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April 30, 2005

Central Square on a Friday Night

For those of you who were wondering what the commotion in Central Square was on Friday evening around 9:30, it was the congregations of St. Mary (Antiochian) Orthodox Church and Ss. Constantine and Helen (Greek) Orthodox Church gathering at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street for a Jets vs. Sharks-style rumble.

Ok, not really. Actually, Friday was Orthodox Good Friday, owing to the continued use of the Julian calendar for calculating such things, and the two Orthodox Churches in Central Square decided to have a joint procession during their services.

Posted by Dean at 12:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 19, 2005

More on Archbishop Iakovos

Via Deacon Matthew Thurman's blog, the Boston Globe has story on the Archbishop's burial. Also, there are pictures from the burial at Hellenic College available.

Posted by Dean at 11:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 15, 2005

Memorial at Hellenic College/Holy Cross

Today I was at Hellenic College/Holy Cross to attend the burial of Archbishop Iakovos who passed away this past Sunday. My uncle, Fr. Germanos Stavropoulos, served as his chancellor until his death in 1994. The Archbishop's burial was attended by hundreds of people and was buried behind the seminary chapel next to Bishop Silas, whom my uncle also served with as Chancellor in the diocese of New Jersey. The last time I had the privilege of seeing the Archbishop in March of 2004, pictured here on the far left, sitting next to my mom.

Apologies for the lack of photos of the event. I will post some as they become available.

The New York Times has a well-written obituary.

Posted by Dean at 3:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

These United States

Via Phrayngula, we have Life in Post Science America:

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April 13, 2005

I'm Just a Bit

Get Perpendicular! is an amusing flash animation I found in the style of Schoolhouse Rock's I'm Just a Bill. Also be sure to check out I'm an Amendment, courtesy of The Simpsons. Sadly, I used to have a video for the latter, but I have since lost it, presumably during my data loss disaster.

UPDATE: I don't have the video, but I do have the soundtrack to the Simpsons parody.

UPDATE #2: Now I do have the amendment song video in Windows Media Format. Enjoy.

Posted by Dean at 5:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 9, 2005

Create your own South Park Character

This is a couple of years old, but I came across an online South Park character creator, which is fun to play with and is really good at capturing the South Park aesthetic.

For example, this is what I looked like when I first came to graduate school:

This is what I look like now:

Posted by Dean at 6:07 PM | Comments (11)

April 8, 2005

There is, in fact, a house in New Orleans

I recently took a brief vacation in New Orleans, so when I came across a story about the discovery of a possible site of The House of the Rising Sun, I was intrigued. Most of you will remember the song by The Animals (based on a folk song) by the same name. Apparently trying to track down what the song is referring to resulted in investigation from The Straight Dope on the matter, as well.

(incidently, visitors to New Orleans should head out to the Garden District and get dinner at La Petite Grocery)

Also: I did not take these, but here are some photos of the Garden District in New Oreleans.

Posted by Dean at 1:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 7, 2005

Grammar Nazis at work

Grammatical issues fascinate me, in part because they provide an intriguing set of rules to explore, and I can marvel at their "machinery." Plus, I enjoy the fact that the right combination of expressions can clarify ambiguities in a sentence if you get them just right. Plus, some statements just "make sense" and some don't, and it annoys me to no end when an idiom gets corrupted into meaninglessness.

On that note, the use of the term "straight and narrow" rather than the more correct "strait and narrow" earned a stern rebuke in this discussion on the Washington Monthly weblog. After people jumped on the rebuker for his rightful correction, mostly with defenses of "both are correct," he finally lost patience and gave this sarcastic reply:

Welcome to the land of linguistic laziness where prescriptivists must lay low as flout becomes flaunt, supercede supersedes supersede, and unnatural verbing grows our discourse.

Oh well. For all intensive purposes, it looks like we've lost the fight--and I could care less

Posted by Dean at 2:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 5, 2005

Mildly amusing internet meme of the day

Try this out while it's still funny. Do a video search on google for the word "fucking." Don't worry, it's safe for work and strangely appropriate.

Posted by Dean at 1:18 AM | Comments (0)