I could carry one cannonball a few feet and then be all, "Sorry - hurt my back. Gotta go. Wait, let me grab a few beers first."

Dude, you should totally stumble into the pile of slick balls.

I really hope they're friends of hers, not just random people trying to affect her narrative.

Two best-selling authors have asked the best-selling author of all not to kill off the central character of her stories. John Irving (The World According to Garp) and Stephen King (Carrie) told a news conference in New York Tuesday that they had written to J.K. Rowling asking her not to kill Harry Potter in the final book of her series about the boy wizard. (Each of her Harry Potter tales has been or will be made into a motion picture. She has indicated that several key characters will die in her final Potter book, which she is currently writing.) Referring to a scene in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Final Problem, in which Doyle killed off his famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, King told reporters, "I don't want [Harry] to go over the Reichenbach Falls." Irving commented, "My fingers are crossed for Harry." (If history is any indication, there may still be hope for Harry even if Rowling does kill him off. The public was so outraged after Doyle sent Holmes to his death that it mounted a letter-writing campaign that resulted in the author's resurrection of Holmes.)

King, Irving, and Rowling all did some sort of charity event together a couple days ago, so that's not quite as random as it sounds.

King, Irving, and Rowling all did some sort of charity event together a couple days ago

And then they fought crime.

The university is going through brownouts and the A/C has gone down and the heat index is 105.

(It's afternoon -- isn't the weather supposed to be breaking now?)

It has been reprinted. Which you might know, but just in case you didn't. I read it in university, loved it to pieces, but couldn't find a copy for my own until fairly recently.

Yeah, it's been sitting in my Amazon cart for a while, waiting for me to have a moment of weakness. But thanks!

But we're still scheduled for 79 (glorious 79) and storms tomorrow.

Ack. No storms! No storms! We're taking my dad to Wrigley for his birthday tomorrow. (79 is good, though.)

God, why do I care?

Anyway, 15" is very big for a cannonball. Assuming they're made of cast iron, I calculate they should weigh about 447 pounds each. (Using this site [link] and a volume of 1767 cubic inches for the given 15" diameter.)

edit because I do know the difference between radius and diameter.

You weren't supposed to worship God because he was the nicest. You worship him because he's God. The idea that God should be benevolent is a NT retcon. When God finally speaks to Job directly, he basically says, "'Cause I'm the Almighty, that's why; you can't judge my actions."

This is a great summary of the OT God.

I know that most religious Buffistas don’t take Bible stories as the literal truth about God, but there are many people who do. I wish that I could understand why those people fail to turn away from this God in disgust.

The God of the Old Testament is a petty tyrant: selfish, impulsive, and irritable. He’s a psychopath who torments, tortures and kills without the slightest guilt, if that is what is necessary to extend his influence. His claim to authority is that of a warlord: he is powerful and therefore you should bow down to him. I doubt that there is such a God, but if there is, the response of any moral person would be to oppose his influence with every force available. That there are people who worship this monster has never ceased to amaze me.

It has been reprinted. Which you might know, but just in case you didn't. I read it in university, loved it to pieces, but couldn't find a copy for my own until fairly recently.

yeah, there's an Orb edition (2000). I still have my SteelDragon press hardback and the original Ace pb, but I love that book kinda irrationally.

What makes a powerful being a god? What makes a god worth worshipping?

I think this came up in discussion of last season's Stargate, with the Ori running around and terrorising people into obeisance. The idea was floated that since they could give life, they were gods. And if they were gods and wanted to be worshipped...then what?