Title translation (for those of you who haven’t spent time reading Flannery O’Connor and ain’t familiar with the way we folks from the South speak): “That There 123 Book Meme That’s Making the Rounds.” Yes, that’s right, where I come from, the word “what” can be substituted for “that” from time to time. It drives my wife crazy. 
So, I’ve been tagged by Scott @ Transformatum. The rules are:
- Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
- Turn to page 123.
- Find the first 5 [full] sentences.
- Post the next 3 sentences.
- Tag 5 people.
So, here we go …
The senses are not to be discarded, but they should be expanded to their widest capacity. We see Christ rightly only when we say with Thomas: “My Lord and my God!” We have just established that the icon has a trinitarian scope, and now we must come to terms with its ontological proportions. [...]
The passage above was taken from The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI).
I’ll confess that Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide was technically closer, but I decided to spare y’all a dry excerpt about accessor methods in Ruby objects. Besides, I’d only pulled it out for reference purposes earlier today, while I’ve actively been reading the liturgy book.
Brian, Chad, David, Philip and Will: the torch has been passed to you. You’re it!
Remind me why we admire this guy, please.
Frankly I don’t know that I should be sorry to see a bit of a spar with Germany. The burning of New York and a few other sea coast cities would be a good object lesson in the need of an adequate system of coast defenses, and I think it would have a good effect on our large German population to force them to an ostentatiously patriotic display of anger against Germany.
Teddy Roosevelt, as quoted in Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom by John V. Denson. See “Theodore Roosevelt and the Modern Presidency” for an excerpt including the above quote. The entire book is available in PDF form at mises.org.
Dear readers, the following thoughts came to mind this morning at about 3:30 a.m. when I was cleaning up after my cat, Soren:
1. If [evolution/creationism] is true, how did cats end up with such a lousy, fragile digestive system?
2. Why is it that my cat was smart enough to figure out how to use the doorknob to open a door at the house I lived in when I was single, but can’t comprehend a simple fact like “Hmmm, the last time I ate a bug, I involuntarily ejected the contents of my stomach in various spots around the house, so perhaps I shouldn’t eat this bug that looks so very (and inexplicably) tasty.”
3. If my cat is smart enough to go to the litter box when he has to … uh … do his business, why isn’t he smart enough to do the same thing when he’s about to evacuate the contents of his belly after eating the aformentioned bug?
(Feel free to substitute terms like “houseplant”, “human food”, etc. where you see “bug” above.)
I’ve been thinking over the last few days … there are several different things I write about on this blog.
- Personal stuff, including how my business is doing, photography, etc.
- Politics, economics, and other things from a libertarian perspective.
- Geeky stuff that’s related more or less directly to my business.
Over the weekend, I made the decision to split the “geeky stuff” from this blog and maintain yet another blog just for that purpose. I may do the same for the more personal stuff as well.
I’ve yet to decide exactly how I’m going to execute this, though. The plan-of-the-moment is to move the “geeky stuff” to something like four-eight-four.com/blog, keep the libertarian stuff here, and move the personal/family-related stuff somewhere else (and encourage Rachel to post there as well).
Of course, this means three blogs to maintain and upgrade every time Wordpress releases an update. Such is life …
Randall Stout, who was responsible for the bizarre addition to Chattanooga’s own Hunter Museum of Art, has defaced the city of Roanoke, VA, which also happens to be home to the O. Winston Link Museum and the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Given the railroading history of Roanoke and the railroad focus of the previously mentioned museums, the inscrutable new Art Museum of Western Virginia building might actually be appropriate for the town in a strange way. After all, it does look something like the awful aftermath of a head-on collision between two locomotives.
Hat Tip: Will Adair (for the NY Times link)
And now for something completely different … a break from the serious. The University of Manitoba held a funeral for one of its ancient IBM mainframe computers.
(Thanks to Dr. Biggly for the heads up on the link.)
I had an unexpected surprise arrive in the mail on Saturday. Specifically, a letter from EPB (the power company, for those of you not in town).
On behalf of EPB, I’d like to apologize for the intermittent power interruptions that happened at your home and in your neighborhood on Sunday, November 25. Although an interruption of electricity is never convenient, we are especially regretful that you experienced a power outage during a holiday weekend.
The letter goes on to explain the cause of the outage (somebody hit a utility pole and drove off and didn’t report it), and that they weren’t happy with the time it took them to locate and repair the issue, and they want to do better in the future.
Can’t say that I’ve ever gotten a letter from a power company apologizing for an outage before. Even though it’s only a token gesture, I’m quite impressed.
Now this is really interesting. Rocks that mysteriously slide around in a dry lake bed. Cool stuff!
I’m always amazed at the things people search for in Google, etc. which somehow lead them to my site. My favorite thus far this month is: “name four things that should be completed on documentation when installing anything on a user s pc .” Come again?
Earlier this year I wrote about my attempt to combine work and exercise by using my recumbent bike while working. While that ultimately didn’t work out (the seating position and distance from the keyboard ended up causing back pain), I’m apparently not the only person who thought it was a good idea to come up with some sort of exercise equipment that could be used in the office:
New exercise machine targets office workers
I might just have to give one of those a try when I have a spare $200 laying around …
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