I think the church up the road from our house is desperate for new membership. Over the past couple of months, they've had a series of increasingly pleading messages on their marquee. The first one read, "Sinners Welcome!" About a month later they put up the second: "Jeans Acceptable!" And the most recent incarnation, and my personal favorite, "Sleep In And Worship! Service 10:45".

As any married person will know, marriage is all about compromise, give and take, learning to find a balance. Apparently one woman in China is finding that out the hard way. From Reuters:

"A Chinese woman has been charged with accidentally killing her husband with a sword after he refused to make her dinner, the Shanghai Daily said on Tuesday. Police said Tang Xiaowan, 25, who has been practicing swordsmanship since she was young, had often forced her husband of three years at swordpoint to carry out her demands. On March 3, her husband, Li Weidong, refused to cook dinner because he was late for work. Police said Tang picked up her sword and put it on Li's chest and promptly slipped, stabbing Li by mistake. Li died in hospital from loss of blood. Tang was arrested Monday and charged with manslaughter."

See? Now you can't go forcing your husband at swordpoint to do your bidding because you run the risk of killing him. That might seem obvious, but sometimes one needs to state the obvious.

I hate it when people use the word "literally" incorrectly. It happens all the time, if you think about conversations you've had. "My head literally exploded." "The food literally tasted like crap." "I'm literally about to starve to death." Is it annoying? Yes. Is it harmful to others? No. But the next person who says it to me, I'm literally going to break their little legs.

I have to admit to having a bit of a morbid fascination with bad acting. I saw a preview the other night for "The Lake House," with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Part of the clip involved Keanu Reeves talking to a friend: "I bought a house. It is on a lake," delivered in his standard monotone voice. Even though John begged me to change the channel, I had to keep watching. There's something about bad dialogue coupled with bad acting that's just like a train wreck: you don't want to look, but you just can't help yourself. If anybody goes to see it, email me. I'm interested to know if they kill off either of them at the end (which, if the director was true to the original movie, he would).

In an attempt to foil bumbling professors yet again, a Welsh company has released a ringtone that most adults can't hear. Affectionately called "The Mosquito," it takes advantage of the fact that as we get older, our hearing starts to fail. Armed with one deaf ear, I was fairly certain that I wouldn't be able to hear it myself, but lo and behold, it seems that I'm not that old yet. So if my students attempt to employ The Mosquito, I'll retaliate with An Airhorn.

I'll explain the title in a minute. For the moment, I'd like to talk about previous homeowners. As in, the people who had your house before you. John and I have always known that the woman who owned our house before us was a strange bird for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that she screamed at her own real estate agent and threw the phone on the floor when he called her to talk about the sale. But recently it has come to our attention that she was a pothead as well. Which explains some of her weird behavior. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But there's this attachment to the house off of our master bathroom that has had us curious since we bought the place. It's got a greenhouse-like ceiling and it's close to a water source (the shower). And it's not accessible from the outside; in fact, from the outside it just looks like a regular part of the house. But as my good friend Amy tells me definitively, it's a grow room.

And we're not the only ones to experience the interesting habits of former owners. John's youngest brother, Zack, just bought a house in Lawrence and moved in. Apparently the mail situation hasn't been sorted out yet, because the other day he and his girlfriend got a Wiccan magazine delivered the other day, with the former homeowner's name on it. It was filled with, among other sordid things, ads for Nude Yoga. Which, of course, is all the rage.

And now, a word about the title: when Zack was in Berkeley visiting a friend of his, they were taking a tour of the backyard when they came across a lump of candlewax. Zack's friend kicked the lump across the yard and said, "Dammit Allison [his housemate]! Everytime there's a full moon, you sit naked in the yard surrounded by candles, but you never clean up afterwards!" I've said it before, I'll say it again: you've gotta love Berkeley.

Yeah, I've had the wording written as long as I can remember. Woody Harrelson just beat me to the punch, that's all! In a statement announcing the birth of his latest child, Harrelson said, "In this crazy patriarchal world we live in, we are doing our part to balance the energy. We are proud to announce the completion of our goddess trilogy with the birth of our third daughter, Makani Ravello, born on June 3rd." Whatever happened to a cute photo next to the kid's name and a request for cash?

There's an engaging debate taking place on the UF history grads mailing list about what history is and what our obligations as historians are. It's been productive and certainly interesting to read what others have to say about it. And then somebody has to go and be an asshole, make up a fake identity and start a flame war. It goes something like this: "My name is Joe Schmatz. I'm going to play list policeman and I think that you all need to find a different venue for this. Find something better to do." I give it another half day before someone invokes Hitler.

I'm not a person who revels in trying new things. It has been my experience that new things inevitably disappoint. I like to stay the course, take the road most traveled, not change horses midstream, not rock the boat. But yesterday I did just that. I veered off course, took the road less traveled, I changed horses midstream (actually, it might have been a mule), and I rocked the boat. At the grocery store, when John and I were picking out ice cream, I chose the new limited batch Ben & Jerry's American Pie. And it has made all the difference. Maybe instead of assuming that new things will disappoint me, I have to acknowledge that anything with the word "pie" in it can't be all bad...