So today is March 31. It’s supposed to be springtime, and it’s supposed to be nice outside. But instead we wake up to a couple of inches of fresh snow on the ground, and more to come throughout the day. Expecting about 6 inches total.
And I think I figured out who is to blame: It’s those durned treehuggers who pushed the stupid EarthHour thing last Saturday. It must’ve worked a lot better than they thought!
Here’s a great site — Common Errors in English — with an accompanying book by the same title. It is great; covers all of the biggies that drive me up a wall, like the oh-so common I/me gaffe, there/they’re/their, it/it’s, and a lot/alot more!
But the thing that really made me sit up and pay attention is that they included the MAC/Mac thing that so very many people screw up and drives me so very crazy.
So very helpful. Definitely something I will use and recommend.
He is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Following the statement about Christ’s crucifixion, death and burial, the Apostle’s Creed says that he then descended into Hell. This is all that is said about the day between Black Friday and Resurrection Sunday. But some churches and some variations of the Apostle’s Creed don’t include that line at all, leaving us to wonder what Jesus was up to on the day in between.
The cynic might say he did nothing. After all, he was dead.
For the Evangelical Christian, this line raises questions. For us, Hell is the place of eternal punishment for those who reject God’s forgiveness, so why did Jesus go there? The Catholic Church Catechism says that the second day was spent “in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection… … that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.”
Early teachings refer to hell — Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek — as the abode of the dead where they await the Redeemer. According to the Catechism, that is the case for all who die, righteous and unrighteous alike. Jesus descended into hell to free the righteous; not to deliver the damned nor to destroy the place of punishment that is reserved for them.
Other teachings say that Jesus went to the place of the dead to give those who died before the Messiah appeared a chance to believe in Jesus as the Christ and redeemer of their sins.
I don’t know what the truth of the matter is. It’s likely one of those things that God intentionally left vague in the scriptures because it makes no significant difference to our salvation. It was Saturday, the traditional Jewish Sabbath, so my guess is that cynic is partly right; Jesus took the day off for a well deserved Sabbath rest.
Today is Good Friday. Not sure why it’s called “Good”, as it’s marks the day that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was brutally tortured and killed. The day that he suffered in our stead. The Creator of the Universe had humbled himself and took on flesh, lived a sinless life among sinful people, and died the horrible death that we — not he — deserve.
Black Friday is more like it. Black as the sky at noon on that horrible day. Matthew 27:45-47
When his blood had been spilled and he had breathed his last, the soldiers stuck a spear in his side to make sure he was dead. When he was pulled down from the cross, a disciple named Joseph from Arimathea placed Jesus’ body in his own tomb, and a large stone was placed in front of the tomb. The hypocrites, afraid of funny business, talked Pilate into placing guards at the tomb. Matthew 27:57-66.
They thought that would be the end of this Jesus thing, but they thought wrong. It’s Friday. But Sunday’s coming!
Dodge has officially revealed the 2009 Challenger, and dang is it hot. The only thing it’s missing is that lovely Mopar purple paint job that reminds me so much of the Mopar musclecars from the ’60’s.
To remedy that, we now have Photoshop and the Replace Color… function.
Now idn’t dat purty? I likes it.
I was listening to Rush Limbaugh while running some errands this afternoon, and had to laugh out loud at how he closed the conversation with one of his callers… With what sounded like an off-the-cuff plug for one of his advertisers.
He was talking with a guy named Sean, and just before letting him go, he asked him about his water heater. Talk about random. Sean said that he was having trouble with his, then Rush went on to extoll the virtues of the tankless water heaters sold by one of his sponsors. It was just a little surreal. And searching on his site reveals that today wasn’t the first time.
I think Rush is great. He’s smart, he’s funny, and he is so dead-on on so many subjects. And while I have to cringe a little with the ads that Rush voices himself, the advertising is totally understandable. But for him to be throwing in endorsements in this way is downright corny. And it just feels… Wrong.
Please Rush. There’s got to be a better way.
MentalFloss had a post yesterday about Marvelously Misguided Promotions, and I couldn’t help but think of the Infamous WKRP Turkey Drop. I laughed at it back in the ’80’s, and I split a gut with it again yesterday.
“The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement!”
Classic. Just classic!
As the number 8 kid in a family of 9, I rarely got anything new. Most of it was hand-me-downs from one of the older siblings. There were exceptions though; Mom worked at the J.C. Penney store downtown when we were kids and got in on some great deals, and we reaped the windfall from that at Christmas and birthdays.
One notable win for me was the bike I got one year. I don’t remember if it was a birthday or Christmas or what, but it was the coolest bike ever.
It had everything a bike needed for a kid in his early teens; chopper styling, banana seat, racing-style handlebars, red line racing slick on back, 5 speeds — and not just 5 speeds, but 5 speeds with a stick shift! — a parking brake… All I could saw was “Wow!” I was so excited I said it backwards too; “!woW”
Mom saved everything. With the exception of those things that Dad didn’t think we needed to keep and Mom was unable to hide from him. While the bike probably didn’t fare well under Dad’s care during our 1978 move, I’m thankful that the Assembly Instructions and Service Manual for the Model 3-1124A Foremost 20″ Eliminator Mark II – 5 Speed bike remained in Mom’s care. It was one of the things that Mom gave to me years ago. I had it tucked away in some old papers & photos, and came across it again the other day. Brings back loads of memories.
Like the time that Jamie and I hacksawed the forks off a neighbor’s junk bike sitting in the alley, then jammed the fork ends of this bike. The forks came off a 27″ bike, and the only thing holding the forks on was friction. Worked fine while we worked on it and it wasn’t moving. Then I took it for a little ride; things went ok until I hit a bump in the sidewalk. The results were predictable. It amazes me that I didn’t do more damage to my head back then, before anyone even thought of wearing a helmet while riding a bike.
Then there was the time all the neighborhood kids were pretending to be Evel Kneivel with homemade ramps, jumping over other neighborhood kids brave enough to lie on the sidewalk behind the ramp… I don’t remember ever doing well at that, probably because few kids were brave enough to let me jump over them — I wasn’t known for a slim figure or great athletic skills back then, plus this Swinger bike I had probably weighed in at 50 pounds or so. But dang, it was cool.
I wish I could find a color photo of it, but a half hour of Googling didn’t get me anywhere but this close. I think the frame and the seat were yellow, with some psychedelic thing going on with the chainguard. I did learn that that style of bike has come to be known as “musclebikes”, which is both apt and interesting.
If anybody stumbles across this and has a photo of one, please please please drop me a line. Or at least leave a comment.
Here are two YouTube videos that involved a bit of video editing.
I first saw the John Holland video through a post on Neatorama, and one of the commenters pointed out the Lasse Gjertsen video. I think Gjertsen’s is probably the better of the two because he plays neither the drums nor the piano. I’m guessing the tin whistle guy has some musical ability just by the instruments he has on hand. Whatever; both videos are pure genius made possible by great editing software. Enjoy. I did!