Brooks Recommends - Sam Harris vs Rabbi David Wolpe

Frankly, you either get this picture or you don't.

I'm not gonna lie to you. I've always been a skeptical sort. I didn't have any traumatic experience with the church, but even at an early age I remember having doubts about the Big Bearded Guy in the sky. I remember vividly at the age of six being alone and having these doubts, but then trying to cover my tracks I would use my internal monologue to say in my brain "I do believe in God. I do believe in God," just in case the Big Guy was up there paying attention. As the years wore one, I became less and less cautious as it became clearer and clearer to me that this whole religious stuff was all a bunch of hooey.

However, I have respect for the religious. Growing up Lutheran, I can tell you that it was nothing but a good experience. Pastor Rockwood taught me everything I need to know about nuanced and intelligent public speaking and story telling. I met many good friends both young and old through the church. I sort of consider myself, like many "secular jews" a "cultural lutheran". When I listen to A Prairie Home Companion, I laugh because those are my people. But I'm about as atheistic as they come.

But I also like a fair and strong fight. Last year, notorious raconteur (and Cancer patient (we're pulling for you Hitch!)) Christopher Hitchens battled ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair on the question of whether or not Religion was a force for good in the world. Quite frankly it was a one sided blood bath. Tony Blair put up a pretty weak defense and Hitchens danced circles around his opponent. Far more interesting is the heated and significantly more nuanced debate author Sam Harris and Rabbi David Wolpe had concerning the existence of God, which they conducted two years earlier.

It's a long discussion, and there's not much to be gained by watching it. I do though highly recommend playing the video and doing something else as you listen to these two go at it with intellect and vehemence. Forewarned, Rabbi Wolpe  takes a decidedly Jewish slant on the issue, but it's a fascinating discussion all the way around.

Accidental Youtube - Bill Cosby Dreams

Ah Jello! Quite possibly the most delicious thing one can make out of ground up horse hooves. Watch this video of jello squares being dropped in slow motion. It's like taking mescaline but without the accompanying paranoid delusions. Or so I'm told...

Acrostic Nature

Hi everybody! Today, I bring you an acrostic I made. It's the first time I've ever made an acrostic and believe it or not, creating these puzzles are HARD. I don't know if I'd say they're harder to make than Crosswords, but it certainly took more time than creating one of my average crosswords. But they're fun puzzles to do. It's a lot like solving a cryptogram and a crossword at the same time. If you've never encountered one before you might find this helpful. Anyway, here it is. Hope you enjoy!

The clues are after the jump:

Question Mark? Period-ical.

So I've got another image puzzle for you folks. Below is a series of twenty covers from contemporary magazines all of which should be able to be picked up at any standard periodical retailer. Of course, just like last time, I've removed the titles to each. How many can you name? I'll give you a hint: Hustler isn't one of them. Neither is The National Review. I didn't want to be offensive.

Je parle en peu l'Francias. Pas bien.

Last night I went to the Old Fashioned Melodrama, here in Cheyenne. I'm actually performing an olio act later this evening. Me and my friend Rory are doing a comedy routine that I wrote and by wrote I mean half the jokes are old vaudeville standbys. Perhaps I'll post the script later, and see what people think.

But this entry is not about Le Melodrama Antique, but is about how ashamed I am by something that happened there. A good friend of mine, who was playing the piano that night, brought a French foreign exchange student with her and insisted that I speak with him. That's partially because I studied French pretty hardcore in highschool to the point where I actually lived with a French family for a bit my senior year in Le Puy. Since then, I haven't really studied french much but I remember at various parties if I got drunk enough and met someone else who studied French, we would have superficial conversations in the language.

But upon meeting this teenager, I was barely able to cobble together a "bonjour". I wanted to say, "It's a pleasure meeting you," but for some stupid reason I couldn't reason out in my brain how to say it. It reminds me how I knew a guy in college from the Philippines who would sometimes forget how to use his native tongue he had been surrounded by English for so long. Nonetheless, I felt like a complete jackass, for being so unable to make conversation with the Frenchman.

For a while, it was a dream of my best friend and I to compete on America's The Amazing Race. Having spent two and a half years in Ukraine she knows her pidgin Russian pretty well. Also, she used to be the president of the Spanish club back in high school. I claimed that I could get us around in Francophones, and I had a somewhat working knowledge of German. But if I can barely make polite conversation with a French highschool student, what does that say about my ability to circumnavigate the globe? 

The lesson I've learned is to bone up on my French. I've discovered a couple of French podcasts that I'll listen to, and perhaps dive back into learning the language. If anyone has tips or pointers, please let me know. Au revoir! 

Cheat Sheet

I hear your tormented cries. "Answers!" you scream through your gritted teeth as you dance in pain and fury, "We demand answers!!" and while I don't have answers for everything, I do have answers for the two puzzles I posted earlier this week. So if you wanna spoil yourself, just continue reading this post!!

Spring Thing - Wetlands

Alright, after some helpful hints by some readers I decided to forge ahead and plow through the first entry early! The first game of the competition is Wetlands by Clara Raubertas. Unlike the IF Comp I'm writing this preliminary passage after playing through the game. I say that I "plowed" through this, but frankly it was more like playing morsel sized bites of it. I'd play it for a while and then put it down and do something else and then wander back to it. I really had to focus and force myself to work on it to completion. Not that it wasn't interesting, per se, but it didn't exactly have what I'd call narrative thrust, and no that's not a special term used by writers of erotica.

Final Verdict : Fun atmosphere and generally pleasant puzzles balance out nebulous storytelling.

But of course you crazy kids want to hear more than that, dotcha! Well you can read spoilers to your hearts content, AFTER THE JUMP!!