Tim Sandefur is crushing hard on Charlize Theron.

Playing Eomer to Sandefur's Gimli with Theron as Galadriel, I simply cannot admit she is the most beautiful woman who ever lived, as that honor is reserved for my lovely wife. But speaking of beautiful women on TV, how about the Brazilian, Alessandra Ambrosio, Victoria's Secret cover model and recent star of this off-the-wall ad for the Hummer H2?

Posted by: JohnL at 10:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Eeeww. (hat tip: Drudge).

I wonder if anyone saw a bowl of petunias drop out of the sky at the same time?

Update: Picture here.

Another Update: More pictures here.

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Any article that includes a reference to a scene from a classic Monty Python movie deserves some attention.

I endured (and enjoyed, to be fair) four years of Latin at my high school. In fact, during my senior year, I won first place in Texas in Reading Comprehension at the Texas State Junior Classical League Latin convention. I have to say, however, that I never ran across pastillum botello fartum (read the article!) on one of my reading tests.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hey, another corporate lawyer who wants to be a LEGO "master builder."

This guy was written up in the Dallas Morning News a few days ago (the original article, which was syndicated, is here) and Fred Kiesche at The Eternal Golden Braid has a link to his website today. According to the DMN article, this guy is now in the pool of 30 finalists for one of the 6 master builder
positions at Legoland in San Diego.

I like the Achewood rabbit ambulance.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There's a handbook just for you.

(I don't know enough to judge. . . I used to know some DOS, along with BASIC, Pascal, and Prolog, but those skills are long-gone).

Posted by: JohnL at 09:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This was in the body of some spam I got at the office today. I'm sure it was computer-generated to create a "legitimate" body text to sneak past content filters. Still, it has a certain poetic charm:

Now and then, defined by completion. When you see near abdominal, it means that toward everybody takes a runge break. Indeed, living with unidirectional make a truce with preparatory near. Most people believe that inside owing negotiate a officious with from, but they need to remember how complete about visitor. Now and then, from cook cheese houghton over. When for crabapple dies, around sweeps the floor. Most people believe that inside reach an understanding with beyond, but they need to remember how chisholm.

Heavy, man.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Robert the Llama Butcher has some kind things to say about yours truly. Thanks for the link!

I'm a native Texan, unlike Robert, but I won't hold it against him. In fact, he gets a head start on honorary Texanhood by being from New York, which in my experience ranks a close second behind Texas on the citizen-arrogance scale.

Robert, I'm sorry to say that I liked the Lord of the Rings movies, as movies. I liked them a lot more than the Star Wars movies, which were my previous favorite fantasy epic. The first movie was closest to the source material, I thought. Give it a solid "A." The third was also pretty true to the source material, right in the B to B+ range. The second. . . give it a C minus (would have been a D, but for Helm's Deep). I still can't forgive what Peter Jackson did to Faramir's character. It was completely wrong, and even worse, unnecessary (unlike the deletions of Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire, which I
thought were justified). I think overall, Peter Jackson completely grokked the hobbits and the Rohirrim; in fact, if I could see only one scene from all three movies, it would be the charge of the Rohirrim in the third movie. I can forgive his fumbling with the Numenoreans and elves --- there's just too much backstory to adequately convey their nobility and otherworldliness in a movie.

Thanks again for the link, Robert. Come back soon.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As a lawyer, I regularly have to try to tease some meaning from the "hereinbefores," "wherefores," "shalls," and other assorted legaldegook that other lawyers (and lawyer wannabes) use in their "legal" writing. I'm sorry, but if you're a standard American English speaker, you have no business using the word "shall" in modern usage, except in flippant "what shall do now?" constructions.

And what's with the hereinaboves, hereinbelows, and wheretofores? I majored in German in college, and those constructions are very much alive there. But not in English. Ask someone to write a "legally binding" document and they for some reason start sprinkling "shalls" and "shall nots" like Shakespearean actors.

(That "someone. . . they" construction was intentional, by the way). I actually had a mild debate with another lawyer about this once, who felt that some "grandeur" in legal documents and court pleadings was a good thing. Oh, please.

One of my ongoing missions is to update all of my corporation's forms to use plain, modern English, and to do everything I can to revise other lawyers' forms for style whenever I am forced to use them. One of my key resources is a book by Bryan Garner, a noted authority on legal writing and the English language. Legal Writing in Plain English is one of my bibles (along with the Chicago Manual of Style, Lapsing into a Comma, and the invaluable Strunk and White). Even if you are not a lawyer, these are excellent resources for writers.

If you are interested in matters grammatical, Garner provides a daily usage tip here (where you can also sign up to receive his daily usage tips via email, as I have done).

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Via Geek Press, here is a lovingly-crafted account of the events around the end of the Second Age of Middle Earth. I've read the Intro and scanned the remainder. This guy knows his stuff and I plan to read the whole thing once I clear the items currently on my reading list.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The guys over at Gene Expression have stayed busy despite the holidays. Here are some highlights:

A link to recordings of lectures by great thinkers.

A fantastic post that takes on the tendency of many to romanticize communism.

In a comment to this post, we find that godlesscapitalist is a clothespin Republican!

And finally a post on brain-machine interfaces that reminds me of Master Chief and Cortana.

Enjoy.

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I have been enjoying time off with my family. I've done very little surfing in the evenings, and haven't been moved to blog. I'll get some new stuff up this weekend, and regular blogging will resume with my regular routine next week.

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