Upon The Feast Of Pentecost

Happy Birthday, Church.

I Have Watched This A Hundred Times, But This Morning, I Felt The Urge To Watch It Again

I Almost Spewed My Coffee Out Of My Mouth

I'm always excited to hear when words that are given a small amount of play in the Bible make it into common parlance, or are at least recognized by the dictionary. The word "shibboleth," for example, is just plain fun to say, and while the meaning of the word "pharisaic" these days has been broadened to mean "anyone who disagrees with me on matters of religious discipline," at least it's still out there (although I would love to see the word "sadducean" used more often, particularly on the Jesus Seminar, et al). So imagine my delight when this little tidbit came across the wire:

Thirteen-year-old Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, spelled "laodicean," Thursday night to take top honors in the 82nd annual Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The eighth-grader won $40,000 in cash and prizes for nailing the final word. Pronounced lay-odd-uh-see-an, the word means lukewarm or indifferent, particularly in matters of politics or religion.

When interviewed about the prize money, young Kavya was reported to say this: "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing."

Why Michael Emerson Is Amazing As Ben Linus

What The Vice President Meant To Say: Here's How To Find Me And Kill Me

Joe Biden has become such an entertaining public figure that we here at Apoloblogology have decided to elevate him to the level of Unintentional Humor Correspondent, joining the ranks of Stephen Baldwin and Aimee Semple MacPherson. His latest: revealing the location of a secret bunker used to hide the Vice President in instances of grave threats to his life:

According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president.

The bunker is believed to be the secure, undisclosed location former Vice President Dick Cheney remained under protection in secret after the 9/11 attacks.

According to (Eleanor) Clift's report on the Newsweek blog, Biden "said a young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment."

Clift continued: "The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn't be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall."

And of course, no wacky statement by the man a heartbeat away from the presidency would be complete without some poor, poor spokesperson attempting to say that the VP actually meant to say the opposite of what he actually did say:

"What the Vice President described in his comments was not -- as some press reports have suggested (my note: and as Biden himself suggested)-- an underground facility, but rather, an upstairs workspace in the residence, which he understood was frequently used by Vice President Cheney and his aides," said Biden's spokesperson Elizabeth Alexander. "That workspace was converted into an upstairs guestroom when the Bidens moved into the residence. There was no disclosure of classified information."

Translation: my boss doesn't actually know what's classified and what's not.

Again, I urge the press office of the White House: please, please, please, don't ever make Joe Biden stop talking.

Upon The Feast Of St. Matthias The Apostle

Patron saint of backup plans?

I Didn't Know There Was A Name For That

Sorry for the image.

Shortly after the release of the film Finding Forrester, I found myself mildly amused by a site with a simple but devastatingly inane premise: a wallpapered image of Sean Connery, with looping audio of his most famous line from that film, "You're the man now, dog!" I thought it was funny for about 30 seconds, and then I forgot about it altogether.

Well, as it turns out, that particular time waster started (or was at least emblematic of) an entire movement of what are now referred to as "YTMND" pages. I think you can guess what the acronym stands for.

In any case, thousands of such pages exist, so many so that there is actually a Wikipedia-like site cataloging them with comic-book collector care for detail. According to the site, the criteria for a webpage being classified as a YMNTD is:

"a juxtaposition of a single image, optionally animated or tiled, along with large zooming text and a looping sound file."

Naturally, my curiosity and curious lack of anything important to do at the moment have led me to list here my five favorite YMNTD's, as browsed in the past ten minutes:

1. "Mike Tyson: Insane Difficulty Unlocked": An animated GIF of a real Mike Tyson throws random punches while an 8-bit version of Mac, the hero from "Punch Out," scrolls back and forth across the bottom of the screen, trying to avoid the blows. The theme music from "Punch Out" provides the background audio.

2. "New Talent on 60 Minutes": During the telltale ticking intro of that one news show that I can never summon the boredom to continue watching, Mike Wallace and the regular cast introduce themselves. And then other people introduce themselves. It's annoying after only one viewing, but I still wish I'd thought of it.

3. "Clint Eastwood Loves Surprises": They wanted to throw him a birthday party. They made his day, but not in the way they meant to.

4. "Insurance Fraud Bust": This one's only funny if you've ever made it to one of the bonus levels of Street Fighter 2 with Guile.

5. "The Belarian Hummingbird": Will Smith flits about delicately, collecting pollen from a beautiful flower. I laughed audibly.

If you find others worth wasting time on, feel free to add them in the combox.

This Day In History

On May 9, 1950, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was published by L. Ron Hubbard. This causes lingering feelings of sadness in me, but I can't put my finger on the reason why.

So I Made Up A Little Ground.

But unfortunately, I remain in LAST PLACE in the Cannonball Catholic Blog Awards in the category Best Potpourri of Popery. I look to you, my readership, to get me back in the ring to take another swing.

Also, I am trailing miserably in a fundraising competition between myself and our show's news director, Anna Mitchell, when it comes to rounding up monies for this year's 5k Run for Life to support Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati. As such, I hereby solicit you, my loyal, unwavering, and ready-to-do-my-bidding readership to do the following: head over to MY PAGE and make a donation of either $5 or $10 in my name for this weekend's charity race. As I've stated before, charity or no charity, I'm in this thing to freaking win it. We get between 500 and 700 readers per day here, so if only half of you make $5 donations, I'll regain a comfortable lead.

A serious setback was suffered today, as Pope Benedict XVI made a donation in honor of me, but accidentally made it on Anna's page. Fortunately, this mistake didn't fall under the umbrella of faith and morals, nor was it an ex cathedra donation, so this error in no way constitutes a violation of the dogma of papal infallibility.

Deadline is Friday at 5pm. Make it happen, people.

Dom DeLuise, 8/1/1933-5/4/2009

Perhaps one of the only reasons I actually suffered all the way through Cannonball Run 2.

Rest in Peace.

Voting For The Cannonball Catholic Blog Awards Has Opened

And right now, I'm getting spanked by Jay Anderson in the category "Best Potpourri of Popery."

FIX THAT.

Upon The Feast Of St. Florian

If that's all the bigger the fire was, I could have put it out with one bucket too...

Upon The Feast Of St. Athanasius

Arianism never had a chance.

Who'da Thunk It Was Possible To Outspend Dubya?

This is why I raise chickens.

Upon The Feast Of St. Joseph The Worker

From the Shrine of St. Joseph comes the following prayer:

Joseph, by the work of your hands
and the sweat of your brow,
you supported Jesus and Mary,
and had the Son of God as your fellow worker.

Teach me to work as you did,
with patience and perseverance, for God and
for those whom God has given me to support.
Teach me to see in my fellow workers
the Christ who desires to be in them,
that I may always be charitable and forbearing
towards all.

Grant me to look upon work
with the eyes of faith,
so that I shall recognize in it
my share in God's own creative activity
and in Christ's work of our redemption,
and so take pride in it.

When it is pleasant and productive,
remind me to give thanks to God for it.
And when it is burdensome,
teach me to offer it to God,
in reparation for my sins
and the sins of the world.

Take that, communists.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs In "Dance, Monkey, Dance!"

Dear White House: Let Joe Biden talk more. His remarks are perpetual humorous light in these dark and humorless days.