By the Numbers: Grace

the above is a subset of the people of the world we live in, plotted onto a graph that shows their likely level of 'goodness' at any instant, on a scale from 0 to 10.

so you don't cheat, steal, kill or fornicate with animals. most people would say that you are a decent human being -- a nice, pleasant, good person. by golly, you don't even cuss or download mp3s or dance in public (want a medal?). you read the Bible, the Koran and the Torah every night before bed, pray before every meal and visit to the bathroom, kiss your mom goodnight and leave a 16.7% tip minimum for every service rendered. hallelujah! praise the Lord because you always say, 'praise the Lord' after something good happens.


this next graph shows the same numbers as seen in the previous graph, but in the context of God.

our 'goodness' compared to others, in the context of God, is negligible; our 'goodness', in the context of the truly Good, is nothing. still, in our decrepitude, God reaches down to offer saving grace for all who accept it. no one receives any more or any less than the other.

still a viable career option*

i visited the mall for the third Saturday in a row today. of course, the previous two trips were not of my own accord, but because i was accompanying someone who wanted to return items to Best Buy.

while trolling the stores for something interesting, i found my parents stopped in the middle of the mall looking up at something through the skylight. my dad called me over to take a look. a few thoughts crossed my mind: perhaps it was a crack, or a decal sporting an interesting pattern.

it turned out to be a large black bird. and i mean LARGE; like, turkey-sized. bigger than any city bird has the right to be. it was bigger than a raven, with a hunchbacked profile and a tiny, bald, wrinkly red head.

"what is it?" my dad asked.

i quickly polled my mental roster of North American birds, filtering for birds that were big and black with bald red heads.

"it's a vulture! or a buzzard. they're the same." i replied.

i wasn't positive at the time, but as i continued to gape up at the magnificent, but ugly creature, i felt pretty sure that it was a turkey vulture. it had colouring and shape that was similar to the more famous Californian Condor, but it was definitely not big enough, nor was it in the right range to be the condor.

as i stared, i wondered why i hadn't seen a turkey vulture in Toronto before. as this thought passed, a second turkey vulture joined the first. they waddled around on the glass, leering hungrily into the mall.

i watched them until they flapped off.

in other news, i finally used the GAP gift card i recieved in 2003.

*in grade 3, i wanted to grow up to become a birdwatcher.

Nerd Corner: Music Slideshows in Powerpoint

similar to music videos, music slideshows are a series of pictures set to a piece of music. two years ago, if someone asked me to set a slideshow to music, i would have shrugged and said that it couldn't be done, having once tried for hours to no avail. but that was back when i was impatient and not yet adept at Googling for help.

Music:
assuming you want to use a song for your presentation, go to Insert > Movies and Sounds > Sound from File... and find the MP3 (most other formats are not supported, but midi and wav are usable). now i'm tired of writing, so i'll just link you to better instructions. it has screenshots for Powerpoint 2003.

If the song doesn't work: MP3s cannot be embedded into the presentation (incorporated into the slideshow file) and are linked instead. Powerpoint calls up the audio file based on the filepath of the MP3 when it was inserted. Powerpoint will not be able to play the song for a number of reasons:

• Incorrect Filepath: was the song file moved? was the presentation sent to you without the song?
• Missing Codec: Powerpoint only has access to a limited number of audio codecs -- basically the default Windows Media Player ones. if it doesn't play in WMP, re-encode the song.
• Filepath is too long: Powerpoint cannot access any linked files that have a filepath longer than 128 characters. move the file somewhere closer to the root folder, or rename a few things.

if you're sending your Powerpoint presentation to someone else, and it includes music and esoteric fonts, do your buddy a solid and send the song and fonts as well. if everything is in the same folder, Powerpoint should be able to detect them.

Transition Timing:
you know what's tacky? music slideshows where the transitions do not match the rhythm of the music. this is usually the result of a lazy presenter highlighting all the slides and setting the timer for an arbitrary amount. to truly impress your audience, put a bit of time into making sure the slides change in places that make musical sense, with pictures that reflect the lyrics or mood of the music. this is art; each artistic choice must serve some purpose, or carry some message.

to set the timing for transitions, you can go to Custom Animations and mess with the timer. it takes forever; by the time you're finished, you'll have heard the song enough times to hate it. this is the slow and stupid way that i've been using forever.

here is the new way that i just found after spending a couple hours making a music slideshow for a wedding. now you'll save yourself countless hours in the future. you're welcome.

Israelites Sue God for Breach of Covenant

NEW YORK – Attorneys representing the Tribe of Abraham filed suit against God in New York's Southern District Court Monday, citing 117 specific instances of breach of covenant.

continue reading at The Onion.

The English Major: bad grammar makes me [sic]

over the past year or two, i have had the pleasure of editing and marking some lovely pieces on a wide variety of topics. where there is pleasure, however, there is pain. today, i am wasting my 500th post on the most egregious (hi, Lyris!), and most pervasive grammatical sins i have encountered.

These errors have always been their, its because your stupid.
The following errors are the result of generations of people writing the way they speak.

There/They're/Their
There - the opposite of here. e.g. "She went over there."
They're - equivalent to "they are." e.g. "They're not present."
Their - the 3rd-Person Plural Possessive Determiner. e.g. "The dog was their responsibility."

Its/It's
Its - the 3rd-Person Singular Gender-Neutral Possessive Determiner, as in "Defeating the Russian at the game of chess was its finest moment."
It's - equivalent to "it is." e.g. "It's time to d-d-d-d-duel!"

Your/You're
Your - the 2nd-Person Possessive Determiner. e.g. "You must have lied; your pants are on fire."
You're - equivalent to "you are." e.g. "You're fired."

Comma Splices
I defer to the Wikipedia entry.

The Future Generation of Grammatical Errors
The following have developed in recent years due to the elimination of formal grammar teaching in education. They are intriguing to the descriptive linguists and infuriating to the prescriptive linguists.

'They' is the new 3rd-person singular gender-netural pronoun!

I don't want to tell you who ate the cupcake because they would be mad.

In this politically correct day and age, we no longer default to the masculine for catch-all phrases. Instead of taking the time to say, 'him or her,' or 'he or she,' we now use 'them,' or 'they' as the 3rd-person singular gender-neutral pronoun when referring to people. This shows up quite frequently in anecdotes where the speaker, or writer, tries to preserve the subject's privacy by obfuscating the gender with the incorrect use of 'them' and 'they.'

These pronouns should be reserved for their intended plural usage so that listeners, or readers will know when there are multiple people, or when there is just one person. This error is so widespread, however, that listeners and readers actually have no confusion about the number of people being referenced. Instead, they have adapted to find different contextual clues to inform their interpretations.

Apostrophic Catastrophe's

Buy 20 Hamburger's!

When pluralizing, many people now apostrophize their plurals. It is ridiculous. Things like hamburgers and waiver forms are being anthropomorphized, and given the ability to possess empty space when their sentences are left unfinished. This error is so common that there are now websites to chronicle its infiltration of the unknowing public.

Could of, should of, would of!

"I can't believe they left without me! They could of told me first!"

This one causes me the greatest pain. In fact, I will go so far as to say that I hate this error the most. I don't hate the people that commit this error, but I do hate the error. This is a textbook example of how people craft their sentences based on the way they sound when spoken. "Could/should/would of" makes no syntactical or semantical sense.

Those that commit this crime error want to say "could have," or "should've;" the sound of 've' is very similar to 'of.' Writers must be conscientious of not only how their sentences sound, but how they're read as well.

i has new glasses

Ray-Ban RB 8587

Avatar: Book 3 - Fire

returns July 14, 2008, after a long hiatus due to the WGA strike. but before that day comes, audiences will be given an hour long tv movie (episodes 314-15) titled "The Boiling Rock" to tide them over until then.

In "The Boiling Rock", Sokka takes it upon himself to infiltrate the highest security prison of the Fire Nation, built on an island in the middle of a volcanic lake, in the hopes that he will find his father who was captured during the botched invasion on the day of the solar eclipse. He receives help from the most unlikely of sources and finds a familiar face among the prisoners.

The Second Half of Book 3 - Fire: Trailer