getting on my soap box

The other day, I noticed that our shower soap was getting communion-wafer thin, so I found a replacement bar. We are big supporters of the Irish Spring brand of soap. For what reason this is so, I have no idea. Anyway, we had heretofore been using some variety that I think was known as "Mountain Fresh." It may have been augmented with aloe, but again, I'm just not certain. And while I never felt taken away to the bubbling oxbows of a cool mountain stream, I liked that it seemed to do an adequate job of washing away bodily grime and accumulated odors that may cause me to be confused with a flatulent goat.

However...

the last time we needed to go soap shopping (though it was not a specific excursion just for this function), I eyed a new "Sport Scent" by Irish Spring. "I like sports," I thought to myself. This, in my male logic, was reason enough to jump off my Mountain Stream fidelity and take my daily body perfumed scent in a completely different direction. Kelli looked with a skeptic's eye, perhaps remembering all too well what a "sporty guy" really smells like, but acquiesed nonetheless. This bar of soap, unlike the soothing marbled cream and leafy green of the Mountain Fresh variety, is an industrialized lockerroom-friendly blue-on-blue. And, as my beloved bride noted with chagrin, it smells "masculine."

Well, when the new bar was introduced to the friendly shower environs of the McAnally household, I had to first undergird the important task of melding the old wafer of Mountain Fresh into the new block of Sport Scent. This is an extremely important process, accomplished by the vice-like squeezing of the two products between my hands. There are many risks associated with this irregularly regular event (which is necessary, because -- God forbid -- I waste that last 1/32nd of an inch of soap). First, if the wafer be too thick, it could break in half while adhering it to the surface of the other bar. This would result in what is technically known as "lumpy bar" and causes an untold number of irritating soapings. The other main risk is squeezing too hard, causing the the bar of soap to torpedo from between my hands like a lubricated projectile, ricocheting off the walls, and striking me in the head, knocking me unconscious, or worse. I have pledged to my wife that if tragedy ever befalls me, I will do my level best to be completely dressed when it occurs, so she is not assuming the added burden of clothing me before the paramedics arrive.

On this particular day, the docking procedure went particularly well. The old sliver melded perfectly with the concaved arch of the new bar. the edges of the old bar adhered completely to the embracing surface of the new.

It was at this moment, appreciating my fine work, that I doubt is even fully appreciated to this day, when I had one of my profound theological discoveries.

This is how my life in Christ is to be.

When I am adopted by the Father, I am covered by the Son.

My identity is consumed by His.

My characteristics are overwhelmed by His.

And as time passes, there should be less and less of me, until only He is to be found.

John, he of locust and honey-eating fame, once said, "I must decrease and He must increase." Clearly, he got the point.

Another John, this one of Abbey Road Yellow Submarine fame, once said, "We are going to be bigger than Jesus." Clearly, he did not get it.

Paul -- the apostle, not the Beatle -- weighed in with his two cents when he said, "for me, to live is Christ." For him, life wasn't even fully realized if it was lived apart from the Christ.


Lord....may this too be so in my own life...for the sake of your glory.

fyi

blogging will be light today...

we're taking Cotter to the hospital for a scope procedure on his GI tract.

they'll put him under anesthetic, which always makes me a little nervous.

We've promised him lots of jello and ice cream after its over (they're going in from the throat).

pray for him today, if you will.

thanks

the streak is over

After three children and countless diapers (not many of which I applied or removed from the three children) I was today, for the first time, peed upon.

By Kelsi, just to clear things up.

I don't know how she did it, either.

She was standing between my legs, on the office chair upon which I sat. She was leaning forward, reaching for some forbidden object, most likely my cell phone. That's when I felt a warm liquid hit my right thigh, just above my knee.

"Why are you drooling on me?" I asked it a cutesy-wootsy voice. Then I looked down to discover that's not drool!

Some how, her pee came out of the top of her Huggies....I don't understand the physics of this phenomenom.

This event, while requiring immediate attention, was not nearly as alarming as when Kaylyn, as an infant, spit up into my mouth.

While I understood the physics of that one a lot better (read: gravity), it was a lot nastier to experience.

check my blogroll

I've added Upward Way Press, Jen and (at Jen's urgings) Fluid pudding to my blogroll.

I've also updated Tony's link, and removed a couple dead links.

And I'm wondering, is it time for a new look?

quote-a-licious

I don't mean to be so quote-filled today, but so many good ones are coming across my screen today I just have to share 'em

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

the next time you're hosting a get together

use e-vite. Though I'm not being paid for this advertisement, I think it's really cool. Ironically, I learned of e-vite through a party to which I was not directly invited. I was forwarded the invitation, which is kinda a "oh-yeah-you-can-come-too, if-you-want" gesture. Actually, the friend who forwarded it made a very genuine invitation, so that helps.

Look at me being defensive about not being remembered.

Ok, I'm over it.

I can't smile without you

From the Jewish Weekly Review (that comes to my inbox almost daily -- this confuses me)...

a heart-warming story about how Barry Manilow has been able to reach an autistic boy.

Barry's the man!

(boy, talk about being surprised by seeing things I never thought I'd type, much less publish!)

another reason why I'll vote for Bush again

He said, "Life and history bring tragedies that often cannot be explained, but they can be redeemed. They can be redeemed by dispensing justice," exactly two years ago, upon the execution of Timothy McVeigh.

TOP 10 THINGS YOU'LL NEVER HEAR DAD SAY

C&P from Mikey's Funnies

10. Well, how 'bout that? I'm lost! Looks like we'll have to stop and ask for directions.

9. You know Pumpkin, now that you're thirteen, you'll be ready for unchaperoned car dates. Won't that be fun?

8. I noticed that all your friends have a certain hostile attitude. I like that.

7. Here's a credit card and the keys to my new car. GO CRAZY!!

6. What do you mean you wanna play football? Figure skating's not good enough for you, son?

5. Your mother and I are going away for the weekend. You might want to consider throwing a party.

4. Well, I don't know what's wrong with your car. Probably one of those doo-hickey thingies--ya know--that makes it run or something. Just have it towed to a mechanic and pay whatever he asks.

3. No son of mine is going to live under this roof without an earring. Now quit your belly-aching, and let's go to the mall.

2. Whaddya wanna go and get a job for? I make plenty of money for you to spend.

1. What do I want for my birthday? Aahh, don't worry about that. It's no big deal. (Okay, they might say it. But they don't mean it)

WIT has come through again!

THis time, linking us back to a quiz that tells you what book of the Bible "you are."

I'm quite happy with my results. Just how wrong is it to be pride-filled over it? Oh, but for the grace of God....


You are Ephesians.


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Now you take the quiz and tell me your results.

quote o' the day

"The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge but to change our lives."
-- DL Moody
(via Rick Warren's Ministry Tool Box)

help me out here

I overheard this on Entertainment Tonight...

Is 40 the next 30?"

Now, I'm no Mr. Blackwell, but I understand in the fashion world when they ask, "Is blue the next black?"

But this I don't understand.

Even so, I'm looking forward to re-celebrating my 30th in 10 years.

Unless of course, by then 40 becomes the next 50. Or worse yet, the next 16.

and you thought they were just playing tennis over there

an extremely interesting post by One Hand Clapping on the namesake of the French Open tennis arena.

need a break?

explore with fly guy

(found inside Gretchen's head)

rpd thought #3

Is Saddam Hussein alive?

and if so, will he ever be welcome in any Baghdad restaurant ever again?

I've found a cure!

Surely, this recent discovery that cannabis de-motivates rats can only serve as good news in the fight against monkeypox.

If we supply the infected rats with a large supply of Columbia Gold, then they'll invite their groundhog buddies over for a few tokes on the bong. Then they'll spend all their time together in their rodential filthy domiciles munching on Bugles and playing X-Box, ruminating over the clomplexity of the university (maybe they're just a flea on a bigger rodent, which is a flea on a bigger rodent...) thus being unavailable to contaminate the human race.

+ = =

You don't need to thank me. Just send in my name for nomination for the Nobel Prize -- that'll be gratitude enough.

cinderella's revenge

other's have waxed eloquently and not so on the brutish woman who beat her beau to death with her size 12 high heel. So I'll keep my thoughts brief, lest they be recategorized to an rpd.

what a horrible way to die.

and I don't know much, but I learned from my daddy not to get in fights that you think you might lose. Especially if you're going up against a gal bigger than yourself and she's wielding her pumps like a dangerous weapon. That's just askin' for trouble.

rpd thought #2

today's blogs have contained an inordinate amount of compound (thus, hyphenated) adjectives.

This causes the author some unnecessarily-consuming stress and anxiety.

rpd thought #1

I'm beginning another series here....
rpd thoughts

rpd stands for 'random productivity-derailing'

the number of stated rpd thoughts in a given day will have an directly inverse relationship to the actual accomplishment of daily goals and objectives, represented variating quantities of times pontificating on themes, items, objects, and ideologies that are in no way whatsoever related to said goals and objectives.

so, without further ado, I give you rpd thought #1

our recently-purchased magazine holder for the bathroom is much too large for the bathrooms in our rently-purchased people holder known as a home.

There is no "I" in Team.

But there is me, at, meat, mate, mat, tame, met, and probably a lot of other words.

I sent this link to lots of friends yesterday. And not that y'all aren't my friends, but I just wasn't able to get this to the rest of you.

So here you go.

This came to me from my father-in-law, who got it from his boss, who got it from a bigwig in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Here's the message:

This is a great illustration of cooperation...and, the ad is worth viewing! Read about the TV ad FIRST and then click on the link below.


New Honda commercial in the UK. Very important that you understand: There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film. Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it.

The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again.

The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions. The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including a full engineering the sequence.

In addition, it's two minutes long so every time Honda airs the film on British television, they're shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime. However, it is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history.

Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free" viewings (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!). When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation-including the costs.

There are six and only six hand-made Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film.

Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) are parts from those two cars. The voiceover is Garrison Keillor.

When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten. They fell off their chairs when
they found out it was for real.

Oh. And about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It looks a bit weird in the commercial.

View the commercial.

and speaking of runny-eyed coughing Gambian giant rats

Hillary has released her book.

I wish I could come up with something smarmy and clever to address this self-serving tripe.

But instead, you can drop 30 duckets and read about her brave decision to not breach her legal contract with an adulterer, thus allowing her to gain notoriety to be inappropriately used to fill a seat in our nation's legislative branch, thus inappropriately enabling her to self-fully promote herself to hopefully return to her previous Washington DC-address residence, so she can steal the rest of the furniture that she left behind.

I actually hope she'll run in '08 (or even '04 for that matter), because there's nothing like a nationwide trouncing that helps one regain an accurate sense of self. Just ask Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, et al.

(note: I know there are some liberals who would say that Gore not only did not get trounced, but "actually won." To those, I need to tell you, its time to take the red pill and experience reality. He's not in the white house. And he did such a good job at "winning," that he new he wouldn't be able to stand out from a pack of nine other monkeypox-carrying whistlepigs vying for the top spot.)

weathering the storm

and as I checked in at blogshares today (net worth $2.53 million -- not that I'm talking about it, though), I was surprised to discover that the 21 monkey-related blogs have not been adversely affected by news of the monkeypox outbreak.

whew

don't put your hand in an blender set on puree....and other sage wisdom

nineteen people in three states have come down with the most unappealing-sounding malady since necrotitis fasciitis (better known as the 'flesh-eating bacteria').

monkeypox.

monkeypox.

as chimps are to hens, so is monkeypox to chickenpox. The aviary pox is herpes virus-related, while the primate pox is a derivative of a tropical-virus. You can get chickenpox from playing with a snot-nosed, rash-covered child. You get monkeypox from playing with a runny-eyed, patches-of-fur-missing pet prairie dog.

who keeps prairie dogs as pets? where I came from, we didn't call them prairie dogs. They had another name. We called them "moving targets."

Actually, according to this story, the prairie dogs (aka 'rockchucks', 'woodchucks', 'whistlepigs', 'varmits', 'cropkillers', and 'living proof of God's curse upon the earth') acquired their gift that keeps on giving by hanging out with an infected Gambian rat, at a Wisconsin pet swap meet.

So I guess this proves true the axiom that one bad rat corrupts the whole bushel of good pet prairie rodents.

I don't mean to be so critical, but I think that centuries of conventional wisdom has to be wantonly abandoned to take a rodent as a pet. This is why these animals have acquired the class name 'rodent.' Because they are gross, nasty, disease-carrying, plague-spreading vermin. If they were designed to be pets, we would have given them cute names like 'puppy,' or 'kitty' or 'king cobra.'

And the whole other question that has to be raised here is the existence of a sub-culture that actually co-ordinates rodent swap meets. I bet that mother of three in Wisconsin is seriously re-thinking the wisdom of planning her day around that fun event, as she watches the white pustules on her sons crust over, hoping that they don't fall within the 10% who pay life's full fee for hosting this nasty little bug.

I can let you in on a secret. There's a big rodent swap meet going on right now. It's called "your local sewer system."

Let me tell you about our pet.

Actually, Cotter will tell you that this is his pet.

And, as he replied to girl from Ouf of the Box yesterday, it is also his best friend.

It is his horse.

Bullseye.

Bullseye was born at the Hedstrom manufacturing plant.

He lives in a small corral, penned in by four restrictive springs.

We feed him nothing.

We don't clean up after him.

We keep him in the garage.

He is the perfect pet.



But please, don't call PETA. They just wouldn't understand.

And I'd have a real hard time explaining my free-range kitty farm/exotic fur mitten sweat shop factory.

I'm a multimillionaire

this is my last announcement of my fake wealth through blogshares, until I reach $10 million.

I've doubled my pretend fortune in just a few short days.

aaahhhh....

if only....

quote o' the day

To change the world, Jesus used love
- JB Philips

another clue I'm aging

we recently caught a bit of the premiere episode for MTV's 13th season of "The Real World."

This year, they've gathered seven young adults, flew them to Paris (which is reason enough to despise it), and forced them to live in a mansion, undeservedly employed writing travel reviews that mandates that cavort around Europe.

poor kids.

Of course, there's an exciting mix of "cast members:" The virginal coed who abandoned a full soccer scholarship to enjoy her already-ticking fifteen minutes, a cocky Las Vegas gal with fake boobs who swears she's not a stripper, a gay Irish lad (and I don't mean gay as in merry) who's afraid how the other people perceive him, a black guy who likes to 'work on his music' (though he does get some credentials as being a son of a Commadore [the 70s music group, not the old PC] -- but watch out -- he's got a temper!, another NY-native girl who's cause is breast cancer awareness and she'll tell you all about it as she puffs incessantly on her Marlboro, and finally, there's Ace, the hunky Georgia Boy who's just looking for a good time.

We used to watch this show as our guilty pleasure, voyeuristically laughing at the contrived cattiness and strained pseudo angst. But as we watched this episode, let me re-enact for you the conversation Kelli and I shared repeatedly:

Me: What'd he say?
She: He said that he thought he was infatuated with Mallory.
Me: which one is Mallory?
She: She's the brunette.
Me: Then who's the dark haired girl?
She: Christine.
Me: Then who's Tina.
She: That's Christine. You know, Chris-TINA?
Me: Oh....wait....what'd she say?

This, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is exhibit 74-C in the overwheming evidence proving that I am no longer cool.

c'mon...daddy needs a new suede jacket

from Presurfer....another good reason not to gamble.

surely you don't believe those slot machines would cheat you, do ya?

naaahh, it's all just random chance, right?

of course it is...

just keep pumping those quarters in the machine.

what're the odds that this problem isn't just in the UK? Why don't you flip a coin to see?

signs of the impending apocalypse #41

Got news of this over at Brett's (who is getting married, by the way -- congratulations!).

and for those of you who don't want to follow the link....just look at this (to either change your mind, or steel your resolve):



Is this what Psalm 34:13 means by "keeping your tongue from evil?"