Great thoughts of Fleeting substance

Lessee, weekend…

I spent most of Friday and all of Saturday doing my take-home midterm for Adaptive processing. It was a heavy, heavy experience. And by heavy I mean hard. I took some breaks, but it was pretty much Matlab, textbooks, and some lecture-watching the whole way. It was like the Russian bread of academia. Dense. It was, to put it mildly, an unpleasant experience, but I’ll leave the color commentary until after palm Sunday.

Sunday was study day for my other midterm, which takes place tomorrow, Tuesday. I think I’m ready, it’s open ‘all class materials’, and I’m following the material pretty well. He posted an example midterm, which is good, and I need to look it over, because most of the stuff in this class simply can’t be done by hand. They’re computer algorithms. Makes me curious about what he is going to test us on.

Speaking of tomorrow, I’m taking it off. Since I only work 4 days a week, I might as well use the day off to get ready for midterms and put any final touches on my take home midterm that I can. I gave it a look over, though, I think it’s pretty much done.

There comes this weird moment in the life of everyone as adverse to procrastination as I am. It’s this moment before everything is due, before that crush you were trying so hard to avoid, when you realized that you don’t have anything to do. Your stuff isn’t due for days, and it’s already all done. It’s a weird moment. ‘Well,’ say you, ‘I guess I’ll just goof off then.’ It’s a truly surreal moment.

Also of note, since I was expecting to be crunched-busy this weekend, and being as I wasn’t disappointed, I canceled my normally quite healthy eating habits in favor of pigging out all weekend. Felt good. I ate cheesecake and raspberry Danish stuff and cinnamon rolls and a couple of twinkies and…yeah, that was it. Well, I had some fruit, too, just because all that sugar was starting to get to me. Y’know. Fructose to change it up.

I also slipped on one of my Lenten promises. No, not that one, the other one. Yeah, that one. I just needed to blow off steam, relax, something. Nothing was making me happy. I didn’t want to write, I didn’t want to play drums, I didn’t want to play video games. But, and this is the weird part, afterwards, I felt great. I leapt right back into studying and crashed out at 1:00 AM, happy and with my midterm project completed. Which is a very strange thing. If this stuff is supposed to be bad for me, and I’m still maintaining it is, how come it helped out so much. Just bizarre. I’m going to keep on it, though, probably even after lent. Cause it’s bad for me, and so the less, the better. That’s the plan, at least.

Okay, funniest thing I saw today:

I read a website called Fark.com. It’s a load of fun, they catalog weird news stories throughout the day. And then off to the right there are forums to discuss the news stories. Most of them are badly-informed and troll-filled debates about politics and religion, along with naked ladies, photoshop contests, and pretty much anything else under the sun, but occasionally you get something really awesome and absolutely hilarious.

The story:

Funen bakers have taken up the challenge to find a new recipe for communion wafers

For centuries, Danish churchgoers have received the body of Christ in the form of a small, bland communion wafer. Now, competition is on the way.

Ninety master bakers from the island of Funen have taken up the challenge to experiment with new recipes for the holy flesh, daily religious newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad reported on Thursday. ‘We have never tried anything like this before,’ Svendborg baker Gerner Pedersen said. ‘It’s very exciting. I think I will go for a baguette made out of a mixture of wheat and rye flour. That would give a good, strong taste of bread.’

Copenhagen deacon Finn Laugesen said he wished the bakers all the best. ‘But for as long as I have been responsible for the communion wafers, I’ve gone for the most neutral taste I could find,’ he said. ‘After all, the bread should symbolize the body of Jesus, and the wafer shouldn’t be getting all the attention. Just imagine if the pastor at the altar would say ‘This is the body of Jesus Christ. Would you like that with chocolate, vanilla or strawberry taste?’

Better still, the commentary. I’ve chosen my favorites:

--Can they throw some lox and cream cheese on those things? I mean that plain ol' Christ cracker doesn't really compliment the wine all by itself.

--But only true believers get to experience the aftertaste

--Start your day the holy way with Christ Chex! (Actually a quote from Commedian Dane Cook, one of my favorites.)

--Nacho jesus, please!

--Mama mia, thatsa spicy Savior!!!

--Also available in Hellfire BBQ.

--"Jesus Cripes, son of Gosh, born of the holy Moly."

--And coming soon, Atkins-approved 0-carb hosts!

--Jesus in the morning, Jesus in the evening, Jesus at supper time, when Jesus is on a bagel, you can have Jesus anytime!

--Christ, the other white meat.

--Had this been the rural US, the parishoners would have protested at the baker's headquarters holding signs that read GOD HATES FLAVORED JESUS.

--I'm a Christian, he's a Christian, she's a Christian, we're a Christian; wouldn't you like to be a Christian too? Be a Christian, drink Dr. Jesus.

--My Eucharist has a first name; it's J-E-S-U-S. My Eucharist has a second name; it's C-H-R-I-S-T. Oh, I love to eat it every day, and if you ask me why, I'll saaaaaaaaaaay, cause Jesus Christ has a way with E-U-C-H-A-R-I-S-T.

--This would be a great Iron Chef episode, but moved over a few channels to the Jesus channel. It would be something like:

"It appears that Reverend Peterson is kneading an unleavened dough. Tomiko?"
"Yes, Aki-san, he is kneading an unleavened dough. Tee hee!"
"And I see eggs. Are those eggs? OHH! He's looking through his New Testament. Are eggs accepted?"
"Aki-san!! I just heard that eggs are NOT accepted. The recipe allows only flour and water!"

And the best one of all…

--I'm coo-coo for Cocoa Christ!

Ma ha ha ha haaaaaaaa ha ha ha haaaaa! Good grief! Whoo! Aaaah. Good stuff.

-N