The Sci-Fi Catholic of Science Fiction returns to reading Fictional Books of Fiction.

A welcome change from having to hear about creepy 1st-Century Jewish rebels and bananas that prove - or disprove - the existence of God...

A short story.

Histor unlocked the door and walked to the table. He smelled of mud, recently-healed wounds, and melted chocolate.

"What the - so why are you back?" asked the Sucrose Inquisition.

"Because I lost part of my name, all my wisdom, and some hair. I need to recuperate. Your Eminences, can you hand me that mustard, some lemon juice, sugar, and a cup?"

"There's lemonade in the fridge, if that's what you want..." said Cardinal Maltodextrin, concealing his disgust, and the fact that the "mustard" was actually the innards of a deviled egg.

Histor walked to the fridge, drank the lemonade, then headed towards the computer. Cardinal Aspartame stopped him, muttering something that sounded like "you'll make the chair stink go shower." Histor went and showered, then came back to the computer.

In the box marked "Title:" he wrote "A short story."

And he wrote one.

THE END.

I'm BANNED!

The SoV2 folks banned me! Apparently I'm a traditionalist extremely-medieval Republican Pharisee (all of which are quite true) so therefore I'm Not Church.

Therefore, I'm putting the "We Aren't Church" banner up to protect all those who Are Church from my site.

Incidentially, the folks at SoV2 don't like o's, i's and e's, preferring to substitute y in their place. Which, naturally, makes them the
Spyryt yf Vatycan II "Cathylyc" Fayth Cymmunyty.

Over and out!

Why do people come to my blog?

If I can judge from the searches they use to get there, they're looking for:

st. thomas zombie (He's a good friend of mine...when he's not trying to bite my siblings. Zombies these days...)
costco leatherman charge (Umm....)
fu manchu stars (Which reminds me - The Honorable Manchu never did take up my challenge. Chicken!)
same score (Huh?)
islamic caliphate 2040 (Probably not.)

That, folks, is why you really come read Est Puzzlementem. Encourage people interested in the things above to visit this site!

UP DA BLOG!

I fought the SAT...

and the SAT won.

Really, I expect that I did well on the test. Don't know yet, and when I do know, be assured that you won't get any numbers - just vagueness.

I read several books, only two of which I shall review this week: namely, The Bridge over the River Kwai and Heart of Darkness.

Well, see y'all tomorrow!

When I wasn't studying for the SAT, guess what I was doing...;)

NOTICE!

I will not post anything on this blog until June 3, 2007 - right after the last SAT.

Draw your own conclusions.

Again, someone searched for...

examples of introvert and extrovert

and got to me.

I would say.....me and everyone else.

I passed 2000 visits....

Break out the punch and loud music!

Hey!

Someone from Vietnam visited today!

That's another Communist country into which this blog has penetrated!

The plan for taking over the world is going along just fine, you see!

Someone wanted to know:

why religion poisions everything

and came to my blog to find out.

Obviously, because it gives opportunities for the gullible to be sold false religions (c'mon, dudes who somehow lose golden tablets given them by the angel Gabriel aren't exactly the sort you want to follow...) and because it has such disastrous effects on art, as I proved....

Speaking of art, here is a picture.

Alright...

A low-intensity flu bug - and a tornado - cut off the supply of blogposts.

We now have the pipeline running. It will launch at 1700 today.

Check this out.

Of course, anything with "Ride of the" in front gets me thinking of...this...and this...

No. I have not watched Apocalypse Now. I just heard of it while reading about the Cold War, so there...

I'm miffed.

Some &*(%^Y*^Y*()%Y*)%#*)Y*)#$ jerk has invented a thingyjig where - without opening any pop-up window - annoying images just come out of the page. At the Site Meter page, for instance, three boxers with video-game consoles for heads just started bouncing around the screen.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaagh!

Searches again

Whoever came here looking for:

Savannah GA Al CApone

Mind as well know that I've quit the Tintin Verus strips.

But if you want to come back, be my guest.

Searches

Various folks got to my website by an internet search over the last 100 visits, and I just feel like making comments upon them. Some searched for:

brave new family chesterton ebook - I would buy the print version, personally.

G.K. Chesterton poem calvary - Never heard of it, but it sounds interesting.

"the prayer of the frog" socrates - Socrates wouldn't be caught dead praying to some freakin' frog. Cut it out!

france nuclear doctrine - Hmmmmm. I'm guessing it's "hit Alta California, Spain, and every other wine-producing region in the world so we can establish a monopoly." It's just a guess. Then again, maybe it's this.

franky brother bad canadian border hospital blood blood - Sounds like either a big fan of "Highway Patrolman" or some autobot typed that in.

Oh well.

---------------------------------

Just Easter Sunday I remarked to my pastor: the reason so many churches resemble gyms is that, in case of persecution, we will be accustomed to clandestine worship ("Aw, honey, I'm just going to the health club...where else would you go on Saturday morning?").

Second Week of Lent Bulletin

Stand in the Light;
Step into Freedom;
Healing Balm;
Bearer of Hope,
Restoring Spirit;
Clothed in Love;
Imaging Love:
Empowering Lives;
Passion for Justice;

(I could say it was part of a litany in praise of Sen. Barack Obama, but for this next one)

and who could forget David Haas'
"Voices that Challenge".

Dredged up by Gerald Augustinus.

First, a confession: I forgot to fast and pray per my vow. I'll have to make it up this Friday. That's the bad news. The Good News is twofold: H.L. Crawdad got his essay done, and the Sucrose Inquisition released me Monday morning when I identified myself. They apologized profusely (I'm their boss), and promised never, never, never to get near me with a squeaking toy again.

They were last seen Saturday at dusk, heading in the general direction of the Church of Jumbuck, armed with a copier, a sqeaky rubber duck, and their trusty soft cushions. God help us all.

Read this if you have any interest about politics. In my opinion, conservatism's innate tendency to be the Champion ofthe Status Quo is coming out now, with defenders of what 45 years back was abhorrent jockeying for nominations in the Republican Party. Of course maybe people will get sick of the current society and stop voting for people who perpetuate it. Some people are actually doing that.

Now this is a nice example of the "position then evidence" attitude so much in evidence among, say, Kennedy-Assassination maniacs. If you find a historian using that, then throw his book into the nearest high-temperature-producing device.

Well, folks, I mind as well provide some prayers, translated by the ICEL from Latin.

Grace before meals:
Dear God: we like food. We like the food you give us. We like Jesus because he gives us food. Amen.

Grace after meals:
Thank you, God, for giving us stuff. You will not die. Amen.

Guardian Angel Prayer:
Dear angel, God told you to follow me around. Please don't get lost. Please tell me what to do. Amen.

Now let us speak of other things.

This is NICE:
Scroll down to the bottom of this link, and see what you find.

(From the same folks: the Tabasco-Sauce Holster!)

Not nice at all:
The picture actually looks more like, uh, uh, Elizabeth Gold from The Spy Who Came in from the Cold than Mary. Besides, it's filthy ugly. If I were Elizabeth Gold, or Mary, or whoever the statue's supposed to be, I would sue for libel. Then again, Gold didn't wear those floppy wing sleeves. Nor would Mary have, according to the unamious testimony of everyone from early Christians to 12-century sculptors to Velazquez to Our Lady of Guadalupe to Bernadette Soubirous.

Next week's essay: A Short Story concerning a Bookcase.

Subverting the Dominant Paradigm since 2006!

The Other Huge Nation That Celebrates the Woman's Right To Choose And Doesn't Think It Hurts Anyone allows people to visit me online. Try it out!

H/T: Mr. Jay

First Week of Lent Bulletin

Wow! What a Mardi Gras that was!

Such a Mardi Gras, in fact, that, well, I only woke up again Friday morning*...and had a backlog of school...and suddenly realized that "I hadn't given anything up for Lent!"

So I gave up blogging, along with web-surfing and reading other people's blogs.

Anyhow, it was a pretty good week. I concentrated on my Spanish and Latin backlog, got those trimmed to manageable size, and kept slogging through An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - which spends a gad-awful amount of time talking about corn. I have actually started to like the book a lot, but it's hard reading. This reading, however, was at the expense of necessary study for the FAITH AND HISTORY CONTEST, which occurs sometime after Lent and offers bragging rights and a gift certificate to whomever can identify the guy whose handmaiden was killed by the Benjaminites.

I also took a look at Beowulf, which after about 1400 years still is "relevant." The moral (so far) is:

If you have some 12-foot guy in your neighborhood who doesn't like your revelry in a great hall, get out of the hall before he comes along and starts scarfing you down like popcorn. And -whatever you do - don't offer sacrifices to pagan gods, 'cause that doesn't work.

Oh, and I applied for a summer program at a Certain College. I won't say where, 'cause they haven't approved me yet. However, I'm confident I'll be accepted.

And now some comments from Chez Histor:

H. L. Crawdad says "Hi, y'all." He would lik to voice his disagreements with me concerning a sociological matter on this blog, but I told him nyet. He's currently working on an essay, "The War That Wasn't: A Review of The Third World War by Gen. Hackett, et al." Expect it next Sunday.

The Church of Jumbuck is tootin' along just fine. 45 Parishoners, 6 of which are not livestock. "It's exciting that all these sheep and cows are coming together in jumbucky unity," says Rev. Ovis Aries. "Sure, we comprise 0.00006 percent of the livestock of Texas. But we are the vanguard of the new Herd Movement."

The Sucrose Inquisition was not expected, yet

[Here the post ends, Histor having somehow disappeared or ceased typing. I shall publish it, hoping that Histor (wherever he may be) may not mind my taking the liberty.

H.L. Crawdad]

































*Actually, no, I didn't get a hangover. My parents would never let me do that. I'm just pulling your leg. And I woke up Thursday morning like normal people. "Normal people" sleep in sleeping bags and wake at 5:30 when their alarm plays "Three is a Magic Number"

WAHOO!

I just cracked the 1000-visit barrier! As of today, I have had 1,001 people visit my blog.



Even though 10 percent of them were probably visits by me or my blood relatives...



So far, I have had folks from Italy, France, England, Brazil, Australia, China, New Jersey, Nevada, and, of course, the US of A. Many of whom are both from the Great State of Texas and not related to me.



Some folks were lured in by those who maliciously entice web-surfers into blogs like mine. (Raulito? Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex? Are you listening?) Others were searching for stuff:



stamps geese - Dude, stamps are so yesterday. Does "e-mail" mean anything to you. But I love geese. Man, how I loooooooove geese, roasted!



chesterton was a bigot - Probably not, if you except his crass views on cheese and crackers.



Diogenes "off the record" - That's an uberblog, far above me. I am not worthy to undo the RSS...aw shucks, I am too!



militaria - Well, yeah, I like military stuff and all that, as agonized readers can tell...



Others have randomly gotten to my site, occasionally from blogs which (to judge from the names) I should be glad I don't know about.



And, of course, there are those who wondered about some guy named Delta who commented on their blog.



To all y'all: Thanks! And come back, by the bolts of Zeus!



On a different note:



It's almost Lent, and (other than an overinflated ego from my breaking the 1000 barrier) I am all ready for it, complete with family-mandated sacrifices and a resolution to read "Divine Intimacy." (Hey, it can't hurt.) It occurs to me that, even though Lent is not fun, those who practice it have an edge over those who don't.



It would be healthy to, every now and then, sit around and meditate on your death and sinfulness and deliver Hamletesque speeches on the subject. But, it's not healthy to do that continually. (Besides, it would get annoying to your relatives.) However, refusing to have any dark moods at all means you will go crazy. Lent is a period designed specifically for these dark moods, meditation on how everything in this world will pass away, all earthly happiness is straw, your soul is in eternal danger of hell, etc. However, it has a specific end, where Jesus (figuratively speaking) announces: "Snap out of it! I'm alive, I'm commanding the winning army, and My recruiting office is open!" (That's why we baptize RCIA candidates on Easter.) We get a healthy dose of gloom and doom (and fasting), in which we contemplate how bad everything really is. Then we get reminding how good everything really is, on account of the Resurrection.



If you don't have Lent, you have no specific time for gloomy pessimism. So, either you continually think about the evil of mankind (pessimism) or you completely ignore it (optimism). If you choose the first, you will eventually want to kill yourself. Choose the second, and you will kill yourself, once you realize how many lies you've told yourself. Either way, you will be monstrously wrong. All because you weren't moderate in your gloomy pessimism!


So, memento mori and pass the meatless sandwiches!

Well, the Catholic Blog Awards are over

Congratulations to the folks who voted for Scorpion Stalking Duck (all six of y'all), and the other folks who got nominated AND didn't kill their blogs when Jimmy Akin, Open Book, et al steamrolled their respective ways to victory.

Read here for the 2007 stuff.

Er, did anyone notice that Jeff Miller (of Curt Jester fame) helps with the Catholic Blog Awards, and won the funniest blog award?

COLLUSION! COLLUSION! COLLUSION!

(Seriously, he probably isn't tampering with the votes. He is funny, and popular, enough to win without vote-tampering. And I don't suspect him of dishonest practices, either. It's a joke.)

Well, now it's time to make like all those wonderful folks in Washington and whip up a publicity campaign for myself, so next year I'll have 2000 hits a day and a cult following. (Excuse me while I smack my chops). Blog awards will drop into my hand come Feb. '08.

So remember this:

UP DA BLOG!

Come 2008, you will have to vote for "Best Blogs" in a multitude of categories. Just remember to vote for Est Puzzlementem, the Wise Choice.

UP DA BLOG!