A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying copies, and not the original books. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there was an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other copies.

The head monk says “We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.”

So, the head monk goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original. Hours later, nobody has seen him. So, one of the other monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“The word is celebrate” sobs the old monk.

A tough old cowboy once counseled his grandson that if he wanted to live a long life, the secret was to sprinkle a little gunpowder on his oatmeal every morning.

The grandson did this religiously and he lived to the age of 93.

When he died, he left 14 children, 28 grandchildren, 35 great grandchildren and a fifteen foot hole in the wall of the crematorium.

So we bought a Scion xB (I’m sure I’ll be calling it The Boxcar) today. I think it’ll be ready for us tomorrow. It’s black with an automatic transmission. Gets 31mpg around town and 35mpg on the highway. We just did the base model, but it’s still pretty loaded: A/C, AM/FM/CD that’s satellite and MP3 capable, six speakers, power mirrors, windows and locks, remote keyless entry, traction control (front wheel drive), ABS brakes, tinted windows, etc… They market the things at GenY people, so there are all these really silly accessories out there (cupholder backlighting, anyone?) which we passed on. I guess you could load the thing with stuff and make it upwards of $20k if you really tried, but like I said, most of it is pretty silly. The craziest thing about the car is the abundance of passenger seating in the rear. It is unreal. I can sit back there and still have 6″ of space between my knees and the back of the driver’s seat (with the seat all the way back). The tradeoff, of course, is trunk space. But we checked my sister’s Mazda mini-van and the xB has easily as much trunk depth, if not more. Height is another matter, since the van is so tall…

Anyway, it’s our first new car (as opposed to “new to us”) and we’re pretty pleased. Truman digs the dark windows…

We saw Hero this evening. Great movie! The photography was beautiful and the story featured some sweet martial arts action. As usual, some of the funnest stuff to watch is when the characters defy gravity and run on water, or stand on the sides of buildings. I love it. I remember in Korea, I had students who were quite certain that in parts of China, there lived accomplished martial artists who were capable of such feats–that it wasn’t purely creative license. Maybe that’s something Troy and Ruth could look into…

Also, I sent off my slacker manifesto this afternoon. Matt was kind enough to pass a critical eye over the final draft and I made some changes base on that input. The funny thing was, when we got back from the movie, I checked email and had a note from the ChangeThis folks. I had sent them my document, but it was blank! Not sure how that happened, but they asked the obvious question as to whether that was the slacker statement I was trying to make… 🙂 It wasn’t and I sent the right version… Now it’s time to wait and see whether they’ll publish it.

Last, just helpin’ out with Seraphim Proudleduck.

Because I’m fair, I offer the following…

My Slacker@Work entry has been scraped off the ChangeThis website and they’ve asked me to write the full manifesto. They’ve got a special Word template that is used to help them reformat the manifesto into their PDF layout. They made it clear that there are no guarantees that what I write will actually be published on the site and if it does get published, it’ll be placed in a “slushpile” section of the site which is devoted to submissions like mine, and not the commissioned stuff that you see on the front page. Regardless of all the caveats, I’m kinda stoked to get the chance to write the thing. I also recently finished a book called “Thinking Like Your Editor” which was super-helpful in getting me to understand how to write a book proposal. That knowledge will come in pretty handy when writing the manifesto too. In my understanding, a book proposal is simply a toned down business plan. You’ve got to sell the idea and identify the market and the competition. The ChangeThis manifesto will just focus on selling the idea, of course, but the advice in the book will go a long way toward helping me distill my swirling thoughts. Anyway, it’s good news. I’ll post the text of the manifesto here when I’m done writing it.

Okay, not very fair and balanced, but funny nonetheless. And for the record, if anyone finds a similar graphic for Kerry, I’d be happy to post that too.

So, I put my car up for sale this weekend. Got lots of interest off of postings to CraigsList, PDXForSale and del.icio.us, so that’s good. However, this morning I get this message:

Hello,

I saw your advert placed online for the sale of your 1995 Subaru Legacy and i will really like to buy from you.

Please let me know if the Item is still available forsale and also the last price you will want to sell it to me.I will appreciate it if you can send me pictures too,so to have a glance on what i want to buy..

I will await to read from you as quickly as possible so to proceed.

God bless you.

Regards,
SAMUEL.

Sounded weird, but I figured, what the heck, I’ll reply. So I sent this:

Hi Sam–

We’ve had a lot of interest in the car and one guy seems pretty
serious about buying it for his mom, but the Subaru is still available
and we’re flexible on price…feel free to make an offer.

You can reach me via email, or on my cell phone: 503-xxx-xxxx. The
car is in Newberg and available for showing or test driving any time.

–Brendon

About three hours later I get the following reply from “Sam”:

Dear Friend,
With thanks i acknowledge the receipt of your mail and i noted the contents very well.I am happy the Item is still available forsale and also i will need you to let me know the last price you will be willing to sell to me…I will be happy to give you an extra offer on the cost price,if you can assure me you will sell to me..

I already have the shipping to be taken cared of by shipper,on coming over to your place for the pick-up of the Item,but this will be done after you have gotten the payment..Hope this is okay with you…

Finally,i will need you to send me your Full details on how the check will be issued by my Banker and the address where it will be sent to for your collection,including the contact phone number also…

Expecting to read from you soonest.

Regards,

Samuel.D

Now my scam radar is off the chart, so I write back:

Sam, I can assure you that I’ll hold the car for you for $6,200. I
must insist on conducting the transaction in person with either you or
your agent, considering I’ll need a signature on the title transfer
and sales agreement. Also, I won’t accept a personal check, but cash
or cashier’s check will be fine.

–Brendon

After writing that last bit, I did a lookup on Sam’s IP address (81.199.85.91). You won’t be surprised to find that it originates in Nigeria. I guess it’s just another variation of the Nigerian email scam that has been going around for a long time…just customized to make it seem more legit. I’m a little weirded out that I gave him my cell phone number, though. Crazy…

Jared has picked up his writing over at blogger. You can get there this way. He says it’ll be infrequently updated, so it’s probably worth dropping in your RSS reader…