Entries Tagged 'Fun and games' ↓

But what else can you do for a hockey fix in the middle of summer?

HT: From the Rink

Today I was listening to a message from 1985 by Dr. Marvin Lewis. He started off with this:

“Somebody told me one time that you know you are getting old when you know all the answers but nobody asks you the questions.”

I’m not an International Baptist Friend. Dave is (you have to scroll through a lot of Iglesia’s and Independent’s to get to Inter-city). So is my brother!!! (albeit with an ancient address.) Dave points out this as a problem with the list. I suspect it comes from an old David Cloud listing. David C. has removed me from his listing for some reason (doesn’t like my e-mails??)

Apparently the earthquake in Chile may be to blame. According to this post from the JPL, each day may have been shortened by 6.8 microseconds. That means each year will be shortened by 2482 microseconds. (I am not exactly sure what a microsecond is.)

All I know is now I have an excuse for how much older I am feeling.

My brother and his wife just retuned from a trip to Israel. One of the things they did on the trip was ride a camel.

The camel they were on stood out from the rest. As soon as it rose to its feet, it lunged forward and tried to take a chunk out of another camel. When they arrived at their destination, all the riders safely disembarked (after the camels lay down to allow it). My brother noted that their camel was treated differently from the rest – after all the riders were off, his camel was made to stand and led away from the rest of the group. Apparently some of the other riders didn’t notice this special treatment, as they came back by the camels for pictures. My brother’s camel decided that two fellows approached too closely for its liking and tried to take a chunk out of them as well. (The fellows were also preachers…)

So, what does this tell you?

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We’ve been enjoying the Spring Olympics out here on the Wet Coast. Of course, that means the sporting events are interrupted by commercials.

One commercial we have been seeing over and over up here is promoting Tim Horton’s coffee shops, almost a national institution up here. It is one of those very few commercials that you don’t get tired of, so I thought my American readers might enjoy seeing it:

The screen here in Canada says it is based on a true story, but I haven’t been able to find any background on it.

I did find this discussion of it, which I think helps capture the emotion of the spot… and the ‘Canadian-ness’ of it as well.

[Aside to the humour-challenged, see disclaimer below.]

My name has a long and sometimes storied history. It belongs to a whole host of characters. According to wikipedia, it is the second most common name in the USA. Alas, in the land of my forebears (Scotland), it doesn’t even make the top 20.

As I understand it, my name originally meant that its bearers were descended from one John (Iain), son of the MacDonald, who branched off and formed his own smaller clan, the MacIains (son of John, i.e., Johnson – or Johnston as we were known in the Old Country).

My name has caused me a little trouble. Some unsavoury characters share the name. No end of mocking occasionally ensues when some Johnson publicly embarrasses the rest of us possessing the name.

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Canada has found a new punishment more horrific than capital punishment.

Those with sensitive constitutions be warned. Here is the link.

I thought I might mention a couple of things I have found online recently. The first is something called Readability, which is a button you can add to your browser toolbar. On web-pages that are very busy with all kinds of adds, pics, etc, it will find the relevant story and eliminate all the clutter for you, making it easier to read.

I found out about Readability at a NY Times site, Pogue’s Posts, a blog by one of the NYT technical writers, David Pogue. Mr. Pogue is an interesting writer and covers a wide variety of gizmos and gadgets if that is something you are interested in. The Readability column is here.

Last, this one is kind of … different. I suppose several web-news sites have these kinds of aggregators, but I stumbled across MSNBCs “Weird News” feed a couple of weeks ago. They often come up with hilarious and interesting stories, some of which would make great sermon illustrations, if only one could find the text they go with. Of course, some of what they post is drivel, but I am finding that I am clipping columns for later use fairly regularly. With Readability of course!

If a conference is billed as a conference on preaching, why is it that so many of its speakers are obviously reading a prepared manuscript? Jonathan Edwards notwithstanding, it does seem that preaching should at least sound extemporaneous, don’t you think?