TU Cent Thoughts, 12-21-05

[greybeta]

Administration
I have instituted a new rule on my blog (*EDIT*: These rules only apply to my blog, but more power to you if you want to institute them on your blog). And I quoth from my user info:

1. Link stuff. I am a teacher. I try to educate people. If you ever say "I read..." or "I watched..." or "I listened...", then I want you to link to it. Between Amazon, Google, and Wiki, you should be able to find a link to whatever you are referencing. No really, never assume people know who or what you are talking about. My readers are varied in their religion, politics, culture, and schooling so just because you know somethng doesn't mean my entire friends list knows it as well. A link opens up the doors of learning. Let's stamp out ignorance, one link at a time.

2. Use proper grammar. cuz whin u dunt jze propar garmmer u zound liek ur dum

I will defriend you if you do not follow the rules of my journal ON MY JOURNAL. I am the benevolent dictator on your journal, you must serve me on my journal. That’s how it works in my nation-state. I mean, this journal is designed to help me on my quest to improve my writing in both style and content. I will prune people who do not understand my simple requests. You have been sufficiently warned.

Oh yeah, I’ll do my best to follow my own rules although sometimes I won’t. Deal. I'm the most bitter dictator around. Only the maker of the rules can break the rules. Why else do you think Communism always fails?

Taking a cue from shadesong
Welcome new friend contrary74!

Piano
Working on "Love Story".

Random Spiritual Observation
Scripture reading is more than just reading Scripture. You cannot read Scripture like you would read a book. To fully draw the power of Scripture, one must be willing to meditate upon it day and night. To use the Sword of the Spirit, a disciple of Christ must do three things. First he or she must grasp the Word. Second, he or she must let the Holy Spirit use the Word. Third, he or she must pray on the basis of the Word.

Stuff going on in D2’s life
I should be seeing Narnia today in a couple of hours, as I will be watching it with another old friend from elementary, the Baptist bassist Kevin Grimes, aka Kevano. He was supposed to go to the NBA while I became President (hehehe). Hopefully I’ll get to watch Elfen Lied with the red mage Father John. And lucky Andy said there would be the possibility of him dropping by, too. Yay for old friendships.

Convo of the Day
Kevano: So this one time, my dad and I were going to park our car at Wal Mart and there was another car coming from the other direction. I beat him to the spot.
D2: Nice.
Kevano: Yeah, well, I look in my mirror and this Hispanic guy starts stomping towards my truck. I look into his white compact and see a girl.
D2: And that’s important because?
Kevano: I realized it was two younger college age kids and the guy was trying to act macho for his girlfriend.
D2: Heh, you gotta love the guys who are macho but aren’t.
Kevano: Exactly. So he comes up to me and goes, “What were you doing man?” I asked him for his name?
D2: His name?
Kevano: He said he wasn’t giving me his name. I told him that was too bad…
Keavno: Because I wanted to look for your name on this parking spot.

Quote of the Day
“You can’t buy love, you can only rent it.” –Rent, Pulitzer Prize winning musical

Links of the Day
On a touching note, Mysterious Phil wrote about his first encounter with Puppy Love.

Pastor Craig Loewen, aka cloewen told us his fascinating testimony, where he explains that he believes in God on the basis of acts of evil. Heretic Brethern Pastor Loewen also wrote a short story explaining why it doesn’t matter what denomination you’re from, what politics you have, or what your sexual orientation is when it comes to Jesus Christ.

Sports Report
Kobe…62 pts? GG.

That Bogut pick is looking mighty smart for the Bucks now. But we’ll have to see what happens once he hits that freshman wall (and we all know he will).

The ole high school circle
Whenever samurai Maph comes back from his tour of duty in Iraq, we will be assembling our nerdy high school clique FFI party to watch Memoirs of a Geisha. Yep, we will assemble the random tank Fighter Jameson, the enigmatic samurai Monk Maph, the sneaky thief Rogue Mike, the all-knowing father Red Mage John, the scrupulous doctor Black Mage Andy, and finally the heretic teacher White Mage Daniel.

Can you tell we’re nerds?

Fortune Cookie Meme (I actually made this one up)
Do you want a fortune cookie from me for Christmas? And unlike most fortune cookies, mine actually predict something. Comment to tell me if you want one.

Cooking Question
Okay, say I have to feed a party of six nerds people. What would you recommend for the kind white mage cook me to prepare? It can’t be too hard to make since I am a total newb with like a skill of 11/99 at cooking novice chef.

Comments

[odclay.livejournal.com]

Well well well...haughty, are we, Brother D2-Sempai?

Bah, it's a damn good rule. If I was as forceful and, shall we say, commanding as you, I'd steal the rule and use it for my journal too.

And I'd probably lose a full quarter of my friends when I did.

:)

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

You are as forceful and commanding as I am.

If you lose friends over something that trivial, Jacob-chan, they aren't worth keeping around.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

I like posts that give links to let you know their sources are but I wouldn't make such a rule (mostly because I never like being told what to do). Personally, I prefer ruling by example instead of by fiat.

[odclay.livejournal.com]

I figure, people can write how they want. If it gets as bad as "cuz whin u dunt jze propar garmmer u zound liek ur dum," I'll be sure to complain. Otherwise, I don't mind lowercase i's and upcapitalized words, nor do I mind posts without links. Sure, it would be nice if sensei theferrett usurped Livejournal and instituted a strict "Blog Like Me" regime, with moderators reviewing all our posts before they go out, but until that happens, I'll let people write as they want.

That said, it would be awesome if Sensei did that...

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

For food that's easy to prepare, I recommend Easy Turkey Chili. This suggestion doesn't work if you're feeding vegetarians though. (unless you maybe you make another batch with the fake ground meat but the few times I've tried doing that, I didn't like the taste but maybe I'm just not used to it.) However, if you make it with either ground beef or ground turkey, I've never had anyone not like this chili. Get a big bag of tortilla chips and you'll have hearty nachos. Oh and make 2 batches of this recipe if anyone has a big appetite. For me, 1 pound of meat was enough to fully satisfy 3 adults with big appetites.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

My rule in my journal is - no telling people what to do in their own journals. Else I'll defriend them.

Oh, delicious irony!

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

There is no irony, because rules are made to be broken. :D

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Nice recipe. I will try it soon, possibly as soon as this Friday.

Tell me what you think of this icon?

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I have this supreme ruler personality. I'd be a benevolent dictator if I could. At least let me be a benevolent dictator on my own LJ...

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

By that logic, you could pretty much rule out the existance of irony altogether. And how would life be worth living without irony?

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be honest with you: I will hardly ever, if ever, link.

I read a lot, from a lot of varied sources. I read news articles on several different news pages, and sometimes wind up following links to other articles. At the end of the day, I'll remember what I read, but have no idea where I read it. In addition, I actually retained a lot of what I learned in college, so many of the references to whatever I'm talking about might be from articles in photocopied old school readers, or out of print textbooks. Worse, some of it is in my notes from old lectures. And while yes, I could go do google searches hunting this information up, either to look up the articles or use alternate sources, I frankly have better things to do with my time. Livejournal commenting is a casual thing for me. If I want to write an op-ed paper, I'll write an op-ed paper for someone who can give me money for it :P

If you want to know where I read something, ask me, and if I remember, I'll tell you.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

i mind, and thats all that matters

What about a fajita bar?

[nickel.livejournal.com]

For an informal gathering, it's quite appropriate. You supply chips, and tortillas, soften corn tortillas by steaming them or grilling them in oil, or just provide flour tortillas. Then set out a host of condiments. People can pick and choose what they like on their tortillas or just have nachos. They can return again and again until they are done. Just remember, it's better to have too much than too little. Possible toppings you might want at your fajita bar are:

guacamole (mash up four avocados, dice some onions, add a dash of salt and a dash of lime)
sour cream (whip before serving for best effect)
grated cheddar cheese (you can buy it this way)
hot cheese sauce (microwave as necessary)
diced onions
sliced jalapenos
diced tomatoes
pico de gallo (for the last 3 combined)
grated moneterey jack
2 kinds of salsa
sliced or chopped olives
french cut iceberg lettuce (slice in half first then like a tomato)

the base of the fajita should be either:

4 cans of refried beans (mix a taco packet in while heating)
mexican rice (prepare rice as normal, but add a can of tomato sauce to the water)
ground beef fried with a taco seasoning packet
sliced chicken (much more expensive, but very tasty)

You put out a spread like this and it will impress anyone in a casual environment.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

To be fair, he's not telling people how to post in their journals...just setting some rules for participating in his journal. Or am I missing your irony? :)

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

You're thinking about it too much. "There is no irony, because rules are made to be broken" can ironically be broken itself.

By the way, there's a quote the major of my hometown is fond of. "Life's worth living in Ft. Smith, Arkansas." He forgot to say that he was being ironic. ;)

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I adore Ferrett, but if he did that, I would defriend him. I would do so, not because my own grammar and typing skills aren't up to par, but because a percentage of the people who he would be "punishing" are severely learning disabled or speak English as a second (or third, or fourth, etc) language.

I've known too many people with learning disabilities who were discouraged from improving because self-proclaimed "grammar nazis" (honestly, if you're happily calling yourself -any- kind of nazi, there is something wrong) harrassed, abused, and attacked them.

As long as the post is readable, I see no reason whatsoever to judge people.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

It's kind of hard to make out all the elements in the icon. The background is kind of cluttered (or maybe I'm not familiar enough with Kitchen Stadium to recognize it at a glance?) and the glare on the smurf made it hard for me to identify him. Nice idea for an icon though :)

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

LOL, remember I hope to be the opinion editor for my school newspaper next semester.

To avoid me asking, just be like "I don't remember where I read this but..." I just want to fix things like "This guy Joseph Campbell said in this book" and not be linked to Joseph Campbell or his book. I don't think I'm asking for too much here.

Re: What about a fajita bar?

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Oooo, nice. I guess I'm going to have to get over my dislike of Mexican. :)

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Oh I definitely concede your right to be a dictator in your own LJ.
I'd debate the benevolence of shunning a visitor for not following the rules though. Defriending is fine but calling it a benevolent reaction stretches the definition of benevolent in my book.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

If I know English isn't the writer's second language, I'm obviously going to be lenient.

What I will not allow are bratty American teenagers or college age kids to fill my LJ with AIM talk. D2 says NO!

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

A visitor is allowed to make mistakes. A repeat offender must be executed to preserve the integrity of my nation-state, however.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

But "There is no irony, because rules are made to be broken" is not a rule, so how can it be broken?

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I see. By the way, on closer inspection, you'll see that it's Metal Mario from N64.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

To me, it sounds like he is telling people what to do when they write, not when they leave comments, but I could be mistaken.

The irony is telling him in his own journal not to tell people what to do in their own journals. Of course, if your hypothesis is true, then my statement is more misguided than ironic.