Friday fun: What a drive

You'll realise what a terrible pun the title is when you see the video below, showing a skilled driver catching a golf ball in a moving car.

How humans differ from animals

“I have found a perfect definition of human nature as distinguished from the animal.  Benjamin Franklin said, Man was a ‘tool-making animal’, which is very well; for no animal but man makes a thing. But this applies to very few of the species.  My definition of Man is, a ‘Cooking Animal’.  The beasts have memory, judgement, and all the facilities and passions of our mind,  in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook.” 

Samuel Johnson , 1709-1784

4 defining features of a gentleman

“A gentleman never looks out of the window.” — Oscar Wilde

“Gentlemen do not take soup at luncheon.” — Lord Curzon

“Gentlemen are never busy — insects and city people are busy.” — Beau Brummel

“A gentleman never sits in the house with his hat/cap on in the presence of ladies for a single moment... People who sit in the house with their hats/caps on are to be suspected of having spent the most of their time in bar rooms, and similar places.”  From an American Manual of Etiquette, 1866

I've been terribly guilty of the second and the fourth!

The 10 commandments for the 21st century

As presented by Jamie Quatro

1. no1 b4 me. srsly.

2. dnt wrshp pix/idols

3. no omg’s

4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)

5. pos ok – ur m&d r cool

6. dnt kill ppl

7. :-X only w/ m8

8. dnt steal

9. dnt lie re: bf

10. dnt ogle ur bf’s m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.

M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.

ttyl, JHWH.

ps. wwjd?

When you encounter pain...

...think of agony endured by the martyrs OR of the unending torment that will befall those who will be sent to hell! (Adapted from Jonathan Edwards Resolutions. Resolution 10: Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.)

"Arise, Sir Knight!"

History is littered with awe-inspiring individuals who by their courage and conviction have altered the course of human civilisation - for good or ill. Examples are too many to name but think for instance of Martin Luther, William Wilberforce, Herr Hitler, Christopher Colombus, Oliver Cromwell, Charles Darwin, William Tyndale, Albert Einstein, Henry VIII, William the Conqueror and so on. One could also argue that on this weekend (as we celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee) the abdication by Edward VIII was a courageous act that altered the course of British/world history. The power of one person (or a group of persons) to impact the course of history is something we find time and time again in the history books. All this said, we would be fools to ignore/fail to recognize, the one King, whose reign has had the most impact on the life of mankind on earth...

He was born in an obscure village, 
            the son of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another village, 
            where he worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty. 
Then for three years he became a wandering preacher.


He never wrote a book. 
He never held an office. 
He never had a family or owned a house. 
He didn't go to college. 
He never visited a big city. 
He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. 
He did none of those things one usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.


He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. 
His friends ran away. 
He was turned over to his enemies and went through a mockery of a trial. 
He was executed by the state. 
While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, 
           the only property he had on earth. 
When he was dead he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.


Twenty centuries have come and gone, 
and today 
          he is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind's progress. 


All the armies that ever marched, 
all the navies that ever sailed,
all the parliaments that ever sat, 
all the kings that ever reigned, put together, 
have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that One Solitary Life.

The antidote to Rome

“Biblicist, liturgical, sacramental, ecumenical Protestantism is the antidote to Roman fever, not the cause.”


Via @PLeithart