Desiring God Christmas Sale

In the event that you love John Piper books (or giving them away to other people) you should hit the Christmas sale at Desiring God.

14 Months Old

I think it has been a while since I let you take a gander at MER. Here she is. =)

Randomania

1. Today I wondered: why do people say, "There's nothing worse than ________" when they know that there really are a lot of things worse than _______? I do this, too, but I think I am going to stop. Example:
Sue: I have a paper cut!
Bob: Oh, those are the worst!
Ben: The worst? What about asbestosis? What about being consigned to live in Siberia? What about being forced to listen to Cher sing all day long? What about waking up one day in a house with 100 feral cats?
Everyone else: Oh. Well I guess it could be worse. Forget you and your paper cut, Sue.

2. I really wish I wasn't so weird about grammar and punctuation, but I am. Maybe I need therapy.

3. In law school, it has become really clear what kinds of lawyers my peers are going to become. There are some people who I would not trust to write my will. They will be the ones with 1-800 commercials. There are others who could clearly argue their way to the Supreme Court. They will be the ones who do just that. Then there are people like me who just worry about semicolons. I guess I'll write textbooks, but I'm hoping for something a little more fun.

4. We rented some DVDs of Season 1 of the show '24.' I have a feeling we will be up until 1:00 am. I don't know anyone's name on the show except for Jack and Tony. I walk in from class and the last 10 minutes are on. Tara won't speak until a commercial comes on. I sit down and get sucked in for that last 10 minutes... and then it's over.

5. Less than two weeks until Thanksgiving. Yes, Lord. Once Thanksgiving is here, however, I have to get in study mode for a while. You may not hear from me until Christmas.

6. Anyone want to buy a computer desk with a built in shelf above it? Our house is too small for it plus the wardrobe Tara found on Craigslist today. Better yet, anyone want to buy our house? It's so spacious... (I'm a lie. It's not.)

7. What are the chances of buying from someone on Craigslist who happens to live two blocks away? It happened today.

8. Drudge Report linked to a story that said the world has officially run out of gold? Man I wish I owned some because my dollars are worth less every day.

9. I know I have fallen off with the adoption blogging. I don't know how to catch up! My Family Law class this semester kind of poisoned my view of domestic adoptions. I am really uncomfortable with the thought of maintaining a relationship with a biological parent, which is often the case these days. It is selfish for me to think this way, I know. More to come on that thought later.

10. We're officially out of candy corn. Please, no more until next October, sweet friends. It was nice while it lasted though.

11. I am due for a really bad haircut. I just remembered how lucky I have been for the last several months. It just cannot last forever. It's like getting green lights all the way down Atlanta Highway. Impossible.

12. Today I thought about how nice life was before there were cell phones. You could be unreachable for long periods of time. You didn't feel self conscious every time another friend got a phone cooler than yours. You didn't pay $65.00 a month for a plan that left you with thousands of rollover minutes. Speaking of those rollover minutes, I wish we could sell them to other people. I don't talk on the phone to anyone unless its necessary. I have become my dad.

13. Speaking of becoming my dad, I wore navy pants to work with black socks yesterday. It was a mistake, but I just decided to shrug it off. Not the Ben I used to know.

14. It is time to go watch 24 with my wife. Good night.

Why I Don't Especially Like Disney World

I think I have been to Disney World four times. If you told me tomorrow that Disney World went out of business or burned down, I would not feel emotionally affected. Here's why:

When I was in high school, our choir participated in the Candlelight Christmas Processional thingy at EPCOT. If you have ever been at EPCOT at Christmas, every night, there is a lot of musical pomp, laser lights, a celebrity narrator, and some doves at the end. The Hallelujah Chorus comes last, I think. The crowd gets emotional. Disney makes money.

Anyway, the choir does two shows each night. There are probably 300-400 people in the choir, plus 50 professional Disney singers in the middle. Each night, the 300-400 person choir is a different group of students. Where do the 300-400 come from?

Answer: High schools like mine from all over the country. The students listen to a CD, learn the parts, rehearse for months, show up and sing with strangers for several hours, and then go home.

You would think Disney would do something nice for you considering you traveled several hundred miles to their zip code to sing for their adoring patrons - people that already pay too much money to come in their park. I would think a day's admission to Magic Kingdom would be nice compensation to the choir members for entertaining their guests. But, no. All you get for singing for Disney is sore feet and a ham sandwich for dinner. Then you're out the back gate after two shows. Sinara! It's all very impersonal and sweat-shoppish.

The craziest things that I remember about participating in these Candlelight Choir shows are as follows:
1. Disney Spies. There were Disney employees in the ranks of the choir, wearing robes, holding candles, and lip syncing at all times. There were more spies out in the audience with binoculars looking for choir members who were looking goofy or like they might throw up. These spies all had walkie talkies and ear plugs to communicate. If you were looking stupid or sick, out of nowhere, a spy would come grab you by the elbows and haul you off the risers faster than you could sing "peace on earth." It was creepily weird. It happened to people from my school both times we went. Disney was all about the show, and they couldn't have you puking on stage, forgetting the words, or laughing at your buddies. Can you imagine getting yanked off a top riser out of nowhere? I bet it feels like a kidnapping.

2. Random Celebrities in the Middle of the Choir. Every time we participated, there was some celebrity narrating the performance. One year I remember it was Phylicia Rashad. I think I mentioned her on this blog once before, but I cannot remember why. Oh wait, I just remembered. The next year, it was Angela Bassett. (The website says she is back this year). Maybe we all got paid in ham sandwiches since Disney had to expend so much money on a sassy celebrity to read the Christmas story from Luke. I can still hear Phylicia talking in her Claire Huxtable voice about the wise men, "and they rejoiced ... with exceeding great joy..."

3. Behind the Scenes Disney. You know how everything at Disney is so well manicured? There are bushes and flower beds that perfectly resemble Donald Duck or Cinderella's castle? The employees look so cheery? The princesses look like they walked off Broadway musical stages rather than out of Party City Halloween clearance aisle? The park's music plays at the right volume at the right place of the park at the right time all day long? Everything is so zip-a-dee-doo-dah perfect.

Well... there are little gates all over the park that take employees behind the scenes. One minute, you're in fantasy land where trained birds fly across a stage through simulated snow-flurries, and then, the next minute, you're in a gravel parking lot with double wide trailers and people wearing wife-beaters. It is really weird going between the two extremes.

So anyhow, I think Disney World is creepy and a wee teeny bit evil. I think they charge you $5.00 for bottled water because they can... just like I think they invite you to come entertain their crowds without paying you because they can. They're Disney. Nowhere else in the world can you see laser lights and doves and princesses and Angela Bassett all in one perfectly manicured garden of shrubs shaped like mouse ears. You know? Until there is some competition, they'll keep being snobby.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.

Eight-thousand dollars, Schmeight-thousand dollars

I have had the urge to say this for several months. It kind of makes me mad when I see the little yellow smiley-faced stars on FOR SALE signs in front of houses. The smiley faced star says, "$8,000 tax credit!"

Sorry, to tell you, but you don't get the "credit" unless you paid $8,000 in taxes to the federal government in the previous tax year. A lot of us didn't make enough dough to get taxed $8,000, and if we did, we probably already got a lot of it back in a tax refund, depending on our charitable giving, medical expenses, and family size. So while you might get something back from Uncle Sam for buying a home, it will only be as much as the government already got out of you (which it has not already refunded).

Whatever you get, it is my understanding that it is a rebate -- not a house-warming gift.

I have heard people INSIST that this is not true. I think it is. If I am totally out of touch, someone please correct me.

Update: I may stand corrected. See the comments. The way I read the IRS website, I appear to be wrong. But I have heard a professional lender (who spoke in one of my classes) indicate what I first believed. Who knows? Maybe somone who got their whole $8,000? Are you out there?

I Think I Ate About 4500 Useless Calories Today

Tara and I were talking, and I told her how yucky I feel. Then I remembered that I went to two Halloween parties today, and in sum, I have eaten:

2 hot dogs
1 bowl of chili
Lots of corn chips
Apple slices.... smothered in caramel dip
Two pieces of pound cake
A scoop of banana pudding
Lots of candy (Nerds, Reese's Pieces, M&Ms, Kit Kats...) -- I LOVE NERDS.
a Pepsi
[that was lunch]
3 ... yes 3... corn dogs
More corn chips
Pigs in a blanket
a chocolate cupcake with creme filling
Sweet tea
Kool-aid
[that was dinner]

Is that not the most disgusting thing you have ever seen when you put it all together in a list? I am so embarrassed of myself. I usually eat at least something green every day... and not so many processed pig entrails. Siiiiiiick.

Good thing I am running in the morning. Good night.

My Least Favorite Homonyms

You may note how infrequently I blog about mad grammar skills. (It has been 9 months!) I think that this is a good thing. If I blogged about mad grammar skills everyday, I would have 50% fewer friends. (Note that you should say "fewer friends" rather than "less friends.") I polled you guys once, and when I did, half of you said you didn't care about grammar at all. (FOR SHAME!) But alas, this is the sad shape of our society.

Half of you have clicked away and are reading someone else's blog. But for the rest of you...

I have probably mentioned this before, but I only blog about grammar issues that I think are: (1) especially interesting; or (2) especially annoying. I don't just sit down and start blogging about comma splices like it's my job. I say this to make certain that you know that my topic today is important to me. Not getting this topic -homonyms - says that you slept through elementary school. Homonyms are not that hard to learn or recognize; that's why they're taught in third grade rather than tenth, but alas, no one remembers third grade.

Homonyms are words that always sound alike, but they have different meanings and spellings. The classic set of homonyms that you should have learned in third grade is: their/there/they're. I see adults booger these three words up all the time. ALL THE TIME! And it makes me go bonkers. I see there/their/they're used a lot like this:

I just talked to Ben and Tara; their not coming to dinner tonight.

Excuse me? Their what is not coming to dinner?

OR

Poor Ben and Tara; there house burned down!

There house? As opposed to the other house that is nearer than that there house that burned?

PEOPLE! Save yourselves from this crooked and perverse generation that does not know that "their" and "there" and "they're" are three wholly different words and spellings! Because all three are legitimate words, you cannot depend on the red squiggly lines to show up on spell-check. You just have to learn that:

"There" is a place. Like, you know, over there is where you can find the people who made a C on their essays because they couldn't spell "there."

"Their" is a third person possessive pronoun. Like, their homonyms, their English classes, or their ability to spell correctly.

"They're" is a contraction for "they are." Like, they're never going to learn these things, so why do I bother to tell them.

There/their/they're. Third grade! That's when you learned this, I promise.

So basically, if you can't tell, I have a very low tolerance for their/there/they're mistakes. When I see one of these mistakes, I have to count backwards and remember that Jesus loves everybody. It is so upsetting.

I have more sympathy for people who mix up it's and its. I still catch myself confusing these, but I usually make the correction before embarrassing myself. Just remember: the apostrophe in it's is there for the "i" you took out of "is". It is = it's. On the other hand, its = the possessive pronoun.

Another upsetting set of homonyms is capital/Capitol. Living in Montgomery, a capital city, and in a neighborhood named for its proximity to the Capitol, I encounter misspellings of these words a lot. It bugs me most when I see it in the newspaper, since the people that work for the newspaper ought to know better. When normal people mess this up, I am more forgiving, unless it is on a wedding invitation. (Your reception is being held at the Capital City Club... not Capitol City Club.)

If you want to know the rule, you should always spell it with an "a" unless you're referencing the physical building. That's all there is to it.

Business capital, capital city, capital punishment, capital letters, etc. = OK

Capitol building = OK

Capitol Heights = OK, because the neighborhood is named for its proximity to the building with the white dome.

Well, that was a lot to get off my chest all at once. Thanks for obliging me.

My Achy Breaky Mistakey*

*the Achy Breaky Mistakey is the name of Billy Ray Cyrus's 90's haircut.

Tomorrow night, we are going to a redneck costume party. I still don't know what I am wearing. The sad thing is that when I tried to get ideas about what to wear, I conjured up thoughts of one of my great uncles, and from there I decided that I needed some tight jeans, a gold chain, tinted glasses, a man-perm, and some boots. Annnnnd an open collar shirt showing some chest hair.

Tara just said, "What if your great uncle reads your blog?"

The one I am thinking of -- I have several -- is pretty tech savvy, so it is entirely possible that he too stalks my blog without telling me. I know he is tech savvy because at the last family reunion he walked around taking random pictures of everyone on his cell phone. When I say random pictures, I don't mean pictures of people posing and doing goofy things. I mean he would take a picture of someone having a conversation or eating a piece of chicken, while they looked at him like "What are you doing?" That kind of random picture.

His wife used to call WLWI (local country station) about ten times a day to request songs and talk to the DJs. She was always winning trivia questions and Alan Jackson concert tickets. This same aunt also tried to sue someone for a neck injury from a car accident... but she continued to pitch (remarkably well) for church league softball games while wearing her neck brace. She lost her case.

While I am talking about this branch of the family tree, I feel like I should tell you that one of my other great aunts diagnosed herself with an allergy to... get this... paper. It was hilarious. She would open the mail like you might touch a hot pan. One time, my great-grandmother was sitting across the room reading her Bible, and she hollered at her, "CLOSE THAT BIBLE, MAMA! IT'S MAKING ME ITCH!" I wish I had been there to see the look on Granny's face.

Anyway, thanks to my connections, I have a vision of redneck that I could probably pull off best if I had a chance to thrift store shop tomorrow, but for the sake of time, I think I am just going to have to shop in my own closet.

However, I did borrow a fantastic mullet wig this afternoon from a family from church, and I am posting a picture of it for Jennifer Graham, if no one else.

MER hasn't spent a lot of time at the state fair or NASCAR events, so she didn't quite know what to make of it. I think if I ever live in the wild for a year, I will absolutely sport a mullet. It feels so manly.

One last story, since we're talking mullets. My sophomore year of college, I took a speech class at University of Mobile. It was clear from the beginning that the professor did not care much for me, so since I knew I wouldn't get an A, I just decided to push his buttons. The fourth or fifth speech he assigned was a eulogy. While most people eulogized their pets and grandparents, I eulogized the mullet hairstyle. I got a C-, I think, but it was a lot of fun. Everyone liked it except the teacher.

End of story time. Good night, and trick or treat.

Randopalooza

It has been a while, so I am going to give you a good taste of all things running through my head.

1. Glory to God, it is October 24 and I have not had a sinus infection yet.

2. Global warming is crock. It has been cold. Often. And it is not even December yet.
2a. I can't wait for December.

3. I am starting 1/2 marathon training again. You know you want to run with me. Come on.

4. It really, really, REALLY bothers me when people say supposebly instead of supposedly. What is that? Who ever supposebed anything? Is it like the person confuses "possibly" with "supposedly?" I don't know.

5. At our house, we have mastered demonstrative pronouns with MER. EVERYTHING is either dis or dat. I wonder if she knows the difference -- that "this" is near and "that" is across the room?

6. Every Friday night this month, we have had guests in our house for something or another. I kind of like it like that.

7. I have been studying the Proverbs on doing justice and it is rocking my little wanna-be lawyer world. I love Proverbs.

8. If you live in Montgomery, you know that everything about Ann Street is for your sanctification. Especially Wal-mart's. Chick-fil-a on Ann Street is like your reward for suffering through Ann Street to get there. Bless Chick-fil-a.

9. Have you ever wished a hail storm would come through town and mess up your roof so that the insurance company would pay for it instead of your savings account? Yeah. I have.

10. One day, when I don't work where I work any more, I am going to write about ten blogs that will make you laugh really hard.

11. If you have ever wanted to go sacred harp singing with me, you need to mark your calendar for the third Saturday in January. Auburn... all day. Let's go.

12. Do you know people who love medical drama? Not like ER or Chicago Hope, althogh they probably like those shows, too. I mean, people who love to have an ailment or an upcoming medical procedure so that they can talk about it. Then, when their tests come back negative, it is almost like they are disappointed there is not actually something wrong with them because they don't have anything to talk about anymore. If you sneeze more than once, they tell you that you probably have swine flu and you should get it checked out. I don't get it. I like being healthy and never going to the doctor. Don't they?

Do I disqualify myself from complaining about this since I fret about sinus infections? Mmm. Sorry for the hypocrisy.

13. I think it is time to wrap this up. Miss you guys. Funny story coming your way soon.

Helium Hype

I feel pretty certain you've heard about the strange scientist(?) family from Colorado and their son, Falcon, who didn't really climb in or fall out of a flying saucer/balloon. Not to exploit them anymore than they have already exploited themselves by participating in a reality TV show and about 12 TV interviews, BUT... if you want to watch some the most socially awkward live TV ever, you might want to watch this video. What do you do when your kid throws up during a Today Show interview and Meredith Vieira keeps asking you if he is a lie? Watch and see.

Squirrel v. Bear

My wife and I have very different and non-compatible eating styles. If you noticed on Facebook this week, we recently had a showdown over my inhalation of a bag of candy corn. She still loves me, and I still love her, in spite of our contention over sugar.

I liken our eating styles to squirrels and bears. Tara is a squirrel. I am a bear.

Now, if any of this squirrel-bear stuff is not true, please forgive me. I have not thought about squirrels and bears and other mammals since fourth grade life science. English major - remember?

If memory serves me correctly, squirrels like to eat a little at a time, but more than eating, they like to store up their harvest of nuts for later. Bears, on the contrary, like to eat several boy scouts all at once before sleeping through winter. (Tara eats nuts on occasion, but for the record, I have never eaten a boy scout.)

Something in me - don't call it evolution - makes me inclined to eat as much as possible when it is (1) tasty, (2) available, and (3) cheap. I think that I acquired this inclination as a student. College students will eat anything in order to survive. You don't know where the next $20 is coming from, so you devour what you can when you can. Now, I was and am perfectly content to suffer want for several days after gorging myself. I remind myself that I just ate a lot of food and I can hold off for a while. Really, I can.

My wife, on the other hand, likes to savor every bite slowly and save some for later. If she makes a batch of cookies (let's say 24) her intention - without my interruption - would be to eat 4 cookies a day for 6 days.

That strategy is absolutely ludicrous to me. My intention is to eat 12 cookies tonight, and 12 tomorrow. If I do not get another cookie for a month, so be it. I will have had my fill already.

So what invariably happens is that my sweet wife makes 24 cookies, I come home, eat 4 immediately, and she says, "Easy, killer! You're not going to have any left tomorrow and then you'll be wishing you had saved some. Don't forget, I get 12 and you get 12."

I say, "OK. So how many have you had so far?"
"One," says she.
"Well... I need six tonight for sure."
"No, you don't."
"Mmmm... yes I do."
"Ben! You don't!"

Hopefully you can sense the tension. I believe in all sincerity in eating a dozen cookies as quickly as possible, and my wife feels religious-like-zeal that a dozen cookies should be rationed. Because I am a bear, my sweet wife feels obliged to do one of two things to try to compete with my bear-like appetite. She either (1) tries to keep up with my pace, or (2) hides the cookies away like a squirrel. When she tries to keep up, she feels sick to her stomach. She was not made for 6 cookies in one sitting. Alternatively, when she hides the cookies away, she eventually offers me some 5 days later, and to me, a cookie is past its prime at that point; nevertheless, I accept it. She reminds me that if I was like her, I would not have been at her mercy for the five-day old cookie. I tell her she is a most gracious woman - because she is.

This replay of events is very predictable -- so predictable that I feel very comfortable blogging about it. Now, you can judge me for being ravenous, or you can judge my wife for being prudent, but all I really wanted to do was entertain you. Now. You tell me. Are you more like me or my wife? Is it a man-thing / woman-thing? Or is it just personality?