I have been complaining for some while now about the limitations of the Microsoft Live blogs. I was especially annoyed by the fact that I couldn't even access the site using Firefox on my Linux desktop -- which is has had zero problems thus far, and has taken over as my primary computer at home.

Through a series of hyperlinks, I found myself on the blogger website. It appears that google owns blogger, and since I have a gmail account, I was halfway setup for having a blogger account. So I went the whole nine yards, and set up a blog to replace this one. I expect this will be my last post on this blog. Future updates will be found on my new and improved blog page, http://lesbonneschoses.blogspot.com/ now with gender agreement between subject and adjective!

It's been a couple days since Rebecca and I were at Jesuspalooza, so I should write about it before I forget. We're in Texas. That may be part of the bible belt, I don't know. But they sure like their Jay-suss here. I come from a Roman Catholic background, so I'm used to certain things when it comes to The Jesus, as does Rebecca, who is also Roman Catholic. Now, Rebecca's dad is catholic (and was actually in the seminary for a little while -- before Rebecca was born, obviously), but her mom is Baptist, as is the rest of her family, I presume. It's Rebecca's mom's family that we're visiting, so that sort of sets the stage. When we got here, one of the things that was on her mom's agenda was to go to Lakewood Church, part of Joel Osteen's ministries. They televise their celebrations, so if you want to see what I'm talking about first hand, you can try and catch it on TV on a Sunday morning (I understand that there is a 3-week lag between the taping and the airing, consult your local listings for details).

 

The plan for the day was to go see Joel Osteen for the 9am service, then the catholics among us were going to go right from there to a Catholic mass at 11. To get to Lakewood church, formerly the building in which the Houston Rockets played, we had to leave the house at 7. Seven. The service started at 9. So for the next 90 minutes, I stood there and made some observations, many of them somewhat cynical. For example, if you want to get on TV at one of these televised evangelical services, it helps to stand and sing with your hands in the air and your eyes squezed tightliy shut in ecstasy, as if you're straining under the weight of an invisible barbell that you're hoising over your head in the clean and jerk event. Everyone I saw on the projection screens had that same look. Another interesting fact that of which I was formerly unaware is that God has given us the tithe as a way to get to know him. It's true! The only way you can truly know all of Him is to tithe, as I learned in a 5 minute lecture, just before the collection baskets were passed around. Interestingly, it was Victoria Osteen who talked about the importance of tithing, rather than Joel, who gave the sermon (which I can summarize as the commonsense advice to pay attention to your audience when communicating with them). My theory is that this was a deliberate division of the labour into "dirty work" and "clean work". Like I said, many of my observations were quite cynical. I did have fun pretending that I belonged there though, all with the singing along and the exclaiming AY-MENN!. I just pretended that I was trying to infiltrate the organization. But I drew the line at the religious ecstacy -- if I were to do that, it would feel more like a mean-spirited mockery to me.

 

Um, yeah, so that's enough about that. After that service, we went to a conventional Catholic Mass at St. Vincent de Paul parish, who had a choir that actually did some parts of the mass in latin with 4-part harmony. The contrast was like going from radio jingles to Bach. Am I a bad person?  Perhaps, but I know what I like.

 

And now... a quest for a Texas steak and a 10-gallon hat for my dad before we leave tomorrow.

So Pat got himself married a few weeks ago in California. I believe it was supposed to have been a small immediate family only type event. He may or may not be finished his mini-honeymoon by now (I don't know his schedule) and ought to be back at the daily grind again either by now or sometime soon (Rebecca and I delayed our honeymoon trip to Ireland for two years, I believe). At the beginning of June, I'll try and make it to the informal reception in Wisconsin if I can make my way out there. While this may have been like one of those half-hearted invitations to your great aunt from Nebraska - you send the invitation but have already calculated the seating arrangements under the assumption that she and the hand-painted porcelain dalmation wedding gift won't be making the trip - I like to think that the invite was genuine. While I'm in the area, I'm going to try to visit with Martin. That is, if he ever reads his damn email. He still hasn't gotten back to me about looking up Vivian Cheng. She went to grade school with Rebecca and I, to highschool with Martin and I, and to the University of Guelph in the same prorgam as Martin. I was hoping Martin could make use of the U of Guelph Alumni resources or something. I hope Vivian googles her name, because Rebecca and I are looking for her.

 

This just in: Martin reads his damn email. Or at least the most recent one, to which he replied. I think he uses the subject line as a filter. Next time I want to reach him, I'll be sure to title it something like "I was poisoned by the KGB and have 3 days to live". As for the other issue of finding Vivian Cheng:

 

Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng Vivian Cheng. Hopefully google will pick this up, and one day she'll feel the inevitable pull to google her own name. When she does, this should be right up at the top of the list.