Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Leg dropping elves

I started to think about the whole “real meaning of Christmas” debate and “is Santa bad” discussion that you almost are required by law to have if you’re a Christian blogger, I started to think about that elf. He was just sitting there with a smug look on his face perched on the fireplace mantle looming over our nativity scene below on the hearth. Instead of the traditional Santa vs. Jesus discussion, I began to imagine what would happen if that elf ever ran into the characters from the nativity scene. What would that conversation look like? I present you:

Elf on the shelf meets the characters from the nativity scene.
Click the image to read the Stuff Christians Like blog post.

Netflix under the microscope...literally

Rent what you want, watch when you want, and exchange as often as you want. Idea is catching on. Netflix now boasts 11.1 million subscribers. That's a lot of people, who may or may not be washing their hands as often as you'd like.

We, literally, put Netflix under the microscope.

We delivered six different sealed Netflix envelopes, with six different Netflix DVD's inside to the pathology lab at the University of Texas Health Science Center of Tyler.

For help with our experiment, we went to Dr. Richard Wallace who is board certified in infectious diseases.

"My biggest concern for the DVD's would be the community MRSA that people pick up," he explained.

Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World?


Five pastors. Five congregations. And one radically different approach to Christmas. What can we learn from it?
Click the picture to read the article.

Is it a dessert or a weapon?

Texas woman burned with pecan pie during Thanksgiving fight
Click the picture to read the article.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Cost of 12 Days of Christmas Up 1.8 Percent

Forget the traditional economic indicators that track holiday shopping. The true cost of Christmas has already been measured for 2009 via the classic carol "The 12 Days of Christmas."

If you ever tried to figure what it would cost to purchase all the items mentioned in the song, wonder no more because the PNC Christmas Price Index did if for you. And it increased by a modest 1.8 percent this year.

This means if you're a devoted romantic, slightly crazy or exceedingly wealthy -- it will cost you $87,403 to assemble everything from the partridge to the drummers. If you were only to buy one of each item, it would cost you $21,465.56.


Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Finally The Tiger Woods Saga Makes Sense

Be sure to watch it all.


Thanks To Keith at BagOfNothing

Big Picture: 25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster

Twenty-five years ago this week, in the early hours of Dec. 3, 1984, large amounts of water entered a tank at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India. That water reacted with the 42 tons of methyl isocyanate inside, raising temperature and pressure so high that it began venting massive amounts of gas made up of methyl isocyanate, phosgene, hydrogen cyanide and more. The poisonous cloud swept through neighborhoods near the boundary wall, waking sleeping residents with burning throats and eyes, killing about 4,000 people in the first few hours. Over the next few years, the lingering effects increased that toll to about 15,000 dead, according to government estimates. A quarter-century later thousands of people are still grappling with the effects of the world's worst industrial accident and the continued contamination. Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemical in 2001, and Dow claims the legal case was resolved in 1989, with responsibility for continued cleanup now falling to the local state government. (28 photos total)
Click the picture to see the full collection.

Panaramic View Of Kyle Field - November 26, 2009


Great panaramoic view at Kyle Field from the Texas game on Thanksgiving night. Click the picture to see it full size.