Birthday wisdom

Like many people, I'm taking the occasion of my birthday to reflect on life. There are many places to turn when seeking wisdom, like family (especially your parents), friends, books, and of course the Bible. But the bank of knowledge from which I most frequently withdraw is none other than the inspirational musings of Jack Handey.

Here are some of his Deep Thoughts that relate to life, the universe, and everything:



"There are many stages in a man's life. In the first stage, he is young and eager, like a beaver. In the second stage, he wants to build things, like dams, and maybe chew down some trees. In the third stage, he feels trapped, and then "skinned." I'm not sure what the fourth stage is."



"Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Mankind. Basically, it's made up of two separate words--"mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind."



"I don't think God put me on this planet to judge others. I think he put me on this planet to gather specimens and take them back to my home planet."



"Sometimes I think I'd be better off dead. No, wait. Not me, you."



"If you ever reach total enlightenment while you're drinking a beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose."



"When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, ummmm, boy."



"As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way."



"If life deals you lemons, why not go kill someone with the lemons (maybe by shoving them down his throat)?"



"The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go, 'Hey, I'm Vine Man.' "



"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it."

It's my birthday

MacGyver was the man

I know both of you remember MacGyver. Well, I ran across this website that lists all the amazing tricks (called "MacGyverisms") the resourceful hero does on each of the 141 episodes. For example, IN THE PILOT ALONE, our boy:

Disarmed missle with a paperclip
Matches & rope got rifle to shoot itself
Smashed pistol barrel to use as rocket thruster
Kicked grate to test for hidden laser
Lit cigarette with hidden laser
Smoked cigarette to find hidden laser
Used binocular eyepiece to catch laser beam
Aimed laser beam at source to "kill" it
Knotted fire hose to build up water pressure
Used said hose to lift steel beam
Tested heat on door with a stick (it caught fire)
Milk Chocolate candy stops sulphuric acid leak
Used shirt to filter gases
Sodium metal & cold capsule explosive
Flipped lights in morse code

There's also way more information out there than I knew existed about the show, including a very detailed listing on Wikipedia.




Did you know...
The show ran from 1985 to 1992. Whoah. My most formative years. No wonder I can still remember most of the theme music.
MacGyver's first name was "Angus," though it was never revealed until the final episode
Teri Hatcher was on MacGyver as a supporting character
For all you SHS grads: this was Mr. Tony's favorite show, right up there with NOVA. Why do I remember that? I do not know.

God Loves You

...and so do I.
If you're "in the mood," you can find lots of weird/funny/cool V-day stuff at Miss Cellania.

Happy SAD!

Did you know it's Singles Awareness Day? Me neither.

Men and Women

Rachel's Challenge, and Heartsongs

I came across the story of a girl named Rachel Scott, who was the first person killed in the Columbine shootings. You may remember hearing about one of the students refusing to deny her Christian beliefs when threatened to do so by the killers--that was Rachel. Apparently she was a remarkably mature and insightful teenager, with a great attitude. If only more teenagers (and adults) could be that way...Go here to read an essay she wrote.
And because deep inside me is a strict English teacher, I must hope that this wasn't a paper for an English class.

This brings to mind Mattie Stepanik, a boy who died of muscular distrophy, who wrote some beautiful poetry and had more of an understanding of life and death than most of us do. I first saw him on Oprah years ago, and he was a guest of hers several times before his death. He wrote several books up until his death at age 13. Here's a poem he wrote at age 6:

Heartsong

I have a song, deep in my heart,
And only I can hear it.
If I close my eyes and sit very still
It is so easy to listen to my song.
When my eyes are open and
I am so busy and moving and busy,
If I take time and listen very hard,
I can still hear my Heartsong.
It makes me feel happy.
Happier than ever.
Happier than everywhere
And everything and everyone
In the whole wide world
Happy like thinking about Going to Heaven when I die.
My Heartsong sounds like this:

I love you! I love you!
How happy you can be!
How happy you can make
The whole world be!

And sometimes it's other
Tunes and words, too,
But it always sings the
Same special feeling to me.
It makes me think of
Jamie, and Katie and Stevie,
And other wonderful things.
This is my special song.
But do you know what?
All people have a special song
Inside their hearts!
Everyone in the show wide world
Has a special Heartsong.
If you believe in magical, musical hearts,
And if you believe you can be happy,
Then you, too, will hear your song.


Do you think that people who are "destined" to die at a young age have some sort of instinct about it? Are people facing imminent death granted understanding and peace? Discuss...

Deep Thoughts

You remember the recurring segment on old SNL (Phil Hartman/Jan Hooks era) called "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey" ? Good.
I have a book of these and it's still funny each time I open it up to a random page. Some of them are too good to keep to myself, so I will occasionally post one here for you. Here's one of my favorites:

"If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is, "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is, "Probably because of something you did.""

Ouch.

Another car you might not want to drive to the grocery store

The Batmobile is for sale, too.
If you've never watched the original Batman movie, you should. I don't remember watching the TV show as a kid, but the movie is so dang funny. You notice something new every time you watch it, and with all these little-boy types running around my house, I've seen it quite a few times.

Have an extra $150,000 ?

Now you can own Ecto 1, the car made famous in the Ghostbuster movies. How cool would it be to drive around in that? I wonder if the siren works.

Ewwww

Is this real? I know it's not natural. Steroids, anyone? No, they're juth thupplementh.
If anyone can tell me the source of that last sentence was, you win a fabulous prize. Hint: it's a movie.

Smooch bait

Remember this?

"It is not easy indeed but life is waiting ahead for her."

Half-human, half-animal: return of the girl who was lost in the wild for 18 years

If you haven't heard this story yet, read it by following the above link.

More stories of people living in the wild:

Many Cambodians were forced to spend years hiding in the jungle during the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime and the years of civil war after its fall. In 2004 a party of former refugees who had fled into the jungle reappeared after more than two decades. They were clad in bark and leaves and had no idea that the war was over. Twenty-two babies had been born during their wanderings, several of whom had grown into adulthood without meeting any other people.

A boy aged about 12, known as Victor of Aveyron, was found in woods in southern France at the end of the 18th century. He became a case study in the Enlightenment debate about the difference between humans and animals. Attempts failed to civilise him or to teach him speech.

A missing Indian child, Ramu, aged 6, became known as the Lucknow Wolf Boy when he was found in 1954. His parents said that a wolf had snatched him as a baby. When reunited with his parents, he lapped milk, chewed on bones and showed more interest in wolves at the zoo. He died in 1968 at Lucknow hospital.

In 1970 a girl aged 13 was discovered in a house in California, tied to a potty chair. For ten years she had been locked alone in a room throughout the day. She was unable to talk or walk properly. The girl, Genie, initially made good progress — scoring well on spatial reasoning tests — but she never fully learnt to talk. She lives in a care home to this day.

Source: Feralchildren.com This is one of the freakiest websites I've ever seen.

Some of Santa's lesser-known family members.

Lefty Claus (always leaning slightly to the side)

Melvin Claus (he has anger management issues)

Charlene Claus (suffers from occasional uncontrollable twitches)

Eugene Claus (a one-eyed "special" person)

Christmas Eve Cuteness

They're right...

...when they say that kids have more fun with the box than with the toy that came in it.

Hello out there...

Well, I'm back. It's been a long, busy month-or-so, with the holidays and all. We were just getting back to a normal schedule when we had the MLK day. It was nice, especially since the weather was so gray, wet, and cold, to hang around the house chillin' with my peeps.

I have a bunch of pictures from the holidays, and once I get them downloaded I'll be sure to share. I know you're on the edge of your seat and have been anxiously checking this site daily in anticipation of seeing my boys opening their Christmas presents and just generally being cute. You will not be disappointed. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, please follow the link to one of my favorite websites, Neatorama. There is always something cool to look at or think about (sometimes both!) over there. Last time I checked, the first post was an extra-long one about fads through the years, but the guy updates frequently so there's no telling what you'll find.

I missed the Golden Globes last night--I like to watch Red Carpet stuff like that--because we watched Disc 1 of "The Return of the King" instead. My kids have always liked the LOTR movies, but since we've recently read "The Hobbit" and because of course, they're getting older, they pick up more and better understand things in the movie. It's funny, too, that they want to know if some events in the movies "really happened," meaning "Was that in the book?" I guess they've soaked up a lot from listening to Kirk and me discussing it, because last night Cody said, "I don't like all that "Arwen is dying' stuff." Me neither, Cody.

I wouldn't have been able to see the awards show anyhow, because our original plan was to read some more Potter. We're about 2/3 of the way through "Sorceror's Stone." This will be Cody's first time through the books. He was too young to sit still when we read them through for Chet a few years back. The reading for last night was cancelled, though, because Colt, who is now the one too little to sit through all those chapters, was wide awake and more than willing to watch some LOTR action.

All that being said, I just remembered that E! (love that exclamation point!) replays its Red Carpet stuff on the morning after an award show. Yippee!

Have a great day!

I haven't blogged in...

A coon's age.

So how was your Christmas and New Year?

Still here

Hope you are having a fun Çhristmas season.