I thought that might get your attention! Our home group is going through Tommy Nelson’s Song of Solomon series. This week’s lesson is on physical intimacy, so we got to talking about how we learned about sex growing up. Naturally, I thought it might make an interesting poll for my readers, so vote away! All responses are anonymous, as always.
The Elephant in the Blog
As many of you know already, Team Box has an exciting project underway. For political reasons, we cannot share it on the Internet quite yet, but rest assured that everything is proceeding mostly as planned. We hope to go public in a week or so. Avoiding this giant elephant is driving me crazy, but I think I can go another week. Keep checking back.
The Joker Explains the Bailout
I found this one on another fun new site, RoflRazzi.com, which adds funny captions to pictures of celebrities, like sister site ICanHasCheezburger.com does with pictures of cats. The humor is pretty good overall and improving. Here’s one of the best examples:
Grammar Police
I doubt you’d be surprised to learn that I am a grammar Nazi. Despite its flaws, I love the richness, complexity, and flexibility of the English language. I grow agitated when people misuse it, especially in print. I address some of my pet peeves on my Writing Pet Peeves page, but here are some of the offenders that really get my panties in a bunch:
- Realtor – There are only two syllables in realtor: real and tor. Many people pronounce it as real-a-tor. Although the three-syllable version does roll better off the tongue, it is incorrect.
- Plurals with Apostophes – This error is becoming more and more common. In almost every instance I can think of, the correct way to make a word plural is to add -S or -ES to the end of the word. Apostrophes have two purposes: indicating possession (the bed belonging to the dog is the dog’s bed) or indicating contraction (to shorten do not into a single word, replace the missing letter or letters with the apostrophe to form don’t). The plural of brother is NOT brother’s, but brothers. My family is the Boxes, not the Box’s.
- Y’all – Y’all is a predominantly Southern word that is a plural version of you. Many other languages have singular and plural version of you. English didn’t, so an enterprising person made one up. Y’all is a contraction of you all, which is why the apostrophe replaces the ou. I often see it spelled incorrectly as ya’ll.
Some of you might think I’m crazy, or at least unreasonable, for getting so worked up about grammar and spelling. But I also know that some of you are kindred spirits. What are your biggest grammatical pet peeves?
Bucket List
Some of you might have seen a 2007 movie called The Bucket List, starring the great Jack Nicholson and the (even better?) Morgan Freeman. In case you haven’t, it’s about two older men who learn that they are both dying of cancer. Instead of wasting away in a hospital bed waiting for the end, they make a “bucket list” of things they want to do before they, well, kick the bucket. Then they escape from the hospital and start checking things off. I really enjoyed the movie on many levels, especially the premise. It got me thinking: what would be on MY bucket list? Should I make one? If so, why shouldn’t I start checking things off now? Here are a few items on my list in no particular order:
- Go skydiving (but I promised Mom I would wait until after she, um, kicks the bucket because the very idea of me skydiving terrifies her)
- Watch Wimbledon live.
- Go into space and orbit the earth. If I’d said that 100 years ago, people would have laughed at me. Now it’s reality if you can afford it.
- Cage dive with great whites in Australia.
- Watch the Stars play a Canadian team IN CANADA. Ideally it would be Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, but another game would be OK, too.
- See Victoria Falls in Zambia.
- Meet one of the children we sponsor through WorldVision.
- Personally lead someone to Christ.
- Somehow acquire a huge amount of money and use it to create a charitable foundation.
- Drive a Dodge Viper.
- Fly in a 747. Preferably business class in the “bubble” on top.
- Run a half-marathon.
- Meet my grandchildren.
- Pay off my house.
- Get a screenplay produced.
- Visit the Holy Land.
- Take Jenny on a Mediterranean cruise. (btw, Jenny is somehow involved in most of these even if I don’t mention her each time)
- Leave a $100 bill as a tip for a really good waiter.
That’s a good start, I think. Some might be possible within the next few years. Others might be impossible. Either way, it’s good to have goals to pursue. Now it’s your turn! Write up your own bucket list and post it here.
Oscars 2009 Cheers and Jeers
Here are some thoughts on this year’s Oscars.
Cheers
- Tina Fey and Steve Martin – Their bit had me rolling!
- Queen Latifah – Her grace and excellent singing voice provided the perfect accompaniment to the memorial video.
- Beyonce – Girl can sing AND dance.
- Acting Presentations – I really liked seeing the past acting Oscar winners give a tribute to each of this year’s acting nominees. Although it could have been simple politeness or professional courtesy, I think many of the nominees enjoyed it as well. If you were an actor, how amazing would it be to hear Kevin Kline or Nicole Kidman tell you how great an actor you are?
- Winners – Overall I’m pretty happy with the winners. Honestly, I had only seen a few of the films and didn’t have many strong opinions. The only nominee I was really pulling for was the no-brainer: Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor.
Jeers
- Not Enough Clips – In years past they always showed lots of clips – for the acting awards, best picture, etc. I never get to see every movie that’s nominated, so the clips were the only exposure I had to some of the films. This year they left out much of the footage for some reason.
- Bill Maher – If he wants to make a movie criticizing religion and everyone who believes in any religion, that’s his business. But does he have to use one of the biggest platforms on television to criticize people of faith? His pushing of his movie Religulous during the presentation was also annoying. We got enough political messages from the people who produced Milk. At least their agenda could be considered somewhat positive.
- Best Song Performance – I must admit that the blend of three songs into one at the end did work pretty well. But I prefer for the organizers to have five nominated songs and spread performances of each song throughout the night to break up all the talking.
I want to see Slumdog Millionaire, Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, and Tropic Thunder partially due to the Oscar factor. Many of them should be available on DVD/BR soon, so I hope Blockbuster will start mailing some of them to us in a few weeks.
What did you guys think of the Oscars?