I'm getting sick. It sucks.

"Clones" Attacking on DVD
Force freaks, mark your calendars. But honestly, $29.98? Cuban hijackers from the 70s would be ashamed to ask for as much. Which reminds me to pre-order "Lord of the Rings."

From alert blog reader Mike Herman:
Display of Dancing Pygmies Sparks Protest
The title brings a smile to my face.

Gratuitous baby picture
Brian and Helen Lee welcomed 6 lb. and 15 oz. of healthy Korean baby boy in Jason Minju Lee on July 27. Congrats. I don't think they realize the kid will now be plagued with the "Jason Leigh, like the actor?" question for the rest of his life, but that's ok. He will grow up a Redskins fan, Helen tells me.

Brute propaganda reminds me of Roy Lichtenstein but scarier.

Ooh. The American Jerk looks like a new fun place to visit everyday. Or at the very least a good band name. I think I once decided that if I were to start a band, I'd call it Raging Sloth. Punk band, obviously.

We're all familiar with the "Idiot's Guide" series of books? Idiot's Guide to the Internet, Sheep Farming, Small Animal Torture, etc? I was at Barnes & Noble today and came across "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Prayer" in the Christian section. I should have looked through it, just to see what it said, but it weirded me out, even more so when I found out somebody from my old company helped compile it. Weird.

I've been talking too much personal stuff. So just a bunch of links today.

Ten Really Crappy Glam Bands the World Could Have Done Without

Taboo: Forbidden Behavior with Chopsticks Are You Aware Of It?
A good reminder for all of us.

Koko the Killer Clown
Hey check it out, he was even on "Public Eye with Bryant Gumbal." I don't understand what's so killer about him. As usual, my favorite place on sites like this is the gift shop.

You always did wonder who was the one really doling out advice in those Ann Landers columns.

Apparently, "PICKING NOSE IS HEALTHY."
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According to American and British physiologists, this very bad habit of which parents always try to cure their children turns out to be very healthy. The question is, that mucous membrane of human nose has many receptors. Stimulating them could influence different functions of human organism.

For example, in this way brain activity could be stimulated. This is probably why many people, while thinking over some difficult problems, start picking nose. Moreover, picking nose could help to faster get rid of grippe and usual influenza. Stimulating receptors situated in nose helps to the organism to more actively fight with the illness.

This, of course, does not mean that this habit is now considered to be decent. It is still improper to pick nose in a company. Though, somewhere all alone… Why not to strength your health?
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4 words that can make any little boy's day: Explosive. Rocket. Powered. Toys.

Something Josh Chang probably did a lot of during the long Minnesota winters of his childhood.

What's your writing style? I am a Storyteller. I am also a Dork.

Man Shot Dead over Heaven and Hell Argument
I had a great week of spiritual refreshment, met lots of good people who are earnestly seeking after God's purpose and truth in their lives, and then I come home and read this. Bleah. I'm not the only one that needs spiritual renewal, obviously.

The trip ended up being really good, even though you could see lots of things that could have made it pretty bad. For instance, we spent a lot of time traveling by bus, because we didn't just stay in Toronto, but saw the sights in Montreal and Quebec City also. One of my old roommates and I used to imagine what the individual versions of hell would be for people we knew. I am now convinced my hell would incorporate riding on a bus.

Another thing was the rain. The weather had been sunny and hot for most of the trip. We arrived on Saturday to the site where the Pope was going to have an evening vigil, and then celebrate Mass the next morning. The evening vigil was great, we had fun getting to know people, and went to sleep outside in sleeping bags along with a million others from around the world. 6 AM, the rain starts pouring down on us (how else are a million people going to wake up in a span of 10 minutes?), and we spent a few hours huddling in wet clothes in the middle of monsoon season.

But none of that took away from the pilgrimage. And what better sign of God's blessing would there be than that? If anything, whatever little amounts of suffering through damp clothes, sleep deprivation or exhaustion made the spiritual highlights that much better.

What were the spiritual highlights? For me, I'd definitely have to say the Papal Mass on Sunday. I'd gone to the previous one at World Youth Day 2000 in Rome, but this experience was different. The Pope is getting frail, health-wise, and it was touching to see him come out and say the whole Mass for us, which he hadn't done in several years, apparently. But he wanted to do it, he wanted to be with the young people, and deliver the sermon he had prepared on being "Salt of the earth, light of the world" which was the theme for this World Youth Day. What I remember most from his sermon on Sunday was this (full transcript here):

"You are young, and the Pope is old, 82 or 83 years of life is not the same as 22 or 23. But the Pope still fully identifies with your hopes and aspirations. Although I have lived through much darkness, under harsh totalitarian regimes, I have seen enough evidence to be unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of the young. You are our hope, the young are our hope.

Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son."

So. I am still processing it all, but those are the things that stick out at me now.