What does "OK" stand for?

In seventh grade, I was taught that it stood for "Old Kinderhook," the nickname for Martin Van Buren. Turns out that was only partially correct.

Read this interesting web page to learn neat stuff about "OK."

Why does it always happen in a flock of blue frogs?

For all those who are of the opinion that it takes drugs to act trippy, I submit to you: my dreams.

Busy busy busy.

I haven't really felt like blogging a lot lately. I still think of things I'd like to blog when they happen, but by the time I make it to a computer, I just feel like vegging out and reading Engadget.

Class started Tuesday and so far, it's pretty... easy. I knew it would be, though, and the point is to get me used to less sleep and the addition of homework. I wish Windows wasn't so retarded when it comes to new devices. I tried out two USB flash drives on a lab computer and, of course, neither worked. I'd suspected Juicy Fruit wouldn't work since it's so new, but I thought maybe my other one might have had the drivers installed. But no. I have to use floppies. Yuck.

"You're always there in my thoughts...

...but that doesn't mean that it's on."

This marks my second use of a title inspired by Hilary Duff. "I am awesome!"

It must be Unofficial Ditzy Blonde Day.

Anyway, I keep wanting to blog about how people annoy me, but I have this fear that some day my blog will be famous and the people I talked about will see what I wrote about them and then be mad at me. It's crazy, but it keeps me polite.

So, in summary, people annoy me, but no one in specific. Mm hmm.

"Hammer my bones on the anvil of daylight."

Usually, I like keeping my topics unreferenced, but I feel compelled to say that today's topic is from E-Pro by Beck. Ta-da.

I keep viewing my life as a blog and telling myself, "Ooh! I'll blog that later!" but then I forget most of what happened. I do remember that one of my co-workers told me that I have a beautiful family. That was cool.

I borrowed the three original Star Wars movies from another co-worker. I'll watch those soon.

Last night, Renee finally saw Pirates of Silicon Valley. I've been trying to get her to see this movie for the last four years. But now I need to watch it with her so I can explain what's going on (but she did know what a blue box is, so she gets some credit -- also she dislikes Steve Ballmer).

Our phones suck. For some reason, when you call someone, all they hear is very thick static, but you can hear them fine. So our phones are basically unusable, and we need to take them to the local Verizon place. Fun.

And lastly, don't panic, Vanilla's in control with the flexible mic grip.

I'm turning into a super cheap Nintendo fanboy.

I've just undergone about two hours of brainwashing while watching G4's "live" (time shifted by five hours) coverage of E3.

I want a Nintendo Revolution so bad. I know all the hype is about the Xbox 360 and the PS3, but as I've said before (I think), I don't feel comfortable playing the games generally made for those platforms in front of my kids. They're talking bad about Nintendo, but *someone* has to make games for kids!

Plus, Nintendo will make available every single game ever made for any Nintendo system available for download and playable on the Revolution. How sweet is that?! Yeah -- it's pretty sweet!

Battletoads! Starfox! Streetfighter! Solar Jetman! Super Smash Brothers! Super Smash Brothers Melee! A Boy and His Blob! All those Final Fantasy games! I hope they're cheap!

And a new version of Smash Brothers will be one of the launch titles! Yeah!

It's so hot!


Oh, and the new GameBoy is pretty cute, too. I love how it mimics the original NES controller. Nintendo is the king of nostalgia.

And the PS3 graphics make me drool.

Today's Plans...

I'm in the mood to watch Star Wars. G4 and VH1 have been running a lot of shows about it and I realized that it's been a looong time and I don't remember much about it. Renee's cousin has the original three episodes on VHS so I want to borrow them.

Today, we have to go to an "off-site" for me and my co-workers at a restaurant. It should be pretty cool. We told Renaissance that if she's good we might go to Chuck E. Cheese afterwards and play skeeball (she likes skeeball).

College starts soon. It's weird that all my friends are graduating and I'm just starting (again).

Well we're running late so I need to get ready to go.

Quote of the Day (Yesterday)

Co-worker: The San Antonio Spurs beat the Mavericks.
Me: Okay.
Co-worker: You don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do you?
Me: *shakes head*


(Apparently, it's basketball).

Ahh, questions...

Since I've been reading the Apocrypha lately, but only focusing on the Book of Adam, and with the recent Real ID stuff, I decided to do a little focusing on end times tonight.

I see one major reason why the Book of Adam is not in the Bible. Adam and Eve die in like every other chapter, but Hebrews 9:27 states that everyone can only die once.

Which leads me to Edgar Cayce. I've been interested in him for years, and one of the things I remember about him is that he was a devout Christian and he read the Bible continuously, I think at least once a year. He did not believe in reincarnation but in the course of his readings, he mentioned it and he decided to reread the Bible, thinking specifically about reincarnation. Supposedly, nothing contradicted it. Did he skip Hebrews 9:27?

In doing some research for this post, I see that Cayce also believed that Jesus was reincarnated 30 times before He became "the Christ." (Source)

Why do spiritual matters have to be so complicated?

Renaissance needs...

...to just get her teeth and go to sleep.

Poor kid.

The other day...

...I was talking to one of my co-workers about dinosaurs and evolution and religion and the Bible and eventually, we got onto the topic of the Apocrypha.

So I started reading it last night. So far I've gotten to Chapter XLVI, and Adam and Eve have died about seven or eight times. Apparently, God kept bringing them back to life. It's almost funny. One interesting part, though, is the first sacrifice.

Adam and Eve didn't just leave the Garden of Eden without a fight. They wanted to go back, so they hung around outside it for a while, and a few days after they'd left, they climbed a mountain that looked out over the Garden. Adam jumped. He died a bloody, gruesome death. Eve couldn't stand to live without Adam, so she jumped too. She also died a bloody, gruesome death.

So God brought them both back to life and explained things to them again (essentially, "Dude, you really can't go back. Just wait 5500 years for goodness sake. I already told you this about thirty times."). Adam and Eve felt sorry and they gathered a bunch of rocks that they'd landed on and stacked them up into the shape of an altar. Adam took the sand that was all bloody and collected it and put it into the altar.

He started to pray and was truly sorry and asked God's forgiveness for all the foolish stuff he'd done (*plenty* more was on the way) and God was pretty impressed because He'd never told Adam to do this. To show His acceptance, He sent fire from Heaven and it consumed the offering.

I'd never really thought about why sacrifices were done the way they were. It sort of makes sense, though, how the spotless lamb represents Adam and Eve in a very baby-like, almost innocent state, and its blood needs to be shed (through death) to cleanse sin.

Also, the serpent is incredibly creepy. When he saw Adam and Eve outside the Garden, he confronted them because he was no longer beautiful (again, no one ever thinks about how the serpent felt). He threw Adam and Eve on the ground and tried to kill them, so God sent an angel to stop him. God yelled at the serpent and it was then that He took the serpent's voice from him. Then He sent a strong wind to blow the serpent all the way to India.

This was cool to me because I always picture the serpent as like a garter snake. I just did a little research and it looks like it may have been a King Cobra. They live in and around India and can be about 13 feet long. When they lift themselves up, they can be about six feet tall (the perfect height for tempting). And they only eat other snakes, so they sound kind of bitter.

How did we end up with such a cute kid?

Renaissance learned a new word. (5 MB)

Quote of the Day, etc.

"Tha's right! Get yo' eat on!"

Commentary: Does this person have a way of eating that is inherently cooler than mine? Because as far as I knew, it was just... eating.

While I was collecting URLs for this post, there was a dude on MTV Cribs showing his bedroom and saying that this was where he "gets his sleep on." I really just don't get it. Why can't I be cool enough to get *my* sleep on? All my life, I've just been sleeping.

My thingie shipped today, and it's being shipped via UPS which is weird. I selected free shipping. It must be because they're five days late in getting my order out. But it looks like they're late with everyone's orders. This thing was supposed to ship on April 28th, then May 5th, and now it says May 10th. I wonder what was going on. But anyway, in a few days, I'll be listening to podcasts in the car. Sweet.

So far, I've been listening to Richard Vobes, Maccast, The Bitterest Pill, The Wizards of Technology, MAKE, Slashdot Review, Your Mac Life, and One Minute Tip.

TEOTWAWKI

The Real ID Act passed. Unanimously.

Stupid politics and crap. The House of Representatives attached the Real ID to a military spending bill (to feed troops and give them weapons to protect themselves) which also incorporates tsunami relief money. Thanks, House.

The ACLU is trying to find the best way to fight this. Wish them luck.

Go write your senators and the president! Now!

*whine*

I don't want to take out the trash.

Oh! And anyone who hasn't yet, please go write your senators an email and tell them to vote against the Real ID! They vote today! Hurry!

Quote of the Day

"Touch my chest, you fox, and tell me it isn't heaven. I dare you."

I hate American education.

I just watched a show on CNN about standardized tests.

I'm pretty mad right now. Apparently, there was this thing called the "Houston Miracle." Texas adopted a standardized test called the TAKS (under the governorship of GWB), and all of a sudden the next year everyone had near perfect test scores. This "miracle" is what the No Child Left Behind Act is based on.

They failed to mention that they held back a ton of ninth graders (tenth graders take the test), so all the "smart kids" were the only ones who took the test. One girl was held back for *three* years. Then she was promoted to eleventh grade. She never even took the test!

I know it's all propoganda, but I believe it. I've been through a standardized test program in New York and teachers *do* teach to the test. They don't have a choice. It is fast paced because every day is scheduled. All of the material has to be covered.

One of the amazing things is that in this school district in Virginia (who administers the SOL - Standards of Learning test), over the last six years passing rates of the SOL have risen like 80%, but SAT scores have remained the same, and college tests to see how college ready the kids in Virginia are have resulted in about the same scores.

All of these proponents of standardized testing (specifically, the No Child Left Behind Act) keep saying that it's bad to promote a student to the next grade when they're not ready. I agree. However, if a student is getting straight As (as another featured student from Florida had) and fails the FCAT (Florida's test), that tells me that there's either a problem with the teacher, or a problem with the FCAT. If a student is getting As, then they're doing everything that is expected of them throughout the school year, and it's not right to punish them for something that's obviously not their fault.

Grr.

Another Software Plug, etc.

I used to use Adium when I was in college as my chat client of choice. However, I eventually got sick of it and started using iChat. I just downloaded the newest version of Adium and there are a lot of improvements.

Most noticeably, it's incredibly small. My entire buddy list now only takes up about half of the vertical space on my screen (as opposed to iChat, which requires scrolling).

And in other news, Renee and I were just cleaning out Renaissance's closet. That kid has a lot of clothes.

Today is supposed to be a cleaning day (like every other weekend). Hopefully, we'll get something done. Last night we cleaned a bit and it made the place look a lot better. Basically just putting Renaissance's toys away.

*a few hours later*

Woops, I forgot to post this. Anyway, we went and got Renee a pretty bracelet for Mothers' Day. It's all metal links (like those fancy watches) and they come apart so you can put decorated links in there. She's got one with a blue and pink heart (for us), one that has Renaissance's birthstone (for Renaissance), and one that's a little carriage (for Sprout). We were also going to buy season three of Gilmore Girls, but it was a little too expensive. We decided to rent it, but the rental place doesn't have it. So we rented Spanglish instead.

Renee was also interested in Closer, but the quote on the back says that it "vibrates with eroticism," so we decided to read some reviews on it first.

We're going to try having Renaissance sleep with a blanket and pillow tonight. We figure it'll be easier to switch her to a bed if she's already used to those things. Also, maybe it'll keep her from waking up in the middle of the night. I think her bedroom gets a little colder than the rest of the house, even with the heat on. We got her a nice Tinkerbell blanket and pillowcase. She likes it a lot.

I'm sorry, Flickr.

Okay, I take back what I said about Flickr. They've done a lot of work to their site and it's actually pretty cool now (you can delete pictures, too!).

However, I'm pretty hooked on Buzznet at this point, so I don't foresee going back to Flickr anytime soon, even if their interface is usable now and their site is less cluttered than Buzznet.

People Frusterate Me

I'm so glad to be home. Last night was the only night I work this week, but it felt like three.

People need to use discretion, even if they're tired. Don't just speak to hear yourself talk. If I turn around and walk away from you as soon as you make a certain comment, that's my subtle way of telling you that I'm uncomfortable and could care less about what you're talking about.

So stop talking.

Sorry to everyone wasting your time reading this. I won't elaborate because what was said really does not need to be repeated. I just need to rant.

Mostly Geeky Crap

Ok, so I still haven't posted pictures of the Nickel Creek concert, but in its place, I made a few changes to this very page.

I added a favicon (that little picture doohickey in the address bar), so if you can't see it, you may need to clear your cache (I had to). I also finally fixed the colors of the link buttons up there (Photos, del.icio.us, etc.), but *also* added a link to my wife's blog.

And, of course, the obligatory Lint Monkey icon. W00t.

Oh, so the concert was pretty cool. It was the kind of concert that I wouldn't mind taking Renaissance to when she gets a little older. I had never seen anyone rock out on a mandolin until tonight. It was pretty cool to watch. It got pretty cold and we left early to avoid the traffic, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

"Lit a fire under my assets..."

I just downloaded Skype and I've been playing with it for a little bit, but with no one to call, it's kinda dull (and, uh, also when I don't have anything to say). When Renee and I get a house and want a landline, we'll definitely go through Skype, though. Cheapness is awesome.

Oh, and of course, my ID is lintmonkey. Feel free to skype me.

Renaissance finally learned how to go forward on her hippo. Usually, she can only push herself backwards. Today she was going backwards and saying, "Bye bye," then going forward and saying, "Hi!" Very cute.

Renee and I decided to just start looking for a house. We figure with the cost of houses going up so quickly, it'd be more beneficial to just pay to end our lease and leave. However, we need our credit report to be updated with the new payments we've made. So we're stuck not being able to do anything for at least a month.

Oh, and I'll try to post some Nickel Creek pictures live from the show tomorrow on my Buzznet. Ooooh.

I know, no one cares. No one's heard of Nickel Creek.

Quote of the Day

"What makes him so special? He doesn't even have any equipment!"

"That's what makes him so special."

- MacGyver

"I'd like to change the world...

...It's easier than changing me."

I wish I were home now. But I'm still at work. Grr.

Renee and I will be going to a Nickel Creek concert soon. I have a feeling it will be almost entirely different from any concert we've ever been to.

A lot less pogoing, moshing, broken limbs, etc.

It'll be fun, though.