well, that certainly stung

I'm in beautiful Western New York, where the trees have started to change colors, for the wedding of one of Andi's college friends. This morning, I ate breakfast with some of her college crowd in downtown Ellicottville. One of the options was a breakfast burrito that looked powerfully delicious in its menu description. It seemed a manly option, much more manly than the eggs benedict option that I was also flirting with.

In the end, I went with the eggs benedict because my alma mater's football team managed to lose to the University of Central Florida. When your BCS conference school loses its opener to UCF, you just don't feel manly enough to deserve a menu option that goes by a name like "Burrito Bomb."

uncle chuck

Another tale from ACS. This one comes from my time served as co-host of the talent show this year. In the midst of expressions of faith, shows of talent, and explosions of "hey, look at me!" from the ACS'ers in front of a couple hundred of their closest friends, it was my job to stand in front of the curtain and stall while setups were changed and keep the troops entertained.

I had been on a pretty good tear rotating with co-host James when I had to stall for longer than I wanted to and launched a series of clunkers that left the crowd silent. I got backstage, where Ken Hall patted me on the back and said "you cloud always tell some Chuck Norris jokes."

Those jokes' time has passed, though. However, the theme of the week had been the title of a hymn written by Methodist legend Charles Wesley, who had been called "Uncle Chuck" during worship on more than a few occasions. I had my idea, and began scribbling down some facts about Uncle Chuck Wesley. Here they are for those of you who, like newest all-star Emily Farnell, consider yourselves Methodist nerds:


"How Great Thou Art" is actually about Uncle Chuck's hobby as a sculptor.

There isn't an instrument that can measure the ratings of Wesley: Georgia Ranger.

Chuck Wesley has 1,000 tongues...and sings with all of them.

Uncle Chuck urges us to Rejoice the Lord is King. Why RE-joice? Because Uncle Chuck already joiced it.

Uncle Chuck Wesley wrote between 6,000 and 8,000 hymns, the pilot for "Two-and-a-half Men," and produced "Flavor of Love."

Methodists don't laugh, we Chuckle.

Uncle Chuck wrote half of the Methodist hymnal and the 8th Harry Potter book.

Behind 1,000 of Uncle Chuck's hymns are another 1,000 hymns.

Uncle Chuck wrote the perfect song...twice.

Chuck Wesley is so awesome that we named all of our bathrooms after his brother John.

Uncle Chuck Wesley's tears can cure Baptists...but Uncle Chuck never cries.

...and the crowd went wild.

iConundrum

I go to work with my iPod nowadays. It's a Nano, so it holds a little shy of 1000 songs.

I can't believe how hard it was to narrow the playlist down to just 941 songs. Nine hundred and forty-one. We're not talking about having to pick out my fifteen favorite songs. We're not even talking about having to pick my 15 favorite albums(which, now that I've typed that out loud, might be a more difficult task). Nope. I'm saying I had trouble filling out a list of the top 941 songs I have.

Tough decisions had to be made. Especially when it came down to which dated pop songs would make it onto my work mix. If I only liked them because I find them nostalgically hilarious, they're out. If some part of me deep down actually likes the song, they're in. So "Poison" by Bel Biv DeVoe is out(mostly a favorite dated pop song of mine for the line "never trust a big butt and a smile," which has to be one of the top 10 lines in song history), but "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls is in. Don't you dare judge me.

With the playlist set(until I break down and admit that I totally dig Lily Allen and must have some of her songs), I happily set things to shuffle and get cracking on my workday activity. About an hour before lunch every day, I face the same internal struggle.

There is one of my 941 favorite songs that I absolutely have to hear right now. I haven't heard it yet in this cycle of songs, so I know it's waiting to be played eventually. So I look up and see that there are 730 songs left. I face a dilemma. I could just find the song I want to hear, play it, and go about my business. That, however, would violate the sanctity of the shuffle.

The shuffle is important because I want to make it all the way through the playlist without skipping. I must make it through. I'm driven to make it through by the same kind of messed up OCD that makes it okay for me to live in a filthy house as long as my comic books are properly stored and catalogued.

Still, the need to hear The Mountain Goats' cover of "The Sign" consumes me. It's taken me so long to get this far into the shuffle due to my previous need to hear the alternate lyrics version of Guns n' Roses' "Don't Cry" wrecking things last go-around.

Eventually, instant gratification wins. For one shining moment, this song has risen above my other 940 favorite songs. Then comes the realization that I've broken the shuffle yet again.

WIth a sigh, I start over as the count reads "1 of 941" across the top thinking "This time I'm going to make it."

okay, square one was pretty awesome

But I'm mostly upset that I wasn't the one who wrote this song. It's more brilliant now than it was when I was in third grade.