Amusements: August 2004 Archives

Just keep taking the tablets

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Gotta get me a prescription for some Proloxil!

My parents need a new toaster. The toaster they own at present is, in a word, retarded. On the highest setting it barely warms the bread. On the lowest setting I imagine it would be safe to have in the tub with you. The thing has a switch for either toast or bagel which, like Janeane Garofalo participating in political discourse, does absolutely nothing.

I tell my parents they need a new toaster. This is the same thing I have saying at every visit the past two years. Like the issue of above-ground nuclear testing, they say it’s just not a priority for them now. But they have piles of money – why not drop a bit of cash on a new toaster? I think it’s because my dad just can’t go and buy something, he has a special routine for any purchase over ten dollars. Let’s apply his method to the toaster problem.

First, he forms a blue-ribbon commission to investigate the alleged retardedness of the toaster. It consists of dad, mom, and the next-door neighbors, one of whom has celiac disease. She eats only jam, no toast. While I have years of toast-eating experience, I cannot participate in this phase of the project because, thankfully, I am leaving tomorrow.

When the blue-ribbon commission confirms what I have been saying for years, namely, the toaster needs to be taken out back, shot, pounded with a hammer, ground to a fine powder, and mailed to DNC headquarters, it will be time for phase two.

Phase two consist of the feasibility study. Dad painstakingly measures the space available in their newly-remodeled, positively cavernous kitchen for the new toaster, and compares the numbers to the dimensions of all the toasters in the last three decades of the Consumer Reports Buyers Guide. The new kitchen, incidentally, is large enough that one could conduct above-ground nuclear testing by the dishwasher and not even see the explosion at the oven. He compares features among the models that meet the space requirements, even calling manufacturers to ask them, “Does switching to bagel actually do something or should I toast my bagel in a pan like the British do?”

Dad then goes to every Walmart and Target in the tri-state area looking for the right model. He finds Janeane Garofalo working as a greeter at a Walmart in Camden, makes a hand gesture in her direction that only an Italian would truly understand, and drives off. He finally decides to buy the toaster via the Walmart website, his very first online transaction. Before entering his credit card number he’s on the phone with Walmart’s online customer service for three hours asking if some hooligan is going to make off with his credit card and donate money to the Kerry campaign. He is assured that online transactions are safer than making toast.

He buys the toaster but in order to save money on shipping he has it carried by hobos hitching rides on trains across America. Given that very few hobos ride trains anymore, I expect he’ll have the toaster just in time for my visit at Christmas. He’ll spend seven weeks studying the users manual and repeatedly tell my mom, “We have to move the kitchen – if this thing is plugged in too close to the bathroom it might fall in the tub.” The tub they use is upstairs and in a different area code.

That’s how I expect the new toaster purchase to go, if they even get through phase one. I could have built a new toaster with things lying about the house in the time it’s taken me to type this. I’d better go and toast my bagel in a pan or with some nuclear weapons.

Open Sundays 10-7!

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Time for a trip to the ultimate religious-goods superstore, the Rome Depot!

Or for on-line convenience, there's avazon.com.

(via the Curt Jester, via me)

I don't have a story of discrimination like RC's post below, but I did install Service Pack 2 for Windows XP yesterday. The install worked in the same way the Dallas Charter worked - it seems to be a solution to all the problems other than the most pressing ones. Here are a list of the ill-effects that's I've noticed already:

1. I have bed sores from waiting for it to download and install. I didn't consider using the time the to say, build a financial empire or construct a to-scale relief map of the United States.

2. SP2 installs another nanny-type program called "Security Center" that includes a firewall but also annoys with warnings about automatic updates and virus protection. Security Center sees Norton AV installed but says it can't tell if the software is working. I'm sure if MS start selling anti-virus software it would work just fine. IF you change the auto-update settings to simply notify you that new updates are available for download the visual changes from green to yellow and it says "C H E C K S E T T I N G S." I don't want to download something I don't know about, even if it comes from Our Dear Software Provider.

3. A "Windows Marketplace" icon appears in the links toolbar of IE. You click on it and surprise, surprise you're on Microsoft's website where you can buy, buy, and buy more stuff to improve your computing experience. Just keep buying, folks, it's what keeps the economy going.

Today's church joke

Some of the ladies in the parish had a little argument one day, because they couldn't agree about what was the color of the new minister's eyes. They asked one lady what she thought and she said: "I really don't know what color they are. When he prays, he closes his eyes, and when he preaches, he closes my eyes."

The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years old, broke into campers' coolers and, using his claws and teeth to open the cans, swilled down the suds.

It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge.

Wildlife agents chased the bear away, but it returned the next day, said Broxson.

They set a trap using as bait some doughnuts, honey and two cans of Rainier Beer. It worked, and the bear was captured for relocation.

…where he is promptly pulled over by the authorities.

“Do you know why I pulled you over, Father?”

“It must be the biretta…” the priest grumbles.

“I didn’t notice the biretta until I saw you driving backwards with your right turn signal on!” The office exclaims. “Please step out of the car.”

The priest complies.

“What do we have here? A cassock, a sash, and – good gravy - a maniple! Do you think this is 1962? The maniple has been suppressed, Father, don’t you know that?”

“My handkerchiefs are all in the laundry!”

“Likely story, padre! I have half a mind to cite you for attempting to turn back the clock and confusing the people of God! I’ll let you off with a warning if you put on this golf shirt and sing ‘On Eagle’s Wings’ in the orans position!”

“Never!”

Just then a bright light appears - the “HOT” light from Krispy Kreme across the street. While the cop is distracted, our priest gets back in his car and drives away.

The end.

No doubt you the news that came out of New Jersey last week. [Came out - I love that!] Governor James McGreevey announced his resignation and shockingly revealed that he… is… a…

[pause here while parents cover the ears of their small children and other grip the seat of the pew in fear of what is coming]

...RELATIVIST! A relativist! A flagrant relativist! In his speech he admitted no less when he said, "One has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world." McGreevey would have us believe we make up truth as we go along, that each of us is the author of our own individual truth. This is contrary to what we as Catholics profess regarding faith and morals, namely that truth is objective, it is a universal standard that applies to all, not a subjective whim. Christ says in the Gospel, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” There is only one way, one truth, and one life. It is Christ and no other.

Sadly, McGreevey’s is an ever-increasing lot. Yes, relativists are in our schools, our places of business, our government, and even our Church. It pains me to tell you that there are even priests and Bishops who are relativists. [Some women begin to pinch their babies to make them howl.] We don’t each have our own truths of morals and faith, only the one truth that is preserved and taught by the Catholic Church. “Sing a new church into being,” the new age hymn goes. There is no new church worth following, only the Church that was born of the side of Christ as He hung on the Cross.

Don’t be a relativist – you’ll go to Hell.

Please stand for the Creed.

Thank God it's Friday! That way John won't order this 6 pound cheeseburger if he goes out tonight.

But if it were, say, Tuesday, the conversation might go like this:

"Either that's the biggest cheeseburger I've ever seen, or I'm shrinking precipitously!" John exclaims.
"You're not shrinking precipitously," replies John's wife.
"I guess that's the biggest cheeseburger I've ever seen!" John says, now salivating precipitously.

The components of John's disjunctive proposition - biggest cheeseburger he's ever seen or he's shrinking precipitously - are called disjuncts. So long as we eliminate all the disjuncts but one, that one must be true - assuming, of course, that the disjunctive premise is true to begin with.

Here it is in standard form:

Either that's the biggest cheeseburger John's ever seen, or he's shrinking precipitously!
He's not shrinking precipitously.
That's the biggest cheeseburger John's ever seen.

Here's another example.

Either John Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas in 1968 or he's a big liar and shouldn't be elected President.
John Kerry was not in Cambodia on Christmas in 1968.
He's a big liar and shouldn't be elected President.

Perhaps Gaea is punishing the US for not siging on to the Kyoto treaty. We don't have it bad here in Northern Virginia like the eight-hundred thousand or so who were told to evacuate their homes in Tampa. The Old Oligarch and his wife, Zorak, were victim of Mother Nature's wrath - their car was crushed by an angry Ent yesterday. I thought the Ents were on our side. Old Oligarch has got photos of the carnage.

And don't miss the subsequent post in reply to some inane criticism of his posts on modest dress. I'm glad we here at CL are on his good side!

Procrastinating monkeys were turned into workaholics using a gene treatment to block a key brain compound, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

"If I am elected in November, no inner-city child will have to live in an America where George Bush is president," Kerry said, addressing a packed Maize High School auditorium. "No senior citizen will lie awake at night, worrying about whether George Bush is still the chief executive of this country. And no American—regardless of gender, regardless of class, regardless of race—will be represented by George Bush in the world community."

But look out for that 300-foot high wave that will hit the Eastern seaboard of the US and Canada. Oh, only if Bush gets relected - the volcano slippage is his fault. Kerry's hair will save the day!

I saw a special on this on the Discovery Channel a while back. It looks pretty scary. Maybe get some Legos there quickly and put a wall around the island.

The legacy of George Stallings is evident at his last parish, St. Teresa of Avila in Anacostia. Above the "high" marble altar (I don't know what else to call the pre-Vatican II altar) is the painting shown in the conniption-inducing photos below. It bears a resemblance to the former priest, now "Unificationist" follower of Reverend Moon. Stallings, founder of the African American Catholic Congregation, married a Japanese woman in 2001 less than half his age, no doubt in the interest of unification.

I agree the match isn't spot-on, but given the age difference between the photos and when the painting was probably done (he left the Church in 1989) it's plausible. Is that a wound on the right arm or is it a visage of Christ at all?

Click below to see the photos. I didn't wish to post them on the main page here because it would use a ton of bandwidth.

Stallin2.gif
stallings_george_01.jpg
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whole painting.jpg

Link via Bill Cork

About the contest:

An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."

Do they still publish a book of the most notable entries for each year? I remember that being well worth the purchase. It provided hours of entertainment.

redefeat-button.jpg

"I don't want to accept George Bush as the legitimately-elected President of the United Stated, therefore he is not the legitimately-elected President of the United States."

The fallacy of subjectivism is commited when one uses their belief or desire of a thing as evidence of its proof. There is an implicit premise here. It is much more than the one who says this is more supreme than the Justices on the Supreme Court. He implies that he is the Supreme Being.

All things I want to be true are true.
I want the statement "Bush is not the legitimately-elected President of the United States" to be true.
Therefore, the statement "Bush is not the legitimately-elected President of the United States" is true.

Who can say, "All things I want to be true are true"? That's only true for God. We mere creatures have no such power. Talk about "playing God!" That's subjectivism. Of course, what is subjective for God is objective for Creation.

So, I say to the "Re-defeat Bush" crowd, just because you want something to be true doesn't make it true. And I also say to them, "Go play in traffic!"

What? Who?

On life and living in communion with the Catholic Church.

Richard Chonak

John Schultz


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unless you state otherwise.

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