The Last Chapter of Acts...

For those of you who thought you knew the Bible backwards and forwards....here's the recently discovered final chapter of Acts:

ACTS 29
1 AND IT CAME TO PASS, WHEN PAUL WAS AT Corinth, he and certain disciples came upon a mob that was stoning an organist. 2 And Paul said unto them, "What then hath he done unto thee that his head should be bruised?" 3 And the people cried with one voice, "He hath played too loud. 4 Yea, in the singing of psalms, he maketh our heads to ring as if they were beaten with hammers. 5 Behold, he sitteth up high in the loft, and mighty are the pipes and mighty is the noise thereof, and tho' there be few of us below, he nonetheless playeth with all the stops, the Assyrian trumpet stop and the stop of the ram's horn and the stop that soundeth like the sawing of stone, and we cannot hear the words that cometh out of our own mouths. 6 He always tosseth in the variations that confuse us mightily and playeth loud and discordant and always in a militant tempo, so that we have not time to breathe as we sing. 7 Lo, he is a plague upon the faith and should be chastised. 8 Paul, hearing this, had himself picked up a small stone, and was about to cast it, but he set it down and bade the organist come forward. 9 He was a narrow man, pale of complexion, dry, flaking thin of hair. 10 And Paul said unto him, "Why hath thou so abused thy brethren?" 11 And the organist replied, "I could not hear them singing from where I sat, and therefore played the louder so as to enourage them." 12 And Paul turned round to the mob and said loudly, "Let him who has never played an organ cast the first stone." 13 And they cast stones for awhile until their arms were tired and Paul bade the organist repent and he did. 14 And Paul said unto him, "Thou shalt take up the flute and play it for thirty days, to cleanse thy spirit." 15 And afterward, they returned to Corinth and sang psalms unaccompanied and then had coffee and were refreshed in the faith.

(Also known as "The Stoning of the Organist" by Garrison Keillor.)

I saw that on the wall in the choir room in my church, and thought it was hilarious :) Enjoy!

World Championships, part 2!

Tonight, ESPN showed the Free Dance and the Ladies' Short Program. First, my thoughts about the dance results:

• The Bulgarians won the free dance and the overall event, which, in my opinion, was predictable. They went for the overly dramatic approach--something that has been done time and time again, perhaps most notably by Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France. The dramatically symbolic stories, tormented music, and anguished facial expressions are fine, but I would like to see teams express emotion just as powerfully, but in a more subtle way.
• One team that did that quite well was Marie-France Dubriel and Patrice Lauzon of Canada. They skated to "At Last," and presented a technically difficult program. Their program was filled with emotion as well, but it was a more subtle, relaxed emotion. They didn't hit the audience over the head with the drama, but instead, invited them in to a more intimate, private setting. They took second place--I'd really like to see them come back next year and win the title.
• The team that most impressed me tonight, however, was Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada (above). They skated to "Valse Triste" by Sibelius, a quiet, delicate piece of music. It would have been easy to ignore such a quiet piece. But I couldn't take my eyes off them; they were mesmerizing. I really can't wait to see what they'll be doing in a few years.

As for the ladies' short program...

• I was thrilled to see Yu-Na Kim do so well. Her program was amazing, and I hope that her back holds out long enough for her to win the title.
• I don't know exactly what it is, but I don't like Carolina Kostner's skating. I don't think she knows what to do with her arms very well, and as a result, looks like she's flinging things all over the place. Even though she had the best jumps in the competition tonight, she's going to need to work a lot on her presentation if she's going to compete with Mao Asada and Yu-Na Kim, both skaters who possess both of these qualities.
• I really got tired of listening to Dick Button crab about sit spins that aren't low enough, but after seeing Alissa Czisny's spins, I have to admit that he has a point. Her spins are far and away the best I've seen this year, and yet, after the short, she's in 18th because she missed two jumps. In a field this deep, that's mostly justified, but I do think that it highlights a disparity between the importance of jumps and the importance of spins. I wouldn't mind having the system tweaked a bit, so that spins are judged more harshly to encourage skaters to spend as much time perfecting their spin positions as they do on their jumps.
• And finally...I wanted to hit Peter Carruthers over the head with something heavy when he interviewed Mao Asada (from Japan), and later Yu-Na Kim (from South Korea). These girls don't speak English, and here is this idiot asking them complicated questions about their programs, and then patronizing them when they struggle to respond. You'd think that in Tokyo, a city of over 12 million people, ESPN would be able to find at least one would could speak both Japanese and English well enough to translate, and probably also one who could translate Korean. But no. Stupid American imperialists have to act like English is the only language that matters, and then pat themselves on the back for helping Japanese and Korean teenagers with their grammar. /sigh.

Stay tuned for ladies and pairs commentary tomorrow!! :)

World Championships!

First night of televised World Championship coverage, and ESPN showed the men's short and free programs, as well as the original dance. Here are my initial thoughts...

• I don't like Tanith Belbin's hair color. She's better as a blonde.
• And, even though I'm a big fan of Tanith and Ben in the ice dancing competition, I was really impressed by the performance of Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon of Canada. When interviewed after their performance about their Twizzles--which she did well, but he messed up--Marie-France teased Patrice, saying, "Well, mine were fine. I don't know what happened." Any team that makes me laugh is worth cheering for.
  
• 
• I think this World Championships is showing off the advantages of the new judging system. After both the men's short and the original dance, the competition was wide open. The top three dance teams were separated by .5 points, and the top 10 men were all within 10 points of each other. In a men's competition where there are a lot of strong, yet inconsistent competitors, this means that anything is possible.
  
• And I also think that the television coverage is doing a great job of promoting the system. One of the problems I had with it is that without a top mark of 6, it seemed like it would be difficult to know how good someone's score was. But all the broadcasts I've seen have done a great job of showing competitor scores in relation to each other (such as "Belbin and Agosto need 153.67 to win"), as well as in comparison to previous personal bests by the skater. And the more you watch, the more you develop a metric for what is a good short program, etc. score. Quite frankly, I think it's great for the sport, and makes things a lot more exciting.
  
• Tomas Verner's (above right) long program was awesome! I'm always excited when relatively unknown skaters totally blow their programs out of the water at a major competition, saying, "Look at me!" in the most effective way possible.
• I have decided that my favorite aspect of figure skating is the straight line footwork sequence. Two skaters who were amazing at this were Alexei Yagudin and Michelle Kwan. In my opinion, Yagudin's straight line in his short program at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake is perhaps the best straight line sequence ever.
• Along those lines, I think Daisukie Takahashi's long program was much better than Brain Joubert's, even though Joubert won the gold. Takahashi has the performative aspect of skating down in addition to being athletic, and in my opinion, his jumps look a lot more effortless than Joubert's. Plus, Takahashi's straight line sequence was the best in the competition, while Joubert's was singularly uninspired (this marks the first time I've ever agreed with Dick Button on something...stupid Dick Button...most irritating commentator EVER).
• Regardless, though, congratulations to Brian Joubert (above) on winning France's first world gold medal in men's figure skating since 1965!
  

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake!

I made this cake a few weeks ago, and it was great. Not only that, but if you have a mixer, it's very easy, and it was one of the few recipes that I've been able to make in the suggested time on the very first time I made it. It uses fresh pineapple, which was a big draw for me...serving it with creme fraiche (or cream fresh as the stockboy at Cub called it...) adds a subtle, sophisticated touch.

The original recipe can be found on Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter
• 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 fresh pineapple - peeled, cored and cut into rings

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
2. Melt the butter. Brush a little bit of the butter on the inside of a 9 inch cake pan.
3. Mix 5 tablespoons of the butter with the dark brown sugar and 1/4 cup of the pineapple juice. Place this mixture in the bottom of the cake pan. Arrange the pineapple rings on the brown sugar mixture in a decorative pattern (be creative). Set pan aside.
4. Stir together the flour, salt, white sugar, and baking powder.
5. Separate the eggs. Beat the whites until stiff but not dry.
6. Beat two of the egg yolks until lemony yellow. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup pineapple juice, vanilla, and remaining melted butter. Add this mixture to the flour mixture. Gently fold in the egg whites. Pour batter over the top of the brown sugar and pineapple rings.
7. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes then cover pan tightly with a serving dish and invert so that the pineapple side is up.

Enjoy!!

Random Catch-up Post

Sorry I haven't posted in a while...first it was getting ready for the cruise, then it was the cruise itself, and now it's recovering from the cruise. I still have this weird thing where I feel strange because my house isn't rocking back and forth (honestly), which I'm looking forward to not feeling anymore.

First things first. The cruise was AWESOME. I haven't eaten so much amazing food in a long time. It was a lot of fun to be pampered for a week and feel like I was living in the lap of luxury. Two quick pictures...the one on the right is the water off the coast of Grand Cayman, where we went snorkeling. I actually saw a puffed up pufferfish, which was pretty incredible.

The one to the left is a picture from the Mayan ruins of Tulum near Cozumel, Mexico. The walls around the city were 12 feet thick, made completely without mortar. Through the wall, you can see the main temple, which was positioned so that the left side lined up with the sun on the summer solstice and the right side lined up with the sun on the winter solstice. It's amazing how much knowledge the Mayans had, and then lost without any apparent explanation.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip :)

But then...I come back and find out that the Packers have signed Randy Moss and that Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica is (allegedly) dead! I'm completely disappointed in the Packers...they have more class than this. How can they as a team go from Reggie White to Randy Moss in less than a decade? In a word, boo. The Starbuck plot twist intrigues me, though. To be honest, I haven't watched BSG other than the first season on DVD that my brother had me watch over Christmas. And while I was intrigued, I never got into watching it in its original airings. I would read the Television Without Pity recaps and think that there was no WAY I could ever understand what was going on anymore. But Starbuck's purported death has made me reconsider. After initially disliking her character, I've decided that she's the person on the show I would most like to be...which is probably why they can't actually kill her off. She's too appealing to the show's audience, and killing her off could be a death knell for the show. I really hope they don't make her a Cylon, but instead, bring her back in good-old-fashioned Alias style.

Finally, a heads-up about a fun thing I found...As many of you know, it's time for the NCAA Final Four, and apparently, Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir have taken the bracket system and applied it to decisions that you make about important things in your life. In their book The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything, they use the bracket system to help you decide what is the best movie, the most memorable moment, and the best American beer, among other things. Slate has an article about this, with a fun interactive game that let's you work your way through some of these bracket options. My most memorable moment was the 9/11 attacks, and my best film death was Darth Vader's killing of Obi-Wan Kenobi. My one complaint about this system, however, is that it's not personal enough. For me, there is no way that Sonny Corleone's tollbooth death and Obi-Wan Kenobi's death should be paired up in the first round. IMHO, those both belong in the final four. Letting people generally rank the top 16 options--perhaps as tier 1, 2, or 3--would allow for a more accurate seeding system, and therefore, a championship match-up that truly reflects the conflict you feel when choosing a favorite film death.

Regardless, it's a fun site to play around with, and certainly an interesting way of thinking about how to answer the question "What's your favorite movie?"