Maundy Thursday

Today is Maundy Thursday, so I thought I'd look it up and see what I could find. Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, is the day we remember the Last Supper. Maundy comes from the French word "Mande" meaning command or mandate. The "command" being refered to, is the remembrance of the Lord's Super and also the command to serve one another (Jesus washes the apostles feet). Apparently up until around 1754 part of the worship service on Maundy Thursday included a foot washing ceremony practiced by washing the feet of the poor! You probably won't see that in too many churches today. I think its cool though to realize the connection between the Last Super and the foot washing ceremony. Without one you can not fully experience the other.

Wizard of Oz

I bet you know that it's cool to watch the Wizard of Oz movie with the sound muted and listen to Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. My favorite part is the hurricane scene!! Did you also know the Wizard of Oz was actually written as an allegory represting Baum's political/economic views? At the time the US economy was based solely on the gold standard which meant all US money in circulation was backed up by gold reserves. Baum and others wanted to extend this standard to include silver, so that more money could be pumped into the economy. It's interesting to read up on. Just about every character symbolizes a person/group from the time. Also symbols such as the yellow brick road, emerald city, and Dorthy's silver slippers (they were made ruby for the movie caus they'd look better in color!) represent different ideas. If you want to read more just pick a link from google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wizard+of+oz+allegory. What a cool book/movie!

Close Call

I just came very close to buying a copy of Breakin' 2 Electric Boogaloo. I was so close to buying it, but then I thought..."What am I doing?" I have resisted the temptation for now, but I still feel like I may someday buy this movie. I don't think I really want to own it, but I do want to see it again, and this is not the kind of movie you can just go to Blockbuster and rent. I can barely remember the movie.. just Turbo, Ozone, Special K, and a ton of break dancin', but I know it was cool!

Urban Legends

This site sheds some light on popular urban legends. I like to be skeptical of things I'm told, so I found it interesting. Notable examples include:

• The Great Wall of China is not the only man made object visible from the moon.
• People do not only use 10% of their brains.
• Birth rate doesn't soar after blackouts.

Impulse Purchase

I ordered a GPS unit online this weekend. It was a major impulse purchase, that I made so I could try geocaching. It looks kind of fun. From now on my preferred directions will simply be longitude and latitude.

There was a triangle incident this weekend. For the record the ratio of 30, 60, 90 triangle is 1, 3^.5, 2. The easiest way to figure out if a triangle is 30, 60, 90 is to see if the length of the hypotenose is double the short leg (assuming you have a 90)! Also, a 3, 4, 5 right triangle has angles of 90, 37, and 53 degrees.