FrankL

It's always fun to freak out the students with pop culture references you're too old to know.

I do that with the youth group whenever possible.

Maybe she had multiple personalities, and he was hoping the other one might be better.

That would have been a much better reason than "I haven't had a second date in a while. She's attracted to me. Why not?"

I once dated a woman who was so evil, I thought she wa the Antichrist. But it turns out she wasn't quite that bad. The numbers in her forehead only read 665.

Was she from Oklahoma, by chance. Sounds like a girl I took out on two dates.

Now we just need to know who is in the iron mask.

What did everyone think about the Flash/DS9 crossover this week? The Speed Force had similar surrealistic lighting as Sisko's orb experiences. The force appeared as old friends and family while giving cryptic advice (though the SF was more helpful than the prophets). Barry's Mom was part of the Speed Force (for the duration of the Force experience) just like Sisko's mother was a prophet.

The "Why do you exist here?" conversation which led to Sisko starting to accept his wife's death and become the Emissary was replaced with a simple "Barry, you need to accept your mother's death and be the Flash we mean you to be."

At least the Speed Force understood linear time.

KFC chicken-flavored nail polish

There are days I think we've hit peak stupidity. Then I read about that and realize we ain't anywhere near the summit.

Gravy on chips (French Fries) is an abomination. But as today is mother's birthday I got chips with gravy at lunch as she likes it. She had three bunches of flowers, books, chocolates and lots of cards.

White, cream gravy? I like that with fries! Now, chicken or beef gravy? Ug.

How about some heartwarming news?

Judge sentences fellow veteran to 24 hours in jail. Then joins him in the cell to talk about turning his life around.

    Mostly, from five in the afternoon on April 13 until 6:30 a.m. the next day, the judge and the veteran talked about their respective military service, Serna's post-traumatic stress disorder from three tours of duty in Afghanistan and how the inmate could turn around his downward spiral that had resulted in a driving-while-impaired charge and other serious traffic offenses. […]

    "We talked for hours about our families and our military service," Olivera says. "Our dreams for us and our families, and the road to take us there."

The judge wanted to help Serna climb out of the hole:

    "I thought about a story that I once read," Olivera says. "It talked about a soldier with PTSD in a hole," he says. "A family member, a therapist and a friend all throw down a rope to help the veteran suffering. Finally, a fellow veteran climbs into the hole with him.

    "The soldier suffering with PTSD asks, 'Why are you down here?' The fellow veteran replied, 'I am here to climb out with you.'

And I have a ticket to see them!!!

Just what this thread needs: more cowbell. 

What does it mean if holy water sizzles when it hits your skin?

Asking for a friend...

My daughter is a delegate at today's district caucuses. It's about 4PM when I have my son text her about when they'll be home (it's my job to have dinner ready). Her response:

 

KILL ME NOW

 

I PRAY FOR THE SWEET RELEASE OF DEATH

 

WE'RE GOING TO BE HERE FOREVER

Nice to see that district caucuses haven't changed in 24 years.

 

Also nice to see that my daughter has *no* future as a politician.

 

The Iowa republican caucus this year was rather painless and well scheduled.

OTOH, I know people who went to the D caucus and reported the above.

In the Royal Rangers outpost I lead, one of the patrols has three brothers, two are twins (they have a fourth brother in another age group and two sisters). The brothers in Discovery Rangers are sized at wee, large, and extra-large. I always assumed that large and extra large were the twins. No. I found out that wee and extra large are the twins.

 

I tease Texas, but they do Sarcasm well

 

My grandmother was born in Texas (moved to Oklahoma). One day I realized that when she said, "Bless his heart," she often meant, "He's too stupid to live."

Me to wife last night: [Our 8yo] and I had to have the racism talk tonight.

Wife: Because of the Little House episode? ["Dark Sage," Dr. Baker brings a new doctor to town who is black.]

Me: Yeah. He asked me a very pointed question. "Why did that man hate Dr. Ledoux more than he loves his wife?" [A farmer's wife went into premature labor while Doc Baker was away. Dr. Ledoux had to perform an emergency C-Section but the farmer was dead set that "no _______" will touch his wife. Charles punched him. Dr. Ledoux saved their lives.]

Wife's [eyes got big from the question he asked]: So you explained it?

Me: Yeah, and you realize exactly how stupid and ridiculous racism is when you try to put it in terms an 8yo will understand.

Well, I recall a Superboy comic where it turned him into a super PITA and a Superman where it gave him an Achilles Heel. The RK made his right heel vulnerable and any boot he put on also became penetrable. In another he got amnesia after RK exposure.

I always liked the old comics where red K affected the Kryptonian differently each exposure, but that's just me.

No one's mentioned Poul Anderson's The High Crusade yet. A ship full of aliens tries to take over a medieval town, the local Lord and the townsfolk assume they aliens are some sort of demons and attack in a religious frenzy. Turns out the aliens' force fields don't work so good against wood arrows and metal swords, and they haven't actually done any hand-to-hand fighting in generations. They wind up taking the ship from one alien world to another, adding alien tech to their own, and defeating bigger and better armies because everyone keeps underestimating the damn humans in their silly metal coats.

 

That's one of the better examples I've seen of "humans as space orcs." Generally the trope only works if the aliens are really stupid and pathetic, which tends to limit the drama quotient. Or in the hands of lesser writers, the aliens just get improbably stupid - like the aliens in Signs who can travel across light years but can't get out of a locked pantry, and forgot to wear any sort of protective clothing even tho they're allergic to water and our planet has kindof a lot of the stuff...

(Adding High Crusade to my reading list)

I enjoyed a similar setup in Ranks of Bronze (David Drake) and Foreign Legions (various authors working in the RoB universe). My favorite of the bunch was by David Weber, he expanded his story of 14th century Englishmen being abducted into the novel The Excalibur Alternative.

In the RoB universe, the aliens have a treaty stating which levels of tech can be used against unaligned planets. If the planet you are looking to conquer doesn't have gunpowder, you can't attack with guns, lasers, etc. Hand-to-hand weapons only. The treaty drafters thought this would stop some of the aggressive species because none of the aliens wanted to give up their advantage in weapons. There was a forced peace state of nonwar in the galaxy for centuries. Then one of the species went and abducted a group of primitives to work as mercenaries for them. Payment was "you get to live" and "any injury we can fix, except brain or spine trauma." Those primitives were a Roman legion, and the abductors' territory spread. But the Romans just wanted to go home.

In TEA, another species finally figures out where the first species got their primitives and abducts their own. These Englishmen eventually overthrow their captors, too. But they don't return to Earth. They start forming alliances with "protected" and unaligned worlds to overthrow the Galactic Federation.

Spawn of Fashan (which I *have* seen) is another viable candidate. It's just about as readable as Das Kapital.

Richard Armitage shuddered at the esoteric tomes on the shelves of the German who had just captured him. Proudly displayed were The Book of Azathoth, Liber Ivonis, De Vermis Mysteriis, Parchments of Pnom (bound in human flesh no less), Unspeakable Cults, Cultes des Goules, and, horror of horrors, THE book guaranteed to shatter the sanity of anyone who read it and send them into a murderous rage, Das Kapital.

The way Marxism worked in practice, FATAL might be a better representation.

In theory, theory and practice work out the same.

In practice, they never do.

Been on a project at work that can only be described as wicked, nasty, evil, and vile. It's coming to an end very soon!

I will go back to Supergirl just for this episode.

And I will watch my first SG episode for that.

If we're the ones who go about discovering the rest of the galaxy, we'll eventually find out which alien life forms are edible!

Before or after we find out if we can interbreed?

Eight months ago, someone clutched a monkey's paw and said, "Don't let Jeb get the nomination."

"It grieves me to have to say this, but you should never attempt to eat or drink anything you find in a chemistry lab."

I pointed out to my chem 1 professor that one should never lick the spoon after an experiment and he took 3 pts off my final lab report. "Your so-called sense of humor shows you are incapable of the seriousness needed to conduct proper scientific research and have no business inside a lab." He actually wrote that on the paper.

A prior lab (when he wasn't there), I went mad scientist while mixing some compounds together. One of my lab partners said to another (both ladies had slightly frightened looks on their faces), "Frank has way too much fun in here."

Church is delayed (possibly canceled) for snow. I sent this to my wife this morning.

If I were Martin Luther, I would write 95 reasons that I love you.

If I were John Calvin, a bouquet of tulips would testify that I find you irresistible.

Were I Karl Barth, my expressions of love would be most dogmatic.

Were I CS Lewis, an essay on how I feel all four loves for you would be on the way to you right now.

Were I Augustine, my only confession would be my love.

Were I Anglican, I would gladly be your defender.

However, we are Arminians, and so I say "I choose you."

And we are part of the Wesleyan tradition, so I find my heart warmed by thoughts of you.

And as Classical Pentecostals, I speak now of the initial evidence of our love.