Posted by Brian July 29, 2005
Saturday, David and I will see Little Shop Of Horrors at the Weekend Theater in Little Rock. I’m looking forward to it. The WT is an all-volunteer theater, so sometimes their productions are better than others. But I’ve seen some really great things there, like their production of Proof. And that show about a certain business establishment in Texas was amusing, even if not all the actors were the best singers. So, I hope this show will be good, too.
We’ll probably get some pizza at Vino’s, right across the street, before the show starts.
Update: The pizza at Vino’s was yummy, as always. An angry-looking man sat beside us and ate a pizza that looked like it must have been topped with half the jalapeno crop of…. of wherever they grow jalapenos. And before he ate it, he removed the top from the pepper-flake shaker, so as to more quickly pour most of its contents on the pizza, as well. I like Vino’s.
As for the musical: FUN! The guy who played Seymour was a talented singer, and really nailed the role. And they did an incredible job with the plant puppets. By the end of the show, there were two people inside the plant, moving it around. If you’re in Little Rock, I recommend trying to catch this show before it closes.
Posted by Brian July 26, 2005
The labels by which certain political groups refer to themselves (and their opponents) can be very interesting - and annoying.
Consider the many various organizations today which refer to themselves as “pro-family.” That’s a friendly-sounding name, isn’t it? But there are a couple of problems with that label: First, it implies that the groups which are opposed by these organizations are somehow “anti-family.” Second, it turns out that the main focus of a lot of these organizations is not building up families. Instead, a great deal of their time, money, and energy is spent on trying to make it difficult for gay people to form families, and to get along with their own families of origin.
Reason magazine recently posted an excellent article showing that many of the policies promoted by the “pro-family” groups are actually hostile to families and children. According to these groups, it is apparently more “pro-family” to let 30,000 children remain in Florida state custody until they grow up (if the state doesn’t simply lose them), than to let some of them be given loving, stable homes by gay people.
Posted by Brian July 22, 2005
David and I have really been enjoying the SciFi Channel’s new version of Battlestar Galactica. In this “reimagining” of the old show, the Cylons (robots created by humans) no longer look like robots, and have infiltrated human society. In the first season, the Cylons destroyed all twelve of the humans’ colonized planets. The Battlestar ship Galactica leads the fleet which carries the remnants (about 42,000) of the human race.
The show gets weird sometimes, but mostly it’s pretty compelling - more about the human (and robot) drama than just space fights, though there’s plenty of that, too.
Here is an article discussing the surprising amout of religious themes explored in the series.
The second episode of the second season is tonight. We’ll be watching!
Posted by Brian July 22, 2005
Have you seen the series of books published by Barnes and Noble in their “Collector’s Library“?
I love this series! First of all, they’re cheap ($6). Second, they are all “classics” which everybody should read, anyway. Right now, I’m reading A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Third, they are hardback, clothbound editions, not cheapo paperback.
But what I really love about these books: They’re tiny! Even the fattest of them easily fit in your hand.
I’ve always loved small books. In college, I always carried around a tiny little Greek lexicon that I got from my Dad instead of the huge “Bauer” lexicon we were supposed to lug around and use. I loved how it fit so nicely with my Greek NT. I continue to use it, even though it long ago started to fall apart.
Another great thing about these B&N editions: they have a ribbon bookmark. I love that!
Posted by Brian July 18, 2005
So, I have a new roof.
Here is an example of why I needed one. As you can see, the old roof was rotting:
It turns out, on the back addition to the house, there were five layers of shingles up there. That’s a lot of weight! (Perhaps around 1500 pounds per 100 square feet.) No wonder the shingles were all wavy and the rafters were sagging. The main part of the house had 3 layers of shingles plus the original cedar shakes under that. I can almost hear the rafters sighing with relief to get all that weight off of them. During the process, the roofers tore away everything down to the slats on which the cedar shakes had rested. It was kind of neat to go up into the attic and be able to see outside:
The workers (mostly from Mexico, except for the man who owned the roofing business) stayed very busy from Thursday till Saturday. I tried to speak to them sometimes, but I don’t think they understood English very well. But they always smiled and were very polite. It was a little funny to hear the owner of the business saying, “Muy bien, muy bien!” to them all the time. I spoke with him quite a bit. He seemed very friendly and honest. There was a big mess in the yard the whole time, but that’s to be expected, I guess. They did a not-too-bad job of cleaning up afterward. Here’s the yard (seen from the attic), when the mess was still ramping up - the second day, I think:
I’m really glad I got this done. Not only did they replace the obvious damage, but it turns out that there was lots of rotten wood in various places all over. They fixed that, too. I still get sick about how much it cost ($$$$$), but really, it was worth it. I didn’t realize how bad things had gotten. It really needed fixing. Here’s a shot of the same section as above, after things were fixed up. You can see three new pieces of rafter on the left:
Finally, here’s a shot of the entire back of the house. So much better!!!! The roof is so flat! I’m quite pleased with it. The old shingles were black/grey. The new ones are a heathery brown. I briefly considered red, but chickened out. While they were stripping the old layers, I did see, however, that in the past the roof was a brownish-red color.
There’s still a slight dip in the front of the house, but it looks much better than it did.
Now, if I can just scrape up some money to paint the house…..
Posted by Brian July 18, 2005
Animal-free meat?
Rick Bohannon pointed out these links on his blog:
An article discussing artifical meat production.
And a company that’s going to try it.
(A sort of unrelated side-note - Rick was also Biblical Languages major at Harding while I was there. He’s a Quaker now. Brent Bates was also one of our colleagues, and was recently confirmed in the Episcopal Church. I’ve recently been fascinated to read/learn of many people who have recently graduated from colleges related to the Church of Christ who either no longer belong to that fellowship, or else still belong, but espouse some beliefs which would be quite shocking to more traditional CofC members. For example, I’ve seen many blogs with links to this site.)
Posted by Brian July 11, 2005
I’m still catching up at work from my time off. Details about the new roof later.
Posted by Brian July 01, 2005
I probably won’t be posting much next week. We’ll see.
However, maybe I’ll get started on that lectionary website…
Happy Independence Day!
