More Miscellaneous Rambling
The Tournament neareth. My 28th Annual NCAA Basketball Tournament Auction is tonight. I ought to post a commemorative BYCU, but the circumstances don't permit.
Humorous story of the month: Their Street Is Famous on Instagram, and They Can't Take It Anymore. It's about an incredibly-quaint street in Paris that everyone wants to photograph for their Instagram pages, resulting in crowds of people and the residents can't stand it:
It might seem curmudgeonly to take issue with what is mostly harmless fun, but Rue Crémieux is not the sort of place that can be all things to all people. Built in the late 19th century for construction workers, the houses are small and they open directly onto a narrow stretch of cobblestones. There's nowhere to hide a cat, let alone a film crew. Residents say this doesn't really matter on a normal day, as the average tourist is fairly calm and respectful. But on evenings and weekends, it can become unbearable. That is why they want gates installed at each end of the street, to stay firmly closed to non-residents when the interloping is at its worst.
What do you get when you combine the Bay area free love movement of the 1960s with the Bay area big tech movement of the 2000s? Well, some really, really bizarre stuff: Eye contact parties, cuddle puddles, 'conscious dance.' The Bay Area has changed in a lot of ways, but still knows how to get kinky. Read at your own risk.
Random Blurb from the Notebooks: Brownson said switching Protestant sects was like changing apartments in a house. You don't leave the world you know. Friends, family, and business associates all remain the same and don't look at you any differently whether you're Presbyterian, Methodist, or Baptist. “But to pass from Protestantism to Catholicity is a very different thing. We break with the whole world in which we have hitherto lived; we enter into what is to us a new and untried region, and we fear the discoveries we may make there, when it is too late to draw back. To the Protestant mind the old Catholic Church is veiled in mystery, and leaves ample room to the imagination to people it with all manner of monsters, chimeras, and hydras dire. We enter it, and leave no bridge over which we may return. It is a committal for life, for eternity. To enter it seemed to me, at first, like taking a leap in the dark; and it is not strange that I recoiled, and set my wits to work to find out, if possible, some compromise, some middle ground on which I could be faithful to my Catholic tendencies without uniting myself with the present Catholic Church.”
