So, they have reached a new plateau of lame inventions:
The USB Toaster.
Plug it into your computer and you can put that picture of your dead Aunt Mary's left shoulder blade you've been saving right on your toast and eat it.
As cool as this thing is, I think everyone who actually spends whatever ridiculous price they charge for this item should be forced to spend an equal amount to a charity, just from sheer waste of money.
There are so many things that I feel guilty spending money on because I don't feel they're valuable - like textbooks - and I feel like so much of my life requires money. And I'm not talking about things of sentimental value, like flowers, because that's a great investment. If you at any point spend money for the good of someone else, like flowers, then that's amazing because it means you value that person's feelings more than money.
At the same time, however, money should be valued as a means of meeting basic needs for yourself and others. Keep in mind that money itself is not a need, it is merely a way of attaining needs. This was an idea invented by people so everyone could have different jobs and still eat.
Now we have rich people buying psychic toasters and poor people eating rice 3 times a week if they're lucky.
I'd much rather be the guy who first and foremost provided for his family, then helped provide for someone else and still sacrificed enough to buy his wife flowers.
I wouldn't even be able to eat a piece of toast with a picture on it, anyways.
Especially not if it was like a bunny or a baby or something.
Hmm, okay also because none of you read the little sidebar thing, I'm just going to start posting the joke of the week and the random link of the week and stuff as individual blogs...
Starting after I finish that major paper... heheheh.
11.28.2008
Word Count
I'm curious: how many times have I ever spoken the word 'the?'
I'll bet it's tons of times more than obscure words like marmalade and insubordination, and more similar to other articles ('a' and 'an') or conjunctions and super common colloquialisms like 'and' and 'so' and 'like' and 'really.'
I mean, I probably speak multiple thousands of words a day, and articles and conjunctions plus pronouns and names are the vast majority of the words.
Now, think about this.
The English language, the largest language by vocabulary that has EVER existed, has over 1 million words, not including different conjugations of the words.
The average high school grad has an active vocabulary of 15,000 words. 30,000 is recommended to get a good score on the SAT, and most college/grad students have near 40-60,000.
The estimated variety of language in Shakespeare indicates that he knew and used 18-25,000 different words in his collected works. Now, he wrote some amazing stuff, with some words that make absolutely no sense to me. His writing speaks of a depth of knowledge of the use of the English language, and he uses some very creative verbs in unique ways, and I generally find that he uses words that I do not see every day, and were probably similarly uncommon in his time. He was actually the first person to write a serious work of literature in English, which was considered the lower class language of the time compared to Latin and French, the languages of the court and the nobility.
Now, my question is this:
Why does modern art and literature and poetry SUCK in terms of literary creativity!
I'm not talking about coming up interesting things to say, I'm talking about using creative ways to say them.
I mean, seriously, when was the last time you heard a song or a poem that wasn't about a woman who left you or gazing at the sky or crying tears of joy or sorrow or whatever?
You could probably come up with a list of 500 words that if they were removed from the English language, we wouldn't be able to communicate at all, especially songwriters!!
Although that might be nice, because then maybe Bono would stop talking.
Among them, boring, too-many-meanings verbs like : set, have, do, and go.
A language with a MILLION WORDS ought to provide us with a better way to express what we want to communicate than the 3-6% that we actually use.
Maybe that's why no one understands anybody else; we learn a certain amount of words and then stop learning how to communicate.
I'll bet it's tons of times more than obscure words like marmalade and insubordination, and more similar to other articles ('a' and 'an') or conjunctions and super common colloquialisms like 'and' and 'so' and 'like' and 'really.'
I mean, I probably speak multiple thousands of words a day, and articles and conjunctions plus pronouns and names are the vast majority of the words.
Now, think about this.
The English language, the largest language by vocabulary that has EVER existed, has over 1 million words, not including different conjugations of the words.
The average high school grad has an active vocabulary of 15,000 words. 30,000 is recommended to get a good score on the SAT, and most college/grad students have near 40-60,000.
The estimated variety of language in Shakespeare indicates that he knew and used 18-25,000 different words in his collected works. Now, he wrote some amazing stuff, with some words that make absolutely no sense to me. His writing speaks of a depth of knowledge of the use of the English language, and he uses some very creative verbs in unique ways, and I generally find that he uses words that I do not see every day, and were probably similarly uncommon in his time. He was actually the first person to write a serious work of literature in English, which was considered the lower class language of the time compared to Latin and French, the languages of the court and the nobility.
Now, my question is this:
Why does modern art and literature and poetry SUCK in terms of literary creativity!
I'm not talking about coming up interesting things to say, I'm talking about using creative ways to say them.
I mean, seriously, when was the last time you heard a song or a poem that wasn't about a woman who left you or gazing at the sky or crying tears of joy or sorrow or whatever?
You could probably come up with a list of 500 words that if they were removed from the English language, we wouldn't be able to communicate at all, especially songwriters!!
Although that might be nice, because then maybe Bono would stop talking.
Among them, boring, too-many-meanings verbs like : set, have, do, and go.
A language with a MILLION WORDS ought to provide us with a better way to express what we want to communicate than the 3-6% that we actually use.
Maybe that's why no one understands anybody else; we learn a certain amount of words and then stop learning how to communicate.
11.19.2008
Catholic
So, I had a conference with a Roman Catholic speaker yesterday. He spoke on the Christian intellectual tradition.
For the record, I don't typically approve of Catholicism - partially because it screams of legalism to my angsty teenage mind, and partially because they put so much faith in their traditions and their strict lifestyles and so little emphasis on their passions.
I don't dislike Catholics, but I certainly feel like they are incredibly guilty of being hereditary Christians instead of choosing the faith intentionally. Obviously, there is some of this in evangelical and Protestant Christianity, as well, but it seems like the majority rather than the exception in Catholicism. Maybe this is just my perception instead of my knowledge.
Anyways, that's not the point.
I didn't agree with all that he said, but he responded to a question that I had in a very enlightened way.
All of you Jesus freaks who read this know that atheists and evolutionists and all of our non-Christian friends love to say that we don't have an objective point of view on science because we always look at stuff through our God perspective, so we can't ever say anything about science because we're biased.
I asked him whether or not our scientific approach was valid, that Christians can approach science from our point of view and still say something.
He responded by saying that while it is impossible to be truly objective, and that especially the atheists are not objective, the Christians were the ones who came up with the idea of objective point of view, and the ideals of science in the first place. People with faith in God are the only ones who can believe that the rules of the universe are consistent and unchanging, because God must have designed them that way. God is the only one who can break those rules, because He is all-powerful.
That makes so much sense to me. I think I'd heard it all before in separate parts, but hearing it all together so succinctly was just nice.
I know this post is really philosophical and up in the sky, but it's important to me to know this stuff.
I'll just rant on the wrongs of Catholicism later.
For the record, I don't typically approve of Catholicism - partially because it screams of legalism to my angsty teenage mind, and partially because they put so much faith in their traditions and their strict lifestyles and so little emphasis on their passions.
I don't dislike Catholics, but I certainly feel like they are incredibly guilty of being hereditary Christians instead of choosing the faith intentionally. Obviously, there is some of this in evangelical and Protestant Christianity, as well, but it seems like the majority rather than the exception in Catholicism. Maybe this is just my perception instead of my knowledge.
Anyways, that's not the point.
I didn't agree with all that he said, but he responded to a question that I had in a very enlightened way.
All of you Jesus freaks who read this know that atheists and evolutionists and all of our non-Christian friends love to say that we don't have an objective point of view on science because we always look at stuff through our God perspective, so we can't ever say anything about science because we're biased.
I asked him whether or not our scientific approach was valid, that Christians can approach science from our point of view and still say something.
He responded by saying that while it is impossible to be truly objective, and that especially the atheists are not objective, the Christians were the ones who came up with the idea of objective point of view, and the ideals of science in the first place. People with faith in God are the only ones who can believe that the rules of the universe are consistent and unchanging, because God must have designed them that way. God is the only one who can break those rules, because He is all-powerful.
That makes so much sense to me. I think I'd heard it all before in separate parts, but hearing it all together so succinctly was just nice.
I know this post is really philosophical and up in the sky, but it's important to me to know this stuff.
I'll just rant on the wrongs of Catholicism later.
11.16.2008
He is Mighty to Save
So, I was taken out to a concert on a date with my lovely girlfriend Kristen and some friends (Evan and Shantelle) Jeremy Camp and Jeff Johnson.
Jeff Johnson I had a lot of respect for as a fellow worship leader (not that I do that too much any more) and Jeremy Camp most Christians under the age of 30 in America know about.
Something happened while listening to Jeff Johnson that has not happened in a while: I enjoyed Mighty to Save.
You know the song. Everyone knows the song now. People can't stop playing it, which I don't mind, it's a fabulous song.
But I've stopped enjoying it.
People don't understand that song when they play it, and they BUTCHER the way the song is meant to be built up and emphasized. I've heard it played at my church back home in Dallas, and they play it the same way Hillsong does: They play the "shine your light and let the whole world sing" part like 4 million times, at maximum volume and strength.
Now, you can disagree with me, but I completely think that is the least important part of the song. They don't understand that all the choruses (or chori, whatever) are meant to be quiet and built up, like the verses, and then the bridge is supposed to be the SHORT interlude where it builds up momentum to the final chorus and we declare that He is Mighty to Save!
It's such an exciting song, and people recognize that, but they waste the emphasis on building up from a quiet start. Plus they play it way too fast.
Jeff Johnson was amazing at building and working through the song and he had some great stuff to say about it and it was powerful.
I kind of wish we had a bigger vocabulary of standard, everyone-knows-them-and-loves-them worship songs so people could just use them at the right moment and we'd have enough songs that one would always perfectly fit the mood.
This was like the second time that song has actually been at the right moment for me.
Also, Jeremy Camp is an amazing worship leader, which I totally did not expect. I hate his voice on the albums but he is powerful to hear.
Jeff Johnson I had a lot of respect for as a fellow worship leader (not that I do that too much any more) and Jeremy Camp most Christians under the age of 30 in America know about.
Something happened while listening to Jeff Johnson that has not happened in a while: I enjoyed Mighty to Save.
You know the song. Everyone knows the song now. People can't stop playing it, which I don't mind, it's a fabulous song.
But I've stopped enjoying it.
People don't understand that song when they play it, and they BUTCHER the way the song is meant to be built up and emphasized. I've heard it played at my church back home in Dallas, and they play it the same way Hillsong does: They play the "shine your light and let the whole world sing" part like 4 million times, at maximum volume and strength.
Now, you can disagree with me, but I completely think that is the least important part of the song. They don't understand that all the choruses (or chori, whatever) are meant to be quiet and built up, like the verses, and then the bridge is supposed to be the SHORT interlude where it builds up momentum to the final chorus and we declare that He is Mighty to Save!
It's such an exciting song, and people recognize that, but they waste the emphasis on building up from a quiet start. Plus they play it way too fast.
Jeff Johnson was amazing at building and working through the song and he had some great stuff to say about it and it was powerful.
I kind of wish we had a bigger vocabulary of standard, everyone-knows-them-and-loves-them worship songs so people could just use them at the right moment and we'd have enough songs that one would always perfectly fit the mood.
This was like the second time that song has actually been at the right moment for me.
Also, Jeremy Camp is an amazing worship leader, which I totally did not expect. I hate his voice on the albums but he is powerful to hear.
11.15.2008
I Am the Field of Wheat
My passions are so easily swayed.
I love so many things, as weird as that sounds.
I love guitar, I love bass guitar, I love piano, and lots of other instruments that I don't really play.
I love pencil sketching, it's my favorite type of art even though I'm terrible at it.
I love philosophy and theology and psychology and how they interrelate.
I love sports! I just never play as much as I want to. Volleyball, tennis, frisbee, and baseball are my favorites, not in that order.
I love big complicated math problems because when you solve them, it's just so satisfying.
I love dancing of all kinds, except the one where you hump the air, and I'm not so good at them, except the one where you hump the air, cuz that's easy.
I love building things, and arts and crafts projects.
I love writing stories and letters to friends.
I love foreign languages.
And no, as your 3rd grade Sunday school teacher will tell you, this isn't romantic love or agape love or Jesus and me love, it's "like," but I think it's passionate. I pursue these things.
I've just noticed a lot lately that whenever I see someone doing something that takes practice and is fun to do when you're good at it, I want to do it and get good at it.
Tonight it was the comical performing, I want to make something cool like that. A couple of weeks ago I had all these aspirations of amazing halloween costumes.
I just think there are so many cool things to do and I have the problem of trying to run in all the directions at once and I accomplish very little. But, at the same time, I do accomplish things, because while I'm excited about learning something, it's pretty much the only thing I think about, and I practice for hours.
I don't want to tie myself down and say I'm a guitar person or a tennis person, because I want to dabble in everything. I do admire those who find their one huge passion and get incredibly good at it. I just happen to be incredibly above average at a lot of things instead.
I enjoy it.
Don't get me wrong though, there are a few things which I never get distracted from.
I love so many things, as weird as that sounds.
I love guitar, I love bass guitar, I love piano, and lots of other instruments that I don't really play.
I love pencil sketching, it's my favorite type of art even though I'm terrible at it.
I love philosophy and theology and psychology and how they interrelate.
I love sports! I just never play as much as I want to. Volleyball, tennis, frisbee, and baseball are my favorites, not in that order.
I love big complicated math problems because when you solve them, it's just so satisfying.
I love dancing of all kinds, except the one where you hump the air, and I'm not so good at them, except the one where you hump the air, cuz that's easy.
I love building things, and arts and crafts projects.
I love writing stories and letters to friends.
I love foreign languages.
And no, as your 3rd grade Sunday school teacher will tell you, this isn't romantic love or agape love or Jesus and me love, it's "like," but I think it's passionate. I pursue these things.
I've just noticed a lot lately that whenever I see someone doing something that takes practice and is fun to do when you're good at it, I want to do it and get good at it.
Tonight it was the comical performing, I want to make something cool like that. A couple of weeks ago I had all these aspirations of amazing halloween costumes.
I just think there are so many cool things to do and I have the problem of trying to run in all the directions at once and I accomplish very little. But, at the same time, I do accomplish things, because while I'm excited about learning something, it's pretty much the only thing I think about, and I practice for hours.
I don't want to tie myself down and say I'm a guitar person or a tennis person, because I want to dabble in everything. I do admire those who find their one huge passion and get incredibly good at it. I just happen to be incredibly above average at a lot of things instead.
I enjoy it.
Don't get me wrong though, there are a few things which I never get distracted from.
11.13.2008
Now Speaking...
So, I love foreign languages.
It was actually my fourth passion, after guitarz, women, and God, in varying orders since high school.
One of the most interesting things about languages to me is that we think in terms of language, at least a large part of the time.
Do I think of the image of coffee when I smell coffee, or do I think, "Mmmm... coffee!"?
Part of that depends on our brain dispositions. The whole left brain/right brain and all that jazz.
But, to a certain extent, many of the deeper thoughts of human emotion and insight are quite impossible without words to express and represent our thoughts.
To that extent, our vocabulary is the limit of our universe.
Can you think of an image of something which you don't have a name for?
You might be able to, after some serious thought, but for the most part we have to label everything we interpret with our senses with a word.
So, in that sense, it creates a large barrier between us and those who speak a different language naturally, because their language focuses on different words and different patterns of thought.
For instance, Americans tend to be more direct and straight-forward in our language. We say things like "Let's go to the movies!" or "Please give me a soda." In an imperative sentence, a command, we assert that we have the right to ask something of someone else. Our language speaks a lot about our culture.
Now, I speak a very slight amount of Japanese. This is a very interesting language to me because it comes from a very old, very different culture. The Japanese, in case you didn't know, are very polite, with the exception of the current generation which is becoming very Americanized.
VERY polite.
They love their personal space and go to great lengths to respect others, even if it's only a matter of formality, because the culture dictates that they do so. The Chinese are fairly similar.
But this appears in Japanese language, as well.
If you asked someone, "Hey, let's go to the movies" in Japan, they might sarcastically reply, "Oh and do you want me to kill all of your enemies and rub your feet while I'm at it?!"
Well, okay, they probably wouldn't.
But they use the passive voice as a much more direct device than we do, which as many of you know is a serious NO-NO in English writing.
They would say, "Would it be nice to be attended at the movies this Friday?" or, "It would be wonderful if I were given a soda by you."
Sounds, weird, right?
But it's funny how little such language and cultural barriers affect personalities as a whole.
In every land and every tongue there are still cruel- and kind-hearted people, generous and stingy, hasty and patient.
It seems that language is more of a tool of our natures than what defines it.
Culture is just a shell.
Foreign languages are awesome, though. Especially if you learn romantic phrases to make your girlfriend smile.
It was actually my fourth passion, after guitarz, women, and God, in varying orders since high school.
One of the most interesting things about languages to me is that we think in terms of language, at least a large part of the time.
Do I think of the image of coffee when I smell coffee, or do I think, "Mmmm... coffee!"?
Part of that depends on our brain dispositions. The whole left brain/right brain and all that jazz.
But, to a certain extent, many of the deeper thoughts of human emotion and insight are quite impossible without words to express and represent our thoughts.
To that extent, our vocabulary is the limit of our universe.
Can you think of an image of something which you don't have a name for?
You might be able to, after some serious thought, but for the most part we have to label everything we interpret with our senses with a word.
So, in that sense, it creates a large barrier between us and those who speak a different language naturally, because their language focuses on different words and different patterns of thought.
For instance, Americans tend to be more direct and straight-forward in our language. We say things like "Let's go to the movies!" or "Please give me a soda." In an imperative sentence, a command, we assert that we have the right to ask something of someone else. Our language speaks a lot about our culture.
Now, I speak a very slight amount of Japanese. This is a very interesting language to me because it comes from a very old, very different culture. The Japanese, in case you didn't know, are very polite, with the exception of the current generation which is becoming very Americanized.
VERY polite.
They love their personal space and go to great lengths to respect others, even if it's only a matter of formality, because the culture dictates that they do so. The Chinese are fairly similar.
But this appears in Japanese language, as well.
If you asked someone, "Hey, let's go to the movies" in Japan, they might sarcastically reply, "Oh and do you want me to kill all of your enemies and rub your feet while I'm at it?!"
Well, okay, they probably wouldn't.
But they use the passive voice as a much more direct device than we do, which as many of you know is a serious NO-NO in English writing.
They would say, "Would it be nice to be attended at the movies this Friday?" or, "It would be wonderful if I were given a soda by you."
Sounds, weird, right?
But it's funny how little such language and cultural barriers affect personalities as a whole.
In every land and every tongue there are still cruel- and kind-hearted people, generous and stingy, hasty and patient.
It seems that language is more of a tool of our natures than what defines it.
Culture is just a shell.
Foreign languages are awesome, though. Especially if you learn romantic phrases to make your girlfriend smile.
11.12.2008
I never thought I'd say it... but I miss community college.
Okay, after the ridiculous process of trying to register for classes, I have officially decided upon some of the downsides of small, private universities.
I spent 30 minutes clicking 'refresh' for the log-in page of the school's intranet server to try and register for a class which had 1 spot remaining only to find that they had mislabeled the prerequisite courses for it and I couldn't sign up for it. Ironically, after an hour, that one spot is still open.
The other courses I could possibly have taken this semester are either already full or I don't meet the prerequisites for them, either. Meaning that I am taking a MAXIMUM of 14 hours next semester unless I do some serious griping at the office, which I may have to do.
The thing is, I miss how easy this process was at every other school I ever went to.
In high school, I could usually beg my way into most classes which were full.
High school was full of people who were driven about their grades, so anyone who wanted to get into a certain pre-AP or AP class could.
A&M had 13 sections of the same class and each class had a capacity of 400.
A&M was just full of people.
Community college gave you a bunch of smaller options and you could usually even get into a class that was full because someone would probably drop it before or during the semester and the spot would be open.
Community college was full of people who didn't care about school.
And now, at my humble little private university, which I love so much (no sarcasm, actually) I can't get into many of the classes that I want because they're all really good classes and people are excited about taking them so they probably won't drop.
Christian college is full of driven people but it's bigger than high school so I can't beg my way in.
Why can't the people at my school be more apathetic!! I wanna take Revelation book study!!!!
I could totally rant about how people, in their selfishness, want other people to be less successful so that they can have all the success... but I won't. Imagine I did, and praise me for my wisdom and insight, would you?
I spent 30 minutes clicking 'refresh' for the log-in page of the school's intranet server to try and register for a class which had 1 spot remaining only to find that they had mislabeled the prerequisite courses for it and I couldn't sign up for it. Ironically, after an hour, that one spot is still open.
The other courses I could possibly have taken this semester are either already full or I don't meet the prerequisites for them, either. Meaning that I am taking a MAXIMUM of 14 hours next semester unless I do some serious griping at the office, which I may have to do.
The thing is, I miss how easy this process was at every other school I ever went to.
In high school, I could usually beg my way into most classes which were full.
High school was full of people who were driven about their grades, so anyone who wanted to get into a certain pre-AP or AP class could.
A&M had 13 sections of the same class and each class had a capacity of 400.
A&M was just full of people.
Community college gave you a bunch of smaller options and you could usually even get into a class that was full because someone would probably drop it before or during the semester and the spot would be open.
Community college was full of people who didn't care about school.
And now, at my humble little private university, which I love so much (no sarcasm, actually) I can't get into many of the classes that I want because they're all really good classes and people are excited about taking them so they probably won't drop.
Christian college is full of driven people but it's bigger than high school so I can't beg my way in.
Why can't the people at my school be more apathetic!! I wanna take Revelation book study!!!!
I could totally rant about how people, in their selfishness, want other people to be less successful so that they can have all the success... but I won't. Imagine I did, and praise me for my wisdom and insight, would you?
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