Humor

Welcome, Newly Gay Brethren!

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 1,053 Comments

Well, crap. I got stuck in the lab until 8:30pm last night and then selfishly slept an entire eight hours, so I didn’t finish photo editing and writing up the Pirates at the Museum post. But I did get a few minutes to chip away at Google Reader, and in doing so I found this gem.

Seen at Joe.My.God

This is response to the Mormon Baptism of the Dead (link goes to Wikipedia). If you do a google search for “Mormon Baptism of the Dead” you can find this explanation of the ritual on ldschurchtemples.com:

Many people have died without receiving a valid baptism, and they cannot undergo this precious ritual as mere spirits. “Because all on the earth do not have the opportunity to accept the gospel during mortality, the Lord has authorized baptisms performed by proxy for the dead. Therefore, those who accept the gospel in the spirit world may qualify for entrance into God’s kingdom” (See Guide to the Scriptures). One thing that should be made perfectly clear about Mormon baptisms for the dead is that each deceased soul has the personal choice to accept or reject it. There is nothing in Mormonism that states that the person who is being baptized by proxy must accept this ordinance; he or she is simply given the opportunity to choose.

So you don’t have to worry about forcing homosexuality on anybody. Their spirit selves can just reject it. But you know…once you go FABULOUS, I imagine its pretty hard to go back.

Welcome, Newly Gay Brethren!
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Un-Oculate!

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 3,083 Comments

I love the tongue-in-cheek snark in this video. I like the part where he offers to un-vaccinate against Hepatitis C (‘cuz there is no vaccine against Hep C), and when he tells us that Un-oculate will wipe out your body’s antibodies and reboot your immune system back to when you were a baby, so you can feel as young as you think.

Seen over at Friendly Atheist

Un-Oculate!

Ha! Religious Humor!

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 184 Comments

Seen over at Le Cafe Witteveen. Original Source is InherittheMirth.com

I thought this was humorous, especially in light of Tim Tebow’s on-going dinkusness. Of course it’s ridiculous, this idea that if there is a God, he would give one good crap about your personal performance on the football field. I mean, what if BOTH teams are praying really, really hard for God’s approval? How is he going to decide who to favor? Or what if he’s too busy making famines in Africa to listen to the football guys prayers at all?

I was originally just going to post this comic and move on, but I liked the title of the website that it came from: “Inherit the Mirth”. Cool – more comics using humor to point out the idiosyncrasies of the bible and belief, perhaps? When I followed the link back I discovered that the site was started by a Christian. Hmm. Well, good on him. I like people who can have a laugh at themselves. After a bit of digging around I found the “About” page (bolding is mine):

Ten years ago, Cuyler Black, a part-time youth minister in Ontario at the time, was often buying resources in local Christian bookstores. He noticed that very few, if any, of the greeting cards in those shops had a humorous bent. Cuyler thought that was a shame. He understood God to have a wonderful sense of humor and believed all Christians should as well. That humorous sensibility was being under-represented in Christian merchandise. The ensuing result has been Inherit The Mirth®,a line of greeting cards, calendars, t-shirts, posters, books and more, emphasizing the light-hearted side of faith.

A “wonderful sense of humor?” Oh, that wacky God – what with the witty drowning of the Earth’s entire population (minus a few), the silly smiting, the jokester plagues and the filicide*. And do you know how else we know that God has a sense of humor? More from Inherit the Mirth:

People with a sense of humor give other people nicknames. Jesus called Peter ‘the Rock” and called the boisterous brothers James and John the “Sons of Thunder”. And speaking of boisterous, Jesus enjoyed the company of kids (“Let the little children come unto me”– Matt. 19:14). How can you enjoy hanging out with ankle-biters and not have a sense of humor?

Some of the Christians I know embrace just the “good parts” of their religion. They brush aside the bad parts as “antiquated” or as “misinterpretations” or as blatant lies written by man after the “original bible” was written (wait, what?). They have these ideas and thus can justify dismissing the parts they don’t like. They can walk away with a rosy picture of Jesus petting a lamb, feeding the poor and healing sick people. God becomes just a stern father figure who might have to take humanity over his knee now and then, but really, don’t all children get out of line and need the occasional physical and psychological torture as a reminder to be good?

I really appreciate a sense of humor, but I have a hard time reconciling the idea of a jokey-pokey, nickname-giving, Dad-on-the-playground-with-the-kiddies God with the same God who would cast anyone into an eternal pit of suffering. Some people may find humor in their faith, but I’ve read the Bible and I sure don’t remember there being much to smile about.

Or, you know, this could just be a silly comic.

*********

*BTW – This is a fun page if you need to know which prefix to add to “-cide” if you want to be specific about the kind of killing someone is doing.

Ha! Religious Humor!

Jesus vs. Doctor Who

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , 3,319 Comments

Heh. A kickass atheist, nerdy, Doctor-loving coworker forwarded this to me. It’s copyright 2007, so I’m assuming it’s made the rounds in the past, but I’ve never seen it and it made me lulz lots, so I thought I’d pass it on.

Seen at Unholy Office. Original material in two posts from Home on the Strange.

 

Jesus vs. Doctor Who

Calculus: The Musical

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , , , , , , , 1,015 Comments

On Tuesday a friend invite me to join him for a show at Huge Improv Theater called Calculus: The Musical. It was a small production. Two actors portrayed many different characters, there was no intermission, and there were several frenzied costume changes during the show. Both actors played guitar at points, and one had several pieces on an electric keyboard. It had all the elements that I love in a musical comedy: Witty characters, fast-paced dialogue and action, a dash of slapstick, various overdone accents, a multimedia presentation, a blending of musical styles (from classical to rap and a lot in between), and a man playing Sir Isaac Newton talking to a little action figure of himself (“Little Isaac”) and then having the action figure answer back in a higher-pitched version of his true voice. Okay, that last was specific to Calculus: The Musical and not at all something I look for in musical comedies.

As the name might imply to those among you who are particularly quick-witted, it was about calculus. As a mathphobe who never made it all the way through a calculus course I was worried that all of the jokes would go right over my head. I did miss some of them; several times my friend’s giggling indicated that something humorous had transpired on stage after some dialoguey gobbledygook about derivitives, functions, limits and infinite series. But the writer managed to incorporate calculus without making the storyline completely unintelligible to the uninitiated.

You can listen to songs from the musical at maththeater.com. Here are the lyrics from the only song that I can actually claim to have understood entirely. It’s called 5 Sizes of Numbers:

There are 5 sizes of numbers,
Big Infinity and small Zero,
And the Finite in the middle,
They’re the ones, I’m sure you know.

But now we look between Finite and Zero.
To numbers so small, they’re nothing at all,
But still a little larger than a Zero.
Their name is Infinitesimal.

On the other side of Finite,
There are numbers too large to say,
Infinites are what we call them,
They are big, in every way.

But they will never quite be Infinity,
They’re not quite as big, not even close.
We’ll use all of these numbers in Cal-cu-lus,
The numbers, I love the most.

It only gets nerdier from there. They have a song about Bernhard Reimann in the style of Eminem’s Without Me. Just sayin’.

Calculus: The Musical has been touring nationally for six years, and it stopped in Minneapolis only for a couple of days. But they have shows scheduled from now through May of 2012 in different parts of the country. I had a good time, maybe even learned a thing or two, and it reminded me that I really need to stop procrastinating and start reading that copy of Jennifer Ouellette’s Calculus Diaries that I got for Christmas and have left languishing on my bookshelf for the last year!

Calculus: The Musical

Nerd Trash Talk

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 288 Comments

I headed right up to the lab when I arrived at work this morning, which is a different pattern than I’ve had over the past several weeks. My most recent project has been a long-term study that I’ve been testing it in the later part of the day just because it’s a simple assay that I can throw on as I’m walking out the door at night. But usually I can be found in the lab at all hours of the day or night.

A relatively new coworker (and also my office mate with whom I get along well) saw me in the lab this morning and commented.

Him: What are you doing in the lab? You usually don’t stroll in until sometime after noon.

I’m in work mode and tend to make science jokes because I have a receptive audience here.

Me: Hey, buddy! Your observational data set of my behavior is dangerously small to be making any assumptions.

Him: Hey…I can only work with the data I have.

So, a relatively benign, forgettable, nerdish exchange. But I later realized that I had just asserted – in probably the geekiest way EVAR in all of recorded history:

“Bitch! You don’t know me!”

And I’ve been giggling all morning over that.

Nerd Trash Talk

Weekend Nerd Updates and New CUP Photo Info

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , , , 924 Comments

1) I saw Lazer Tag in Macy’s. I wanted it. Badly. The Hubby didn’t agree to the purchase. I almost had a temper tantrum in the store like a two year old.

2) Later at Target we were walking through the 50% off Halloween aisles, and I managed to convince The Hubby to try on this Batboy costume. He didn’t let me buy it for him, but I was actually okay with that.

3) We actually did buy this from the Target 50% off Halloween aisle and made the dog wear it. There’s a special kind of hell waiting for people like us.

4) I found this cartoon of Dumbo with stretched earlobes on poorlydressed.com and have been trying to find a way to work it into a blog post ever since.

5) While grocery shopping I saw this jumbo pack of lunch-size chips, and the first thing I thought was “Eat ALL the chips!”

6) My new shirt came in from lolshirts.com!

7) The Hubby and I each bought funny looking shoes.

8 ) The Hubby and I played Dodgeball with a bunch of grown adults and had a BLAST. We’re going again next Wednesday. You know, if we can walk again by then. So…much…pain! Not from getting hit with dodgeballs (they’re foam, not rubber), but we’re trying to recover from the aching shoulders, spasming back muscles and burning knee and hip joints from the overexertion! Also, I have a blister on my big toe *sniff*.

Close-Up Photo Contest

I’ve had several people remind me that we’re not done with the CUP Contest. I love that you guys love it so much. So here’s the deal: Starting on Tuesday November 8th, I will be posting a new CUP EVERY DAY at noon (12pm Central Standard Time). We’re going to play every day until somebody reaches 1000 points. After that I’m thinking about keeping it as a regular feature, but we’ll have individual winners for each photo entry. So, keep your eyes open – somebody is going to win the CUP Contest very, very soon!

Weekend Nerd Updates and New CUP Photo Info