Recently in Just Plain Silly Category

A hilarious post entitled Having a 'life verse' appeared a few days ago on the Stuff Christians Like blog and it made me realize that I, like the anonymous author of that post, have never really adopted a favorite Bible verse that I could roll out to demonstrate my superior-yet-humble spirituality.

For one thing, my memory is terrible, and is worsening. So...um...what was I writing about? Oh, Bible verses. I need something short and pithy, along the lines of "Jesus wept" but without such a narrow focus.

Then there's the fact that the Bible is filled with too many good candidates. Why, it's almost as if it was written to apply to every conceivable situation, laughable as that concept may be.*

So, I've dropped the idea of using an actual Scriptural statement as a "life verse," and instead have adopted a secular - albeit pretty pious, as I'm all about piety, as you well know - statement. It's short enough that even I can remember it, and pithy enough that almost everyone will be impressed when I roll it out in the course of general conversation.

With a nod toward either Augustine or John Wesley (depending on which Wikipedia article you read), my new "life verse" is this:


This, I believe, will serve me well in many otherwise difficult situations, such as menu selections. So, for example, when ordering Tex-Mex, it will allow me to be open-minded about enchiladas, recognizing that there's equal validity to green or red sauce, as long as (1) we all agree on the requirement of corn tortillas, and (b) we have chocolate mousse for dessert. Brilliant!

I think it has a great ring to it. Is it possible to trademark a "life verse"? I can also see a CafePress t-shirt in my future.

*That's either sarcasm or irony, although it could be satire. I can never keep them straight. I'm pretty sure it's not hyperbole, but don't hold me to that.

Semi-interesting post over at the Freakonomics blog about the possibility that college professors who have tattoos could be more successful than their non-ink-stained counterparts.

I'm pretty skeptical about the relevance of the study cited in the post, as are most of the commenters. If nothing else, showing male undergrads photos of tattooed female models* is, frankly, a really dumb idea if you're trying to assess anything other than libido. But, perhaps I'm not giving the students enough credit.

I was almost able to type that last sentence with a straight face.

*I readily admit that tattooed models are not equally attractive. For example, compare this to this.

Scene: Master bedroom, this morning

Her: That's not the same shirt you were just wearing.

Him: No, I decided that other one looks like a clown shirt.

Her: What?!

Him: Well, those wide vertical stripes make it look like a clown shirt.

Her: So, you're never going to wear that shirt again?

Him: Well, not to church when I'll be up on the camera stand. I don't want to be a distraction to people, thinking there's a clown behind the camera.

Her: And what does the shirt have to do with that?

Today's "Close to Home" cartoon hits, well, close to home.


However, in our case the caption is wrong. In our case, the neighbors would be saying, "The Siegmunds aren't being tormented by wasps after all; they're practicing the rumba." Or the cha cha...or the foxtrot...or, well, you get the idea. Sometimes it's hard to tell just exactly what we're doing on the dance floor.

So, I stumbled across this - a mock-up of an add-on iPhone QWERTY keyboard - and while it's somewhat interesting in concept, it's still far from an ideal solution for those who can't seem to master the phone's tiny virtual keyboard.

But it made me wonder whether the iPhone plays well with the dockable keyboard* that Apple markets to iPad owners. I had never even considered the idea before, so I popped my phone onto the keyboard, and sure enough, it works.


I can assure you that this combination will make you the baddest geek in the Starbucks, if that's your aspiration.** (And, really, why wouldn't it be?)

*And, in anticipation of your next question, the iPad's Bluetooth keyboard also pairs up and works with an iPhone. This combination is even cooler because you can set your phone off to the side while keyboarding, giving people the impression that you're typing with no obvious device to receive the input.

**While the combination may appear ridiculous, I've actually found a legitimate use for it. I have a password management app on my phone and it's a royal pain to input new entries via the virtual keyboard. The next time I have several updates, I will definitely be using the external keyboard.

I'm referring not to facial blemishes but to the comic strip, which is one of my favorites due to its  ability to unerringly portray the foibles and habits of teenagers. And, apparently, me.

See, we've got this new car - a Honda Ridgeline, if you must know. It's loaded with toys - navigation package, XM radio, 115 volt auxiliary power outlet, and Honda's HandsFreeLink, a Bluetooth-based system for using your cellphone and the car's GPS without actually touching those devices. Those are all really cool things, but the owner's manual is almost 400 pages, and the configuration of the technology is not always intuitive.

So, I sat in the car in the garage for more than an hour yesterday, pairing my phone to the car's system, and [making attempts at] importing my contact list into said system. At one point, my wife felt it necessary to come into the garage and observe that I reminded her of Jeremy from the aforementioned cartoon, when he and his friend took possession of an ancient, non-running VW bus and, lacking funds and skill to make it go, contented themselves with just sitting in it. I couldn't really argue with the comparison, given the less than stellar success I was having making this hands-free thing go.

I did eventually get my phonebook imported, sort of. If your first name begins with "A" through "P" and you're in my contact list, then I can call you via the car's system, but for some reason, you who are in the dread "Q-Z" category didn't make the import. I'm really sorry, but you probably won't be getting a call from me anytime soon, at least not while I'm sitting in my garage, since I still haven't figured out how to do anything with the whole shooting match while actually driving down the road.

Baby steps. Or, at best, teen-aged steps.

We had our traditional weekly fajita dinner with friends last night, and I was looking forward to the prospect of sharing my acquisition of a new gizmo, something I was sure would induce envy on their part.

Most of our home lighting is in the form of inset flood lights. None of them are accessible except via ladder, and the bulb in the front porch ceiling is fourteen feet above the concrete. I don't have a ladder tall enough to reach it (at least, not without violating several OSHA regulations). So I finally broke down and bought a pole-mounted light bulb changer, complete with multiple heads for dealing with all types of bulbs. I was sure that this was cool enough to be the hit of our conversation.

So, we met our friends and I feigned interest in their day, just killing time until I could spring my surprise. "So, how was your Wednesday?" I asked.

"Well, pretty good, other than the airplane crash."

I don't know about you, but I can think of very few things in the "what's going on in my life" category that will trump a plane crash. Sure, a pole-mounted light bulb changer is pretty darned special, but even that pales in comparison to landing a Cessna Cardinal without nose gear.

Which is exactly what happened. Fortunately, no one was injured, and although the plane was extensively damaged, it's reparable and insured.

But I'm definitely going to have to ratchet up the excitement factor in my life if I'm going to compete with things like that. Does anyone know where I can get a crocodile, a cattle prod, and a bottle of hydrogen?

Have you seen the following graphic that's making the email forwarding rounds?


This is being put forth as a BP ad "from the late 90's." It is, of course, a fake, cooked up by those rascally rapscallions over at Despair.com (who make some pretty hilarious stuff, generally speaking). I'm pretty sure that Despair.com didn't try to pass it off as genuine, but whoever decided to try to add some legitimacy to it didn't do their homework.

BP's "helios" logo wasn't adopted until the year 2000, so trying to place the putative ad into the 90s instantly gives it away as a fake. At the same time, the company switched back to its BP name (it was BP Amoco for a couple of years prior to that) and adopted the tagline "Beyond Petroleum."

I'll leave to you to debate whether BP's ad agency would have been so foolish as to suggest the slogan shown above. I'm simply not going there.

I had a post written and ready to publish and the server ate it. Really. It's not my fault, and it should count toward my quota. [I'm now only 3, 452 posts in arrears, give or take.]