turns out, bees are connected to both ambrosia and nectar. I find it ironic that a creature which lives at most a year is constantly eating provender, victuals, comestibles, grub, pabulum, you know, food that yields immortality. Silly bees.

My evening ended with a stop at Walgreens to get some eggs. As soon as I got in, Dan, the guy who wants to be Napoleon Dynamite but ended up as Napoleon's dorky cousin, told me that they were actually closed. So I asked him if they had eggs, and he directed me to them. As I paid for my eggs, I noticed that his tie knot was easily 1/6th the width of his tie. Not a good look.

Willa Sibert Cather

Eureka!

You know that screenwriting phlebo from MDS Harris I've mentioned a couple times the last few weeks? Well he looks like the lead singer from Staind, Aaron Lewis. For the life of me, I couldn't think of the name of the band. Then I heard one of their songs on the radio today and ta-freakin-da.

Immolation Is the Sincerest Form of Tragedy

Immolation means sacrifice from in-molare. Latin mola was ground spelt mixed with salt that was sprinkled on the corpse. The Final Cut, not to be confused with Final Cut, illuminates the practice when Alan Hakman (Robin Williams) tells Fletcher (James Caviezel) about sin eaters. These were outcast on the fringes of society. Bread would be placed on the body and and coins on the eyes. The sin eater would then eat the bread, taking the deceased's sin, and take the coins for payment.

In the context of the film, Hakman deletes the sins of individuals while preparing the videos of their lives for a "rememory." While he deletes the sins for others, these sins are still carried with him. He feels he deserves this task because he thinks he let a childhood friend fall to his death. So to serve penance for his negligence, he adds to his guilt that of others.

I don't want to get into the soteriological implications of this. But it is very tragic that an individual feels they deserve to carry the sins of others when their own sins are quite enough. So in this season, whose reason is the tilt of the earth's axis, don't let guilt rest on your soul, and especially don't let the sins of others rest on you.

Crumpus

Go to here.

William Blake

Periwinkle or Wedgewood?

I saw Syriana tonight. I liked it a lot. I'll be giving it four stars out of five on Netflix, which means that I would enjoy watching it again. The writing was wonderful, acting spot on (being intimately familiar with the circles surrounding the oil industry, I can say this truthfully), material compelling, and outcome disheartening. What more could you want from a film?

Follow-up, Jeremy, the screenwriting phlebo I told you about earlier; I saw him and his family at Super Saver a couple nights ago.

John Bauer

Cone Appetit

I got my hair cut shorter tonight.

I also went to Ivanna Cone. I tried the redundant ambrosia nectar and banana pudding. Didn't like the nectar, it was like a lame tutti frutti. The banana pudding did a good job of replicating banana pudding taste. However, I purchased a large dish of pistachio, rum raisin, and egg nog. All very good.

I scream, you scream,
We all scream
For Wendy's eyes' cream.

Lee Lawrie

Post 50

Pumpkin pie is good. I was invited to a Sabbath lunch and said I'd bring a pumpkin pie. The pie I made Friday was not as good as one I'd made earlier in the week, so I made another with the original recipe on Sat. morning. It was good and I even did the leaf thing to garnish like Eric (my)Idol did.

Saturday night was a nice time with my mother, who was on her way back home after spending the week in TX visiting with the new babies Colton Knight (though he'll always be Colton Mare to me) and Abby Vale. Abby is doing pretty well and should be out of the hospital in a couple days. Her upper lip is intact, but her hard palate is missing which is worse because it inhibits eating. So, she had surgery Friday to put a "button" in her stomach to feed her til she learns to eat.

Back to my mother, we went to Chronicles of Narnia the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as apparently every other Adventist did. No blood, which today we noted as interesting considering the powerful metaphor/image that blood serves for Christianity. Why is Christianity a blood cult? It is refered to as "deep magic" by Lewis, but regardless of the name, there is an intense focus on the sacrifice of blood.

One Harris study I did, there was a phlebo named Jeremy who looked like the lead singer of a rock group I can't think of now. Anyway, he was working on a screen play which looks at Cain and Lilith as the first vampires, based on Cain's experience of being rejected from God because he didn't sacrifice an animal. Lilith of course being Adam's first wife. So you have this emphasis on blood from the very beginning. Why? I'd really appreciate it if those more theologically knowledgable than I would comment.

Final note, why is it wardrobe and not robeward? English has a long tradition of putting "ward" second and in this case, where the furniture is a guardian of the robe, it makes sense for it to follow the case of loaf ward which over time became lord.

May I have fifty more posts,

Danl Muraeser

Only the Lonely

Christmas is a peak suicide time.

I think it gets cold during the holiday season because all the Christmas warmth is in our hearts instead of the environment.

Be good and you will be lonesome. -Mark Twain, author and humorist
(1835-1910)

Come on Sharona

Toni Basil bio: Easy Rider (actress), Hey Mickey (singer/video choreographer), Choreographer (Gap commercial, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde)

Is there a twelve-step program for atheists? Not to get them to not be atheists but a twelve-step program for someone who doesn't believe in a higher power.

Damon, Olivia, and Selma. Who are they? Just people that helped sell me stuff the last fortnight or so. Damon works at Green Gateau, Olivia and Selma at Super Saver. I think everyone, if they save their receipts, should look at the names of their salespersons. Names are important. Selma is in her late teens/early twenties. I think that is a fun extra-generational name. That and it reminded me of Marge Simpson's sisters Patty and Selma.

If you can't tell from my first couple lines, I watched the tail-end of VH1's 100 greatest one hit wonders.

Seller Dour

Note to self: Don't watch The Aristocrats before going to a community theater play later that evening. It really messes with your expectations.

I'm going to be running the half-marathon with my mother in May. When should I start "training?" I don't want to peak too early. Following the reader participation theme, the aforementioned mother wants music for Christmas. Any suggestions? She enjoyed Sara Groves' Conversations a few years ago. I'm thinking Andrew Peterson, Neil Diamond's Twelve Songs, something like that.

Back to The Aristocrats, I liked the movie. I give it a 3.5 out of 5 because I believe they accomplished what they set out to do. They took a very limited subject and provided a glimpse of an entire industry while entertaining the viewer. It would be nice for other filmmakers replicate the feat with other fields (football perhaps). As other reviewers have noted Bob Saget and Sarah Silverman shine. The mime being another bright spot. Silverman has really risen in the national consciousness with this film and also her new concert film. The article in Rolling Stone, read by my father, boss, and myself (each independently), was wonderful and showed her humour capably.

My mother got into Lincoln about ten to one on Friday night after driving from SD, and we caught up on the horrendous conditions in Eastern SD. In the 15 miles between Rockham and Redfield, there are 28 electric poles knocked on the ground. So power has been out for a week. They are going to grade the snow and ground and just repair the lines on the ground and worry about putting up poles when the spring comes. Menard's in Watertown had the generators already in shopping carts for the customers.

Saturday morning we went to Green Gateau and had a wonderful breakfast. I have always enjoyed their oatmeal and my mother shared in that joy. It was funny to me because my mother talks so easily with most anyone. While we were there, she struck up a conversation with our server. I kept on waiting for her to say something that I thought would have been embarassing, but it never came. And it never does. She's just so cool. I'm very blessed.

Giving Thanks,

The Surveyor of Land

Phonics Monkey

Updated Wish List:

Scale with body fat calculator, Ice Cream maker, shaving kit: strop, hone, mug, brush; Elf the dvd, wooden hangers, back brush, and time.

Nival Silence

One of the beautiful things in all of life is the hushed tones of a snow-covered world.