Post  #2477.   RE: God.     

God didn't create the universe and everything in it for us.
There was no us.
He created it for Himself.
He didn't create it perfect either,
Because perfect can be pretty boring.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:55 AM

Post  #2476.   Do I feel old or whut?      So, I'm working, fixing something or trying to and the great-grandson is here and we're talking,

Me: I was watching this special on rock-and-roll, and they're giving the history of Louie Louie.
Great-grandson: Uh-huh.
Me: There was so much controversy over the song that the F.B.I. was even brought in to investigate whether the lyrics were too crude for the public. It turned out that the words were, indeed, unintelligible and harmless, and that made it "official."
Great-grandson: Unintelligible?
Me: That means no one could understand them.
Great-grandson: Oh.
Me: Turns out, according to his brother, Louie Louie was the first song that Jimi Hendrix learned to play. Imagine that!
Great-grandson: Who's Jimi Hendrix?

Sigh .. well, as Linda Ellerbee used to say, and so it goes.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:28 PM

Post  #2475.   Astronomical News.      My e-mail program directed me to a piece of breaking news about the discovery of a new star by scientists using the Herschel space telescope. I love this kind of stuff, so I clicked on the link which led me to the article which reported, in part,

Get out of the way, Hollywood. This star will be brighter than every celeb on the planet combined. Scientists’ European-built Herschel space telescope is their version of Tinseltown’s paparazzi, which caught on tape the beginning of a big star. And we mean really, really big. So enormous, it would block out the sun. Not to mention Angelina Jolie.

Is this what we've come to? Hip Valleygirlese reporting on space and technology news? Lord help us.

Oh, and when you have a moment, scroll down to the lowest posts on this page. Some of them are pretty short but kind of funny, I thought anyway. They will soon fall out of time and go to the ARCHIVES, a place I have been unable to find or access in any way. If anyone knows what code to put in this thing to make ARCHIVES work, let me know, please. There are 2,417 posts of mine in there somewhere.
Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:31 PM

Post  #2474.   座って私の顔に.      Sure, playing around with the Google Translator is fun, but not nearly as fun as it would have been back in junior high. It can get pretty humorous translating something, say, from English to Urdu to Japanese then back. No wonder there have been so many wars. However, some things are important enough that they retain their meaning precisely through numerous translations. 座って私の顔に。Try it sometime. Really, it will seem like being back there in study hall, grade 8. Almost anyway.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:43 PM

Post  #2473.   I'm having a **** moment.      Waiting for Saturday Night Live to start. Betty White evidently survived since we watch Saturday Night Pre-recorded out west, and we would have heard if she didn't make it. While waiting, I studied a half-finished and surely stale bag of Reasonable-Salt Lay's Potato Chips. Gosh but I'd love to eat one. But you can't, of course, and what's more there is no need whatsoever to try at this hour of the night. A brief moment of pleasure for some unnecessary fat? Arguments raged over the few moments this urge lasted. I resisted in the end.

Whatever satisfaction I may have had with that win over weakness is offset by the **** above, the word I can't think of which would have made this a decent post. Okay, here we go: THREE HOURS AGO FROM NEW YAWK, IT'S ...

Oh, and have a wonderful Mother's Day or 8th of May, whichever is appropriate or if you still can.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:24 PM

Post  #2472.   Just musing while watching the bomb thing on CNN.      This quote is pretty famous, a good one to drop into a graduation speech; Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism:

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
And drinking largely sobers us again.

I used it myself many, many years ago - back when mom's who had been to rigorous schools did for you what Google search does now. Incidentally, Pieria was a region of ancient Macedonia, the location of Mount Olympus, believed to be the home and the seat of worship of Orpheus and the Muses, the deities of the arts and sciences. The spring is believed to be a fountain of knowledge that inspires whoever drinks from it. Seriously, before television and "search", people actually knew this stuff.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:03 PM