Is It Just Me?

Two things I dislike intensely: “gospel” used as a description of a style of pop music and “Christmas Carol” used to describe a song that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Advent of Christ.

It would take to long to explain, so as Inigo Montoya put it, let me sum up:

A gospel song is rightly (and only, as far as I am concerned) a song that relates the good news (euangelion, evengel, GOSPEL) of Christ. Period. A Christmas Carol is a song on the theme of Christ’s birth. Songs about “traditional” goings-on around the holiday of Christmas, as celebrated as a secular event, or songs that are about secular things surrounding traditions that are NOT about Christ’s birth, or simply “Winter songs” of some sort, are not Christmas carols, and in fact, most are only marginally about peripheral traditions that have come to be associated with the holiday, not the event the holiday supposedly celebrates.

Oh, and “Christmas magic” or “the magic of Christmas”? The terms are pure, unadulterated nonsense when used to refer to Christmas, which is ostensibly an observance of the LEAST MAGICAL but one of the two most miraculous events ever to occur. Magic =/= miraculous, and in fact, the two are in no way related.

But, maybe it’s just me. . .


Oh, and I find both real gospel music and real Xmas music appropriate any time of the year. Here:

Mitt hjerte alltid vanker
– English translation (my favorite of various translations)

My heart will always wander
To where our Lord was born,
My thoughts will always go there
And take on their true form.
My longing heart belongs there,
With the treasure of my faith;
I never shall forget you,
O blessed Christmas night!

I’ll willingly spread branches
Of palms around your bed.
For you and you alone
I will gladly live and die.
Come, let my soul find joy
In this moment of delight:
To see you born right here,
Inside my loving heart.

I Ask These Questions, Because You Don’t Think To

Granted, rifles are used–willfully or accidentally–in a wee bit south of ~400 deaths per year in the US, and deer are only responsible for killing ~150 people per year, but why aren’t people who are concerned about deaths from abuse of AR-15s (a fraction of that less than 400 deaths) also clamoring for the elimination of deer and celebrating those heroes who go out into the deer woods to thin the numbers of these murderous beasts? Why? Because they just do not care, that’s why. *heh*

Of course, Leftoid morons would probably prefer to deal with the problem of Kamikaze Deer murdering innocent motorists by more effective signage telling the deer to cross at places where they are less likely to kill or maim humans (more than 10,000/year injured in less successful deer attacks), or cause the ~$1,000,000,00 of damages they do yearly.

Do Your Homework

Consider reading the manual on a piece of equipment before blithely screwing things up in a confident burst of incompetence.

I once tossed a copy of a Haynes manual on a particular car to a mechanic who had screwed up work on that make/model and told him to do his homework before he touched another one. He did NOT like it. Don’t care. I didn’t like him. Heck, the Haynes manual was not nearly enough to cover all the intricacies of that car, but had he referred to even a Haynes, he would have had a really hard time screwing up as badly as he had. At the time, the manual was only $10, so I felt the snub was well worth it.

Yeh, Well, I Definitely Do These Sorts of Things So You Don’t Have To

Was at my fav “fell off the back of a truck store,” today, and passed through the “$1 salvage items” aisle. Saw a $1 box of 12 bottles of BSP (buffered sodium phosphate) solution–bottled and prepped for use as enemas–and thought to myself, “Self, since thou doest always gargle salt water (sodium chloride + h2o) and this BSP is sodium phosphate+sodium chloride+water, and ingestion of “gargle water” ain’t on the menu, why not? Yeh, if and or when I get a sore throat this winter, I’m-a giving my mouth an enema. (Small amounts of sodium phosphates via mouth–traces not spit out with “gargle water”–are not harmful, and. . . prepackaged!)


Continue reading “Yeh, Well, I Definitely Do These Sorts of Things So You Don’t Have To”

Quick Fix for “Cold Coffee Syndrome” ;-)

Sometimes, when I have yet to reach Optimal Coffee Levels, I set my mug down and. . . forget to sip The Holy Brew while it is at the proper temp. I used to keep an electric cup warmer on my desk for those times when my mind wandered, but my last use of such a thing was ~20 years ago, so. . .

REALY effective “silver bullet” thermos that holds a coupla mugs full of coffee. Pour some into a teensy lil eleven ounce cup and sip. Even if my mind wanders to something task-oriented and I let it cool, it’s usually only a coupla ounces that are cool and easily warmed up to nearly optimal temp with a refreshing from the thermos.

I know, I know: it’d be better to just practice better coffee/memory discipline. *shrugs* Lazy, I guess.

Off the Left Field Wall

I hate allergies. A sneeze-cough while eating some delicious red beans and rice seasoned with freshly chopped habanero pepper. You got it. Habanero pepper bits caught in sinuses. *sigh* Grateful fir ready-mixed, lightly-pressurized nasal wash. *heh*

(BTW, the pressurized air-fryer/instapot did a great job with all elements of the red “beans and rice”–from caramelizing onions, to sauteeing the “polish” sausage, to bringing it all together on a “stew” setting–rice previously cooked, and I used canned red beans).