O.K. this first link is odd, but rather cute. It’s called Flat Grapefruit, a blog series of posts that are, my best description, grapefruit parables. I’m not sure what they mean, but here’s a sample:

A young couple was at the beach, digging for treasure. They thought that they had found a spot containing treasure when they found a large lump in the sand.
“We are sooooo lucky!” they exclaimed.
Then they started digging. After digging for a couple of hours, they found the cause of the lump: a swollen grapefruit that had become quite large after soaking up water beneath the surface of the sand for months.
“Gosh, darn it,” they said.

Aaron at Aaron’s cc writes about movie filtering technology, and he says what I’ve always said. It’s my movie, and I should be able to do whatever I want with it. Or in his words: “If I buy a paperback novel, there is no license denying me the right to tear out a few pages or to take an indelible marker to some of the words. It’s that simple.”

The blogger and her commenters at A Practice in Belief were discussing Southern and other accents and speaking patterns. And some of them were dissing the word “y’all.” Here’s my comment:

Y’all is the most useful southernism there is. What else do you say when refering to the second person plural?
You doesn’t explain that you’re talking to all those present. You guys just sounds Yankee and excludes the females. You people? Just people? All those present? Hey all of you? You all? Hear ye, hear ye? I’ll stick to y’all.

T.M. Moore in Christianity Today writes about Celtic Christianity and suggests some basic and reliable introductory texts to help those who are interested in exploring the teaching and influence of this tradition.

The blogger at A Circle of Quiet gets caught reading. Who will be next?

Donna at a Quiet Life gets a lot of responses, and little controversy, when she asks: “List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can’t really understand the fuss over.” What about those of you who haven’t posted at Miz Booshay’s site? What fad or trend or popular phenomenon do you just not get? I’ll give you my list to get you started:

1. Coffee, It tastes really nasty to me.
2. The Amazing Race, American Idol, most TV shows. Although I must admit we’ve become fans of Lost around here.
3. Oprah
4. Homebirthing Give me nurses and a hospital bed and an epidural!
5. Bellies showing–the gap between the short shirt and the low-riding jeans. These are not usually my peers, but I don’t get the style on anyone. Looks tacky to me.