Monday, April 30, 2007

Monday Reading Assignment

2 Samuel 23 and 24. John 16.

Updates on 2007 goals. We're about 1/3 through the year:
1. Reading-
I'm a little ahead of schedule for getting through the New Testament this year and right on schedule for getting through the Old Testament.
2. Exercise-
Throught the end of April I am right on schedule to meet all goals:
6800 Hindu Squats
6785 Hindu Pushups.
104 minutes of Neck Bridging.

3. Landscaping-
I've started on a new plant bed and am making plans for my hardscaping as well. Expanded vegetable bed.
4. Foreign language-
Reviewing German fairly. Have yet to really get going in Spanish.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Welcome To Another Episode Of...

Point/Counterpoint- With Dr. Paul Donohue vs. Scottius Maximus.*

Once again, well-known and respected newspaper columnist Dr. Paul Donohue faces off with the bumbling blogger known as Scottius Maximus.

Dr. Donohue's readers write in to him with their medical questions, seeking his expert advice. No one writes Scottius Maximus with their questions, so he has nosed his way in in a most intrusive manner to give a reply also. Although nobody asked him to do so.

Let's get started...

"Dear Dr. Donohue: This past winter I had a bad cold. After it was over, I found I couldn't taste food. My sense of taste hasn't come back. Will this ever get better?


Dr. Donohue's reply: Loss of taste is a subject I dread. No medicine restores it. It sometimes comes back, but saying that yours will return is something I can't do. First, check your medicines with your doctor. Many medicines interfere with taste sensation, including blood pressure medicine. Illnesses affect taste. Viral illnesses like colds can dampen taste sensations. After the cold goes, taste may come back, but it may take a long time. Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, cancers, liver cirrhosis, radiation to the head and neck, and migraine headaches can diminish taste."


Scottius Maximus- Yeah, well I had a bad cold last winter too, Pops, but I didn't lose my sense of smell. So I doubt that had anything to do with it. Maybe you just come from bad stock. But is it really so bad? I bet you could stand to lose a few pounds anyway, so maybe this will help get your lard-encased keester to eat less and shed a few.


Donohue is barking up the wrong tree, I assure you. Let me ask you this. Do you have a lizard? Some lizards will crawl up close to the mouth at night and steal your taste sense. Not unlike cats stealing baby's breaths.

Also, a loss of smell has been linked to Alzheimer's Disease, like Donohue tries to point out. Most of our sense of taste comes from our sense of smell. So maybe you just can't remember whether you can taste or not.

Do you bathe? More often than once a month? 'Cause I gotta tell ya, the only guy I ever met who had what you have was ol' Pigpen Pomeroy.

More than likely, however, you are the victim of too much aluminum in your diet. You probably eat a lot of foil and smell nasty.



Dr. Donohue- Smell is an important component of taste, and allergies, nasal polyps and post-nasal drip greatly contribute to taste loss. Correcting the correctable conditions restores taste. One problem, often overlooked, is dry mouth. Saliva carries food chemicals that stimulate the taste buds. Without saliva, taste is diminished. Many things, including Sjogren's syndrome, bring on mouth dryness, and countering a dry mouth can perk up taste. Changing the way you eat also helps. Take a sip of water after each mouthful to carry food chemicals to the taste buds. Alternate foods with each bite. Your meals should include foods with a wide variety of textures to stimulate taste sensations. Liberally using flavorings you aren't accustomed to — spices, lemon juice, vinegar, pepper, curry, chili powder — helps taste sensation. The greater the range of flavors in a meal, the greater are the chances of your taste buds wakening up to those flavors.

Scottius Maximus- Hey, Donohue, I just said smell is an important component of taste. Try to keep up, will ya? And thanks for the physiology lesson, but this dude doesn't care about that, or your little Rachel Ray impersonation with the cooking lecture there. So you think it's better to drool all over yourself than to have no taste? Says who?

Look, mister, bottom line is this- you're screwed. My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

Dear Dr. Donohue: I'm scheduled for knee-replacement surgery. I don't fear the surgery, but I fear needing a blood transfusion because of AIDS. My surgeon says this is needless fear. I'd like to hear that from you. Can I?


Dr. Donohue's reply: Sure, you can. It's needless fear. Prior to 1985, blood transfusions were a risk for transmitting AIDS. With a reliable AIDS test and with checking every unit of donated blood using that test, the risk for transfusion-acquired AIDS is very small. It can happen if an infected donor happens to be in the period between infection with the virus and the date when the blood test becomes positive. That period is only about 22 days. The probability that an infected person volunteers to donate blood within three weeks of infection is close to zero. Plus, knee-replacement surgery almost never calls for a transfusion.


Scottius Maximus- Hey doc, that's just flat out wrong. Listen, toots, with all due respect, I'm afraid that guy you're seeing may be a hack if he told you that. You got reason to be scared. People get AIDS from blood transfusions. They do. It's a fact. Notice Donohue doesn't say the probability is zero. Because it isn't. And with your luck, it'll probably be you that gets it.

You say you don't fear the surgery. Why the heck not? Do you know how many people die each year after knee replacements? Around one out of a hundred. So if your surgeon has done almost a hundred and no one has died yet this year at his hands, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, get on that table.

That doesn't even get in to the complications. Your leg's major arteries are just centimeters away from a power saw and other industrial hardware. And don't get me started on infections. The sight of teeming pools of bacteria oozing out amongst the pus of an infected wound can even cause a heart attack.

Also, how old are you? You do realize this knee won't last forever, right? Because the way you tore up the one God gave you makes me think you'll treat this one like crap also. I give it ten years tops. So if you're over 75, it might be a good move. But if you're younger, you'll probably end up a cripple later in life. You'd be better off seeing a witch doctor.


Well, that's all we have time for this episode. Here's to your health.



*For the dummies out there, this isn't real.


Weekend Reading Assignment

2 Samuel 20, 21 and 22. John 14 and 15.

Friday's Reading

2 Samuel 18 and 19. John 13.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

The States Of My Mind

I found myself looking at a map of the United States, and I thought, I can do better than this.

Whoever drew this thing up was either drunk or crazy or both.

Several thoughts came to my mind.


1) Why doesn't Wisconsin invade the upper peninsula of Michigan and annex it? That's a no-brainer. I've never understood why that piece of land belongs to Michigan.

2) Just like East and West Germany reunited, as did North and South Vietnam, how long until North Dakota and South Dakota are joined back together? It just ain't natural.

3) Same goes for the Carolinas and Virginias.

4) Once the Dakotas are rejoined, talks could be initiated with neighboring Minnesota to create the Midwestern superpower of Dakota-sota.

5) We should offer to trade Hawaii to Canada for British Columbia. It's every bit as gorgeous and would make all 50 states contiguous.

6) All of Illinois south of I-74 should secede from the state and join Missouri. That's a win-win situation in that southern tax dollars won't feel like they're being wasted in the sinkhole of Chicago, and the capital of Illinois can "officially" be named Chicago, which it unofficially has been for years. Illinois could then invade Indiana to stake a claim on it, creating the great state of Illianoisa.

8) The names of the states of California and New Mexico would be swapped. The New could then be dropped from New Mexico, creating the state of Mexico, which in reality already exists, except in name.

9) The people in Utah should declare war on Wyoming for that little piece of land in southwestern Wyoming which, if owned by Utah, would make Utah a nice rectangular shape.

10) Likewise, Alabama should take over the Florida panhandle, Oklahoma the Texas panhandle, and Missisippi should drive out eastern Louisiana to the Gulf Coast.

11) Vermont and New Hampshire should unite to become Vermonshire.

12) Likewise, Rhode Island and Connecticut will combine forces by uniting to form Rhodecticut, and declare war on Massachusetts for control of the cape.


So, after all of this, here is what I think the U.S. SHOULD look like:



Then we rename the whole thing after me. Enough of Amerigo what's his name. It's now-

THE UNITED STATES OF SCOTTIUS MAXIMUS.

Thursday Readings

2 Samuel 15, 16 and 17. John 12.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Wednesday Readings

2 Samuel 13 and 14. John 11.

And, only 8 months 'til Christmas. If you haven't started shopping yet, don't blame me if you start feeling pressure.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Monday, April 23, 2007

The Inner Workings Of My Mind

I cast some seed and planted some vegetables the last two days. And all I could think of was this...

Gilligan's Island- Episode 71- "Pass The Vegetables Please."



You know, the one where Gilligan finds the crate of radioactive vegetable seeds. He plants his garden, and the vegetables spring forth almost as soon as they are planted and watered.

Which has left me mighty disappointed that after one day, I'm still vegetabless. I suppose next I'll be told I won't have super-powers after eating them.

Reading For Monday

2 Samuel 8 and 9. John 9.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Reading For This Weekend

1 Samuel 4, 5, 6 and 7. John 8.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Friday's Reading

2 Samuel 1,2 and 3. John 7.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Thursday's Reading

1 Samuel 29, 30 and 31. John 6.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Wednesday Reading

1 Samuel 26, 27 and 28. John 5.

By the way, I have always thought we should rename 1 Samuel to 1 David.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

YEAH, BABY!!!

Here's something I've been trying to learn you folks for a long time.




Here's to you, World Mag Blog!

Tuesday's Reading

1 Samuel 23, 24 and 25. John 4.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Monday's Reading

1 Samuel 20, 21 and 22. John 3.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Secret Mission


Stop by Lutheran Lucy today and ask her how old she is. But don't say anything about me. I don't want her to know I put you up to it.
Hey, this is fun. I feel like Lance Link and Jonny Quest all rolled into one.

Friday's Reading

1 Samuel 13, 14 and 15. John 1.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Thursday Readings

1 Samuel 10, 11 and 12. Luke 24:36-53.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Greatest Theme Song In History

On DISH Network right now they have Boomerang on a free preview channel.

I've missed seeing the old Looney Tunes and classic cartoons.

But the single greatest cartoon, with the single greatest theme song in the history of TV, lurks every night at 1:30 a.m. Central Daylight Savings time.

Sorry about the Spanish over-dub, but it's the only one I found on You Tube.

That eyeball thing with the daddy long legs in the opening is the single creepiest weapon known to cartoon-dom. In the episode, number 8, I remember it also had tentacles that came out of it with little suckers on the end, which would leave marks on its victims. But possibly even worse was the episode with the invisible monster thing, number 20, that kept killing everybody.

Did you ever get the feeling Dr. Zin is giving bin Laden his marching orders? If we could just unleash Race Bannon on the Middle East, Osama would be dead, Iran would be a free country, and Israel would live in peace with it's neighbors.

Wednesday Readings

1 Samuel 7, 8 and 9. Luke 24:1-35.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Reading Assignments

Monday- 1 Samuel 1, 2 and 3. Luke 23:1-25.

Tuesday- 1 Samuel 4, 5 and 6. Luke 23:26-56.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Some Post-Easter Wrap Up Thoughts

I stood at the center aisle entrance to the sanctuary yesterday as the procession and choirs slowly entered at the start of the service. The ushers are supposed to count the people as they enter the sanctuary. Well, they went by kind of fast, making it more difficult to remain accurate. So I suggested we yell out to the pastors, who by then were making their way to the altar, for a "do-over."



Can this really be done? I say yes, because the lights were still dimmed. On Good Friday, the lights go down at the end of the service and stay down until Easter morning when the cross is uncovered. So as long as the lights are still off, I think this could have been pulled off without a lot of commotion.



While the lights in the sanctuary were out, I found several wives and husbands struggling in the dark to find where their significant other was seated. Which caused me to think that, sometime in the history of the church, somebody has sat down next to the wrong person, thinking in the dark that it was their spouse. Thankfully, there were no screams at our church when the lights flew on.



And, thanks to DanatNR, Lutheranism now has a new name. Remember the George Gobel post last week? Well, Lutherans are from now on to be known as Evangelical Reformed Catholic Orthodox Lutheran- Properly Defined. Or simply, ERCOL.



From now on, when somebody asks your religion, just say...




"I'm ERCOL!"

Friday, April 06, 2007

Weekend Reading

Friday- Judges 18 and 19. Luke 21.

Weekend- Judges 20 and 21. Ruth. Luke 22.

But I Really Do Feel Bad For The Guy!

I just had to post this because it is hilarious.

From Jim Rome:
"Despite uncorking perhaps the worst opening pitch in the history of baseball, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory says he wants another shot.


Are you sure, Mayor? I mean, have you seen this tape? As bad as it must have felt, it looked ten times worse. I appreciate you having the stones to get back on that horse, but you might want to quit while you’re behind. You didn’t even get up on the bump: you went to the edge of the grass and still fired it towards the first base dugout. And hit an umpire!

The ‘Nati’ is a proud baseball town; you don’t want to subject them to any more ridicule nationally than you already have. Besides, you need to think about your career. When you come up for reelection, you just know your opponent is going to run TV spots, with that atrocity and the tag line, if this man can’t throw a baseball 60 feet 6 inches, do you really want him running your city? Never mind 60 feet 6 inches, he only had to get about 50 and barely kept in the stadium. Just wear it, my man, keep moving and hope that people get sick of watching it on YouTube and move on to something else. Don’t get me wrong, no one wants to see ball 2 as much as I do, but for your political future, you need to shut it down."

I just love Eric Davis "what the..." look on his face.

Well. brace yourselves, kiddies, because we now have been treated to ball 2! On Jimmy Kimmel Live.


Why did he do this? What did he have to gain by this humiliation? I mean, anybody can pull a Mitch Williams once in a lifetime. But to do it twice?

Look, you're not good at throwing. We get that. Even Stuart Smalley gets it. Just leave it at that. It's not the most important thing in the world. In fact, most people don't even care if their mayor can throw strikes. It's a pretty worthless talent at this point in your life. You should have just left it at that. Now it just looks pathetic.

Actually, the guy has been a good sport about it all. Here's the interview portion of the show:

Thursday, April 05, 2007

George Gobel Must Have Been Lutheran


"After following Bob Hope and Dean Martin on The Tonight Show, Gobel famously quipped to Johnny Carson, 'Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?'" - George Gobel (quoted from Wikipedia).


If you are a Lutheran, did you ever get that feeling from being Lutheran? You naturally don't feel comfortable being lumped together with Roman Catholics. And you really don't like it when people consider you a Protestant, either.


I was taking a survey, and the following question came up:


"What best describes your religion?
-Roman Catholic
-Culturally Jewish Only
-Protestant
-Muslim
-Orthodox Christian
-Hindu
-Other, Christian
-Buddhist
-Orthodox Jewish
-Secular, no religion
-Conservative Jewish
-No religion but spiritual
-Reform Jewish
-Other"


I ended up putting Other, Christian. What should I have picked?


All the really great words are already taken, like catholic and orthodox. So we're stuck being named after a person. That ain't right, is it? I think we were the original evangelicals, although that name has been usurped also and now has a negative connotation.


How about we declare ourselves Orthodox Catholic?


Can someone please come up with a name that fits?

Thursday's Top 10


With apologies to the great David Letterman...


Top 10 Reasons The St. Louis Cardinals Have Started The Season 0-3:


10. Providing fodder for stale Scottius Maximus posts.


9. Worrying about unusual freezing temperatures killing spring flower buds.


8. Too busy calling American Idol multiple times to vote for Sanjaya.


7. Can only play well in October.




5. Distracted by Anna Nicole news.


4. Missing Ronnie Belliard.


3. Tired of the whole "World Champions" thing- want to be known once again as the "Slanidracs".


2. Inexplicable idolizing of the 1998 defending champions, the Florida Marlins.


1. Gave up winning for Lent.

Thursday's Reading

Judges 15, 16 and 17. Luke 20:27-47.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Wednesday Reading

Judges 12, 13 and 14. Luke 20:1-26.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Reading Assignments

Monday- Judges 8 and 9. Luke 19:1-27.

Tuesday- Judges 10 and 11. Luke 19:28-48.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Deja Vu All Over Again?

Yogi was right again.


"Haven't we been here before?"

Florida vs. Ohio State for the national championship.

In other college BB news, Chris Lowery just signed a seven year contract at SIU. Which is great news. He's been a great coach. SIU is paying him market value. I'm so glad he didn't look at moving to the Big Ten as a "step up." The MVC was much better than the over-rated Big Ten this year, as it has been many years.