Happy Birthday to Matt!

Happy birthday to Matt over at The Shrine!

The June 2006 Conference Lineup

As usual the University of St. Thomas in MN will be playing host to two of the greatest Catholic conferences of the summer.

The Eighth-Annual Minnesota Catholic Home Education Conference and Curriculum Fair
The conference will be held on June 2-3 and this year's theme will be "The Ministry of Education". We'll have a great set of speakers including Kimberly Hahn, the amazing Dr. Ted Sri and a host of others. There will also be the usual fieldhouse full of vendors (the used book sellers are the best!). And best of all, you'll get to see me there!

The 25th annual G.K. Chesterton Conference
Themed "The Best of All Impossible Worlds", it will be held June 15-17. Their lineup of speakers includes Carl Olson and Joseph Pierce, and shall have talks such as "Chesterton and Dickens" and "Chesterton and CSI". Registration begins in April, I plan on attending this year.

I made the first step in giving the blog here a facelift. The sidebar has been updated(and there was much rejoycing. Yay!). I got rid of the tagboard because I just couldn't stand the popups anymore; the links list has been updated and resorted; lastly I added the link to my Facebook page so y'all can go see that.

So Much For a Simple Project

Not that I'm really surprised. I got the kink worked out of the hose over the weekend and I just knew that it was too easy of a fix to the car up and running. Andy went to go try running some water through the system to see if it would work and to test for leaks. There's a rather large hole of some sort or another in the bottom of the radiator.
On the plus side one of the salvage yards in town is pretty sure they have all of the parts I need to fix it all up again.

I Have No Idea How I Got This Answer

How evil are you?

Hat Tip: The Whapsters

You scored as Chemistry. You should be a Chemistry major! As if that isnt clear enough, you are deeply passionate about Chemistry, and every single chemical reaction and concept fascinates you. Pursue that! Chemistry 100% Mathematics 92% Psychology 83% English 83% Engineering 83% Philosophy 75% Biology 75% Dance 67% Linguistics 67% Journalism 50% Anthropology 42% Theater 42% Sociology 33% Art 25% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

Just a Little Weekend Project

Yeah. So one of my freshmen hit a deer the other night on her way back to campus. She was of course going 55 mph when she hit it and it took her a couple hundred yards to realize that she'd hit something(older car, no airbags and such). Being as I'm apparently the only person around here who knows anything about cars(thanks Dad!), I get first shot at working on it.

Getting that radiator hose unkinked is the one thing I will definitely be getting done today. I'll probably also be out and about looking for a new radiator, hood, grille, and other sundry parts that may be going in on future weekends.

See the nice curve that the radiator has to it?

Merry Christmas!

Dashboard Confessional

Worth 1000 had a contest for literal depictions of band names, here's the Dashboard Confessional.
And here's another one.

Throw the Cow Over the Fence Some Hay

Just a badly phrase sentence about someone who got scammed by a "seer" who charged her for an exorcism.

"the 44-year-old was told she was possessed by a young woman who read her palm at a Christmas market."

I didn't know that young women could possess people.

A Musical Game

Step 1: Get your playlist (or Itunes library) together, put it on random, and play.
Step 2: Write down the first line from the first 30 songs that play or close to it.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song the lines come from. (Title and Composer/Artist)
Step 4: Cross out the songs when someone guesses correctly

NO GOOGLING FOR ANSWERS!!! <----Punishable by DEATH
1. Feelin' down n' dirty, feelin' kinda mean.
2. Love is tragic.
3. Feels like you made a mistake.
4. Hey Jack, I know what you're thinkin'.
5. She never mentions the word addiction.
6. The power of love is a curious thing.
7. I need an alarm system in my house.
8. Any way you want it.
9. I don't want to be the crutch.
10. All around my hat I will wear the green willow.
11. We come from the land of ice and snow.
12. She got out of town.
13. She rolls the window down.
14. Watch your words.
15. Enid we never really knew each other anyway.
16. Desperate for changing
17. There's a man going around in this town selling lies.
18. Well I want you to notice.
19. I'll wait for you 'til I turn blue.
20. It ain't no joke I'd like to buy the world a toke.
21. Well our straw just broke.
22. In the afterlife.
23. You know that feeling you get?
24. My Maria, don't you know I've come a long, long way?
25. I'm just a gigolo
26. Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC.
27. Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move.
28. Baby, do you understand me now?
29. Saturday morning alone and barely feeling.
30. And when you wanted me, I came to you.

Number 28 is off of a soundtrack, it's not the original artist, so you don't have to guess the artist. I suppose I shall tag any, and all of the Whappsters, Victor, Holly, Jenny, and Mattias.

There is one on here that, if anyone but Matt gets, I will be truly amazed.

From the Sober Sophomore

Senior Citizen Ice Cream

1 cup pitted prunes -- (about 6 ounces) 1/3 cup armagnac 1 cup sugar 1 tbs cornstarch 3 lg. egg yolks 1 1/2 cup milk 1 tsp vanilla 6 oz. bittersweet chocolate -- chopped coarse 1 1/2 cup well-chilled heavy cream

Preparation

In a saucepan combine the prunes and 1/3 cup water and simmer the mixture for 5 to 7 minutes, or until almost all of the liquid is evaporated. Remove the pan from the heat, add the Armagnac, and let the prunes macerate for 3 hours. Drain the prunes in a sieve set over a bowl, reserving the liquid, and chop them coarse. In a bowl whisk together the sugar, the cornstarch, the yolks, and a pinch of salt, add the milk, scalded, in a stream, whisking constantly with a wooden spoon. Boil the custard, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes, add the vanilla and the chocolate, and whisk the mixture until the chocolate is melted. Transfer the custard mixture to a metal bowl set in a larger bowl of ice and cold water and let it cool, stirring. Stir in the cream and the prunes with the reserved liquid and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. Makes about 1 1/2 quarts.

It was actually a dead tie between him and Neo

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.

Which Action Hero Would You be? v. 2.0
(Hat tip to Fr. Jim)

Goodnight Moon - The Politically Correct Version

"Goodnight Moon," the children's classic by Margaret Wise Brown, has gone smoke-free. In a newly revised edition of the book, which has lulled children to sleep for nearly 60 years, the publisher, HarperCollins, has digitally altered the photograph of Clement Hurd, the illustrator, to remove a cigarette from his hand ... .

"It is potentially a harmful message to very young kids," (Kate) Jackson (editor in chief of HarperCollins Children's Books) said, "and it doesn't need to be there."


In the great green room there was ...

A cordless telephone

And a red balloon, non-helium and securely tethered out of toddler reach

And a picture of the cow jumping over the moon, with a warning label never to try this with cattle or indeed any animals without parental supervision

And there were three little bears, roaming freely in their native habitat, secure in their endangered-species status

And two little neutered kittens

And a pair of mittens, purchased from a Cambodian collective

And a little toyhouse with all potential choking hazards fastened in place by six-inch bolts

And a young and humanely captured mouse

Goodnight room, which is more than many Burkina Faso children have

Goodnight moon and all moon-related goddesses

Goodnight solar-powered clocks

And goodnight sustainably manufactured hemp socks

Goodnight synthetic tortoise shell comb and brush

Goodnight anybody who has ever been made to feel like a "nobody" by a rigidly patriarchal society

Goodnight organic whole-grain GMO-free oatmeal mush

And goodnight to the lady of mature years seeking an environment conducive to thought

Goodnight stars, which remind us that we are not alone in this cosmos and must henceforth redouble our stewardship efforts

Goodnight air, which we have done so much to pollute with our inhuman sport utility vehicles and our Weber grills

Goodnight all noises in the immediate vicinity ...

... with the exception of the white-noise machine, the Haydn concerto loop, and the four-gallon cool-mist humidifier with the evaporative wick filter that was changed only last weekend

Goodnight to anybody whose feelings might have been injured by not being included above.

Written by Louis Bayard, orginally ran in the New York Times on Nov. 17, 2005.
(It took me a while to track down the credit for this piece of work)

(Hat Tip to Dad)

Dead Man Walking

Yep, you read that right, we're performing Dead Man Walking for our fall theatre performance. We opened the show this evening and will be running through Sunday. Tonight's performance went exceptionally well for an opening night, hardly any glitches at all. We had a good number of people, in our nearly sold out audience, crying at the end of the show. Since it requires a cast of at least 25 people we, for once, have actors from a diverse range of departments and such. We got several of the football players to play prison guards, they really are good at this theatre thing, even if they do hate the makeup.

Glad I'm Not One of Bob Geldof's Daughters

otherwise I'd have an atrocious name such as Fifi Trixibelle, Tiger Lily, Pixie, or Peaches. I know americans give their kids some truly odd names, but these four really take the cake.

I do suppose though that my friend Matt thought that Pesitlence, Flatulence and (well I don't recall the third one) were good names for girls. I never have heard any particularily odd guys names, wonder why that is?

When Theatre Geeks(or Greeks) Dress Up

MetalSmiths

It's been decided that for Halloween, Andy(my most favoritest freshman) and I will be dressing up as Melpomene and Thalia. I even get to go as the happy one!