The Beat Still Goes On

Aug

22

2024

Thanks to someone’s generosity in loaning us her car while ours was in the shop, I got to hear a few days’ worth of satellite radio. So we tried to get a wide variety of stations while we could, and I tried to explain the significance of various songs in regard to the culture at the time. One of the songs that came on was “The Beat Goes On” by Sonny and Cher.

It was written to highlight how things are changing, and things are staying the same. And it oddly still works today. It reminds me of a monologue by Roy Rogers, I think. The way it was written it spoke of politics and societal events in a general enough way that it was timeless. I wish I could find it on the internet, but no such luck today.

Anyway, here are some of the lyrics to The Beat Goes On

Charleston was once the rage, uh-huh
History has turned the page, uh-huh
The miniskirt’s the current thing, uh-huh
Teenybopper is our newborn king, uh-huh

I suppose miniskirts are still around, not sure about teenyboppers anymore though. This verse is a wash: +1 and -1.

The grocery store’s the super mart, uh-huh
Little girls still break their hearts, uh-huh
And men still keep on marching off to war
Electrically they keep a baseball score

This one’s still true on all counts. Although it’s not noteworthy now that baseball scores are kept electronically, it was a big deal back then. But it’s still true today.

Grandmas sit in chairs and reminisce
Boys keep chasing girls to get a kiss
The cars keep going faster all the time
Bums still cries, “Hey buddy, have you got a dime?”

This one’s mostly true. Cars do keep going faster all the time. As far as I can tell, we’ve reached diminishing returns on that one, both in top speed and in 0-60 acceleration – however you want to consider “faster”. The things that not quite true is that bums don’t ask for dimes. They still ask for money, but in denominations larger than dimes.

And the beat goes on

Okay, this one’s the chorus not a verse. But it needs to be acknowledged that the beat is still going on today, so +1 for that too.

What has been, it is what will be, And what has been done, it is what will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

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Buy Bai, Bye

Aug

14

2024

A friend of ours got a case of Bai flavored water (I forget if she was given it or it was just a really good deal so she bought it) but once she tried it she realized she didn’t really like it. So we got to try some Bai flavors and take what we wanted.

That was my introduction to Bai. I don’t particularly like it because it tastes like fake sugar. My son thought it was okay.

Anyway, that’s all the background for why I was thinking about Bai. And while thinking about Bai, I thought they missed an opportunity for an ad campaign with NSYNC.

image of Nsync song bye bye bye but with bai bai bai instead

It’s a perfect fit, if you ask me. They don’t even have to change the song, just put images of Bai water on the screen each time NSYNC sings the word “bye”.

When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, because they were bitter; for that reason it was named Marah.

Exodus 15:23

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The Age of Jesus, Part 2

Aug

8

2024

Some longtime readers of this blog may remember I wrote something about why Jesus lived for only 33 years and what was significant about the number 33.

I still like my answer, but I did find another meaning to the number 33, and I think it fits in quite nicely.

One of the many Old Testament laws had to do with impurity and cleanness after childbirth. If a woman gave birth to a male child she was unclean for 33 days and if she gave birth to a female child she was unclean for 66 days.

What does Mary giving birth to Jesus have to do with this?

Nothing.

But if we consider that Jesus was born of this world, then the earth would be unclean for 33 units of time. I haven’t worked out how to make the jump from days to years, I’m just concentrating on the number 33.

I also don’t want to take the comparison too far lest anyone think that the earth was Jesus’ mother.

Back to the numbers now. So the earth would be unclean for 33 years after Jesus’ birth. Hmm… It was also unclean for the 3756 years before Jesus was born. We’re just going to ignore that part for now too.

Anway, the earth would be unclean for 33 years after the birth of Jesus. Then how did the mother become clean after 33 days? She had to sacrifice a lamb, of course.

Jesus is both the child and the lamb in this analogy. He was sacrificed 33 years after his birth and that purified the earth. Hmm… Maybe that’s not the best way of phrasing it either, because that hints at universal salvation. Maybe “allowed inhabitants of earth to be purified” would be better.

Maybe I’m stretching it a bit, but I thought there was a decent connection between the 33 years that Jesus lived and the 33 days of uncleanness.

Now I realize that it could also imply the earth was only unclean while Jesus was on the earth. I’ll leave that topic alone also.

That’s all – just something to think about.

And she shall stay at home in her condition of blood purification for thirty-three days; she shall not touch any consecrated thing, nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed.

Leviticus 12:4

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One-Pedal Driving

Jul

31

2024

One of the big draws of the new electric vehicles is their feature of one-pedal driving. This is like the cars at amusement parks that kids get to drive and steer, but the steering is limited to the rail that guides them around the track and the car slows down and stops once you let off the gas.

In the case of electric cars, the car can slow down and stop if you let off the accelerator pedal. A lot of people seem to like it, and it certainly helps prolong the life of the brakes.

But as I was driving my old gas-powered car around yesterday with a stuck parking brake, I realized that just about every car has a one-pedal driving feature.

Go ahead and try it. In my car I have a handbrake lever I pull up, but in the family minivan it’s a foot pedal on the far left that you press. Activate the park brake about halfway, then go drive around with just the gas pedal. On my car at least, it slowed down and came to a stop without having the press the brake pedal. It also held itself on a shallow hill.

The only downside is that it lowers fuel efficiency, which is the opposite effect of what it does in an electric or hybrid car. It also shortens the life of the brake pads (or shoes in my case).

But hey, you have one-pedal driving just like all the fancy people these days.

Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Drive the donkey and go on; do not slow down the pace for me unless I tell you.”

2 Kings 4:24

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Naming Medicines

Jul

24

2024

One of the more fascinating things about today’s modern world is the naming of medicines. There are a lot of medicines, and there are a lot of new names needed for new medicines, and I’m always impressed on how someone can invent a new word that’s not like another existing word.

I mean, some of the names do sound ridiculous, but they are unique and memorable. It seems I would mispronounce half of them if I didn’t hear it pronounced in the ad.

I did look it up, and there are agencies that the drug manufacturers use to come up with the names. It sounds like a lot of work, and a lot of regulations for drug names. It would be a lot easier to name a product without legal constraints. But on the other hand I think that is how you get these uniquely memorable names.

I just know if I tried to come up with a name for a new medicine I’d probably do best by typing a bunch of clumps of random letters and picking one of those that sounded right. It’s hard to think of a new name that doesn’t sound like anything else, because trying to think of things brings to mind the words that already do exist.

Perhaps those million monkeys are actually at the naming agencies, having not gotten close to writing Shakespeare.

The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows except the one who receives it.

Revelation 2:17

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Reviewing the Reviewer

Jul

17

2024

I’ve mentioned people leaving bad reviews before. Not reviews with a bad rating of the product, but the review itself was poorly done. Here’s a previous example of how to write reviews.

But I was looking at something on the Home Depot website and of all the reviews, this one had me shaking my head. For the most part, people who are bad at reviewing things don’t know it. I think they mean well but are clueless as to the uselessness of their review.

This guy, however, was not clueless. He just straight out admitted he shouldn’t be leaving a review. But yet he still left one. I can only guess he was either being blackmailed or threatened with violence that he had to leave a review right then. Or maybe he got some kickback for leaving a 5-star review and that was the last day the kickback would be available.

image of of a bad review of a product at Home Depot

He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them.

Psalm 147:4

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Elementary, My Dear Watson

Jul

10

2024

I was behind a Honda Element at a stoplight last week, and I was mildly amused by its license plate

Here is what I saw:

image of a Honda Element with The 5th license plate

And here it is zoomed in a slightly enhanced:

image of a Honda Element with The 5th license plate

So there you have it – the elements are Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Honda.

Not love, despite what that movie tried to claim.

looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!

2 Peter 3:12

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