A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff
Today is the fifth year anniversary of owning my own home.
I moved to Lethbridge in the fall of 2002 to go to University and of all the decisions I’ve made since moving here, buying a house has got to be one of the best.
I’ve watched as the value of the house doubled in only a few years and there is nothing quite as satisfactory as the feeling I get knowing that I have a place to call my own.
Hopefully I’ll have it paid off in the next five.
Would you like to see something that looks like a trick, but is actually not a trick?
[Dice Stacking – YouTube]
[Dice stacking – Youtube]
Yes, it’s real.
(via)
Back in January 2001 The Onion satirically told us Bush’s plan to end the US’s “Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity”. It’s scary how accurate they were.
“My fellow Americans,” Bush said, “at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us.”
I don’t know how I missed this when it made it’s way onto the internet a couple of years ago, but for those Star Wars fans that have always wondered where he got his inspiration, here it is: George Lucas in Love. (Runtime of 8 minutes 44 seconds on Google Video)
Today, for the first time in my lifetime (and since 1976 if you want to get specific) the Canadian dollar was worth slightly more than the US’s famous greenback. If this trend sticks, I’m tempted to hit up Disneyland for a Christmas vacation, or maybe a pre-Christmas vacation.
Ahoy, it is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and that swashbuckling sister of mine has posted a photo of her adorable little pirate—I would deserve to walk the plank if I didn’t mention it.
Arrgh, check out the jolly catchlights.
Clever illustration and animation guy Rich Cando created this Simpsons/Star Wars mash-up that I think you’ll enjoy. Accept for maybe a touch of tweaking in the animation itself, I don’t think Groening and crew could have done it much better themselves.
My brother-in-law, Glen, was in Wyoming a couple weeks ago competing in an Open Long Drive competition and ended up winning a ticket to the Re/Max Long Drive World Championship Tournament in Mesquite, Nevada this October.
Longdrivers.com lists him as the Open Division Winner with a distance of 337 yds 24 inches. I’m looking forward to watching him progress through the 11 rounds that it takes to win the Championship in Mesquite.
(Photo credit to Glen’s talented wife Jackie Hutchinson. IMHO she’s the best photographer in Drayton Valley Okotoks.)
In 1707, a biblical theologian named John Mill was the first to collect and combine the text of some 100 extant New Testament manuscripts. After 30 years of study he noted over 30,000 various major to mostly slight errors in the different versions of the New Testament manuscripts. His discovery brought to light the fact that so many different versions of the New Testament exist and that the book many people think of as the immutable word of God has an uncomfortably long history of changes.
The following video lecture is a tremendously interesting look at some of the discrepancies by world renowned bible scholar and author Dr. Bart D. Ehrman.
“There are places where we don’t know what the authors of the New Testament wrote. […]
The problem of not having the originals of the New Testament, though, is a problem for everyone—not simply for those that believe that the bible was inspired by God.
For all of us, I think, the bible is the most important book in Western Civilization. It continues to be cited in public debates over gay rights, abortion, over whether to go to war with foreign countries, over how to organize and run our society. But how do we interpret the New Testament? It’s hard to know what the words of the New Testament mean, if we don’t know what the words were.
And so in this lecture I’ll be talking about not knowing what the words were and what we might know about the originals of the New Testament, how they got lost and how possibly they might be reconstructed.”
[Misquoting Jesus| Youtube]
A few years ago a jukebox owned by John Lennon was discovered. On it were 40 of the famous musician’s favorite tunes. This is a documentary about the songs on that Jukebox and the influence they had on the Beatles.
[John Lennon’s Jukebox | YouTube]