Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The End of All Things

The new year begins very soon here in Louisville. It's already 2009 for billions o' people, but billions more still live in '08. This year has been pretty good, and I'm glad to have lived through it. Perhaps 2009'll be e'en better. Can't wait to see what all's in store. Short sentences are easy to read. Long sentences, like this one, are sometimes complex and complicated, as often a penguin finds itself between dimensions, and hence more difficult to read and understand the point of.

Changes are coming. They'll be unveiled real soon like. Next year, anyway.

Bye bye blackbirds.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Christmas Time's A Here

Well, folks, it's here. The most wonderful time of the year. Family gatherings and loads of food, in addition to gifts and presents. There are some people that think Christmas is only for giving/receiving, and there are others who only celebrate it for the birth of our Lord and Savior. A comfortable medium exits.

Simply, remember that some day around 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ was born, meek and lowly. His humble birth and brutal death and majestic resurrection are the only reasons I have hope for the future. I love Him more than anything else can offer.

Furthermore, I love the Christmas season because it offers a perfect way to practice giving. Some people take gifts awkardly if it's not for a special occasion, and Christmas offers the most special of occasions. So, Keisha and I make a point to get gifts for everyone and to donate generously to our favorite charity (World Vision).

About giving. Money is not the only method of this action. Make food for someone. Go through your old clothes, toys, etc. and take them to the Salvation Army/Homeless Shelter/Church. Get an angel from the angel tree and make someone personally blessed and happy. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Give your time and energy to your stressed relatives. Write a check to a charity, or give cold hard cash to a homeless person. Finally, pray for people, and ask people what you can pray about for them.

The gift of giving is truly a great experience. Making someone happy and blessing them is a wonderful feeling, and methinks good for the soul. Sacrafice makes you realize what's important and what's not.

Enjoy your Christmas' everybody. There's a big announcement coming soon, too, so stick around. There'll e'en be pictures...

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Logan Stewart and the Early Morning Blog Show +

Well, it's not really early. As I write it's 9:39 on the ante meridiem and I've been up for almost two hours. It's just that, being finals week and all, my body feels like it's been on fumes for a while. For example, I was so groggy yesterday morning that I e'en broke down and went to Starbucks, which never happens. See, I don't like Starbucks, but not because of their controversial stance on US soldiers in Iraq. Nor is it because they are a corporation in the world and leaking people of money left and right. And it's not because they sell all that weird stuff in their stores, either. Nope. None of those reasons are why I don't like Starbucks.

And so I'm sitting at my laptop doing my daily routine--Gmail, Pat Rothfuss' blog, Facebook (I know. It's sad, but I have to.), and weather. And I think that I should make a new post. Or I could eat a brownie or two that are in the pan about 18" behind my laptop. So you see the problem. I haven't had a proper breakfast this morning. I did have one bite of my wife's peanut-butter-and-raisin-on-toast this morning, which was actually pretty good, but that's it. To be honest, though, I didn't really start eating breakfast until recently. And still I don't eat it daily. Typically, if I eat too soon after getting up, my stomach decides to thrash about all day, whining and complaining and only making me miserable.

However, today is the last day of finals. I have an Economics exam at 2:30 in the post meridiem, which I will probably bomb. It's odd. I'm an engineer, and I've had all these hard classes like "Matrix Structural Analysis" or "Concrete Design" and I've done okay in them. Better than okay, actually. But then I take Macro-economics as my last undergrad class in my career, a 200 level class and mostly freshmen or sophomores (I'm a grad), and I'm struggling. It's all theory and blah blah and Keynesian economics and monetary fiscal expansion and blah and Idon'tknowwhatanyofthatcrapmeans and the like. Well, to be honest, I'm actually doing better than 80% of the class, but still, I much more prefer doing better than 90%. Now that I think about it, that's really not a good comparison, since technically 10 out of 10 folks could all get an A in a class and then no one would be doing better than no one, really, but I don't like backspace or going back, so it stays.

Anyway, the point of all this is really pretty simple. I don't like Starbucks because their coffee sucks. I'm a more mild coffee guy, or medium. Starbucks only has bold, bolder, and black-as-Hitler's soul.
Strong coffee + Logan = No Go For Launch

Saturday, December 13, 2008

The American Hamburger




Whopper Virgins

I thought this brief clip was very interesting, albeit strange. I suppose as Americans we are immune to the fact that there are people who have never heard of a hamburger before. I do hope that they had cheese with their burger, though.

But, cynically, I thought that it is a good thing that there are not burger joints all over the place. Can you imagine if America's legacy to the world was the fat-full and calorie-loaded hamburger? Instead of world hunger we'd have global obesity.

But, amused and happily, I watched the "whopper virgins" try their hamburgers for the first time. Their faces were full of suspicion and curiosity, but most seemed to enjoy it, I think. I sure do like cheeseburgers, though.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Greatness of Cornbread


I've been married for over a year and a half now. It has been the greatest year and a half of my life. I knew before I married her, my Keisha could cook. There wasn't much that she couldn't do in the kitchen, and I can tell you that if you've never had her jambalaya or orange juice cake or shepherds pie or potato soup, then you really are missing out. I'm not kidding you. My wife is a really, really good cook.

However, since we've been married, she's been unable to make satisfactory cornbread, until just recently. See, cornbread has long been one of my favorite foods, especially my mamaw's. Mamaw cooks hers in the old iron skillet, and is loaded with love and years of experience. And so, last Christmas, mamaw gave Keisha a set of iron skillets as a gift. After a few failed attempts at cornbread, she gave up. One day, thankfully, she had an epiphany and tried it again. The result was a wonderfully tasteful cornbread that I love so very much.

And since then she's been happy to make me cornbread whenever I ask, which it seems is quite a bit. She is a great cook, and I'm thankful to have her around. In addition to her cooking, my mom and mamaw, and my mother-in-law and grandmom-in-law are all wonderful cooks, and for the holidays I'm always way overstuffed.

Oh well. I just thought I'd take a moment to blog about how great cornbread is. But if you read behind and through the lines, I'm really writing about how wonderful my wife is.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Story and the Moral

The story: There were once three brothers: Abe, Ben, and Chad. Two of them smiled all the time, and one was a sour-puss. Two of them were over six feet tall and one of them wasn't. Two of them had beautiful wives and one of them wasn't interested in love. Two of them personally had their own refrigerators and the other had to share one with his best friend. At least two of them were born before 1981, and one definitely was. Two of them could literally swim the English Channel faster than they could boat across, and the other was scared of water. One had dull eyes, one had blue eyes, and one wore colored contacts and so no one knew what color his eyes were.

Anyway, one day, these brothers decided to go on a hiking trip. They all met at the crossroads, embraced as brothers do, and set off. One of them complained the whole time, but the other two had a great time. One of them forgot to wear sunscreen and he burnt, but the other two didn't. One of them had recently had surgery and so he had a little trouble maneuvering the trails, but the other two got along just fine.

Once they made it to the top of their mountain there was a waterfall. At its base there was a big beautiful clear reservoir from the falls. One of the brothers took a picture of it, but the other two forgot their cameras. One of them called his wife and told her about it, one of them still didn't have a wife, and the other one didn't get any reception.

The Moral: Three brothers hiked up a mountain and all three peed in the water. It's that simple.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Curse You, Mega Man!


My friend recently bought the newly released 8-bit retro style Mega Man 9. I grew up playing Mega Man games, and I always liked them, especially the X series. So with the release of MM9, I felt like playing the old ones again, and so I went out and bought the anniversary edition, which means I now own Mega Man 1-8, as well as Mega Man X-X6. And I sat down to play yesterday, and I started with the original Mega Man.

Cutman was easy, and so was Bombman. Then I tried Iceman's world, and I died. Over and over and over. And I kept dying. So I quit. Then today I beat every other level and had only Iceman's stage left. I kept dying. In fact, the only time I even made it to Iceman was when I had 1 life left, and he quickly depleted my little energy bar.

I've really never been a gamer who gets mad at playing my games and stuff, y'know, those people who throw their controllers or call the computer a cheater. No, that's not me. But today, my friends, I really really wanted to crush my GC control. And so through it all, I've come away with 3 conclusions:

1. Don't play Mega Man for a very long period of time without frequent breaks, as your temper will quickly get to you.

2. Wipe out those little things that are low to the ground and speed up when you're on the same level as them. If you don't, you'll get ticked at them and yourself.

3. Don't play Iceman's stage unless you're in a great mood and ready to be heavily frustrated.

Good luck.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

December

Happy December everyone. It's cold, bleak, and grey! Good luck to you all, with hopes that you make it through the hard month. And think, next month is basically a continuation of this one, just in a different year. I do like the winter, not as much as the fall, but pretty good, nonetheless. It makes me wanna put on old, tattered grey robes, grow a long white and whispy goatee and become a monk or something. A wizened man, all robed and thin. Or maybe it makes me wanna stay indoors where it's warm (sometimes extremely warm) and dry, away from the harshness of December...

This is my December.

Goodbye, friends, and farewell to arms. Have a safe and pleasant season. It promises to be a fun one. And our tree looks better than yours. And our stockings. And our nativity scene. And our wreathes. And I'm really tired, having studied macroeconomics for a while, and open channel hydraulics, and I haven't been sleeping much lately, and sometimes, y'know, you just feel like writing something that is more stream-of-conscience, while at the same time continuing on with a very, very long (possibly a run-on (I LOVE PARENTHESIS!!!)) sentence.
Rest in peace, Reginald. Your children are prospering, and Horatio has given birth itself, so now there are many, many of you. There'll possibly be more on this later. For now, I think I'll bite the bullet (trite) and hit the books (cliche).

Rosebud.