Ow! My Freakin' Ears!

The MovieWavs Page has just about all the movie and TV show audio-clip goodness you could want, including some of these classics:

TODD: Ow! My freakin' ears!

BOB: Well, it looks like you've been missing quite a bit of work lately.
PETER: Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob!

BRIDGEKEEPER: "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
ARTHUR: "What do you mean? An African or European swallow?"
BRIDGEKEEPER: "Huh? I-- I don't know that! Auuuuuuuugh!"

CARTMAN: "Follow your dream. You can reach your goals. I'm living proof. Beefcake. BEEFCAKE!"

PHOEBE: "If you don't meet her now you're gonna be kicking yourself when you're eighty which is hard to do and that's how you break a hip."

HOMER: "So, a graduate student, huh? How come you guys can go the moon, but you can't make my shoes smell good?"

HOMER: "Mmmmm... forbidden donut..."

HOMER: "In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

HOMER: "Mmmmm... soylent green..."

Warning: Style Changes Coming

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! It's once again time to make some style changes here at johnfulwider.com, and you, my loyal seven readers, get to come along for the ride. Try the changes out on a test server first? Pish posh! What fun would there be in that?

Anyway, the color scheme and font choices are staying. I'm just moving to a three-column layout to make room for Google ads and an Amazon-powered "what I'm reading/listening/consuming/etc." list.

Bookmark: HTML Resume Template

Wordpress designer extraordinaire Alex King has an HTML Resume Template that I need to include here on johnfulwider.com at some point.

It outputs in valid XHTML and CSS and makes it easy for viewers to print and get a text-only version.

Three Strikes and You're Not Out

So I've been worshipping God outside lately (read: skipping church to go on climbing trips) and thus haven't heard a sermon of any kind in quite a little while. Returning briefly to the fold, as it were, I heard probably the best ever.

The pastor talked about teaching his daughter to play baseball. He bought the biggest whiffle ball and the biggest plastic bat he could find. First he asked her to swing the bat a few times so he could tell where the bat tended to go. Then he threw the ball in that area to maximize her chance of hitting it. Strike one. He moves closer so the ball's easier to hit. Strike two. Moves closer. Strikes three through five. He throws the ball at the bat. PING! (Or is that "thump"?) A home-run hit and she runs the bases -- the wrong way. Dad cheers her on all the same.

The pastor tied this all together by reminding us that even Abraham, the "father of many nations" and a hero of the church, had several strikes against him. He fathered Ishmael with his wife's servant Hagar, laughed at God's promise to enable him to have children with Sarah, and more. Not to overextend the metaphor, but God still gave Abraham plenty of chances at bat. Considering he's now one of the most respected figures in the world's three major monotheistic religions, you might say Abraham hit a home run.

" scooby snack tea parties near 2571 "

... is about the most intriguing spam subject line I've ever received.

Bookmark: National Motorists Association

National Motorists Association

We support more reasonable speed limits, better driver training, improved motorist-to-motorist courtesy, and sensible, easily understood regulations. We oppose heavy-handed enforcement, unfair motorist taxation, speed traps, kangaroo traffic courts, and government edicts that take away your rights as a consumer and user of automobiles. We're working for the establishment of traffic laws based on engineering principles and public consensus.

Church Habits Now Prime Political Predictor

USATODAY.com - Churchgoing closely tied to voting patterns

Voters who say they go to church every week usually vote for Republicans. Those who go to church less often or not at all tend to vote Democratic.
Forget the gender gap. The "religion gap" is bigger, more powerful and growing. The divide isn't between Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles. Instead, on one side are those of many faiths who go to services, well, religiously: Catholics who attend Mass without fail, evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants who show up for church rain or shine, some Orthodox Jews. On the other side are those who attend religious services only occasionally or never.
... Meanwhile, Democrats haven't reached a consensus on a strategy to narrow the religion gap and regain voters the party has lost. ... [Some] argue that voters who frequently attend church would be receptive to an appeal that recasts some traditional Democratic issues -- protecting the environment as the stewardship of God's creation, for instance.

1. It's no longer the gender gap (basically, women vote Democratic, men Republican), it's the religion gap. As my favorite pointy-eared nonhuman would say, fascinating.

2. It's the Republicans who should latch onto environmentalism as stewardship of God's creation. Here's a quiz: Which two words that describe a) "The protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife and of natural resources" (source link) and b) a major political orientation have the same root word?

(Hint in the form of another question: which Republican president established the US Forest Service, five national parks, 51 wildlife refuges and 150 national forests? Answer)