The Arrow's Path

I am a man, and let's face, men hate having to send cards. This hatred includes especially Thank-you cards. "Why this rant?" you ask. Well, my girlfriend had sent me a box of goodies with a card in it, and I would have felt bad had I not reciprocated. So my quest began: I was going to find a card. So, I marched down to the pharmacy that is trying to take over the world one city block at a time, Walgreens, to try to find an appropriate card for said girlfriend. I assumed this would be a simple enough task. There were, in fact, four aisles of cards to pick from. So, my search began. It wasn't her birthday, so that ruled out over half the little buggers. She wasn't my mother, brother, or son-in-law. That ruled out about a quarter more. She wasn't graduating...she wasn't recovering from a tragic accident or disemberent involving noodles and puppies (I still don't understand what that sympathy card was referencing) or death (a card complete with a picture o...

With apologies to Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and all the people I will offend with this. In all honesty, are these any more absurb that Christ on a cross with 16th century priest garb?

Celebrate the life of one of Anglicanism's big names by listening to this interview on the BBC with Historian Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch.

I noticed yesterday that my MSN Messenger (instant messaging) was acting really weird. I guess that's not exactly true. It wasn't acting weird, it just wasn't working at all. I would try to log in and would get this bizarre Error Message. Due to Seabury's funkadelic internet server and my own computer which is probaby in need of a reformat in the next couple of months, I ran every diagnostic I could think of. MSN Messenger has a trouble shooting diagnostic, and everything seemed to check out. I rebooted (which I hardly ever have to do) and that didn't do it. I checked to make sure the Microsoft IM network was running, which it was. I finally gave up and went to bed. I got up this morning, and the same thing was happening. Finally I was google searching the error number and ran across this blog. The blog said to check your computer's clock and resynchronize and it would fix the Messenger problem. I thought that sounded insane, but I tried it. Sure enough, I had b...

Armless driver arrested for speeding Ringtone helps girl identify kidnapper Clothing Optional RV parks (for the ultimate in Redneck experience)

Short and sweet today... -The Archer --------------------------------------------- 29. Why The Mink Smells The Mink was such a great thief that at last the animals held a council about the matter. It was decided to burn him, so they caught the Mink, built a great fire, and threw him into it. As the blaze went up and they smelt the roasted flesh, they began to think he was punished enough and would probably do better in the future, so they took him out of the fire. But the Mink was already burned black and is black ever since, and whenever he is attacked or excited he smells again like roasted meat. The lesson did no good, however, and he is still as great a thief as ever.

I was surfing around and finally found a copy of H.G. Welles' The Country of the Blind. We did a rendition of this on radio back in the day, and I've been wanting to re-read the original. Unfortunately, the broadcast was not recorded properly and is now lost. The good news is the entire original short story is available online in a .pdf file. The story is sort of twisted in a way only H.G. Welles could think up. If anyone has copious amounts of free time and wants to read it, click here . The picture here is a meeting a H.G. Welles (on the right) and Orson Wells who did the infamous radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds in 1938. The two (not related) met only once briefly after the fiasco. H.G. Welles was amused by the whole incident. Remnants of a radio interview between the two is still available. If anyone wants copies of either, let me know as I am an amateur radio historian and broadcast collector. I also, come to think of it, have a radio broadcast of The Country of...

Here's some food for thought...The Archer

Pay Per View John Lennon Seance Tax deliquent sends collection of Gnomes into hiding Robber tries to burgle cashless credit union A slow day in the world of news...

Episcopal News Service Sunday, March 19, 2006 Two more bishops nominated for Presiding BishopJenkins, Duque agree to nomination by petition [ENS] Two more bishops have been nominated by petition for consideration as the26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, bringing the total number ofnominees to seven.Bishop Charles Edward Jenkins III of Louisiana and Bishop Francisco Duque-Gomezof Colombia announced their intention to accept nomination at the House ofBishops meeting at the Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, NorthCarolina.Bishops J. Neil Alexander of Atlanta, Edwin F. Gulick, Jr., of Kentucky,Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada, and Henry N. Parsley Jr. of Alabama werenominated in January by the Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of thePresiding Bishop. Bishop Stacy Sauls of Lexington was nominated by petition inFebruary.All seven addressed the House of Bishops in a March 19 evening session devotedto hearing the nominees' views on the ministry of the Pres...

A few weeks ago, I posted of picture of the new dog my mother acquired. It had two different colored eyes, and as Kyle said, "Dude, it looks like a zombie...that's awesome!" Apparently someone else thought that as well because I am sad to report there has been a weiner dog heist. If it wasn't so sad, it would be hilarious: As my mother related the story, she came home and the gate was ajar as if someone had slammed it shut in a hurry. The doberman was really agitated and barking, which is unusual because that is a pretty laid back dog. Upon further inspection, remnants of dog biscuits were near the fence and half a pair of blue jeans. My mother called the cops upon realizing there was a weiner dog-snatching. The cops concluded that the perpetrator apparently had lured the weiner dog up to the fence with the dog biscuits, opened the fence really quickly, and grabbed it. Apparently not in time for the doberman to bite him on the fanny and rip off half of the seat of his...

You're 60% Irish You're very Irish, and most likely from Ireland.(And if you're not, you should be!) How Irish Are You? Who in the name of St. Guinness of James' Gate came up with this one? Guess when I go to England, I will live in the pub for 3 months. Saints preserve us...

75. Origin Of The Bear: The Bear Songs Long ago there was a Cherokee clan called the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhï, and in one family of this clan was a boy who used to leave home and be gone all day in the mountains. After a while he went oftener and stayed longer, until at last he would not eat in the house at all, but started off at daybreak and did not come back until night. His parents scolded, but that did no good, and the boy, still went every day until they noticed that long brown hair was beginning to grow out all over his body. Then they wondered and asked him why it was that he p. 326 wanted to be so much in the woods that he would not even eat at home. Said the boy, "I find plenty to eat there, and it is better than the corn and beans we have in the settlements, and pretty soon I am going into the woods to stay all the time." His parents were worried and begged him not to leave them, but he said, "It is better there than here, and you see I am beginning to be differe...

If anyone here is into Comic books or, like me, was into them when they were kids, check out this website concerning Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Characters . The amount of research it must have took these people to come up with this is truly staggering. According to their research, The Beast, Phoenix, and ArchAngel are Episcopalians. Superman is a Methodist. My personal favorite, The Green Lantern, is a Catholic. Perhaps the most interesting was this quote: "The original creators of comics, 60 or 70 years ago, were almost all Jewish and Italian kids from various parts of New York," notes DC Comics Executive Vice President and Publisher Paul Levitz. "And the characters they created were pseudo-whitebread Episcopalian. It was almost de rigueur back then to paint people in this idealized American image."

Pentagon planning Robo-bug army Man sues self fo vehicle damage The pancake breakfast that delayed the end of WWII

In the last ethics class, the topic of the "chapel peculiar" (an actual term believe it or not) came up. Honestly, you don't really expect to give a cartoonist that sort of fodder and have no reprisals do you? Two points for whom can translate the latin. (Hint: it's a quote from Cicero.) Here it is, your weekly moment of zen... (Click to Enlarge)

So, Barry Bonds is a cheat ...dear me, how shocking. Well, not really. That's "not really" as in not really shocking not that Bonds is not really a cheat. For those of you who are not up to date on the recent goings-on in the baseball world, an incredibly well researched and documented expose on Barry "I don't work and play well with others" Bonds' steroid usage was published last week by two well known sports reporters/journalists for the San Fransisco Chronicle. I have not yet figured out why this comes as a shock to anyone. This is really a simple deduction, Watson. Barry Bonds hit a monstrous 73 home runs in 2001, having never hit more than 49 in any other season before or since. This might have seemed reasonable when he was, say, 29 or so, but Bonds was in his late 30's at the time. Secondly, look at pictures of Bonds when he first came into the majors and then later. His muscle mass almost triples, again as he got older. Even with modern physi...

83. Tsuwe'nähï: A Legend Of Pilot Knob In the old town of Känuga, on Pigeon river, there was a lazy fellow named Tsuwe'nähï, who lived from house to house among his relatives and never brought home any game, although he used to spend nearly all his time in the woods. At last his friends got very tired of keeping him, so he told them to get some parched corn ready for him and he would go and bring back a deer or else would never trouble them again. They filled his pouch with parched corn, enough for along trip, and he started off for the mountains. Day after day passed until they thought they had really seen the last of him, but before the month was half gone he was back again at Känuga, with no deer, but with a wonderful story to tell. He said that he had hardly turned away from the trail to go up the ridge when he met a stranger, who asked him where he was going. Tsuwe'nähï answered that his friends in the settlement had driven him out because he was no good hunter, and th...

We finally finished the quarter here at Seabury yesterday. I only get a quasi-spring break because I have a class across the street at Garrett that I really can't afford to miss. I can't complain though, since I knew when I signed up for the class that they were going to be on a different calendar. It is actually amusing because I dreamt last night that I was officiating Evening Prayer and everything went wrong, including the pipe organ falling over. I need to stop, relax, and stop eating pringles before I go to bed.

Rattle Snake Round Up Methanol Powered Laptops Woman rips off Girl Scout cookie seller with fake money

I don't know what scares me more: the fact that I can think this stuff up or the fact that I have a readership demographic that will understand it... Apologies to my more liturgically challenged, protestant friends who won't likely understand these references. Click Image to Enlarge...

An Army chaplain recruiter (he was both a chaplain and a recruiter) was on campus last week. I have considered going into military chaplaincy for a while, probably more in a Reserve/part time status than active, full time military chaplaincy. So, I talked to the guy over lunch. He was about the most introverted recruiter I've ever seen, but I guess a lot of clergy are like. He gave me the usual recruitment trinkets: pens, whatnot. He also handed me one of those cloth, keychain things you put around your neck. I am not sure if they have a proper title other than "keychain neck things." It was in a package all neatly rolled up, so I stuck it in my pocket and forgot about it. I pulled it out before I went for my mile run, and it dawned on me what it said as I was running. I had just assumed it was the usual Army slogan of "Army of One." I've personally always thought the Army of One slogan was just bizarre in that it tries to recruit individuals. I find that an...

World War I Servicewoman dies at 107 Singapore to build Helix shaped bridge (This one's for Al...) Coffee could cause heart attacks in some people

My mother just got this new dog. Apparently it was abandoned in an apartment in Nashville with a Rottweiler before animal control picked her up. She only knows how to get along with large dogs., which is a good thing, considering my mother has a good sized Dobie. She (her name is Floosy of all things) was apparently about to be euthanized because no one wanted her. I guess this is because she is such an unusual brindle coloring and has two different colored eyes. I have seen Huskies and Malamutes with different colored eyes before, but never a dachshund. So, let me get this right...a large Dobie (80-90 lbs) and a minature weiner dog (8 to 9 lbs.) As weird as that sounds, they are apparently getting along great. She will probably be the alpha dog in no time. Notice the rope toy...it's about as large as the dobie's head.

What do you know? It is winter in Chicago after all. We got some good snowball snow, and its still coming down!

This week: The Journey to the Sunrise A long time ago several young men made up their minds to find the place where the Sun lives and see what the Sun is like. They got p. 256 ready their bows and arrows, their parched corn and extra moccasins, and started out toward the east. At first they met tribes they knew, then they came to tribes they had only heard about, and at last to others of which they had never heard. There was a tribe of root eaters and another of acorn eaters, with great piles of acorn shells near their houses. In one tribe they found a sick man dying, and were told it was the custom there when a man died to bury his wife in the same grave with him. They waited until he was dead, when they saw his friends lower the body into a great pit, so deep and dark that from the top they could not see the bottom. Then a rope was tied around the woman's body, together with a bundle of pine knots, a lighted pine knot was put into her hand, and she was lowered into the pit to die...

The Archer is now serving up another original... Click picture to enlarge

I wanted to post last night, but frankly, I was too tired. It felt like I had pretty much been in church all day, which coincidentally I mostly had. We had our usual 11:15 service here at Seabury with a guest preacher from the Order of the Holy Cross in New York. Then the fun began. I had to officiate at Evensong at 5:15, which was the first time I have had to do that here at Seabury. I did forget my glass of water, which I initially thought was going to be bad because my throat gets reallly dry when I start to sing. I think it went well despite that as I hit all the notes. I got good feedback for everyone afterward. After that, I had to rush over to the church I attend here in Chicago and help with their Ash Wednesday service. Which was amusing because the priest there just adopted an abused Saluki who decided he was going to process in with us and sit up next to the altar. That was a new one. That service went well though. We had an interesting collection of newcomers, which is alwa...