Christmas 2007

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I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing

This has been a very momentous year for me — getting hired, getting married, getting a new place — and I am grateful and humbled by how far God has brought me. But I count it all as unto nothing beside the free gift of redemption I have received from the Savior whose birth we celebrate today.

I know Yeshua “Jesus” Meshiach was not born on Dec. 25th, 0000, and I know the holiday was only later established to supplant older pagan festivals; and yet it is fitting enough that, at the coldest and darkest time of year, we are warmed by the light of love, giving, and togetherness, as Christ came for our salvation when we were most helpless to save ourselves, to bring us into his unity with the Father. So, a happy Christmas to all of you, far and near, and may the Lord give you peace and joy.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Values.jpg

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mo_446_.jpg For some reason, when I saw this front page, I expected the inside to have a list of virtues like integrity, honesty, generosity, and such. Imagine my disappointment to find insufficiently discounted groceries instead.

(mo_446_.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)

Bored Polar Bear

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Here is a video of a polar bear at Central Park Zoo, edited together from clips shot on a New York trip September. I had forgotten about this video for a few months, till I looked through my Movies folder on the train last night; I guess Christmas is an okay time of year to post it.

The edit makes it look like the bear backstrokes across the water only once, but the reason I got so many angles was because it was doing it over and over again all afternoon. It was quite depressing to watch, so I slowed down the video and added a few seconds of an Adagio movement from Handel’s “Water Music” to give you a sense of how mired in monotony this bear must have felt.

Caturday!

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Pandora

(Pandora uploaded by amy kow.)

Today’s cat photo comes to you courtesy Amy, who got this photo of a very fat sleepy cat making good use of her makeshift bed. Look at those stretchy legs.

Me and HotPads on Delicious

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Sometime back in 2005 I posted a del.icio.us link to HotPads, a map-based apartment and property search site. Apparently the site got popular; last week Douglas at HotPads emailed to let me know that the site had made it to the front page of del.icio.us with 382 links — with me as the first poster.

It’s not too often I get to say this, but FIRST!!!

BTQ Missionary

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I noticed this a bit late, but it’s still good for a LOL or two: Saganist on LJ inadvertently dressed up as a necktied missionary for Halloween, and after a brief flirtation with the idea of posing as an iconoclastic atheist missionary, instead opted to become a philosophical Beg The Question proselytizer, complete with BTQ cards. You couldn’t ask for a better, more dapper representative to spread the word of linguistically obsessive semantic prescriptivism, even if only for one All-Hallows’ Eve.

Saganist, we at BTQ salute you. With our hats.

Dryer.jpg

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Dryer.jpg The clothes on top were still wet, and the dryer had 20 minutes left on it. There is a story of conflict and vengeance here, but I’m not sure exactly what it is.

(Dryer.jpg uploaded by brownpau.)