samuel logan brengle and helps for holiness

2024.01.20
My middle name comes from a Salvationist Theologian, Samuel Logan Brengle - my folks grabbed his middle name instead of making it look like we were grabbing my grandfather's name of Sam.

(As of late I sometimes daydream about dropping my last name; Logan is not prone to misspelling nor associated with the endless cauldron of violence the middle east has become)

I read his 1896 book "Helps to Holiness". I'm struck by the ecstatic nature of Christianity for him- it's an intense set of glorious feeling bestowed by God as a gift if you're fortunate and asking correctly, not so much something to be reasoned about, though I noticed he was awfully deft at quoting scripture.

The books Matthew and Mark mention Jesus talking about the unpardonable sin (blasphemy against the Holy Spirit) which worried me as a kid- screwing up my eternal fate was much on my mind, but at least my church was usually big into the chance of forgiveness and redemption, but not with that apparently so it seemed really dangerous! Anyway my mom gave about the same argument to me then that Brengle does as an aside here:
Brother, if you have not committed the unpardonable sin -- and you have not, if you have any desire whatever to be the Lord's -- your first step is to renew your consecration to the Lord, confessing your backslidings; and then your second and only step is to cry out with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job. xiii. 15); and this ground you must steadfastly hold, till the witness comes of your acceptance.
Finally I was kind of amused by the soft hands shade he was throwing here:
It is quite the fashion now to be "consecrated" and to talk much about "consecration." Lovely ladies, robed in silk, bedecked with jewels, gay with feathers and flowers, and gentlemen, with soft hands and raiment, and odorous with perfume, talk with honeyed words and sweet, low voices about being consecrated to the Lord.

January 20, 2023

2023.01.20
Yeah, it's absolutely troubling that Biden has an echo of Trump's problems with Classified documents at home but voters seem to get the idea of intentionality. "Oops, my bad, papers returned" vs a flurry of denying and non-cooperation means it's not apples to apples no matter which Republicans would like to see it as all the same thing.

January 20, 2022

2022.01.20


via


On my devblog, I wrote about my new daily todo tracker and what I've learned about the usefulness of using different methods of recording/tracking todos: ad hoc + soon vs daily habits vs long term + projects. Trying to put them all in one todo app was clogging things up and adding a strain to my life.
House passes bill to award Congressional Gold Medal to Willie O'Ree, the first Black NHL player Just found out about Willie O'Ree, first Black player in the NHL. Glad to hear he was a Bruin! Celtics were the first NBA team to draft an African American too. (Unlike the Red Sox who were notably last to integrate)

It still smarts when I hear SNL jokes and what not about Boston as the most racist. But the segregation of cities is still pretty obvious when you walk around... basically White folks here seem like a split of conservatives who think America is past racism (I mean excepting the ones who purposefully lean into racism) and liberals who assume they're personally too smart to be racist.



What happened? Why is internet punk now all about artificially creating scarcity?

Remember when Napster was punk because it knocked down the walls of scarcity and access created by record companies?

We went from "fuck you, capitalism" to "let's make more capitalism."

January 20, 2021

2021.01.20
Madam Vice-President!
Somehow we weathered and witnessed
A nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished
There is always light
if only we're brave enough to see it
if only we're brave enough to be it.
Amanda Gorman (via @AyannaPressley)

This is a wake-up call for Republicans. America elected Joe Biden by over 7 million votes, and you're confused because you didn't see us flock to his rallies and cheer his smackdowns like we were at a pro wrestling event during a global pandemic. We don't wear matching hats or have "no more malarkey" flags waving from the backs of our trucks. Do you know why? Because Biden is not our tribal warlord. We believe the job of a U.S. President is to represent more than one interest group. That's why 81 million of us turned out to stop a narcissistic personality cult that embodies all seven of the deadly sins -- most of all pride, which you've taken to levels of blasphemy, claiming your political leaders are handpicked by Jesus Christ.

Review the troops? "Man, these troops are way out of date!"

#1 Google hit for Donald Trump at the moment:

Ahhhhh.
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler!
Met her at the bank
With a loaded army tank
And she ain't no teacher no more...
Dumbest song from summer camp that I remember - definitely a relic of a pre-Columbine time (More Info)

January 20, 2020

2020.01.20
For some folk, nothing has been right since the election of Trump. Others go further back, maybe to the assassination of Dr. King. Some split the difference and rhetorically asked has anything felt right since the rollover of the Mayan calendar in 2012...

Me? I think it's when Lego started putting faces on the back of the heads of minifigs, as well as the front. So sometime around 2002. Yeah, you have more options for expression, and I guess usually the back of the head is behind some kind of helmet or hat or hair blob, but still... for me it's not worth breaking the kayfabe of the "thingness" of the character - that piece is no longer a "head" it's just a brick that you can rotate for the most aesthetically pleasing appearance.
Here's what brought it to mind, I finally got around to putting this Tron Legacy lightcycle kit Diane got me last year...

January 20, 2019

2019.01.20
someone was making a software version of the #10yearchallenge, with the wayback machine I had a little amusement making a 20-year challenge for two of my websites.
them: follow your heart

your heart: smoke crack, eat little debbies, date coworker, shop online, retaliate, sulk, waste resources, be vague out of fear, look at phone at all times, mistake pity for love, assume everyone feels like you do, seek distinction, rage at generalities

when you have a bunch of white kids screaming 'build the wall' at indigenous folks it's very apparent that 'the wall' has nothing to do with border security, it's simply a monument to white supremacy
Calvin Stowell on "Students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky wearing #MAGA hats mocked an elder at the #IndigenousPeoplesMarch on the national mall."
Clarification: reports seem to be that there was a scene with those MAGA-wearing kids and some Black Israelites, with the drummer moving to intervene, with chants of the wall being earlier in the story. I think the smirking disrespect is still pretty clear tho. As is the concept that the wall is more of a symbol than a practical response.

It's possible to have action without emotion, just thinking. Spock was f***in' right as balls.
Melissa and I were talking about any silver linings of anxiety, like buying extra detergent ahead of time because you're worried you might run out...
She wanted me to record my response for posterity, after reminding her that in theory you can plan calmly ahead of time, and maybe that could have the side benefit of reducing the anxiety
Patriots/Rams Superbowl? Guess it's time to party like it's 2002.

rereading slaughterhouse five

2018.01.20
Re-read Slaughterhouse Five. Forgot what a brisk read it is. The view of time is so striking
The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.
It's hard to figure out if that stance is profound or delusional; but it reminds me of "Still Life with Woodpecker" pointing out that it's a little prejudicial to care about something only because it's animate; there's that hint of shinto-esque animism, that just by having design and purpose and reflection of human intention or desire, there's a bit of a life there.

From a typical western point of view, both views are absurd; a moment in the past is a nothing, just an idea that has fundamentally dissolved, the curtains of steadily moving time having firmly come down in front of it, in fact an ever-moving series of heavy curtains slamming down. And of course we favor the animate; anything animate is more our cousin than anything not - hell, if that weren't true would there be any there there from which to do the favoring?

And yet.

Two other passages that stick with me:

And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.
And also the story of stealing a spoonful of vitamin syrup meant for pregnant women:
Billy thrust [the spoon] into the vat, turned it around and around, making a gooey lollipop. He thrust it into his mouth.

A moment went by, and then every cell in Billy’s body shook him with ravenous gratitude and applause.
Sometimes I've felt a hint of that, like when I hit on a vegetable that my body seems to be craving... it just feels so right.

January 20, 2017

2017.01.20
GIFCities brings you back to those animated GIFs of yesteryear...

Such a funny little art form. Reminds me of the little bestiary I assembled on my old compsci server homepage

January 20, 2016

2016.01.20
The Weird Way That Standing (Not Walking) on Escalators Helps Move People More Quickly Been arguing with a friend about politics and stuff. I think he tends to oversimplify, he thinks I am too dodgy and hide behind "well it's complicated". I think this news story is a fascinating study on how even a simple system like people walking on an escalator quickly devolves into a counter-intuitive result and reality defies oversimplified "common sense" reasoning to it.

just listen. with your heart.

2015.01.20
My drummer friend Tom says "Just listen. With your heart."

"I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else."

"Or brains even?"

"Oh gosh, yes, brains is one of the least. You can be a lovely person without brains, absolutely lovely. Kindness - that simple word. To be kind - it covers everything, to my mind. If you're kind that's it."
Roald Dahl (and Brian Sibley)

I kind of dig "Do Your Job" as this year's Patriots' slogan. (There's also "We're on to [Team City Name]" which is important as well).

It seems like a lot of successful teams have a kind of theme, like "The Idiots" for The Red Sox, which one a year after "Cowboy Up" didn't quite get it done.

I wonder if the Seahawks have something like that this year, besides their usual "12th Man" shtick and this year a lot of talk about God and the usual "everyone doubted us" BS talk.

January 20, 2014

2014.01.20
this space left unintentionally blank

January 20, 2013

2013.01.20
Day 3 (end of week 1) of the Galloway Easy 5K program. It was the "long run" but it if stays this easy I should have no problem (PROTIP: it's not likely to stay quite this easy...) Still, I've always enjoyed my body's ability to jump and move around a bit-- the walk/run/walk nature of this (plus the musical pace setting) really is making a world of difference.

by Ted McCagg

warhol buying campbell's soup

2012.01.20

--via
"I thought gunpoint and knifepoint were real places. I promised myself I'd never go near them since it seemed like everyone who went there got robbed. I was about 14 or 15 when it clicked."

"God, why did we buy a house in gunpoint? This was a terrible decision!"

chasing outside the box

2011.01.20

via Bill the Splut. The video is a commercial, but a fun one, and a bit of thinking outside the box...

UPDATE 2019: the link ( https://www.youtube.com/embed/mhepxtZR6tM ) died. Not sure if this was the same thing or not.

all your high tech thrills

2010.01.20

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons.
unknown, Popular Mechanics, March 1949

washington d.c. 1916

2009.01.20


--from Shorpy's Page All but the man on the right are former slaves, 100 years old or more, reuniting in 1916.

Today shouldn't be all about race, just like it shouldn't be all about politics. But: for the first part of these lives, these people were considered non-people. Thinking of that transition, from property to citizen, is mind-blowing. I know when this picture was taken, there was still decades until the Civil Rights Movement got into full gear, and more decades until a black man could hold the highest office in the land. And I know that we still have a society with a lot of racism both obvious and subtle.

But still: this is a great day for the United States.
Greenline drivers are goddamn liars. Disregard the sweet pearls of "there's another _-line car right behind this one." FFS.
Hey, new president today!
I wish you had, but I'm glad you didn't.
Sandra Bernhard (that - a chapter from her book - is my favorite bit of nanofiction ever)

"For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn"
Ernest Hemingway (probably the canonical example of nanofiction)

Come to think of it, I grabbed some of the best of Wired's 6 words contest: http://kirk.is/2006/10/26/
I love how MA governor Deval Patrick was *totally* the practice round for Obama. He's like our own Obama mini-me!
Great "presidential approval rating" graphs - http://tinyurl.com/2apqfe - funny how it's as much about events as the person.
Democracy is a harsh employer.
Herbert Hoover

:-( Amazon's MP3 only has Nigel Tomm's cover of Cage's 4'33", not the original. (And track 9 is more like porn - http://tinyurl.com/7tfcpw )
Digging the prominence of sousaphone/tubas at the inaugaration!
Happy that Obama made rhetorical space for non-believers along with believers.
Are all those "Count down 'til Bush is Out of Office" tickers showing negative now, or what?
Good: Use of the economical term "Black" instead of "African-American". Bad: Damn it, Dow, stand up with a little support here, jerkies.
Seriously, screw you Wall Street.
The Mission Hill public elevator is missing a few teeth at the top. You kind of hope there's not a painful story behind that.
I do not reommend Orbit's Maui Melon Mint flavor.

random photos

2008.01.20

Picture to show a friend those new Eye Q sunglasses.



I made a big deal about Kermit hitting 50K, so my Scion deserves similar treatment. Despite its nickname not really sticking.

When he was but a young lad, this Stilson artwork set something racing in Evil B's youthful fevered brow, even as he espied it in a gallery while accompanied by his grandmother on his way to church. But then only sweet memories remained as it was removed from that gallery...

...evidently, because it had been purchased and brought to My Ever Lovin' Aunt Susan's place, where Evil B would be reunited with this lovely hair-brushing beauty two decades or so after the fact. Small world!

Finally, I'm not saying things tend to stick around my Aunt and Uncle's place, but I think its been a while since they've been running promotional campaigns for the movie "Gremlins"...

the odd thing is, this was just right there in their pantry along with other miscellaneous food storage bits, like foil and what not. So either they haven't been wrapping many sandwiches over the past 24 years, or this box has done a great job of hiding out.

leading a retahded symphony

(3 comments)
2007.01.20
The job interview went ok. The place was downtown. Man, It's a little strange being surrounded by all these well-dressed people, though I think I was looking pretty dapper myself in an electric blue shirt and dark blazer. (One thing I learned from business travel is that you can get away without a tie if you have a good shirt and blazer or suitjacket.)


Exchange of the Moment
"Women think they know by the way, which always astonishes me... women will always say 'uh, we look at guys sexually too.'"
"Well uh, they do, they do..."
"Women have NO IDEA."
"...oh."
"They have no clue whatsoever. It's like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it. If women had any idea, even for a second, of how we really looked at them, they would never stop slapping us."
Larry Miller and Jonathan Katz, on "Dr. Katz Professional Therapist".
I really dig that lowkey, goofy humor, like a more tranquil Steve Martin


Teaser of the Moment
--This is likely the penultimate photo of my middle school years. Questions abound! Why the brooding pose? Why the half-tint glasses? And what's the print on that shirt? What's a Star Hop? And for the love of pete, what could the 'ultimate' photo possibly then be?
Stay tuned!



Football of the Moment
Its great that I can have a discussion in Dublin about the fortunes of the Sox, they're universal, the fan base is worldwide. The Celtics are the Celtics. The Bruins are part of the original six. But the Pats are ours. Nobody gave a rats arse about these guys before and truth be told once this run is over no one from Texas or California or Pennsylvania ever will again. But if you've sat in Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro and had to wonder whether you were doing your reproductive system permanent harm by sitting on those god awful, freezing cold aluminum bleachers, watching Tony Eason hitch up his skirt, the championships seem to have a surreal quality to them. It's like we're not only beating these other teams, we're putting one over on them.
Makes for some great reading, especially the first five pages. What a mess this franchise has been.

If you're half as amused by townie accents, extended belches, lowbrow humor, foul language, and the love of the Patriots as I am Fitzy's Wicked Pissah Webcast 1/19/07 is for you. ("Come on, Payton Mannin', 'Sir Chokes-a-lot'? This guy drives me f***ing nuts! What's with all the handsignals and doodads at the line of scrimmage? It looks like you're leading a retahded symphony!")

travellin' man day 6

(7 comments)
2006.01.20
Heading back to Boston tonight.

Yesterday was a real Worst of Times, Best of Times kind of affair. The day of work was really emotionally gruelling, with me feeling a bit like a duck out of water at times, and bearing some of the brunt of a mismatch between what a person at the client's was expecting and what we had prepared to do. But then after I had the greatest time...Aparajita from the Loveblender heard I was in Dallas, where she was working for a week, and so last night we met and went out for a drink. And cheese. Actually it's funny, I felt like a bit more of a local knowing where there was a good Tapas place..."De Tapas", not as deliberately funky as Dali's but good. And, most importantly...Sangria. I really needed some after today.

But the company was really great...it's only the second time I've met "IRL" with a Blender (or kisrael.com) fan. Internet nano-(not even micro-)celebritydom is so funny... fans of sites are amazed that the creators would deign to meet with the "common folk", while the site makers are just so flattered by the attention... and often attenion is why they do it in the first place.

But even beyond comparing notes on the Blender and what not, it was a genuinely fun and relaxing time. Thanks Aparajita! (I found out her name is borrowed from India, "woman with indomitable spirit", which is a lot better than the "uhhh, I dunno, Spanish maybe?" I had categorized under all these years.)


Lyrics of the Moment
It's the wrong time, and the wrong place
Though your face is charming, it's the wrong face
It's not her face, but such a charming face
That it's all right with me

It's the wrong song, in the wrong style
Though your smile is lovely, it's the wrong smile
It's not her smile, but such a lovely smile
That it's all right with me

You can't know how happy I am that we met
I'm strangely attracted to you
There's someone I'm trying so hard to forget
Don't you want to forget someone, too?

It's the wrong game, with the wrong chips
Though your lips are tempting, they're the wrong lips
They're not her lips, but they're such tempting lips
That, if some night, you are free
Then it's all right, yes, it's all right with me

Cole Porter, "It's Alright With Me".
What a lyric! Melancholy yet with a hint of lust.

Oh, and FWIW, I picked this poem as the closer for my week away a week ago, not as some weird coded message about some strange sordid affair with Aparajita... our time was filled with a cheese plate, rounded out by Sangria and laughs, and was totally innocent.

hunk in sex

(9 comments)
2005.01.20
After yoga I dropped by my mom's place for some Chinese food. She mentioned she was very mildly bummed that I never got around to adding more content to yesterday's entry. I knew my mom read my site here but I was surprised to find out sometimes she'll check it a few times a day...I feel like I've created an addict!

Random thought: the other day it was amazingly foggy. Whenever it gets that foggy I always think of old video games, that would make a foggy land just so the computer wouldn't have to draw nearly as much stuff in the distance. Anyway, since it was so foggy, I decided to try out my highbeams. That worked great...bright fog, just what I needed. Do real "foglights" work any better?


Link of the Moment
Hunkin's Experiments are some really nifty one-panel cartoon science novelties to try. Very cool stuff. (Slightly Amusing URL note: I tend to see hunkinsexperiments.com as HunkInSexperiments and not HunkinsExperiments...)

the constipated mathematician

(1 comment)
2004.01.20
Joke of the Moment
"What do you get when you cross a skunk and a squirrel?"
"Dirty looks from the squirrel"
I liked this joke a lot when I was a kid. I think my dad sometimes piped in with "a squirrel that believes in birth control for the rest of its life".

Actually, looking around, I can't believe I never put the favorite joke that he and I would do as a micro-routine: "Did you hear the one about the constipated mathematician?" "Yeah, he worked it out with a pencil!". Man, in fifth grade or so, that joke was DA BOMB.


Read of the Moment
A recent Cruel Site of the Day was Mystic Microsoft: Spiritual Transformation in the Halls of High Technology. As Cruel Site puts it, "Kraig Brockschmidt goes [...] explaining the 'profound spiritual significance' of Microsoft's COM/OLE object protocols." You get the feeling that the guys a little too eager to "drink the kool-aid", whether its his lutheranism, the Microsoft way, or later a brand of eastern mysticism. Still, it's interesting, even if only for the first half's insight into early Microsoft.


Online Art of the Moment
Click your way through all of the animations of Spin. I love the visual style.

backlog flush #16

2003.01.20

tile over substance

2002.01.20

Online Toy of the Moment
Ranjit directed me to the tilemachine 1.0, a tool for creating tiling backdrops and the like. I remember trying to do the same thing in VB way back when, to help make Windows wallpaper.

The Tile Machine scratches some of the same itch as his much mourned pixeltime, but lacks the Pixel Master and the monthly themed galleries. Also, I thought a better name than Tile Machine (but one that has been used) would be "Escher-Sketch"...


Quote of the Moment
It is white.
George W., after being asked by London child what the White House was like.
Found this in an old New Yorker, from back when it was more ok to make fun of the president. Today is his one year president-a-versary!

another attempt at the meaning of life

(1 comment)
2001.01.20
Bath of the Moment
Stayed home sick and angsty Friday. After at least a year of nothing but showers, I took a hot bath. Man, what a treat. Like a return to the womb or something. In a good way. And then peeking open the shower curtain, letting just a brush of the chilly air behind come in and cool me off... ahhh.

Sometime when I'm feeling mortal and scared, maybe I can relax and think 'yeah, but at least I had some nice hot baths.'


Spam of the Moment
Hooting Owl, some kind of search engine, sent me a message that said:

Congratulation someone has just performed a "web search" at the HootingOwl Search Engine using the search term
VBscript+reference
and your web site
http://www.alienbill.com
is being displayed on the first page of search results.

Which is kind of funny, considering I don't think my site has anything to do with VBScript in any form. But ooh, wouldn't I like to put down a deposit of $100, to be doled out to them a few pennies per click at a time, to make sure my site shows up near the top more often?


Quote of the Moment
Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
John Maynard Keynes, A Tract On Monetary Reform, 1923.

Around twenty years ago. I used to play against a program that had an interesting view of legality of moves.  Normally, it played the best legal move that it could find (not that it was much good, but I think this is what it was trying to do).  But if you stalemated it, it couldn't find a legal move, so it played the best illegal move that it could find.  Typically, this was picking up my queen, converting it to its colour, and capturing my rook with it.
--Nick@maproom.co.uk, rec.games.puzzles
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Wow!  An 80K offer from EventZero.  Mo's new job anxiety damps a little of the excitement, still it's pretty cool.  Had a good talk with my Aunt at Chili's.
00-1-20
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