"Rod! Todd! Get Daddy's Emergency Baptism Kit!"

What's the difference between a baptism and a christening? I'm a Teamster, and therefore too lazy to even use google....

Is it really a good idea to dunk babies in water? You know what would make lots of money? Baby dunk tanks at the fair! Boy, I'd sure like to dunk that Quizno's baby...Bob, or whatever his name is. He's the biggest asshole baby since the unibrow baby that Maggie hates. (Maggie doesn't like other babies.)

Maybe babies are drawn to water, like lemmings. That must be why they keep falling down wells. I've heard the best dowsing rods are made of baby bones.
Barbaric, perhaps, but you can't argue with results.

"How Can One Insulated Wire Bring So Much Happiness?"

This Thursday we're cancelling our cable. It's kind of like putting your sick old dog down...you know it's probably for the best, but it's still sad. So much time gets wasted sitting and watching tv. Other areas of life end up getting neglected, such as...I don't know... blogging and stuff. So, anyway, this will be a short post, as I have a lot of cable watching to squeezing in.

To make matters more dire, for Father's Day, my family got me the Home Movies Season 2 dvd (which I love. Thanks Sylvana!), and I really want to watch it, which will cut into the precious cable watching time. And to make matters even more more dire, there's nothing on tv! It's all crap the last few days.

Hmmm...maybe losing the cable won't be so bad after all.

p.s. here is a random fact: The name Darth Vader is meant to sound menacing, like the other Darths (Maul and Sidious), but vader is also the Dutch word for father. Ooooooooooooohh...double meaning! Maybe George Lucas isn't as dumb as he makes you think he is.

"I Keep Telling You People, The Earth Revolves Around The Sun!"

Sorry to be so solemn, but I'd like everyone to observe a moment of silence...

...Thank you. That was just a moment to respect the passing of Principal Seymore Skinner, who was burned at the stake for going against the teachings of the Church. And it was also a moment of silence for probably the greatest contribution to humanity by Western Civilization: the Scientific Method. So genius in its' simplicity, profound in its' influence, and so sensible...and so dead. It's funny in a cartoon, but not so much when we have to live with it in real life.

Well, maybe it's not dead yet, but that seems to be the way the institution of science is going these days. It's hard to believe that we're actually having an evolution/creationism/intelligent design debate outside of Alabama. I actually know someone who otherwise seems reasonably intelligent who believes in intelligent design. (He gets a pass, though, because he claims the intelligence designing us is alien rather than holy.) It is, I admit, a wonderful theory once you get past the fact that it is supported by no facts. It's like, oooh, opposable thumbs, I never would have thought of that. What a great idea, God! Way to be!

Oh...I hope that wasn't too mean. I want to make it clear that I don't mean to ridicule anyone who doesn't believe absolutely in evolution. If you aren't sure about evolution, that's fine. It may be proven wrong later on (though I doubt it), and science is perfectly capable of dealing with that. I just don't understand why you would throw your support behind a so-called "theory" based in pure speculation. I might disagree with some of the reasoning behind the theory of gravity (although I don't), but why should I then jump to the conclusion that little invisible angels are pulling me down to the earth?

I understand that many Christians would say that they believe what's in the Bible, as it came directly from the mouth (or what we think was a mouth...I'd hate to think what other kind of orafice those words might have bellowed out of...but I digress) of God. But even if the original Bible was directly from the Holy Horse's mouth, just imagine all the translations it's gone though, all the translators with political agendas (not that we would do something like that these days...), all the errors and omissions, all the talk about avoiding women during their "time of uncleanliness". Why would a loving God refer to menstruation in such a manner?

Maybe I could see this support for creationism as valid if the Church had ever been right about anything ever in the field of science. Maybe I could see it if we lived on a 6000 year old flat earth that was the center of the universe, or maybe if the Church didn't kill so many people who were, in retrospect, absolutely, unequivocally, totally right. Maybe. Later, witches!

p.s. This post was originally supposed to be about Terri Schiavo, but Scott covered that on his blog, and I've run out of steam.

"In 1796, a group of settlers head west from Maryland after misinterpreting a passage in the Bible."

Did God deposit "Texas Tea" under the earth where modern-day Israel would one day be situated, so that the Israelites could become a big player on the international oil market, securing it's finacial and political future, paving the way for the coming of the Apocolypse?

Duh! Do you even have to ask?!? Read the following Bible passage from Genesis 49:25, where God blesses Joseph:
"Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above [and] blessings of the deep that lieth under." It's all so obvious, once you have it spelled out for you like that.

This passage was enough to convince John Brown, of Texas. "I believe that God deposited the vision of oil for Israel in my heart," he says. Guess what...ahh, you'll never guess, never in a million years, so I'll just have to come out and tell you; John Brown is a born-again, evangelical Christian. Shocking...truly shocking.

Mr. Brown declares that this exercise is "grounded in theology but supported by science". I assume this is the brand of science supported by the Bush administration; the kind that likes to think outside of the old "scientific theory" box; without all those damnable facts. He never really does explain the science that supports his endeavor, other than to say he drew a detailed map revealing the location of oil reserves from his research of the Scriptures. And if he doesn't find oil where the Scriptures so clearly stated that it was, John Brown has plans to drill other holes. I find your lack of faith disturbing, Mr. Brown. If the Bible says it's there, then, gosh darn it, it is!

Obviously, if any oil is found, this will confirm the existance of God. I mean, what could be more miraculous than the discovery of oil deposits in the Middle East?

"I Don't Need Safety Equipment, Because I'm Homer Si-zzzzzzz-aaugghh!"

It is due to no less than a miracle or dumbluck or random chance or something else besides these things that I'm here to post this...

My house is old. No, no; old! Like, built in the 1890's old. So I have the joy of never having a simple, standard repair around the house. Nothing is ever simple. Luckily, I have Sylvana to do most of it (she's into that kind of thing), but I specialize in a few things: hooking up electronic equipment, putting up and taking down the storm windows and screens, replacing light fixtures, and other stuff like that.

So that's what had me up on a chair in the living room this past weekend. On last Thursday, the overhead light in the living room went out. Our son said he heard a little sizzling noise when the light stopped working. Of course, he told us that the next day...but, luckily, our house was not reduced to cinders. That boy ain't right.

After changing the bulbs and checking the circuit breakers and still being in the dark, I decided it must be a problem with the fixture itself. So we went to the Ho' 'Pot and picked up a new fixture for the living room (and a kick ass ceiling fan, as you read in my previous post).

Once we got home, I took down the fixture and found, to no surprise, scary, scary wiring. There was no junction box, the grounding wire was completely unattached to anything. My god, all the wiring in my house is like this. Best not to think about it, I guess. No scorch marks, though, so that was inspiring.

It took over half an hour to get the fixture changed out, but most of that time was spent by Sylvana and I discovering that the electrical grid to our house was laid out by a free-spirited and "out-of-the-box" thinker. One breaker controls the lamps in the living room and the overhead dining room light. Another one controls the outlets (but not the lights) in the bathroom and the kitchen light. In the end, I just decided to turn off all the breakers that controlled electricity in the living room and in all rooms that the living room is attached to.

Once that was done, changing out the fixture was easy and uneventful. Before I put the cover back on the fixture, I decided to turn on the breaker and see if the fixture worked at all. So I went down to the basement and turned all the off breakers back on...and the light worked! I quickly flipped the breakers back off and ran upstairs to finish the job, only to find the light still on. Yeah, that's right...I rewired the light fixture while it was still electrified.

That's why you always treat an electric wire like it's live (like I did), even if you know that it isn't. You know what's fun? Not getting electrocuted, that's what! Oh, and Skee-Ball...that's fun, too. When I gets rich, I'm gettin' me a Skee-Ball setup in my bippity-boppity-boop.

"Everything's Coming Up Milhouse!""

What a day! First Sylvana and I went to Target and got a couple personal items (which are none of your business, thank you very much). At the register we discovered that they were on sale, even though no sale was mentioned where we picked the items up. Plus, we got the Lord of the Rings dvd set (Widescreen, of course). Happy day! but wait, there's more!

Next we went over to the home improvement whorehouse, er, warehouse and picked up an unbelievably awesome ceiling fan with blades that look like big palm leaves. It didn't come with a light though; we had to buy the light kit seperately. But at the checkout, they scanned the ceiling fan but not the light kit. I so love stickin' it to the man!

On the way home, someone tried to cut me off, but I was able to swerve into another lane and leave them in my dust (and also flip them off...it was so cool...it momentarily stopped raining long enough for me to roll down my window and stick out my angry finger).

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta! with a kick ass ceiling fan!