Jus chillin

I think my high school government teacher, Mr Milanoski, is a libertarian. At least, his teaching led me to libertarianism.

One time, we had an exercise about the government's involvement in our lives. Mr Milanoski told us to write down everything that we did on one day, and then to figure out how each thing we did was connected to the government. For example, watching TV was affected by the FCC, or eating a snack was affected by the FDA. Mr Milanoski asked us if anyone did anything that didn't have to do with the government.

Riley said he had something.

'What?' asked Mr Milanoski.

'Yesterday afternoon, I was jus chillin.'

'Were you doing anything?'

'No, jus chillin.'

'Were you watching TV?'

'No, I was jus chillin.'

'Were you inside? Was the air conditioning on?'

'Jus chillin.'

Chronotype etequitte and my island

I am frustrated by how no one has good manners. I have Delayed Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorder Which Is A Real Disease (DCRSDWIARD), so I often go to bed at four and wake up at noon. If someone calls at 10 AM, I am a little irritated. I would never call someone at 10 PM unless they're a college student. Everyone I know is awake in the window from noon until 8 PM, so we should agree that that's when it's okay to make phone calls. (Of course, some people get up before The Window and some people stay up after it, but everyone's awake for The Window.) Church shouldn't start until 2 PM on Sundays, because I'm often up late on Saturday nights. Everyone's awake at 2 PM on Sunday, so why can't we have church meeting then?

From Historic Corolla

I am going to move to an island where all the rules will make sense.

I don't understand how everyone else carries all their stuff around, wallet, keys, a pen, pencil, notepad, cellphone, iPod, headphones, Rubik's Cube, Silly Putty, tissues, chapstick, spare change, breathmints, and yo-yo, without wearing cargo pants.

My island will be in the South Seas and it will be warm and sunny so I won't wear pants, I'll wear a cargo loincloth. It will be like a toolbelt plus a loincloth. You can have one, too. No one will call you before noon or after 8 PM, unless you want them to.

Eating fruit

It is good to eat fruit. It makes me happy to eat fruit, especially blueberries and honeydew and bananas. Whenever I eat blueberries, I thank God for making them, even on the days I think he's not real.

I never eat so much fruit that it's sinful. The real sin is in not eating nearly enough fruit, leaving it go bad sitting on the counter.

No one argues about how much fruit we should eat or when we should eat it or what kinds we should eat. We all know that we're not eating enough fruit and we should eat more, and that we should go to the Asian grocery store and buy weird fruit like pomegranates and kumquats and persimmons.

Follow-up on fire #2: official report

I just called the Baltimore City Fire Marshall and asked about the cause of the recent fire on my block (see also follow-up #1). I was told that the fire was caused by trash and rubbish in a back room (from my observation, probably on the third floor); the report speculated that the fire was connected to homeless people or drug users.

Denny's is ethnic now?

I was trying to find hip, ethnic restaurants near College Park. This is what happened.

Dan and complementarianism and taking the Bible seriously

One time, back when I was a complementarian, Dan gave a talk about gender roles in the church. I grew up in the PCA, a conservative Presbyterian denomination that split off of the PCUS, the mainline denomination, over the issue of whether women can be elders. In my church growing up, this issue—keeping women from being elders—was a shibboleth to determine if someone takes the Bible seriously.

I was telling Mom about this talk later. What she and I found surprising was that, as Dan was talking about how it's great for women to be leaders in the church, he didn't disrespect the scriptures. Instead, he pulled up the scriptures that had traditionally been used to explain why women should have restricted leadership roles, and showed how they actually would have been taken as feminist statements in the cultures these scriptures were addressed to.

Dan loves the Bible. I was used to thinking of liberals as people who pick and choose the parts of the Bible that they want to use and conservatives as people who submit themselves to the whole Bible. Dan seemed like a liberal to me, but a different kind of liberal than I thought there could be.

UrbanCause: Restaurants at Hollins Market

Candice provides reviews to excellent restaurants in our neighborhood: UrbanCause: Restaurants at Hollins Market

Seconded, on all counts. Baltimore Pho also has some pretty good tofu curry stuff. Zella's pizza Margherita is delicious; I had some the day I moved into this neighborhood.

The Sweet Tooth Dessert Shop has only been around for a month, so things are still getting going. They have coffee for $2, and they gave me free refills. It was regular drip coffee, they don't do fancy espresso drinks. I had some cherry cheesecake, also, and it was delicious. The Sweet Tooth is exactly the sort of local business that isn't as good as one of the chains (yet) but that I'm enthusiastic about supporting, because it has so much chutzpah and character and potential. I sat there last Tuesday afternoon and worked on my research, and watched little kids eat sorbet and play Halo III and I was very happy. The ambiance is positively classy.