Literal Signs #3: Ben Hur?

You tell me what this sign is saying ... chariot race ahead?

Constantine: The Music Video

What do you get when you combine history, saints, and bad 80's music? A good chuckle.

Eye Funk

Got some random infection in my eye, making this Internet thing-y difficult. May be slim pickings here until it clears up.

Pat, don't rub. Grrr.

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival #93

This week on Sunday Snippets, WBN presents: Choices.

• The Apple Incident
•  Real World Obamacare
• "Shoved To Them" Scandal Revealed!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival is a weekly opportunity to share your best posts with the wider Catholic blogging community.

To participate, create a post highlighting posts that would be of interest to Catholics and link to the host blog at http://rannthisthat.blogspot.com. Go to the host blog and leave a comment giving a link to your post.

Shoved To Them Scandal Revealed!

Flash!

WBN has just learned that rumors are circulating ¹ around the Internets that blogging sensation aka the Mom and author of possibly the Best Blog Of All Time², is selling the house and moving to Dallas this summer in order to hide a shocking secret.

The crack investigative staff at AoftheA³ has confirmed⁴ in an exclusive scoop that aka the Mom intends to convey the blog, Shoved To Them and its entire readership, with the house. That's right, readers, your RSS feed will be packed in a box right next to the Raggedy Andy doll and the extra garden hose and auctioned off to the highest bidder in order to secure an extra percentage point on the new mortgage.

Initial reports indicate that the part of aka the Mom will be assumed by a Ukranian seamstress in Toledo and the role of the Computer Guy will be performed by Professor Wonderful⁵, pending a successful credit background check and first month's security deposit. The parts of the children are rumored to be scaled back to a pair of Siamese cats due to budget cuts.

We here at WBN find this news to be deeply troubling. If found to be true,⁶ a write-in campaign is being organized to petition the courts for an emergency injunction against it, thereby protecting the rights of RSS readers everywhere. We will not be traded like a pack of cigarettes in a prison.

Suspicions are deepening due to the lack of denial⁷ by aka the Mom and the crew of Shoved to Them. Requests for comment have gone unanswered as of this publication.

In other news, llama hair may be a major contributing factor to climate change...

---

¹We should know, we started it.

²Voting still open.

³Most Humorous Blog. Again, voting is still open.

⁴Actually, LarryD has no idea this is happening.

⁵Who, as my neighbor in 1984 in California, showed me his perfect feet as declared by the Department of the Army.

⁶Or at least wildly inaccurate.

⁷Mostly because we didn't ask.

Real World Obamacare

The new year is only 26 days old and we're already seeing fallout from the not-yet-completely-implemented Obamacare.

Mrs. Nod is in her 35th week of pregnancy. Historically she delivers big babies even though she is a small woman. Even Nub, who was 5 weeks premature, weighed in at 8 pounds. The OB told her this week that due to hospital rule changes from Obamacare, they are not allowed to induce her before 39 weeks.

If that happens, we may be looking for all the pieces of Humpty-Dumpty to put her back together again. Mrs. Nod would be "dead on the prairie" if not for modern medicine, early inducement, and really big needles and thread.  We will be appealing.

Next, our family doctor provider (whom we were allowed to keep if we liked them) has regretfully informed us that due to the budget cut tricks in Obamacare (21% cut in payments to doctors) they will not be able to take any more Medicare/Medicaid patients and they will try their hardest to keep the ones they currently have.

Fortunately, we don't use Medicare/Medicaid, but if we had, we'd be hurting about now. I know our doctor is.

Another wrinkle is that the pre-tax amount I was allowed to put away in a medical FSA was slashed by about $1000. So much for saving money and managing my own costs.

These are but a few (small) examples of the ripples that "well intentioned" changes make. I fear for those with a larger stake.

Literal Signs #2

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times ...

Twelfth Beer Of Christmas

I know what you're thinking: didn't he only do 11 beers? People who don't even like beer are antsy because the series is unfinished.

Well, I must tell you that I did have the twelfth beer a while ago, I just didn't mention it. So, to set your mind at ease, please take note of the respectable Chambly Noire from Unibroue. Up there in Quebec they have strange ideas, but some good ones found their way into some excellent Ales.

The Chambly Noire is a black ale weighing in at 6.2% ABV -- not high enough to hurt your head, but just enough to set it slightly apart from the run-of-the-mill. Smooth and delicious.

This dark ale was created in honor of the brave soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, with their famous black musketeer hats.  In 1665, King Louis XIV sent the regiment to New France to defend against the Iroquois. He had a number of strategic forts, including Fort Chambly, built along the Richelieu River, ensuring peace and prosperity for the colony. Many French Canadians are the direct descendants of these intrepid forebears.

Origin	Chambly, Quebec
Brewed since	2005
ABV	6.2%
Fermentation	Top
Style	Belgian-style black ale
Color	Dark brown, shades of mahogany
SRM	40
Clarity	Opaque
Head	Beige, dense, long-lasting
Bubbles	Fine
Effervescence	Slow
Nose	Wood, smoky, roasted coffee beans, licorice
Flavor	Smooth roasted grains, mildly smoky notes , and spices (cloves, green anise, mint) with a chocolaty finish
IBU	21
Body	Thin
Aftertaste	Pleasantly lingers on
Suggested serving temperature	6º–10ºC / 43° – 50°F
Suggested glass	Footed flute

Literal Sign #1

Signs must be obeyed. You have been warned.

The Apple Incident

On this sad anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a short reminder that choices started a long time ago.




God bless all those participating in the March For Life 2011.

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival #92

This week on Sunday Snippets, WBN presents: Goin' Hard.

• 24:15 Supposedly
• Excerpts In Excellence 
• I Confess
• Viva la Revolution!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival is a weekly opportunity to share your best posts with the wider Catholic blogging community.

To participate, create a post highlighting posts that would be of interest to Catholics and link to the host blog at http://rannthisthat.blogspot.com. Go to the host blog and leave a comment giving a link to your post.

I Confess

I took Nod-girl for her First Reconciliation today.

She wore a pretty pink dress, shiny black shoes, white tights, and a First Communion veil in her hair.  Since we see this as a pretty important day, she wanted to look nice. (When's the last time you dressed up for Confession? I'm just glad He'll take me any which way.) She missed going with her classmates at school due to a conflicting family event, so we made it on our own.

I wanted to make a small fuss about it, so I brought the camera and took a few pictures. She went to our Pastor's line and did superbly (volume control comes later). Upon coming out, she leaped! into my arms all smiles. I think the fellow penitents in line got a small chuckle out of that.

She said her penance and I knelt and gave thanks to Our Lord in the Eucharist there.

After that, we had to go to the grocery store for a few things, and she got some special attention from various ladies who noticed the radiant girl with the beautiful veil dancing through the aisles. Ah me!

I'd say it was pretty cool.

Viva la Revolution!

I'll just let you guess who said it in my house:

John wrote the Gospel of the Revolution; er, I mean Revelation.

It is revolutionary in some aspects, but it helps to get the names right. (smirk)

24:15 Supposedly

Here’s the thing: it ain’t all peaches ’n’ cream. Anybody who tells you different is selling something.

I’m supposed to tell you how wonderful life is and what a great joy it is to have a big family. About how we’re never bored and it just keeps getting better and richer and growing in love and appreciation of one another.

What I’m supposed to say is that the joy of the Lord is my strength and it’s the same as the feeling you get when you see cute puppies and people tell you how nice you look today. I imagine the “complimentary valet” at the hotel is the guy who says how much he likes your jacket. [...]

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Excerpts In Excellence

Since I accidentally linked to it earlier, I thought I'd make it official and give the link to Peter Kreeft's excellent speech on Christian anthropology vs. the Sexual Revolution, an address to the The Catholic Medical Association's 79th Annual Educational Conference (October 27-30, 2010).

Kreeft is amazing. He is a professor, a theologian, and an author, and yet what he says is in perfectly understandable English! You really should read the whole speech. Here is a little sample:

We moderns think sex is for us; it isn't; it's for our children. We moderns think we're so enlightened because we're not legalists any more, we're personalists, we're about people, not about laws or rules or commandments. We think of the people who make sex, and we want those people to have fun and be happy. Which is fine, but we're so fixated on the fact that people make sex that we've ignored the fact that sex makes people.

h/t Mike in CT (again!)

Auto-Correct Disaster

Ok, I saw this via Slashdot today, and it is definitely NSFW (you have been warned). However, I have to admit that after trolling through a few of these I was busting out in huge belly laughs and crying it was so funny.

This is what happens when you let your Smart Phone's auto-correct feature have its way: DYAC.

Update: Whoops! I had the wrong URL. The link has been "autocorrected" to the right site. Ha!

Sunday Snippets #91

This week on Sunday Snippets, WBN presents: Choose Your Own Adventure.

• 24:15 Choose Your Own Adventure
• Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!
• Green Energy That Might Actually Work

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival is a weekly opportunity to share your best posts with the wider Catholic blogging community.

To participate, create a post highlighting posts that would be of interest to Catholics and link to the host blog at http://rannthisthat.blogspot.com. Go to the host blog and leave a comment giving a link to your post.

Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!

I was pleasantly surprised to be nominated in the annual Blogger's Choice Awards for Hottest Daddy Blogger. Imagine that!



So, I took my own impartial survey, and Mrs. Nod agrees that I am the hottest Daddy blogger. (I'm satisfied with the judge's decision.)

So whether you think I'm hot-off-the-presses, hot-under-the-collar, hot-to-trot, or just hotter than 98 degrees, I'd appreciate your vote, just for fun. And it's free!

While you're there, give a shout out (and a vote) to my peeps at Shoved to Them and Acts of the Apostasy!

Not *That* Blackberry!

If you take a step back and listen to what those Computer Guys are saying, it does sound a bit peculiar. Check out this riot of a video. h/t Mike in CT

24:15 Choose Your Own Adventure

You are in a maze of twisty passages all alike.

For those who remember, these words bring back fond memories or long hours of frustrating sessions at the keyboard. I recently re-discovered the classic text adventures -- updated for my iPad. Those text adventures were my first introduction to Interactive Fiction as it’s known. You start out with little more than an introductory line or two and then you have to make decisions using your observations, your wit, your imagination, and maybe a bit of luck to solve the dilemma you find yourself in. If you are not so lucky ... You have been eaten by a Grue. RESTART, UNDO, or QUIT?

The neat thing about these books is that it drew a direct correlation between actions and consequences. If the author was a particularly good writer the stories always explored the moral dimensions of a situation. These little morality plays give us a way to reflect on our own real life situations.

Sometimes being a Dad feels a lot like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You blunder about making mistakes, learning from them, ask for a HINT, and then end up doing the right thing. Sounds kind of Catholic, don’t you think? Let's examine.

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Eleventh Beer Of Christmas

The 12 Beers of Christmas is a little tradition I started last year in which I treated myself to 12 different beers, one each day. It celebrates the incredible taste and variety that can be found in beers around the world and just a few klicks from my doorstep.

The eleventh beer of Christmas is the Troubadour Magma, a Belgian Triple IPA 9% ABV. Brewed & bottled by Br. The Musketeers B-9910 Ursel, Belgium. The Troubadour Magma is a Global Beer Network beer. (Hello, Johnny Fincioen!)

My impressions: Thick white head, lasting. Puffy, airy head like clouds. Sticky lacing all over the glass. Colonies of bubbles.

Aroma of the head is sour yeast. Once head settles down, more fruity.
Taste is strong and sweet, spicy, very malt forward. Finishes a touch hot, alcoholic. Pleasant bitterness.

Color is cloudy amber. A touch syrupy. Very tasty, a little different than most Tripels.

Official write-up: Amber ale, re-fermented in the bottle, with a mild bitterness, hoppy aroma, and a light, fruity malty spiciness. White head.

Tenth Beer Of Christmas

The 12 Beers of Christmas is a little tradition I started last year in which I treated myself to 12 different beers, one each day. It celebrates the incredible taste and variety that can be found in beers around the world and just a few klicks from my doorstep.

The tenth beer of Christmas is  Leffe Blond. A beautiful, subtly sweet and spicy blond ale, white head, and a hint of orange.

Leffe Blond is the flagship of Leffe. The unique recipe is the fruit of centuries of experience in the art of brewing, which brings a broad palette of aromas into balance. It is elegant, smooth and fruity, and it has a spicy aftertaste with a hint of bitter orange. Its light, sunny color is due to the use of pale malt. Leffe Blond contains 6.6% alcohol and fits excellently with a wide variety of dishes. It is best at a temperature of % to 6 degrees C. A thirst-quenching aperitif, for those relaxing moments with friends and family.

Fantastic. If you like blonds, this is royalty.

Ninth Beer Of Christmas

I got a little behind in celebrating my 12 Beers of Christmas. The ninth is actually the same as last year's first. So if it seems familiar, that's because nothing's changed!

That is Old Speckled Hen, which has a bit of an edge to it that's hard to put your taste buds on the first time you try it. Then, I discovered its little secret: toffee.

"Old Speckled Hen" has a full, smooth flavour and is very easy to drink. Its rich amber colour and superb fruity aromas are complemented by a delicious blend of malty tastes.

Toffee and malt combine with bitterness on the back of the tongue to give a balanced sweetness. This is followed by a refreshingly dry finish.

"Old Speckled Hen" was first brewed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the MG car factory in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Named after an old MG car which was used as the factory run around, they would park the old MG Featherweight Fabric Saloon outside the paint shop where it would normally get spattered in paint and so it became known as the ‘Owld Speckl’d Un’. This turned into "Old Speckled Hen" when the beer was unveiled.

Since then the finely balanced beer with a distinctive rich malty taste and fruity aroma has attracted many fans, including the fox, who is always on the hunt for his Hen.

Old Speckled Hen was my Ninth Beer of Christmas, which was a little present to myself; I hand-selected a dozen specialty beers to try during the Christmas season.

The Hen has warmed its way into my lexicon of beer. At first I found it an annoying flavor, but one that changed three times on the palate: first the sweet, then the bitter, and then the dry finish. And the toffee notes were a different tantalizing sweetness than the malt. It piqued my curiosity to try it again, and I liked it much better the second time. Now it is a taste experience to be savored.

Green Energy That Might Actually Work

What follows is a mere sketch of ideas that preceded a more thoughtful treatment of the environment in 24:15 Stewards Of Creation. I recommend you read that one first. Now that I've lost the bubble on that subject, I'd hate for this post to go to complete waste.

Without hanging my hat on any one technology in particular. the concepts behind TDM and CDP are actually really interesting once you separate the green-hyperventilating from the possibilities.

I'm not against burning up a few dinosaurs. I've never been a big fan of offshore drilling even long before the BP spill, especially since we've got enough ground oil in Alaska, Texas, and the Rocky Mountains to last us a good long while. In fact, a study from the US Geological Survey estimates that there are 3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate. How about burning those dinosaurs first, yes?

That having been said, I think that there are a few alternative energy sources worth pursuing. The reasons for pursuing them are not the same as those of environmentalists although many of them may be complimentary.

1. TDM (Anything Into Oil) Thermal Depolymerization Method
2. CDP (Green Power  catalytic pressure-less depolymerization process (CDP)
3. Methane capture from landfills
4. Solar drapes, battery improvements (kinetic energy capture, e.g. floors)

Reasons:
1. Religion (stewards until new heavens and earth)
2. Good citizenship (making localities independent power producers)
3. Economics (recycling cheaper than finding new reserves) -- this one has been problematic
4. Synergies between producing power and reducing existing waste (carbon sink)
5. Reducing land fills and effectively dealing with toxic waste
6. National security (energy independence vs foreign policy)

Angry Birds: Mighty Eagle

My favorite time waster has an exciting new capability: the Mighty Eagle. Once an hour (real time -- they know how addictive this game is) you can call down the Mighty Eagle and wipe those pigs off the map using a can of sardines for bait. Hoo-ah!

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival #90

This week on Sunday Snippets, WBN presents: Rib Ticklers.

• 24:15 Rib Ticklers
• Literature Busts 
• Eighth Beer Of Christmas

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival is a weekly opportunity to share your best posts with the wider Catholic blogging community.

To participate, create a post highlighting posts that would be of interest to Catholics and link to the host blog at http://rannthisthat.blogspot.com. Go to the host blog and leave a comment giving a link to your post.

24:15 Rib Ticklers

We take life so seriously sometimes that we forget to laugh. Yes, God calls us to be “sober and awake” (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:6), but nobody likes a dour-faced saint. We should let the joy of living in Christ shine through as well. Medical studies are quite clear on the fact that stress can literally kill you; other studies have shown that laughing may actually release endorphins in the brain that counteract the effect of stress and induce a feeling of well-being.

We often laugh because we’re happy, but laughing can also make us happy – and healthy. Laughter releases endorphins, neurotransmitters that have pain-relieving properties similar to morphine and are probably connected to euphoric feelings, appetite modulation, and the release of sex hormones (7). Studies have shown that laughter boosts the immune system in variety of ways.[..]

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Literature Busts

I hate it when my literary icons let me down. I read a lot of books growing up, but somehow I also missed out on a bunch of "classics".

For example, I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (the pre-sanitized version) by Mark Twain and it was genius. Everybody knows what a literary giant Samuel Clemens was and his scathing satires of culture and institutions.  What I didn't know was that he was a raving anti-Catholic.

For fun, I recently listened to a recording of A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court.  I had two general observations.

One, that the book was actually too long for the subject matter it treated (it got wearisome to listen to the hundreds of permutations of a 18th century New Englander's crusade against Medieval England's ideas - a few would have sufficed.)

The second, was that Clemens never missed an opportunity to impugn the Catholic Church, faith, the concept of dogma, he feared the Church's power, patriarchy and so on. His is a truly relativistic view.

I had started a teacher-factory and a lot of Sunday-schools the first thing; as a result, I now had an admirable system of graded schools in full blast in those places, and also a complete variety of Protestant congregations all in a prosperous and growing condition. Everybody could be any kind of a Christian he wanted to; there was perfect freedom in that matter. But I confined public religious teaching to the churches and the Sunday-schools, permitting nothing of it in my other educational buildings.

I could have given my own sect the preference and made everybody a Presbyterian without any trouble, but that would have been to affront a law of human nature: spiritual wants and instincts are as various in the human family as are physical appetites, complexions, and features, and a man is only at his best, morally, when he is equipped with the religious garment whose color and shape and size most nicely accommodate themselves to the spiritual complexion, angularities, and stature of the individual who wears it;

and, besides, I was afraid of a united Church; it makes a mighty power, the mightiest conceivable, and then when it by and by gets into selfish hands, as it is always bound to do, it means death to human liberty and paralysis to human thought.

Not a new thought perhaps, but newly disappointing.

Lift

If you add beer, that about covers it.

Strongbad: The System Is Down

It's been a while since I've enjoyed a good laugh from those crazy toons at Homestar Runner.  I don't even like techno music, but this always makes me laugh: the system is down...!

Eighth Beer Of Christmas

The 12 Beers of Christmas is a little tradition I started last year in which I treated myself to 12 different beers, one each day. It celebrates the incredible taste and variety that can be found in beers around the world and just a few klicks from my doorstep.

The Eighth Beer of Christmas: Probably the king of wheat beers is the Aventinus, a German Doppelbock Ale brewed in Kelheim.  It comes in a largish 500 ml bottle and weighs in at a respectable 8.2% ABV. You're going to need the tall glass.

It features original bottle fermentation, which is prodigious. Aventinus pours medium brown and cloudy with a big white head. The nose is both spicy and yeasty. This beer is a delicious wheat-y flavor with just the right amount of banana and clove spiciness. Warming and delicious.

The official write up:

Aventinus, the world's classic top-fermenting wheat-doppelbock, has received accolades for the perfect balance of fruity spiciness (banana, clove, vanilla) and notes of chocolate (crystal & dark malts).  Unfiltered, unpasteurized, bottle-conditioned. Enjoy Aventinus, the massive twin of SCHNEIDER WEISSE.

Hawking For Hawks

This weekend there was a guy knocking on my door. One hand was bare, the other had a big leather glove with a piece of raw chicken on it.

"Sorry to bother you, but we're looking for our red-tailed hawk. Big bird, about 3 pounds. Solitary hunter."

What can you say? Feel free to have a look around. Apparently, they were hawking out in the woods, when the bird spotted something and took off. To make matters worse, the hawk's transmitter and bindings fell off so once they lost sight, they had no idea where the bird went. Usually they stick within a 5 mile radius, but so far, no luck.

I saw a trio of turkey buzzards circling in the sky, but no red-tailed hawks. Even if I did spot it, what am I going to do? Call here kitty, kitty and get my arm clawed off?

I don't know that much about it, but I always thought that hawking was super cool. It ranks right up there with knights and jousting. Watching the movie Ladyhawke a bazillion times in high school probably had something to do with it.

Seventh Beer Of Christmas

The 12 Beers of Christmas is a little tradition I started last year in which I treated myself to 12 different beers, one each day. It celebrates the incredible taste and variety that can be found in beers around the world and just a few klicks from my doorstep.

The Seventh Beer of Christmas, is the Rare Vos, by Brewery Ommegang, in Cooperstown, NY.  This Belgian style Amber Ale is one Sly Fox (the Flemish meaning of Rare Vos). It pours a beautiful and clear amber color, with a white head made up of fine, tight bubbles.  The head settled relatively quickly and there was not much in the way of lacing on the glass.

The nose on this beer is subtle, but hints at a certain spiciness to come. When cold, the Rare Vos exhibits its spiciness like a small bite, but not at all unpleasant. The ale really benefits from some warming however; as it approaches room temperature the ale mellows dramatically and allows the fruity undertone to balance out the heady spices and moderate hops.

In what must be a trick of the tongue, the body appears to deepen slightly and its character becomes warming. A sly fox indeed. It clocks in at only 6.5% ABV. I recommend serving at cellar temperature to enjoy the Rare Vos to its fullest.

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival #89

This week on Sunday Snippets, WBN presents: Stewards of Creation.

• Gate Of Heaven, Star Of The Sea
• 24:15 Stewards Of Creation 
• Pope: Every Child Needs The Love Of Family
• Ecce Virgo

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sunday Snippets--A Catholic Carnival is a weekly opportunity to share your best posts with the wider Catholic blogging community.

To participate, create a post highlighting posts that would be of interest to Catholics and link to the host blog at http://rannthisthat.blogspot.com. Go to the host blog and leave a comment giving a link to your post.