Author Archives: Merlin Silk

Happy American Fool’s Day

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Today is the day again where America celebrates it’s freedom.

I don’t have much to say, but I let Chris say something that might be appropriate. I met Chris at a recent home schooling event. He writes the wildest poetry you could imagine. When I tried to read the first poem he forwarded to me I told him that it reminded me of the famous Vogon poetry.

Today I want to present a piece from his moderate era.

Land of the Free…REE-LEE

Do taxpayers pun while paying frivolous fines?

Do marlins still tug against tightening lines?

When pinched by no squirm-room, left choice-less, bereft,

then clap-trap verboseness is all that we’re left. (Seemingly)

The noose of Big Brother hangs ever about

the necks of the masses – We, the People, who pout..

..As waiting in lines with our checkbooks in hand,

we ponder the path of this once wondrous land..

..of Washington, Lincoln and ‘W’ too,

while stonily missing the freedoms we knew,

when God was the giver of all of our rights..

..before lawyer-armies marched in in the night

and put up their fences now seen at the dawn..

We knew it would happen, we knew all along.

We’re cleared to chase evil the ends of the earth,

but we can’t stand against in the Land of Our Birth(?)

The lawyers’ america (sic):One City Hall..

Can’t fight’em, or join’em, go shop at the Mall.

It’s time to hold fast and rise up to the fight..

And pull off the darkness, the long winter’s night.

Recall when as children, they taught us to sing..

My Country ’tis of Thee, Let Freedom Ring?

Remember the soldiers, parades on Main Street?

And picnics and fireworks..Man, it was sweet!

America’s stirring, her proud heart can’t stand

the tyrannies festering all through the land..

We call on The Blood that was shed for all men..

In songs that commit all our voices as One!

Patriots, everyone, Sleepers awake!

Lift up your voices, for Heaven’s sake.

Remember your blessings and answer The Call!

In Christ, Hallelujah! Freedom for all!

Hand on your heart, now sing:

My country ’tis of Thee, sweet land of liberty, of Thee I sing.

Land where my fathers dies, land of the pilgrims’ pride,

form every mountainside, let Freedom ring.

Custom Fonts on the Web – Google did it Again

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Just found out that Google has a cool new trick up it’s sleeve – custom fonts for your web site.

Obviously I had to try it right away, and you should see the title of this web site – the ‘Magic of Life’ up there, in the Shadow into Light font.

What did I had to do to change from the standard Helvetica?

Pretty little, actually.

  1. I added the following line as the first line in the <head> section of the headers.php file in my wordpress theme:
    <link href=’http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Shadows+Into+Light&v1′ rel=’stylesheet’ type=’text/css’>
  2. In the css for the site title element I added
    font-family: ‘Shadows Into Light’, arial, serif;

That’s pretty much it!

To see what font’s Google has available, you can check at Google Webfonts.

War of the World with the StarTrek Crew

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Found this in the deep crevices of my hard drive and I thought I better bring it into the open instead of it being hidden in cobwebs.

This is probably copy-righted material so I might get a cease and desist message, then it will be gone, but until that happens, take an hour and enjoy.

I actually grew up with radio shows, where your power of imagination was trained instead of dulled as with the later arrival of the TV.

Photos You Don’t See Every Day

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For a long time, I have these photos sitting in some hidden folder on my hard drive.

Finally, I figured out how to use SlideshowPro to create a slideshow of these images so everybody can enjoy. On revisiting this post a few years later, I found that there is no more SlideshowPro – it died with the death of Flash o the internet. But WordPress has become smarter and can handle collections of photos now with much greater ease. Thus, here the photos in the form of a gallery.

I want to be like everybody else

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Today I started reading the book “The Art of Non-Conformity” and right there on the first page. Not that I wanted to stand out! – No Way!

But reading a book on how to do things are often a good source of ‘How to do the opposite.’

And right there on the first few pages I find invaluable information, that I just had to share.

11 Ways to be Unremarkably Average

  1. Accept what people toll you at face value.
  2. Don’t question authority.
  3. Go to college because you’re supposed to, not because you wont to learn something.
  4. Go overseas once or twice In your life, to somewhere safe like England.
  5. Don’t try to learn another language; everyone else will eventually learn English.
  6. Think about starting your own business, but never do it.
  7. Think about writing a book, but never do it.
  8. Get the largest mortgage you qualify for and spend 30 years paying for it.
  9. Sit at a desk 40 hours a week for an average of 10 hours of productive work.
  10. Don’t stand out or draw attention to yourself.
  11. Jump through hoops, Check off boxes.

There you have it!

Standard Jokes

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We all get into the situation occasionally where we have to, or at least should, tell a joke. In those instances it has been proven very advantageous to have a standard joke – something you always remember – just because – it is ‘standard.’

For many years now I have the following standard joke:

Two idiots walking down the street.
Says the one ‘Now I want to walk in the middle!’

One of the hallmarks of a standard joke is brevity, just in case you audience has heard you tell it ten times before and you want to be done before they start complaining. In this regards, my standard joke did a good job.

But now I might have a worthy contender, thanks to Flemming:

The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop –
“Can you make me one with everything?”