Top Ten Signs Your Team Isn’t Ready for the NCAA Basketball Tournament – Letterman

Top Ten Signs Your Team Isn't Ready For The NCAA Basketball Tournament


10.
Your mascot is starting at power forward

9.Last guy to make a free throw graduated in '03

8.Only thing coach has ever won is a wing-eating contest

7.After every basket, team hits the showers

6.Instead of practicing, team spends their time in gym decorating for college's annual spring fling

5.Whenever player dunks, he gets caught in the net like a tuna

4.Only ref who thinks you have a chance is the Marriage Ref — catch the new hit show Thursdays at 10 on NBC!

3.Keep asking why you can't play in fabulous outfits like Johnny Weir

2.You play like this guy (video of President Bush bouncing flat basketball)

1.Players are smoking even more than Obama

http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/top_ten/

Church Burglar Update: Burglar uses church equipment to view porn

AMES, Iowa ??? Second-degree burglary charges have been filed against an Ames man who broke into a church where he allegedly used the institution’s electronic equipment to watch pornography. Police allege the 55-year-old man broke into the First Christian Church on Thursday. After gathering items from around the building, he is believed to have gone to the basement to spend the night.

Police summoned to the church Friday by staff, found the man trying to haul away a garbage can filled with food, kitchen utensils, clothes, electronic equipment and a 26-inch flat-screen television.

Police Cmdr. Mike Brennan said the man used the electronic equipment to watch pornographic movies that were found on him when he was arrested.

The man was being held at the Story County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bond.

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Information from: The Tribune, http://www.amestrib.com

Either this guy was reallllly bold, or realllllly stupid.

I mean, how else do you explain someone having the unction to break in a church, loot the place, watch porn in the church, and sleep there overnight – and still expect to get away? Wow. It’s a good thing we’re not in the 16th century – looting a church would have been the last thing he would have done. Poor fella.

UPDATE: Teddy Roosevelt walrus tusk thief

OYSTER BAY, N.Y. ??? Authorities are hunting for the person who stole a 15-inch walrus tusk from Theodore Roosevelt’s home on Long Island.

The superintendent of the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, Thomas Ross, says the tusk was one of a pair displayed on a fireplace mantel. It was discovered missing Feb. 22 from a second-floor guest room in the Oyster Bay, N.Y., home. The room is usually sealed off by a rope when visitors take guided tours.

Old Brookville, N.Y., police and the National Park Service are investigating. The FBI has added the tusk to its national stolen art list.

Several years ago, a man stole Roosevelt’s revolver from the house. He pleaded guilty, and the weapon was returned.

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On the Net: http://www.nps.gov/sahi

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Information from: Newsday, http://www.newsday.com

If i were to steal anything – this would probably be it.

Odds and Ends

M and I recently watched "Inglourious Basterds," which was a disturbing, brilliant film. Tarantino's movies are just so cool to watch. Their retro influences are really interesting and different. If he didn't get Best Director for this, i don't know what he will get it for. His movies are so odd and unconventional, it might be tough for him to nabb that one. But he should get it some day, he's brilliant. Bill Simmons also made the great point that he also looks just like Jaws from Moonraker – which is disturbing in it's own right.

And we also watched "Philadelphia" – starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. This almost subsides my Denzel kick that i've been on for a number of weeks now. In the past 2 months i've seen, Crimson Tide, Training Day, The Pelican Brief, Man on Fire, Book of Eli, and Deja Vu. Of course "Philadelphia" is about two lawyers. One of which is a homosexual and contracts AIDS (Hanks). Denzel's character represents him in suing the firm he worked for that fired him after they found out. This must have been a gutsy move to take this role. To play a gay man with AIDS has to be a little daunting, as far as a career is concerned. But it ended up being a great film. Hanks went on to win Best Actor for it. Next year he would play Forrest Gump, and win the Oscar for that too. Pretty impressive. Two risky moves that really paid off…

Still on the list of Denzel movies to see is "The Hurricane" and "American Gangster." Denzel is still the man. But so is Hanks.

I am learning about lots of interesting things in class this semester. Here is a brief rundown:

  • Exegesis of Johannine Literature: Perhaps John the apostle isn't the "disciple whom Jesus loved"? Perhaps it is actually Lazarus? Interesting thought. We talked quite at length about this in class the other day. It's Ben Witherington, III's idea. I buy it.??
  • Marriage & Family Counseling: Self Differentiation – your health in your marriage, or in your family, is determined about how differentiated you are towards them. That is, you are close to them but aren't attached to them so much that they control who you are or what you do. The the more healthy you are, the more you have a "distinct self" – a self that isn't influenced by other family pressures, but is completely you.
    • It's about a finding a clear knowledge of who you are, while you are connected to others. It's that balance that is the tricky part.??
    • It's about differentiating what you are thinking, and what you are feeling. And learning to communicate that. You can feel, without letting that control you!
  • Mission Theology: Read that missions is "the joyous invitation to all peoples to come to a 'feast without end.'" Which is such a beautiful picture of missions. And how God the Father is the initiator of missions, Christ embodied missions for us, and the Holy Spirit empowers us to do it. The Trinitarian view of missions is a really cool picture, to me at least.??
    • Also, i learned this cool point: Christianity is the only world religion whose primary source documents are in a language other than the language of the founder of the religion, which contrasts with Muslims who attest that the Qu'ran must only be read in Arabic. This speaks to the unique transportability of the Gospel. Any culture can grasp it.

Just a few thoughts for the day. And if you haven't seen "The Hurt Locker" you should. It's worth it.

All Locked Up

COLUMBIA, Ky. ??? A Kentucky sheriff says a claustrophobic deputy has lost his job after accidentally locking himself in a jail cell and trying to shoot his way out of it. Adair County Sheriff Ralph Curry told WKYT-TV that no one was hurt when Charles Wright fired his weapon.

It happened Monday, the first day a new $12.4 million county judicial center was open to the public after more than a year of construction.

Curry says the former deputy has claustrophobia and has agreed to pay for the damage he did to the cell.

He was definitely between a rock and a hard place – he had to make a break. Can't blame him i suppose.

The Negros Chronicle – News around Dumaguete City and Negros Oriental, Philippines ?? Post Topic ?? Is smiling now vanishing?

by: FR. ROY CIMAGALA

A NUMBER of people are now wondering about that. In fact, even Pope Benedict recently referred to this observation. People worldwide seem to be smiling less. In its place, we are seeing an increase in tension, nervousness and irritability such that many people are now talking about the need to learn anger management.

If people smile nowadays, its most likely in the shallow level. In the media, for example, the elements of smile seem to be observed only in the sports and entertainment sections. They are seldom observed on the front page or on the Op-ed page.

We really do not know up to what extent this observation is true. But it cannot be denied that even if its factuality is limited, it already evokes pity. Smile is a wonderful human treasure that should not be allowed to wane, let alone, lost.

I googled some sayings about smiling, and I got a good number that reflect the many amazing facets of this human gesture. Here are a sampling that I bet will amuse you as they have amused me.

%u2022 A smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks. ~Charles Gordy

%u2022 If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it. ~Andy Rooney

%u2022 I%u2019ve never seen a smiling face that was not beautiful. ~Author Unknown

%u2022 A laugh is a smile that bursts. ~Mary H. Waldrip

%u2022 The shortest distance between two people is a smile. ~Author Unknown

%u2022 You%u2019re never fully dressed

without a smile. ~Martin Charnin

%u2022 Smile – it increases your face value. ~Author Unknown There were a lot more. We need to do something to promote this habit, since it is always good and healthy and produces wonderful effects on everyone.

My personal experience is that a smile helps me tremendously in my ministry. When you smile, people will find it easy to approach you, to connect with you, to be sincere with you. It initiates friendship and develops trust. It is good in breaking the ice between two persons. Its beautifully contagious. You smile at someone and most likely hell smile back. It easily offers bridges over whatever gaps there may be among us. Differences and conflicts are softened and put in condition for calm dialogue.

We have to recover this habit that seems to suffer when the pressures of progress and the challenges of growth and development unavoidably come. For this, we need to understand that what is needed is to ground it in a much deeper foundation.

The main problem, I think, is that we tend to root it on a shallow, shifting ground. We tend to keep it in the material, external and visceral level, held captive in the world of the unreasoning instincts and feelings.

It seems caught in a stunted, arrested stage of development. In other words, to smile, now when there is so much pressure to contend with, is urgently looking for a deeper, more authentic source. It is gasping for a genuine lifeline, not mere palliatives, stop-gap measures and escape mechanisms. It is grasping for its proper anchor and purpose.

If you notice, we usually tend to smile as an instinctive reaction to something sensible, whether soothing, funny, amusing, physically beautiful, etc. Since we were kids, thats how we have been behaving.

Those who are better endowed, that is, with greater intelligence and therefore greater capacity to understand things, can manage to smile at engaging ideas and at the continuing flow of discoveries and realizations.

If you are not that endowed, then it would seem you are doomed, which is unfair and actually not true. I believe everyone, regardless of his endowments, physical, emotional, intellectual, etc., can manage to smile always if he knows where to get its proper impulse. And this can be no other than God. We need to expand our understanding of the dynamics of our smile. We cannot restrict it in the sphere of biology, nor in that of our intelligence. It has to grow and develop in its ultimate and proper milieu of faith and beliefs, where the spiritual and supernatural forces are made to augment, purify and perfect our natural forces.

When this understanding and mechanism are in place, we can manage to smile even in trying and difficult times. Well always find a reason, a forceful reason to smile. For believers in Christ, they know that their smile has to be rooted on Christs Cross. With that foundation, nothing can drive it away. Hardships would only enhance it.

I think it’s still cool to smile. So does the POPE.