Carol Rutz’s Annexe

From Fark.com, neat pics from the weekly Farktography contest, with the theme “Everything’s a Dollar/Pound/Euro/Etc” .

Yesterday, I was getting some medicine for the Prediger and the pharmacy told me that it would be a 45-minute wait. At the shopping center next to Walgreens was the Dollar General and this funky dollar store and across the street was Big Lots and the Family Dollar. I had time to kill, so I visited these stores. My favorite hands-down scenery was from that funky shop. Want a Sailor Moon party table cloth? It’s there for a dollar. Maybe you want a “Sorry, I’m Taken” Evangelical Christian bandanna or something similar that matches your depth and breadth of theological knowledge. That and much more can be found in that store for a buck (or two).

Do not have time to spelunk? Let the Farkers show you their pics. (Their pics. Let me show you them.)

From Something Awful, Ian “Salmon Season” Golding’s take on European travel. There are great points to his article– you are just another Ugly American, stick to one city/region when travelling, and embrace the culture shock.

You, and your group, look stupid “trying to hold the Leaning Tower of Pisa.” On top of that, there is no reason to visit Pisa other than seeing the leaning tower. Meaning you traveled on a bus for two hours just to get the most clichéd and obnoxious photograph ever imagined. Congratulations, jack ass.

Gregory Boehnlein of N2Net has announced a canned food drive to help the Salvation Army in Columbus replenish their food bank in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas (aka the Holiday Season).

And now, a public service message from your Friend of the Predigtamt:

Please give new cans of decent stuff, not the old cans of lima beans that were there since the first Bush Administration. When I was studying at the Seminary, students have their own food bank and we get food in exchange of working an hour a month. LCMS congregations would send canned goods every month and we have to sort it and inspect the cans for anything suspect. We get cans with way overdue expiry dates and we have to cull them out. On one shelf, we have our “Hall of Shame” exhibit in which we placed our worst examples. My favorite was the five-year-overdue jar of limburger cheese spread. Another Hall of Shame entry that I myself discovered was a 20-year old jar of spices. How did I know it was over 20 years old? It has the pre-1985 General Foods logo on it! If I ever find out who were the idiots who thought they got away with it, I’d head to their congregation with a hotdish and ask them to eat it…after I sprinkle the ancient spices on it.

So… when you are on the way to Columbus, stop by at a Meijer or a Kroger’s market and buy a fresh can there. I am sure that the Open Source guys are smart enough to do that. But one can never be too careful.

One of the nice things about the WordPress template I’m using is that it places links in a separate section so the main content of the blog is more visible. While I am at it, I’m cleaning up my link list and sorting them. Since the VARK list is lengthy, I’m placing it in its own page for reference.

New categories for organizing include “Open Source” (for FOSS-related matters), and “pondering” (quotes of interest). “Housekeeping” will be renamed “Blog Maintenance”, as some might confuse “Housekeeping” as an Heloise section.

We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken

–The Dead Heart by Midnight Oil

Here is another Adam Ant video that I find very amusing, complete with voodoo cookie dolls, one bull in a sailor outfit, and copious amounts of tossed foodstuffs. Plenty of lulz and WTF. One line you can say about me in regards to life: “I take it serious, but I still like a joke.”

The Prediger and I are planning to head out to Columbus at the end of this month for Ohio LinuxFest 2007. The deal maker was that Drew Curtis will be there. There’s no party like a Fark Party! I will have to bring an bottle of Heineken.

I’m looking forward to learning more about Ubuntu and getting a better feel of it. (Although I’m more comfortable with the MEPIS distro…which is good because Warren Woodford will speak at the LinuxFest as well!)

Also of interest: Rev Donald Parris is presenting on marketing FOSS. He has been pushing the use of Free and Open Source software in the Christian Church. This is a Good Thing ™. If the Synod and its congregations can adopt the use of FOSS, imagine the innovation, the savings, and the increased use of technology. Instead of paying Microsoft Office licensing fees, schools and churches can use OpenOffice.org for bulletins and office administration. One can develop software materials for catechesis and enlightenment. How about an alternative to censorware “web filtering” that allows individual families and schools to set up what they want according to their morality instead of others imposing their standards? FOSS offers that ability and much more.

Here is something that I remembered from my days in the Valley: The Paisley Underground. This 80s school of music is the spiritual successor of 60s pop and garage bands. Bands of the Underground included the Bangles, the Three O’Clock, Game Theory, and the Long Ryders. And they were featured on KROQ when Rodney Bingenheimer and Richard Blade ruled the airwaves.

It was a huge shame that I was much too young to enter the clubs and enjoy them in concert (I turned 21 in 2000). But thank goodness for the Internet as I get to listen to these classics.

This what Peatling did to merit his pint. He created this theme called Durable for WordPress, and it fits with what I wanted. The links are in a separate page so it won’t make an unbalanced trail at the right side of my page. I’ll make some more cosmetic changes to this…like a background graphic and stuff I need to carry over from the earlier Annexe incarnation.