• MTV interviews 24 star Kiefer Sutherland about a possible big-screen adaptation of the hit series. Unfortunately, the movie won’t be 24 hours long. 04/14/2006

Digressions

Digression: (n) a message that departs from the main subject; a turning aside (of your course or attention or concern); wandering from the main path of a journey [Princeton]

As of today, I have begun experimenting with a new form of content for my site. You’ll notice just after this post there are two “mini-posts” which are basically links to other sites that I think are interesting. I will henceforth refer to these posts as digressions. At the time of this writing, any digressions will be indicated by a small green square followed by a short remark containing a link.

Digressions will change (and hopefully improve) the content of the website in a couple ways:

1) I will be able to update more often, posting single links in short bursts rather than saving them up for a whole post. Since the first Friday Linkfest,¹ I have been bookmarking any website I find that is remotely interesting so that I can easily find it and post it here. With digressions, I can post them immediately. This frees up my bookmarks folder and gives you, the reader, more content per day. The death of Friday Linkfest may upset some (i.e., Shawn), but it will be better in the long run.

2) Normal posts will be the same, interspersed between digressions, and will obviously be longer and more fleshed out. This solves a problem I’ve had for a while: what if I want to post something that is only 2 sentences long? Now I can do just that without feeling like I’ve “wasted” an entire post.

In the end, I’m not just doing this for myself, but for you as well. Let me know what you think by posting a comment. Do you think digressions are something that you will enjoy?

1. I posted something similar to Friday Linkfest on the blog I had before this one called End O’ the Week Link Bonanza. I had vision. ↩

• An extensive article entitled Overcoming Procrastination that looks promising. I’ll read it later. 04/14/2006
• I was thinking about getting a longboard, but after looking at these Freeline skates, I am thinking twice. 04/14/2006

Friday linkfest

What better way to celebrate Good Friday?

Final Fantasy III: Apparently they are remaking this classic game in 3D for the Nintendo DS. This game, which was originally released in the US for SuperNintento®, was the single factor that made me a “gamer”, and loyal to the Final Fantasy series for life. I’ve played Final Fantasy III, VII, VIII, IX, and X. XII comes out sometime later this year.

Live action Simpsons intro: If you’ve ever watched The Simpsons, you know that the intro to the show is always different. Here’s what it would look like with real people. Pretty cool.

The Gospel of Judas: If you’ve heard any of the hype, this site has a bunch of stuff, including scans of the original document - just in case you happen to be fluent in 1st century Coptic. While undoubtedly important, the discovery of early Christian writings is nothing new. Elaine Pagels has been studying and writing about these texts since the 1970s. At least National Geographic will make a lot of money from it.

Iran body count: “Provides a comprehensive analysis of the likely nature of US or Israeli military action that would be intended to disable Iran’s nuclear capabilities. It outlines both the immediate consequences in terms of loss of human life, facilities and infrastructure, and also the likely Iranian responses, which would be extensive.” (thx, Tom)

Amazing sculptures: Larger-than-life sculptures by Ron Mueck. I think the photographs speak for themselves.

I am working on something that would allow me to post links to this blog continuously (much like kottke). This would probably mean a couple of things: 1) the end of Friday linkfest, and 2) more total links being posted. Instead of chooring from a constantly growing link list that I select from on Fridays, I could just post ‘em as I find ‘em.

Coke Blāk

I am currently drinking a bottle of Coke Blāk. I first mentioned this “effervescence with coffee essence” (so says the website) in a post last December. In that post, I said that I’d “be the first in line to buy some.” I wasn’t kidding.

Too bad it tastes like crap.

BevNet, a website dedicated to reviewing every beverage on planet earth, reviewed the soft drink, giving it 2.5/5 stars. From the review; “You’ll probably wonder why Coke decided to take diet cola — which isn’t exactly known for its smooth aftertaste — and combine it with coffee extract. The taste of the product is enjoyably sweet and creamy, but the aftertaste is somewhat brutal, with bitter flavors of coffee and aspartame left behind.”

I agree. I keep taking sips of it, hoping that it will get better, but it just doesn’t. It quite literally tastes like Diet Coke mixed with coffee grounds… I guess I don’t know what I was expecting.

Maybe Pepsi Cappucino will be better. But if Pepsi learns anything from Coke’s sure-failure, though, it will never even make it to the states.

Badiou on immigration

In my religion seminar class “Paul as Contemporary Cultural Theory,” we are reading the book Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism by Alain Badiou. Badiou himself is French, and he speaks from his own vantage point, but I find what he says in the early pages of the book to be particularly relevant to current discussion regarding immigration in the US.

Badiou says:

Moreover, this is the norm that illuminates a paradox few have pointed out: in the hour of generalized circulation and the phantasm of instantaneious cultural communication, laws and regulations forbidding the circulation of persons are being multiplied everywhere.¹

In other words, in an era when global travel, trade, and communication is soaring, our need to stamp down on immigration becomes heightened. Badiou later says, “Deleuze put it perfectly: capitalist deterritorialization requires a constant reterritorialization.”² Now, here’s the kicker:

How clearly Paul’s statement rings out under these conditions! A genuinely stupefying statement when one knows the rules of the ancient world: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3.28)!³

And all of this from a self-proclaimed atheist.

1. Badiou, Alain. Saint Paul: the Foundation of Universalism. Stanford, California: Stanford UP, 2003. 10. ↩
2. Ibid., 10. ↩
3. Ibid., 9. ↩

Friday linkfest

It returns (it seems I still have a habit of bookmarking everything I come across that could be considered remotely interesting)…

Flapart: Make it look like you are reading an absurd book. Might really come in handy if you want to send a subtle message to that professor you don’t like.

Senses Challenge: I originally found this test under the title “This test will make the smartest people stupid!” To some extent it’s true; but it sure is fun!

Spelling poems: I take it you already know / Of tough and bough and cough and dough? / Others may stumble, but not you, / On hiccough, thorough, lough and through..?

Batman onomotopoeias: Remember the old “Batman” series? Remember the (sometimes) absurd words that accompanied the slapping sounds during the (sometimes) absurd fights? Worry you not, they’re all here. Yes, even “Kayo!”

Logical fallacy: I read an article on President Bush that discussed his use of the logical fallacy known as Straw man, so I decided to catch up on my argumentation ability.

Touch-up artist: This dude is a professional photography retoucher, for magazines and such. Check out the picture of the smiling woman with the white background. It’s basically digital plastic surgery… almost disturbing.

Library Thing

In my unending ability to find things on the internet to waste hours and hours of my time, I found LibraryThing. The website says “LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. Because everyone catalogs together, you can also use LibraryThing to find people with similar libraries, get suggestions from people with your tastes and so forth.”

I catalogued most of the books I have at school, which totals 63 (that seems like way too many books to have here). You can see which books you have in common with other people, etc.

LibraryThing is another awesome Web 2.0 service. Again, I never would have guessed that I would ever be a bookworm, let alone a bookworm who enjoys casually reading theology.

[Image is a capture of the “graphical view” of my personal library.]

Sold!

I am pleased to announce that JakeBouma.com has been purchased! Do you remember this post? Well, a guy by the name of Jake Bouma (not me) who works for Mozilla, the company that develops the Firefox web browser, e-mailed me and gave me an offer for the domain name. He is planning on turning the website into a development blog for Lightning, which is new a calendar application from Mozilla. His page will replace mine this Wednesday, and when I get back to school I’ll work on getting a new website up and running.

I am not allowed to say just how much money at this point, but it is more than this. Can you say “new laptop”?

UPDATE: April Fool’s! Tons of people fell for this. Actually, everyone to whom I have talked fell for it, but some figured it out soon thereafter. I received congratulations via IM, telephone, in person, etc. If only it were true…

JakeBouma.com is 'Pressed and Minted, too.
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