still Thursday, Thursday

today, for the first time this semester, taking 6 classes really felt like taking 6 classes. please enjoy this representation of my day.

Thursday, Thursday

Hey all - lookie what I found! A REAL map of the world that hasn't been altered by stupid "politically correct" considerations. Enjoy!! (sorry brigid - but haven't you ever noticed it doesn't take as long to travel from place to place in Europe than in America? Here's why.)

Well, there was something compelling about your apathy.

Okay, *w0w*...

I was actually kinda debating about posting a link to this news article I came across, but the pure humor of the subject matter and (to top it off) the irony of the scientific presentation and context convinced me I had to... warning, this is a bit, um, 'explicit' in sections...

And of course, special thanks to scotsman.com news services for being the humble provider of this compelling treatment entitled, no-this-isn't-a-joke... "Suckers for gay trysts, fiery females and rough sex - squid secrets exposed" .

... amazingly, this beats my previous record-holding wierd fact about marine animals (which involves dolphins).

"Then I Look at the Stars!"

Okay, this might not (probably won't) interest anyone else too much, but here goes:

The brightest galactic flash ever detected hit the earth's atmosphere on Dec. 27th of last year, it was caused by a magnetar 50,000 light years away. Magnetar's are super pulsars (remnants of a supergiant's nova) which create the strongest magnetic fields known in the galaxy.

Now, the strange thing is that Dec. 26th of last year was the date for the huge pacific Tsunami, which was caused by an earthquake... now, some people are hypothosizing that maybe this huge burst of energy from the magnetar might have touched-off the earthquake. While the actual chance of this is somewhere between "extremely slim" to "none," nevertheless, reading about the whole event in question (like most topics in astronomy) is an amazing opportunity for speculative wonder...

here's where you can find the source story:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/bright_flash_050218.html

Quote Soup

"People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes (finally some ammo against inveterate punsters!!)

"The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind." -- Edgar Allan Poe (I can't believe you'd turn against me, Edgar)

"You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas." -- Stanley Kubrick (to make up for that previous one - this is quite possibly one of the best chess quotes I've ever heard)

"I failed to make the chess team because of my height. " --Woody Allen (to keep things in perspective)

"Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere. " -- G. K. Chesterton (every quote gaggle requires some GKC)

"Coincidences are spiritual puns. " -- GKC (*sigh*, which means this needs to be included...)

"I was planning to go into architecture. But when I arrived, architecture was filled up. Acting was right next to it, so I signed up for acting instead." -- GKC (the rest are going to be GKC, he's just that good...)

"It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it."

"Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. "

"Marriage is an adventure, like going to war. "

"Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache."

"The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them. "

"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. "

"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions. "

"Women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes. "

Good quotes, good music, good tea, and it is raining outside my window. :-)

Saturday night is pizza night

You can't convince me that when God said "Subdue the earth" He meant us to get this ridiculously detailed about it:

http://mileskimball.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=10024&itemType=PRODUCT&AS=1&keyword=pizza

He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him.

In the Library ... again. Boy do they keep it cold in here.

I almost fell asleep while sitting in a chair today.

My gum has retained it's flavor for a rediculously long period of time.

I'm not going to poland.

The only other person in this room right now is wearing a yellow shirt and keeps pulling his pants up because he isn't wearing a belt.

I wonder if staring into the barcode scanner would make you go blind like in jumanji (well sorta).

A new guy just walked into the Library, he is bald like 78% of the people here.

The last time I was supposed to go to a Tiger's baseball game it was cancelled due to inclement weather and we were taken to an awesome resteraunt where Paul Bower and I ordered every appetizer on the menu.

So much for September 22nd, 2005.

P.S. Happy Birthday Bilbo & Frodo. Hope the journey from the Grey Havens was pleasant.

Oh, I love my family, but I'd give my six kids to get rid of my wife.

Has it already been six days since I last updated? That's almost a whole week. That's close to 2% of an entire year! Ah well, I guess lack of posting is a sign of activity IRL, but we can only hope.

What have I been up to? Mostly school stuff. Actually, I'm posting this blog from the information desk of the Cardinal Szoka Library at SHMS, where I'm now working 3 hours a week. It's pretty cushy, I just check books in and out, I get to know the inner workings of the library (basically that means getting told the code to the locked door at the back of the place) and getting to check books out for all my professors and "give 'em an inside deal" by letting them go over their checked-out books limit (which they all excede).

My boss at the library doesn't care how much I work at all, he just wants me to be in the general area, and maybe do some shelving if I feel like it and don't have too much homework. So it's a nice way of forcing myself to stay in the library sometimes. Another nice bonus is that since the library is located directly beneath the Church, and SHMS has a fairly decent organist who is always practicing... the library gets excellent background moody, scholarly-toned music all the time.

My much preferred work-study program, however, is becoming the personal assistant this semester for an amazing professor here ... after hearing Fr. Ed rave about this guy all summer its cool to be helping him to research, he's one of those guys I have a feeling I can learn alot from, now if I can just convince Fr. Fox to bring me with him next time he leads a pilgrimage...

In other news, I dropped by Ave again this weekend, for probably the last time in awhile now that everyone's homework is picking up around here. Ave had its semi-formal, which was somewhere between mediocre and amusing, but oh well, got to see a few people anyway. I especially enjoyed the song "Since you been gone" which was predictably played, and made the note that most ave girls dont seem to realize that for a guy to be gone he has to have been there in the first place. :-)

I hope that isn't too cruel, but I think the girls at AVE are definitely the sole people pushing for dances on the campus anymore, I'm not sure if it was ever any other way, but this was the first time I saw it so clearly. En Passant, Ave has to be the only school where the girls try to get the guys soaked in water all the time and not vice versa.

I love our president, in the middle of a United Nations meeting this is what he's writing to Condy Rice?

Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.

Okay, something to post. Let's see... um, wow, nothing is coming to mind. It's a wednesday evening - is that news? No, probably not. Well, I'm sitting here listening to my tunes, absolutely sick of doing homework. At-home snacks are at an all-time low, so I can't distract my mind with food or drink.

This is quickly becoming one of those nights were its a challenge to stay occupied. Oh well. At least it rained today. That's always a really good thing. It was about damn time, too. Yeah, the weather. I'm talking about the weather.

OOO! I know what I could talk about. My new conversational model (derived from a modern animated show): stewie from family guy. I hope to emulate him and become 1/10 the sarcastic understated slices-the-legs-from-under-you wit that he is... okay, so he has a team of scriptwriters providing him prefabricated material around the clock.... oh well, aim high.

... so when you fall you have some time to contemplate your mistakes and realize the full breath of your miscalculation before you hit the unforgiving ground.

anyway, here's a stewie griffin soundboard! http://www.ebaumsworld.com/stewie-familyguy.html

Comedy is tragedy plus time!

Hmm, so what's happened since last time I posted? Well, I did the whole Mass of the Holy Spirit thing. That was, of course, awesome. Similarly neat was the faculty bash they threw afterwards, I got to see all my profs in a more laid-back setting for the first time, and that was extremely fun. One of the dominican priests kept trying to recruit my youngest brother for the dominicans, a joke he kept going the whole night (telling my brother dominicans have the best looking habits, telling my brother to stay away from the diocesan priests "because you dont want to do parish work when you could be studying in europe" and the like). Three of my professors invited me out to lunch sometime, which I think is a good thing. I started to get the expected questions about why I'm not in the seminary (always makes for a long conversation). Overall it was a great time and my siblings did an amazing job not squabbling in public, I tend to forget having been away from home so long how much they've all grown up, to the point where they can (almost) be brought out in public without too much embarrassment...

today was a beautiful day insomuch as I was able to sleep in and was awoken by my youngest sister telling me that my BLT was ready. now that is news you can wake up happy to. I eventually dropped-by AVE for the afternoon to visit the Pre-Thes, play some poker, watch some TV, and get taken out to dinner by Fr. Ed. we then rounded out the evening out by gossiping about Sacred Heart. Suffice it to say I'm thrilled how quickly I'm catching up on the scene at Sacred Heart after only a week of classes. between knowing mark and fr. ed, and having my dad on the faculty, I couldnt be more perfectly poised to get the best possible exeperience out of the whole thing. happy times... now all I need to do is study. :)

I did an evening of vegetables off-Broadway.

Step 1: Read:

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/iraq.html

Step 2: Be happy

Step 3: Become less happy

Step 4: Read again

(repeat steps 3-4 as needed)

"pierre, you shouldnt have come"

I've decided that from now on my blog post titles will have as little to do with the blog post subject matter as possible.

in other news, today was an interesting (albeit long) day. I'm quickly learning the ropes at school, and these last days have left me feeling a lot more optomistic about my time to be spent here than I was before, due in large part to breaking the ice with most my professors and finally starting to build a small reputation and core of new friends.

the highlight of today was definitely attending the opening night of the on-campus bar at shms. big screen TV, free pizza and beer, and a pool table. cram about 80 seminarians in there and its a pretty cool spot. Mark and I played doubles at pool against some random folks, and I had a one-in-a-million trick jump shot that shot 2 feet across the table over 3 balls to perfectly nick my object ball into a corner pocket. I wowed the whole room. it was muy bueno.

tomorrow is the opening "Mass of the Holy Spirit", a really big deal at SHMS apparently ... and as metrosexual (or whatever) as it sounds, I'm really excited about being able to wear a 3-piece suit that I inherited from my grandfather for the first time, it's a thing a beauty, really. :)

my proof against evolution

okay, it's finally happened: I've found a proof against evolution.

premise #1: evolution makes man better, in the long run.

proof #1 against: man invents internet, and creates this website:

http://infinitecat.com/infinite/cat1.html

conclusion: there's no way man is getting better.

hilarious obituary

This made my day folks, I had to share it. props to Craptastic! (http://ohdittybop.blogspot.com/) for finding it.

Our Fair

I went to the fair today. my thoughts:

• the mechanized llamas are getting more and more life-like each year it seems.
• my family came home with a cartload of prizes for the stuff they entered, it reminds me of the movie babe and disgusts me. no family should have this much raw talent. thank heaven none of my siblings realize how gifted they are. I have and it's continually threatening to ruin my life. (/sacrasm)
• horses time their craps for exactly when the lady-announcer calls attention to them during the judging - i'm sorry, but they do, and you can't convince me that they don't realize exactly what they are doing.
• the ugliest carneys have the most beautiful children.
• turkeys are disgusting, I stared at one for 5 minutes and tried desperately to remember exactly how many of them I've eaten over the years and then erase the memory.
• the only cool bunnies are the really big, fat ones that remind me of the movie "Night of the Lupus"
• George Orwell must have never been to an actual farm, there's no way on earth pigs can stand on their hind legs, I tried to coax one to for almost 20 minutes with a carrot (that's what you're supposed to use, right?) and it wouldn't even get off the ground. It was worse than a hippy.
• I was nonchalantly walking down a whole long aisle of llama paddocks, when my brother casually reminded me that llamas can spit over 20 feet. what little love I had for the fair died that moment.

First day of classes...

Interesting first day at Sacred Heart. I ran into Mark R. During my first class of the day, so it's nice to know someone already in one of my classes. I also met an interesting fellow from New Orleans (yeah, small world), whose house was luckily-enough on the right side of one of the levies, apparently that's the only thing that saved it. Also, he was an acting student for two years and clearly has "personality." So perhaps he, mark and I can get something going this semester for theater, since Sacred Heart has one of the best intact stages in all of Detroit.

I spent the rest of my day wandering around Sacred Heart, which clearly has months and months of exploration potential. I found a gorgeous bay-window-filled study room with sumptuously humongous couches draped in beams of cheery litght, so I'll be studying there often I'm sure, especially since it's in a deserted wing of the place that doesn't appear to get too much foot traffic.

Sacred Heart was also hosting a sort of welcome party for commuting students (of which there are almost 400). By the end of that little get-together I had been invited to be the representative of the MA students on some council that deals with student-needs. Basically I will be taken out to lunch three-to-four times a semester by the lay ministry laison and her secretary during which time I get to complain about there not being enough varities of doritos in the vending machines. I can deal with that.

One bummer for the day: they cancelled Hebrew on me since I was the only person besides Mark R. to sign-up for it and they needed five people minimum to pay the professor. So I have to track done some professors and beg them for a directed readings class. gosh.

Finally, after my first day of classes, I've decided to group my classmates into three categories: first, we have the 50/60-something old-dads-becoming-deacons crew. Interesting, solid folks the most of em. Next, we have the 50/60-something-old-maps-moms (master of pastoral studies) who are getting the degree to help them become DREs, Theology teachers, etc. They're fine, if rather over-perfumed, in general. Finally, we have the seminarians, who range across a very wide spectrum not so much in terms of age but in terms of intellectual ability, from the disgustingly bright to the amazingly stupid. They range from "can't be interesting at all" to "could be kind of interesting in some limited way."

and then there is me.

Last chance!

Last day of freedom - classes start tomorrow. I love preperation days, nothing but cleaning clothes, assembling books/materials and looking forward to a new semester, new beginnings and new challenges.

quick little note...

so, whoever keeps visiting this site from "gosaintmarys.edu" ... who are you? You can just email me at americanpapist@gmail.com if you are trying to get in touch with me ... thanks. I just can't remember knowing anyone from a st. mary's... intriguing.

I'm awake.

And September is past.