Lately I’ve been playing geography puzzle games online. I have no knowledge of geography, so I thought it was a good idea. It’s humbling to play a game intended for children and find yourself saying, “Oh, so that’s where Somalia is!” The thing about this site though, is that I think it’s tailored to children who are home schooled. Why? Well there was the ad that said “Finally, a Christian alternative to health care!”

It’s called Christian Share Medi-Share. I can’t get the image to upload right now, but that tag is the most interesting part. I agree that the health care system has all sorts of problems, and I can’t speak for the efficiency of the “Christian alternative to health care.” But I like how much the ad says about the company placing it and the intended audience. Apparently there is a group of long-suffering people just waiting for a Christian alternative to health care. And a group of people who thought, “Health care is so messed up! Why can’t Christians just figure out another (religiously based) way?”

I was just washing my hands in the men’s room. I watched the man next to me finish, go to the automatic paper towel dispenser, and hold his hands out. He held two hands out, palms up, not moving, like a child receiving a gift. He stood there for a while. I assume that he thought it was broken and eventually left. I finished washing my hands and walked over to the dispenser. I waved my hand in front of the part that said “motion activated” and dried my hands.

My associate Zach and I discussed the phenomenon of e-mail forwards the other day. Where do they come from? Who is the person that first says, “I think I’ll forward this insane thing I’ve created to all my acquaintances?” You rarely see an author taking credit for a popular forward either. It seems like a mostly mom and pop operation, so we thought we could become famous by writing a bunch of forwards and signing them. We would be the Wal-mart of forwards.

Anyways, where I’m going with this, is that the following e-mail forward could be made by an imitator. The reason I say that is because parts of it seem recycled and because the e-mail makes God look kind of like a jerk. Of course neither of those is that rare with these letters, so who’s to say?

P.S. This e-mail horribly abuses the ellipsis and the carriage return.

(more…)

I used to use Winamp to listen to music on my computer, but I don’t anymore. The one thing I miss about that program is the feature “stop play after this song.” You could press stop but then the song would finish instead of getting cut off in the middle.

The reason I mention it is because there’s something wrong with me and I don’t like to stop listening to music. For example, I’ll stay in front of my computer or in a room so I can listen to a song that I like, and I find something to do until it’s over. But then the next song starts because I’m distracted, and I keep on doing something until that one is over. And it keeps on happening. I’ve been listening to the new Arcade Fire CD and I’ve been stuck in front of my computer a lot.

Sometimes clients need help transferring files they’re going to use in their presentation. I walked into the room today, and the client goes, “Thank goodness you’re here! The flash drive isn’t showing up!” So I went over to help. I plugged the drive into the computer to see if I could get it to work, and she said, “Oh! That’s where it is! I’m used to it being back here on mine.” I asked her where she had been trying to plug it in. For some reason you can’t plug a USB flash drive into the ethernet jack on your laptop. Wouldn’t the competely different shapes be a tip off?

P.S. I was just walking down the hall and a client pointed at a sign and said, “Excuse me, can you direct me to food & spirits?”

1. You are pointing at a sign with arrows to the locations listed.


2. You asked for “food & spirits” but actually would just like a vending machine, as you had to explain.


3. It’s funny to say, “Direct me to food & spirits.”

Ok, so this isn’t a forward, but the last post reminded me of this. You know how churches have those “witty” sayings on their signs, like, “Eternal Forecast: Reign Forever?” One time we saw one that said “The best vitamin for a Christian is B!” What do you think it’s supposed to mean?

P.S. Have you seen the Church Sign Generator?

Sorry this is late. Sadly the (probably animated) .gif files accompanying this e-mail weren’t displaying. But it’s still spiritually edifying.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

A friend sent an early “Valentine” to see if it will make it around the world by Feb. 14th.

For God so loV ed the world,
That He gA ve
his onL y
BegottE n
SoN
T hat whosoever
Believeth I n Him
Should N ot perish,
But have E verlasting life.”
John 3:16

Send it around the World

If you’re about to complain that the letters don’t line up, don’t, because that’s pretty much how it looked when it got to me. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the letters that spell “Valentine” are supposed to line up. BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW GOD SENT A SECRET VALENTINE MESSAGE THROUGH JOHN HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO!

I’ve been thinking lately about sending CDs out to bands and venues. It’s been too long since I’ve performed frequently. The problem is I’m not sure I want to play as just “Greg Kamprath.” My thinking is:

1. My name isn’t especially easy to remember.


2. It would be nice to be able to perform with a band as well as by myself.


3. It would be nice for the people in the band to be able to say, “I’m in the band such and such” instead of “I play in Greg Kamprath’s band.”

In the process of coming up with names, Eric and I talked about using words with identical singular and plural forms. That way, when I’m playing by myself, the word would be interpreted as singular, and when I’m playing with a band, it would be heard as plural. We couldn’t think of that many. Do you know some? So far there’s:

• deer


• fish


• moose


• sheep


• aircraft


• pants

Ok, I can’t identify this person because I would both feel bad, and because he could probably track a link back to my site… But there is a guy who books events at my hotel, and he’s trying to become a syndicated cartoonist. And I went to his website, and it was really bad. So we’ll play a word game for you to figure out what the name of the cartoon is, and then you can google it. The words in parentheses have to be replaced by a synonym.

“(soda, coke) (scientology, heaven’s gate)ure s(whore, mispelled garden implement)ck th(age, period)py”

I don’t have to tell you this, but references to things everybody knows about do not equal humor. It’s telling when he describes how he originally came up with the idea for the cartoon.

When I was visiting my parent’s house for Christmas the Capitalist Youth recorded a couple songs to celebrate Zach’s birthday. It was pretty funny because we didn’t have any equipment. My and Eric’s equipment were in other states. So we had one microphone that Zach brought over and my old 4 track tape recorder. We recorded on a “creepy halloween sounds” cassette that I found in a drawer upstairs. We also didn’t have our instruments with us so we had to use whatever I left in the basement. Listen to the songs here.