Literally

"Sloth" and "Gluttony" cannot have been meant purely metaphorically in the Seven Deadly Sins. I've never heard a sermon that treated them literally.

Iron

"He is not a man. He is like a piece of iron."
- Ivan Drago, in reference to Rocky Balboa

Florescent

Florescent lights outside at night have to be one of the prettiest things in existence.

Athletes

Ever wonder why athletes' bodies don't look quite like bodybuilders' or models'? (Particularly for women, but also for men).

Deals

Off-menu items at McDonald's that are awesome:

- Mcdouble add Mac Sauce, Lettuce, and Bacon
(Basically a Big Mac with bacon on it, but costs $2.00 instead of $2.88 which is what a normal Big Mac costs)

- Steak McSkillet add Bacon
(Incredibly tasty and filling, a complete meal for $4.26)

- Sausage Hashbrown Biscuit
(Exactly what it sounds like; hashbrowns are 2 for $1 so buy two on the side. Good with ketchup on it. Order a round egg a la carte and throw that on as well)

Remember: 1) You can get pretty much anything a la carte. 2) You can add bacon to anything for $1.00. 3) If you go during changeover you can mix breakfast and lunch ingredients if you're willing to wait a few minutes. 4) McDonald's accepts competitors' coupons.

On-menu items that are good deals:

- Big Breakfast with Hotcakes (formerly the Deluxe Big Breakfast)
(You get Hotcakes [$2.56], a sausage biscuit [$1], eggs [$1], and a hashbrown [$0.89]. So that's about $5.50 worth of food for $4.26)

- Anything off the dollar menu
(All great deals, without exception)

- Double Fish Fillet meal
(Costs around $5 and it's two fish patties)

- $1.99 Happy Meals
(Hamburger -- get a McDouble and you've got two sandwiches, fries, a drink, and a toy for $3.21)

Success

Ever feel like your success is just God doing other people a favor?

Wisdom

Wise words from the facebook profile of a person I don't know very well:

"The only other option is riding away on a stretcher, looking only at my blackened eyelids, unaware of how badly I have failed."

Highway

There are three basic categories of signs along I-75 that pertain to your location:
What roads are nearby / the road rules for your location
What you can buy near you
Who died near you

Haircuts

Places where people commonly have deep, often anonymous or confidential, conversations with strangers: confessional booths, haircut places, doctors offices.

Change

The most pennies you would ever need to get as change is 4.
The most quarters is 3.
The most dimes is 2.
The most nickels is 1.

I would therefore predict that 40% of all dropped change is pennies; 30% quarters; 20% dimes; and 10% nickels. But people are more likely to pick up valuable change when they see it lying around, so the coins you would be most likely to find on the ground are, in order (i am guessing):
1. pennies
2. dimes,
3. nickels,
4. quarters
It would probably depend a lot on the socioeconomics of the area involved, too.

Chalk

Chalk is the coward's spray-paint.

Girls

Girl guitar players that are world class -- regardless of gender.

April Lawton --
Check out her stuff with Ramatam. In the early seventies, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say she was one of the 10 best guitar players on earth, maybe one of the best 5. Furthermore, I don't think anyone was as wild as she was except Hendrix himself. She quit music early so she could focus on painting and graphic design.

Orianthi --
I've been reading articles about her in "Guitar Player" magazine for years. She's done stuff with Steve Vai, Michael Jackson, Prince, and Santana. And now she has a top 20 single.

[I will add to this list, but now I have to go set the table]

G'n'R

The following formula expresses one's enjoyment when listening to Guns 'n' Roses:

E = kVD/(1+S)

when

E is Enjoyment
V is Velocity (on foot or by vehicle)*
D is volume level in Decibels
S is number of music Snobs in one's presence
k is the album constant

for "Appetite for Destruction" k = 10
for "G'n'R Lies" k = 5
for "Use Your Illusion I & II" k = 7
for "The Spaghetti Incident" k = 9
for "Chinese Democracy" k = 3



*excludes commercial airliners -- they are boring

Hofstadter

Quote from a book I am reading:

Tortoise: Your argument is persuasive, Achilles, and I must agree that such a flag is indeed impossible. But it is beautiful anyway, is it not?
Achilles: O, yes, there is no doubt of its beauty.
Tortoise: I wonder if its beauty is related to its impossibility. I don't know; I've never had the time to analyze Beauty. It's a Capitalized Essence; and I never seem to have the time for Capitalized Essences.
(p. 29)

Subtle

"It's OK not to be subtle."

Spirituality

"Spirituality is noticing what's going on around you."

Moses

Moses was a prince for a third of his life, a shepherd for a third of his life, and the leader of his people in the wilderness for a third of his life. We mostly hear about the last third, but he was 80 years old when he saw the burning bush. Most of us think of our lives as being over by then. I wonder how the prince/shepherd stages of his life formed him.

Future

A lot of what we today consider high art was either decoration, commissioned product, or crass entertainment at the time it was made. Which probably means that one day our decorations, commissioned products, and crass entertainment will be considered high art by future generations. All this is as it should be.

Fun

"The job of a supervisor is to make work fun for his crew."

Respect

Being kind to someone is not the same as respecting them. People can tell the difference.

Boots

So apparently magnetic astronaut boots could have made perpetual motion machines

http://www.cheniere.org/misc/astroboots.htm

I'm researching this more.

Band

I think playing in a band is good training for real life. Sometimes in life, like in live music, there are high-pressure situations when you don't know if you are good enough to perform what is asked of you. The only way to get through it is to (so to speak) throw a foot up on your monitor and let 'er rip and *know* you are going to nail it even if you *think* you might not be able to.

Alt

I wrote this about alt text in a message to a friend and I thought it was interesting:

Alt text is used as a substitute for an image (hence the abbreviation "alt" like "alternative"). Basically when someone is creating a webpage they can associate alt text with an image so if a user is running a browser that doesn't support images, or if they are blind and are using a browser that will read text out loud, there will be a description of the image instead of the image itself.

Tooltips (which I think is technically what xkcd and daisy owl use) were originally used as titles for images which would show up when a user placed the mouse cursor over an image.

The two types of text are coded differently in html. I don't know the exact syntax, but basically alt text uses the prefix "alt" before the body of the text, and tooltips use the prefix "title" before the text.

Differentiating between alt text and tooltips is made more difficult by the fact that Internet Explorer 7 and earlier had a bug which incorrectly displayed alt text as tooltips. This encouraged programmers to use the "alt" prefix instead of the "title" prefix when they wanted text to show up as a tooltip. IE 8 and Mozilla display things correctly.

Here are some good links to explain that:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25537#c31
(read comment 31)

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla_Web_Developer_FAQ#Why_doesn.e2.80.99t_Mozilla_display_my_alt_tooltips.3f

also the wikipedia article on "alt text" is good and has some good links, although you obviously couldn't cite it itself in a paper.

Fetish

The definition of a fetish is something without which you cannot be sexually aroused. Do we treat worship in Church like a fetish? Are there things we tell ourselves we cannot worship God without (traditional music, contemporary music, fancy building, plane building, electric guitars, organ, choir, high quality musicianship, gritty soulful musicians, standing and clapping, kneeling, etc.)?

Are there elements to a service which we truly shouldn't be able to worship God without?

Also, speaking of fetishes, do American men have a big breast fetish or a skinny people fetish? Theoretically wouldn't having one of those be just as bad as a foot fetish or something?

Danger

There is a lot of stuff that we think of as being very dangerous that is actually equally or less dangerous than driving on a two-lane highway. One false move and you're dead. I don't think we should be more scared when driving: I think we should be less scared to do "dangerous" stuff.

Anime

When I watch good anime I usually feel like I've been punched in the gut afterward.

Divorce

In America, songs about relationships are usually about failed relationships. I wonder whether this may have to do (either as a cause or as a result) with the proliferation of divorce.

Also, it's weird that songs about relationships are usually about failed relationships, but movies about relationships are usually about successful relationships.

Checkers

At work the other day a door to the dumpsters outside was left ajar (by the garbage men?) and a car whipped around the corner without looking and hit the door. This caused the door to hit a random passerby in the head fracturing his skull. I have no idea if he's OK or what. I'm becoming jaded because this sort of thing does not seem that strange to me anymore. Just another day at work. Also we were really busy because of the Renaissance Faire. And we were short 6 people.

Checkers/Rally's advertising slogans 1997-present:
1997-1999 "Fresh. Because we just made it."
1999-2000 "High performance Human Fuel"
2000-2008 "You gotta eat!"
2008-present "little place. BIG TASTE."

Until quite recently they were the only major fast food chain that refused to publish any sort of nutritional information. Now supposedly you can find it here [http://www.checkers.com/pdfs/nutrition.pdf] but I can't get the link to work.

Damn I love that place.

Play

Play where you are, not where people tell you to play.

Busting

"If customers see you busting your ass, they won't get angry even if they have to wait"

Truer than I would have thought initially.

Work

When you're out of school, work becomes more stressful but rest becomes more restful.

Fame

Lady Gaga's first album is great. Absolutely fantastic. But the drums have way too much compression, particularly on "Paparazzi" and "The Fame."

Venus in Furs

You know what book is great? Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Best exploration of the desire to be dominated I have yet encountered. Could have been written last year and would be just as relevant. It takes what we might label with euphemisms like 'unhealthy' or 'codependent' and exposes a yawning, horrific abyss.

Iron Maiden

I think Iron Maiden does an excellent job paying tribute to historical figures and events:

Aces High -- the Battle of Britain (see the music video)
Run the the Hills -- the plight of Native Americans
Tailgunner -- tailgunners in World War II
Sun and Steel -- Miyamoto Musashi, a 17th century Japanese samurai
Ganghis Khan -- Ganghis Khan
etc.

Also, literature:

The Trooper -- The Crimean War / "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Tennyson
Revelations -- G.K. Chesterton
To Tame a Land -- "Dune" by Frank Hurbert
Phantom of the Opera -- "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner -- "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" by Robert Heinlein
Moonchild -- "Liber Samekh" by Aleister Crowley
etc.

Here's a good website to research allusions Iron Maiden makes:
http://stason.org/TULARC/music-bands/iron-maiden/19-Song-And-Name-Origins-Iron-Maiden.html

I feel like Maiden is kind of like historical fiction in music form. Or maybe more accurately like a historical fiction graphic novel in music form.

Synths

When did Church music cease to be crushing and majestic? In the middle ages organs could be heard from miles away. It was one of the loudest sounds anyone would ever hear in their lives. Plus they would be in these buildings that were so ridiculously huge and beautiful they took over a hundred years to build. Now we meet in these understated modest buildings and try to make sure the music doesn't detract from the lyrics.

Why do you never hear synths that threaten to stop your heart? Why aren't there 4 minute guitar solos played through a wall of Marshall amps? There's nothing wrong with the music in Church right now, but it seems like we're missing out on a lot.

I wonder whether our understanding of God is effected. Do we make it harder to believe in God's power and goodness when our worship of Him is so small in scale and unambitious?

These are not rhetorical questions. There might be (and hopefully are) good reasons, but I just don't know them.

CW, 2:00pm-4:00pm

Steve Wilkos and Tyra Banks make an interesting back-to-back daytime TV combination. One is justice and the other is grace. Together they are like a good cop bad cop routine that interrogates the guilty conscience of America. But it is an interrogation through which we are vindicated because (we tell ourselves) we are innocent compared with the graphic spectacle of these shows.

We see ourselves and our own problems exposed and amplified in the guests. We hate the guilty guests because we hate and fear those parts of ourselves. Then we are comforted when we see the difference in scale (not in type) between their problems and ours. This, we think, is righteous anger.

And sometimes there is no difference in scale.

Ralph

Yesterday I met Ralph Alvarez, president and chief operations officer of McDonald's. The company. He is the third most powerful person at McDonald's Corporation. We talked for maybe 30 seconds and I had no idea who he was until later. He looked me in the eye and treated me like a person, which I appreciated.

I was probably a bit too informal, but whatever.

Typing

I think they should teach typing in schools by just putting a bunch of middle schoolers in a room with computers that have AIM on them and telling them they can't talk out loud. Everyone I know that had AIM growing up is excellent at typing.

Sticker

I really like bumper stickers that don't communicate a clear message. They are very rare. In fact most bumper stickers are expressly designed to be clear, brief, and blunt. But there are outliers and mistakes. I used to have one that said "I now inform you that you are too far from reality." The print was a bit small and it was fun seeing people in my rear view mirror scoot forward at a light to squint at it, and then just look confused.

I saw one today that said "I AM GOD." I still don't get whether it was supposed to be quoting (and therefore affirming) the Bible or asserting (metaphorically? sarcastically?) that the driver was an omnipotent diety. Or maybe it referred to the car itself?

Tears

You'll never know the number of people you by food from, sit on the bus next to, have a class with, or are close friends with who are a breath away from exploding. In anger, tears, fear, whatever. You'll never know but I bet it's more than you think.

Boss

There are tons of different styles of leadership, but I think one universal characteristic of a good boss is that her employees know that she is in their corner. That sounds simple, but it's actually pretty rare. I hope if I am in a leadership position (even outside of the workplace, like as a husband or father) people under me feel like I am on their side.

Charlie

The neighbor kid in the apartment next door is named Charlie. The guy from the V.A. who lives at my other next door is also named Charlie.

Sovereign

If God is really sovereign, it doesn't matter whether Christians believe He is or not. He just is.