Irresistible?

Maybe it's just a girl thing, but maybe not. There are some things that I have a hard time resisting if I happen upon them in a store. It's almost like a compulsion -- "Must Have!!". It doesn't matter that I've already got plenty. I need another one. It really is rather nuts. Even more so since I happen to be smitten by tote bags. Not any old tote bags, but ones with logos on them. I have tote bags from Harrods, Half-Price Books, Borders, REI, Siemens, The Body Shop, Windsor Castle, Ottakar's, Waldenbooks, Whole Foods, Randall's, HEB, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, The British Museum, Heifer, Blackwell's, Forest Hills Foods and Friends of the Cascade Library.

Anyone else got a tote bag weakness? Or another kind? What calls to you from the shelves of your local shops?

If you are a Star Wars fan, and can ignore (or don't mind) a little bit of language and vulgarity, you might enjoy this clip:



(Out of curiosity, does this show up in your browser? For me it shows and plays in Safari, but not in Firefox. If it's not showing up for you here's the link: You Tube)

My Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

20% Dixie

15% Yankee

10% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

X-Men: The Last Stand

We went last night to see the latest X-Men movie. I liked it. Of course, I've not really read the comic books faithfully, so I don't have any reason to get upset if they veer from the plot lines of the original stories.

What absolutely amazed me was watching the credits roll and seeing the name Kelsey Grammar. Frasier, in an X-Men movie? Amazing. But, he did a great job as Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy (Beast).

Would you....

.... go to live for a year in China if given the opportunity?

How Many?

I blog rolled my way to Joyful Transformation today and found another book lover (and gleaned a couple of book ideas).

So, following in her footsteps - by my favorite chair, there are:

8 library books
24 books in my to read pile
(A small bookshelf because of said pile)
My laptop (sits on the ottoman)
A candle
A rosary
A coaster (usually with a glass of DP sitting on it)
Prayer Journal
Regular Journal
iPod and it's accoutrements
Book lists Journal
3 movies
lip stuff
pen holder
flask

Nanny McPhee

Nanny McPhee has just recently become available on DVD. I don't think that many people bothered to see the film when it was out in theaters. We did though, and really enjoyed it. I bought myself a copy just a couple of days ago and we sat down that same evening and watched it again.

I am, naturally, inclined to like almost any movie with Colin Firth in it. But, add in Emma Thompson and I'm hooked! (Same story with Love Actually, but I digress.) The story is charming, and I am always thrilled by the corresponding transformation of the children and Nanny McPhee. There are plenty of laughs, enough that even my teenaged boys watched without being prodded.

Four jobs I've had

1. Burger Flipper at Wendy's
2. Secretary at a Dermatologists Office
3. Fill in Church Secretary
4. Put together personal tape players

Four movies I could watch over and over (in no particular order):

1. BBC's Pride and Prejudice
2. Mulan
3. The Importance of Being Earnest
4. The Fifth Element

Four places I've lived:

1. Australia
2. The Netherlands
3. England
4. Guam

Four favorite TV shows

1. I can't really do this one.
2. Nothing comes to mind.
3. I do like detective shows, though...
4. and BBC miniseries

Four Vacations I've been on:

1. Hawaii, for six weeks! Heaven.
2. Grand Canyon, in the rain. Still beautiful
3. Amsterdam, an anniversary trip.
4. Spain, Italy, France via train.

Four websites I visit often:

1. woodtv.com
2. preachermike.com
3. bloglines.com
4. amazon.com

Four favorite foods:

1. scrambled eggs and hashbrowns
2. roast beef and mashed potatoes
3. chicken fried steak with gravy
4. fresh strawberries

Four places you'd rather be:

1. heaven
2. in any bookstore
3. on the beach
4. on vacation

Four people to tag:

I won't do this since I don't really know who might like to participate. But, if you stop by and see it and would like to fill one out yourself, consider yourself tagged. If you do fill it out, leave a comment with a link.
Cheers!

Which Princess Bride Character are You?

"What, if you lost it, would make you question God's goodness?"

-- Patrick Mead: Seven Ways to Die; Part One - "Pride" 22 March 2006
(available via Rochester Hills C of C podcast on iTunes)

When I heard this question I had to run and write it down. What an interesting query to ponder. I've certainly seen evidence of loss causing people to doubt God even exists - if they can't see God as loving then he can't actually be there. (Ted Turner comes to mind.) Yet there are people who have had losses and still believe God loves them and is good, even when things aren't going well for them. I suppose in some ways it has to do with how you define goodness. One way to define it could be God making everything hum along smoothly all the time so all his people are happy. Just a little bit of bible reading will show that to be a faulty premise. So, what exactly is God's goodness anyway? Inherent goodness comes to mind, but that doesn't really help. I suppose I'm wondering how God's goodness manifests itself if we are not describing it as making everything go our way. I have a couple of ideas, but would like to hear what others think.

Funny Pages

When I was a child, my Pop Scott would sit me on his knee and read to me from the funny pages. "And then Popeye says..." I loved it when he read me the funnies. It also usually involved a little bit of rib counting and liberal hugs. I only got the pleasure of having Pop read me the funnies during our yearly visits, as we lived in Illinois, and Pop and Mommie lived in Old Hickory, Tennessee. But, I still remember it many, many years later with fondness.

Now we don't get a newspaper. I read my comics online. I don't miss the black fingerprints from the newsprint at all, but I do miss the funnies page. Maybe that is why we have such a huge pile of comic collection books. My kids love to sit at the table at lunch time and read Foxtrot or Calvin and Hobbes while they are eating. Okay. I love to do it, too. It doesn't really matter that we have read them all before. Here are some of our favorites:

Foxtrot
Calvin and Hobbes
Dilbert
Zits!

It's a happy day for us when we are in a town with a Half-Price Books and find the comic collections aisle. Are there any comic strips that you like enough to buy the collections and re-read them?

Hallmark Holidays

Mother's day is one of the most commercially successful US holidays. And, judging by my acquaintance, I'm not surprised. What a fuss! I dread going to church on Mother's Day. First one has to sit through the sermon on mothers. That "God Made Mothers" poem is enough to send me screaming out of the building. And what about the women there who want to be mothers but aren't? Or people whose mothers treated them like dirt? Then I have to figure out how to respond to folks who want to know what we're doing for Mother's Day. Do I tell them that we don't celebrate it, or just say something like "I plan to have a nap" and let them think that's a special Mother's Day treat for me? It's easy enough to make a pithy comment to a nodding acquaintance, but that doesn't work on folk who want more details. But, if I tell them all the reasons I don't go in for celebrating Mother's Day, they think it means I think less of them for celebrating it. I don't care if other people celebrate it, I just don't want to.

My theory is that you let Mom know you love her year around, always being a help. Then you don't have to feel like you need to be sure she gets the message on Mother's Day. I'll wager most Moms would prefer that to the once a year celebration.

But, maybe you're not buying it, and you're feeling sorry for my mother about now? Where do you think I learned to think this way about Hallmark Holidays? I am my mother's daughter!

Hallmark Holidays

Vlog

I found a web site where they're talking about video logging (vlog). It looks pretty cool. I don't have the wherewithal right now to do a real vlog, so I'm posting a timelapse video from our kitchen web cam. If I wasn't so tired there'd be music or something. Oh well. Maybe next time.

So, here's our kitchen timelapse video:





(click on the photo to view with Quicktime)

Sermon Podcasts

I'm loving sermon podcasts! Here are a few I listen to on a regular basis:

Richland Hills Church of Christ
Rochester Church of Christ
Highland Church of Christ

If you've got iTunes, finding sermon podcasts is easy. If not, you can find the audio here:

Richland Hills: RHChurch
Rochester: RCC Audio
Highland: Online Sermons

Any other good ones out there? I like N. T. Wright's online "sermons" as well. You can find them at:
N. T. Wright Page (PDF's first on the page, MP3's down a bit)

Study - Britons Floss with Screwdrivers

Friday May 12, 11:23 AM

LONDON (Reuters) - More than 60 percent of Britons use items such as screwdrivers, scissors and earrings to remove food from between their teeth, according to a survey on Friday.

The National Dental Survey found that when it comes to oral hygiene, people use whatever is close to hand to pick their teeth.

More than 60 percent questioned by the Dental Health Foundation said they used makeshift items, which included knives, keys, needles and forks.

The survey also found that 23 percent of people choose to leave food stuck between their teeth, increasing the risk of gum disease and bad breath, the foundation, which promotes oral health, said in a statement.

Listening

I think this quote from Dick Staub is very insightful and mirrors my experience:

Most of what people said to try to help me deal with my brother's cerebral palsy was not useful; they issued forth with their superficial bromides, illogic, obscure scripture quoting and bad folklore theology. If there is a time to keep silence most religious people don't seem to know it.

For more visit:
Dick Staub Culturewatch

Confusion

Emigrant came up as a spelling word for my son today. This got us wondering about the difference between this spelling and the one I normally think of immigrant. So, we looked them both up. Here's what we found:

Emigrant: A person who leaves their own country in order to settle permanently in another.

Immigrant: A person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.

That seemed rather unclear, so I did a search and found this explanation:

An immigrant is someone who comes into a new country or region to live. An emigrant is someone who leaves.

I think they're implying that which word you use depends on whether you are in the country they've left or in the one that they have gone to. And, since the words sound essentially the same, you've only got to remember the distinction when writing. Strange language.

C. S. Lewis on Divorce

Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian concept of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question -- how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for everyone. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedians tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be tow distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, sot hat a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.

-- from Mere Christianity