…excel still more

You know how everyone is an expert in everything? You know what I mean… Like the Olympics… Every 4 years, people are glued to the TV, watching obscure sports that they watch… well only every 4 years… But yet, everyone has an opinion about how well so and so did her triple sow-cow (not even sure if that’s spelled right) and what not.

Well.. I’m about to pull something like that on, yes it’s quite obvious from my title: Late Night TV. Let it be known that Late Night TV to me are Simpson, King of the Hill, and Futurama reruns… Yes I know nothing about Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien.

But I have been following their spat over the news (well, I guess it’s NBC v. O’Brien, but whatever…), and I recently read a National Post article that made a lot of sense to me.

It said that basically, while there’s almost universal support for Conan O’Brien on the internet – ie. Facebook and Twitter, in reality, this support is meaningless because… well his ratings were down. For almost 17 years (I do know the story behind this), Jay Leno ruled late night ratings, regularly whooping David Letterman… But now, apparently, O’Brien’s Tonight Show was getting beat out sometimes by Letterman reruns! HA! So much for all those internet fans. Kind of like how Ignatieff is working on gaining the support of those College students on his cross-Canada tours of Colleges and Universities… but you know that no matter how packed ConHall would be if he ever gave a lecture there, it’d never materialize into votes…

Anyway, here’s to the twits on twitters… The all-talk no-walk generation who so quickly can be united to support this an that cause… but really are just self-interested wannabes looking for something to do with their time…

I predict: Jay Leno will triumph, and the internet masses will lament. But alas, a new controversy is brewing somewhere, and a new facebook group will be made to occupy the twits.

I am a massive coffee drinker – though not by any means a coffee connoisseur like some friends of mine are. It fuels my day, I suppose, though sometimes I do go over board – like my recent trip to Florida, which forces me to have to detox from coffee for a while…

I remember when we went to drop off my friend, Joseph, in Calgary. It was about… 40 hours… of driving, and pretty much in that one week, I drank probably 3 weeks worth of coffee (Let’s say, I drink 2 larges from Tim Hortons a day). As a result of that, I actually stopped drinking coffee for a month. But, I got a little taste one day and was right back on…

My recent need to detox wasn’t as bad. I didn’t drink coffee for a week, but I’m definitely back in it… But, I am trying to cut down on my sugar. Just before the new year, I started drinking double-doubles (2 creams and 2 sugars) – down from triple-triples. I’m thinking in February, I’ll start drinking Regulars (just 1 cream and sugar) … with the eventual goal of cutting sugar out completely by the end of this season.

Let’s see if it works!

Having said all that, I actually picked up a new piano student today.. and I was just handed a message that another potential student had called.. Oh man, I’m gonna need these coffees…

I finally used my new HD Camera for something today… Revamping my boss’ (Senior Pastor of my church) welcome video on his Facebook. Man, is the video incredible, I’m really looking forward to using it for my Piano Videos…

I was at the Kennedy Space Center a few days ago (pictures to follow) and I’ve been inspired to restart an old hobby – Model Rockets. I was in to it when I was like 14… about the height of my fascination with space flight (that is, when I still wanted to be an astronaut). Problem was, that was when I didn’t have an income… Well now that I do, I figure I can sink a little cash into it…

I’m gonna spend the next few months investigating this some more.. Gotta figure out what kind of gear I need to do this. And yeah, I hope that I’ll be able to start launching in the spring sometime.

I was surprised to read something in the Star just now. It was a story about the re-election of some woman to the chair of the board… But what caught my eye is that it mentioned something about a Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee named Oliver Carroll being kicked off the board some time ago.

It caught my attention because I had a little exchange with Mr. Caroll a few months ago… I was emailing him about something else I read in the Star… something to do with child-play in a board meeting (I forget the details but I think it had something to do with swearing). Anyway, I looked up the email and here’s what I wrote to him…

***
What are you? A child? My God, how did you ever get this job? Friend, you’d better beleieve that some people do pay attention and care about the quality of ellected officials in Toronto. If you don’t get your act together, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that you’re not re-elected next year.

Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. – Ephesians 4:1-3.
***

To this, Mr. Caroll responded:

***
With respect I would suggest you step and not take the narrow, self-serving view of people who have an axe to grind. I notice you have a uoft email address – I expect that institution encourages one to get the facts.
***

To which I responded…

***
Indeed, UofT has taught me to get the facts. One of the ways to do so is to seek out credible sources. I beleive the Toronto Star to be one.

One observation: you have not even denied the alegations. Did you do these things reported in the Star?
***

I know it’s not exactly juicy… especially since he stopped emailing me, I guess when it became clear that I’m not some random person he can talk down with nonsense.. I was actually serious about my threat. I figured if he tried to run for the board again, I would – out of my own pocket – distribute photocopies of that Star article I was reading around the ward.

Guess I won’t need to anymore… Yeah, I just can’t help but feel a little satisfied with this.

Anyway, if anyone’s interested, here’s the article (the one I just read):

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/736933–trustees-re-elect-kennedy-to-head-catholic-board

So, I spent.. *ahem*, well let’s just say it’s about a month’s worth of salary on Logos, and I’m loving it.. But now they’re giving away hard copy Bibles too! Kinda odd… but meh, it’s all good… Check it out!

Ironic that my last post (in August, I think…) would be about being tempted by an iMac…

In a little under 2 months, I will be purchasing a new laptop… Obviously prices now and then will be different, but I can’t help looking things up now to get an idea of the prices that I will pay, and one offer in particular stood out to me…

The UofT bookstore has a deal where you get a free iTouch (actually a $259 rebate if you buy an iTouch and Mac) with the purchase of laptop…

Interesting… Tempting…

Did you know that Michael Jackson was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness? Aparently his mom is really devout. When I found that out I remembered something that I learned in Hebrew class..

The term “Jehovah” is actually one huge mistake.. or well, at least a misunderstanding. It comes from the mispronounciation of a word in the Hebrew Bible.

Just some quick background in formation… Hebrew does not have any vowels at all, and so all of its letters are consonants. This was fine for the most part, because the ancients who read the Tanakh (the proper term for hte Hebrew Bible.. the Christian Old Testament) just knew how to pronounce the words without the vowels. Kind of like how people who txt msg alot cn cmncte wo lke ths.

But as time went on and Hebrew was spoken less and less, there was a group of Hebrew Scholars called the Masoretes who decided to add vowels into the text to preserve the pronounciation. The way they did this is to add what we now call “Masoretic Vowel Points”. They’re basically dots and dashes added either above, below, or inside hebrew letters to indicate what vowel should occur after that consonant…

Ok so back to the “Jehovah” mistake… The word is derived from the English transliteration of the personal name of God, which without any vowels is transliterated as YHWH. Now the thing is, Jews revered the personal name of God so much that when they read the scriptures, instead of pronouncing it, they would use another word “Adonai” instead, which meant “Lord” or “Master”. What happened then was, when the Masoretes added the vowel markings, instead of adding the proper vowel markings on YHWH so that it’s pronounced properly, what they did was add on it the vowel markings for the word Adonay (‘DNY) … which produced YeHoWaH which is the word we derive Jehovah from (I know adonay begins with an a.. but the vowel marking underneath the first letter of Adonay – ‘ or aleph is what we call a shewa, and becomes either a very short “a” or a very short “e” depending on what letter it’s on).

No one really knows what the original pronounciation of the word YHWH is, but based on word comparisons and other arguments that I’m not in the mood to write out right now, the best guess of scholars today is that it is actually pronounced “YaHWeH”. (I think in some countries the word for God is “Jah” pronounced “Yah”).

Anyway, all that is to show that even in its name the Jehovah’s Witness “religion” has got it wrong… Bah, hope MJ didn’t buy in to all that. LOL.