NOT TO POST EXCESSIVELY OR ANYTHING...

But just pretend I'm catching up. Here's an amusing quote from Peter Krupa and Kevin Weber and Frank Sinatra.

IF I EVER GET FARTHER INTO FRANCE THAN THE AIRPORT...

I'll re-read this article first. :) Even if it doesn't help, it'll still make me laugh.

I had just got to the front of the queue and plonked my parcels on the counter when an old man at another window revealed that he wanted to wire money from his post office account to each of his 11 grandchildren, and that the total sum to be wired had to equal the square root of their combined shoe sizes. Or something.

Beautiful, ain't it?

And while I'm linking to articles, here's one on intellectual property and copyright misuse which I found quite informative and enjoyable. It says I'm not allowed to have the above quote from the Guardian on my blog. Or maybe I'm allowed to excerpt from the article, just not to duplicate it in full. Anyway, Arts and Letters Daily publishes excerpts, so I will too, until I hear otherwise, that is, unless I find out that I'll get in big trouble for it. Hmmmm...I'm curious what Bob has to say about it--seems like the sort of thing he'd know/post about.

Oh yeah...Google Print is a most bodacious idea. :)

MY WIFE THE NUDIST
or
WHY SHE HATES BOSTON

"I instinctively distrust anybody who would build a settlement so far north that you have to wear so many clothes all the time."

MAIWWAGE...IS WHAT I'M GOING TO TALK ABOUT

I remember in my first year of college first thinking the disturbing thought that this was the age that people started to get married--that I would probably meet my wife at school. Weirdness, I thought. I don't FEEL old.

I was, however, expecting to be surprised first with a stampede of friends getting married, which would be strange, but help me get used to the idea.

Didn't happen--I mean, my roommate Chad got married, but Chad was hardly a stampede. ;) Also, the Talcotts and the Raglands...but that was all. No stampede. Nothing to prepare me for the fact that I was next.

So now I'm married, and have been for a year now, and I'm still not used to the idea. I'm not the age to get married--I still feel like I'm 16 or something.

So I'm getting seriously weirded out right now, because the stampede just began.

Seraphim's engaged. Konrad's engaged. Bethany and Stephen are engaged. Even Dave Frank is engaged. And I heard over at the BeatBlog that George and Nik are engaged. And, most frightening of all, Amber Briggs is in love. With Lee Nunn. As if I hadn't already been thinking that the world is coming to an end.

And the same thing is apparently happening at the seminary.

Where are the simple joys of bachelorhood? Never mind that I threw them out the window last year and never looked back. What's happened to everyone else?

And incidentally, congratulations to everyone, most especially Seraphim and Anne, Konrad and Joy, and Stephen and Bethany. For all I say it's too soon for me, y'all sure took your time. ;)

THANK YOU, INFIDEL SONS OF PIGS?

Not likely

Here's an interesting piece--points out how much money the West is contributing to Asian tsunami relief compared to the various Arab nations.

Not to deny the legitimate claims of Arab nations against the West, but I begin to get the impression that they just want to blame somebody for all their problems and America makes a nice scapegoat.

ON PROPOSALS

'Gussie is an orange-juice addict. He drinks nothing else'

'I was not aware of that, sir.'

'I have it from his own lips. Whether from some hereditary taint, or because he promised his mother he wouldn't, or simply because he doesn't like the taste of the stuff, Gussie Fink-Nottle has never in the whole course of his career pushed so much as the simplest gin and tonic over the larynx. And he expects--this poop expects, Jeeves--this wabbling, shrinking, diffident rabbit in human shape expects under these conditions to propose to the girl he loves. One hardly knows whether to smile or weep, what?'

'You consider total abstinence a handicap to a gentleman who wishes to make a proposal of marriage, sir?'

The question amazed me.

'Why, dash it,' I said, astounded, 'you must know it is. Use your intelligence, Jeeves. Reflect what proposing means. It means that a decent, self-respecting chap has got to listen to himself saying things which, if spoken on the silver screen, would cause him to dash to the box-office and demand his money back. Let him attempt to do it on orange juice, and what ensues? Shame seals his lips, or, if it doesn't do that, makes him lose his morale and start to babble. Gussie, for example, as we have seen, babbles of syncopated newts.'

'Palmated newts, sir.'

--from the inimitable P.G. Wodehouse's Right-Ho, Jeeves

NOW DON'T GET TESTY WITH ME...

A little late, but here's a link to a blog I've been hoping would materialize since I started blogging. Nathan Loizeaux (Wazoo, Man of Mystery, Straight Homo-Eroticism Incarnate, Stealth Club God, Greco-Roman Wrestling, etc, etc, see also entries for Jason T. Robey Baiting, Famous Moonings, Best-Eminem-Imitation-Ever) has joined this small but happy world of expatriates.

It will never be the same.

NEVER MIND MY LAST POST

I have long known that I am an ill-educated buffoon compared to the English gentleman of a century past--now I learn that I am merely sophomoric even beside the man who mined his coal. Here is a fascinating article discussing the level of education and thought in the British slums of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Reading towards the end of the article, I begin to wonder when precisely American education became so Marxist.

HOPE (OF A SORT) NOURISHED BY ANOTHER'S TEARS

Some bloggers have the peculiar talent to demonstrate to me the futility of despairing about myself.

After all, why bother, when others have the market wrapped up so tightly?

Blog on, sad prince. Your tears are not in vain.

BACK FROM ROME

Got in late last night--if you didn't know the wife and I had gone to Rome with brother Caleb, well, I'm sorry. I would have mentioned it, but the evil internet devils stole my access pretty much from my last post until now. It's back now, and so am I.

Rome was cool--but mainly the ancient stuff. I got tired of seeing what should have been nifty old churches covered with hideous Rennaissance stuff. The Vatican was...um...excessive. Decided I really do like meek and mild Christianity better. Didn't really spend all that much time there. Instead we walked by the Tiber and saw the outlet for the Cloaca Maxima. Oh Yeah!

The Forum rocked.