happy birthday Lexine!

vw, are you reading any Fred Chappell in your class? He was one of my grad school teachers. His version of Appalachia is not quite so bleak as the one in the scary book.

Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell, which all the Campus Crusade kids read in college.

That is what I was thinking of.

In college, I was a member of some campus atheist group - we used to debate the Campus Crusade kids, which is how the book got into my hands.

vw, I read a review of the book you're reading, and the last section is supposed to be quite funny in a satirical way. Of course, one person's satire is another one's gut-wrenching horror. The whole book is supposed to be funnier than not.

I guess that was supposed to illuminate the paradox of the "Where is God?" question. I just wanted to say to the author, "Dude, that's an accident of spelling...."

No, it's a truth, but one that only English speakers get to participate in.

May the A's have a great year, as long as the Braves have a slightly better year.

Pffft! Dude, you got Tim Hudson from us! On the balance between the A's and Braves, you're the one that got the potential Hall of Famer.

lexine, I think Billy will wait until midseason, see how well this team is playing, and if they've got a shot, he'll pick up a player - either a bopper, or a starter - to make a run for it. This A's team is too green (so to speak) for 2005, but I think they'll be very good (80 wins). If they exceed expectations a little - that is, if Blanton, Haren or Meyer steps up like a rookie Tim Hudson - then I think they might have an outside shot. But it's an exciting team, with more offense than last year (though we still need a power hitter to go with Chavvy), and the bullpen is going to be throwing all kinds of nasty. Did you know that Dotel has one of the highest strikeout percentages in the majors? One third of his outs are Ks. Not what I want in a starter, but a good trait for a closer. Kiko Calero and Juan Cruz also have sick stuff.

But OTOH, I think intellectual persuasion has its limits, especially since the authors tend to stack the deck.

That's the problem with this book. The deck is so obviously stacked that I can't really take it seriously. Of course the bigger problem is that I've drifted into being agnostic while my wife is becoming more (that isn't the word I'm looking for, but it will have to do) christian. She wants me to get more involved with the church with classes and stuff, but I'm not really a believer anymore if I ever really was.

Pancake Bunny

[link]

The site in in Japanese, but there is a whole bunch of pictures of Oolong and the things he balanced on his head. Unfortunately, he passed away a little while ago, but there are some great pictures of him. He was a fabulous bunny.

Huh. The Pancake Bunny got his picture in the NYT....

and also has scruffy Aidan Quinn

bookmarks post

When we walked into our sign language class today, the instructor said, "There's my class clown!" Today he crawled up to all the younger babies and smiled and patted their heads. Then he crawled into the middle of the room, sat up, clapped his hands and made his howler monkey sounds.

I'm going to have to make a standing appointment with the principal when I get him into grade school.

Owen is just the coolest. I wanna be in his entourage.

At least he's just patting heads. Chris was very fuzzy haired. He and Ben both have pretty much the straightest hair possible for non-Asian people. Ben's is nearly as coarse as typical Asain hair, but not as heavy, if that makes any sense. Chris has more hair, but it's fluffier, even though it's straight. When he was about 9 months old, his entire head of hair stuck straight up, and no amount of cutting, or growing, conditioning, or wetting down would fix it, so we just let him go with the spiked look.

His little cousin was about 4 months old, and fell in love with his hair. Whenever she could, she'd reach out and grab as much of it as she could, and just squeal with delight. I don't think Chris would go anywhere near her, 'til he was well into his threes.

That's the problem with this book. The deck is so obviously stacked that I can't really take it seriously. Of course the bigger problem is that I've drifted into being agnostic while my wife is becoming more (that isn't the word I'm looking for, but it will have to do) christian. She wants me to get more involved with the church with classes and stuff, but I'm not really a believer anymore if I ever really was.

That's hard, when you grow in opposite directions on that kind of issue. I've always been glad I didn't marry any of those earnest future missionaries and InterVarsity-staffers-for-life I knew in college, because I hate to think what would've happened to me, him, and our marriage when I hit the breaking point where I nearly turned atheist a few years ago and ultimately ended up with a very different sort of faith than the one I started out with.