I kid you not: One of the best things about my house is its dishwasher. That dishwasher means I don't have to submerge my hands in HOT water when it's 90 degrees outside. It means I can blissfully read, or write, or watch episodes of Merlin , while my dishes magically clean themselves. It's like the animals cleaning the house in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Except if I found any animals in my dishwasher, I would probably not start singing. The only trouble comes when something goes wrong with my dishwasher. Then I have to put on my handyman cap and figure out how to fix it. The other day I discovered a couple inches of water in the bottom of my dishwasher after I ran it. Thinking it would go away if I ran another cycle, I did. No dice. It wouldn't even go away if I hit the "drain" button on the control panel. (Saying that makes me feel like I'm piloting a KitchenAid spaceship. Captain, the controls are not responding!) A little Googling late

I got tired of the obviously Photoshopped book background. This is a less obviously Photoshopped background. And thus, I also changed a bunch of other stuff about the look. :D

Ya know, before I moved out from my parents’, all I got were credit card offers in the mail. Now that I’m on my own, I don’t get those much anymore (though they still come maybe once a month). Instead, I get offers to buy… Checks. (Already have some, thanks.) $50,000 worth of life insurance. (And I’m going to buy this based off of direct mail… why?) Pizza. (No thanks.) More pizza. (I’ve had pizza about once in the last six months. When are they going to get the idea?) Dish TV and Internet. (Because I have such a history of buying, or watching, TV.) Health and car insurance (Seriously? You’re using direct mail to market insurance?) Wendy’s fast food. (There isn’t even a Wendy’s in town. I don’t remember the last time I ate at a Wendy’s… maybe my mid-teens?) Subscriptions to The Economist and The New Yorker . (Pretty sure they got my address from The Atlantic . The dog- and cat-themed bookmarks from The New Yorker are pretty funny though.) Stuff from Bed, Bath and Beyond. (OK

If you’re ever wondering what in the world Jesus was talking about in the Beatitudes… or you’re simply recovering from a failed senior capstone course in Christian ethics based on the Sermon on the Mount… pick up Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book of sermons expounding on that Sermon. Reason #1: The introduction really does introduce the Sermon on the Mount – it gives a general overview of when it was given, by whom and for whom, and why it should be studied (“The Lord Jesus Christ died to enable us to live the Sermon on the Mount” and it leads to sanctification and blessing). Reason #2: Lloyd-Jones is committed to the proper reverence for the Sermon on the Mount as part of the Word of God, not something that can be reduced to a formula or exists merely to be studied. Reason #3: He can explain a multileveled, but clear, logical sequence to the Sermon. The. Entire. Sermon. This includes showing how the Beatitudes build upon each other and also reflect a sort of mirror-image quality, conside

I’m following the whole Edward Snowden saga as best as I can, and it’s highly intriguing. The government’s behaviors also remind me somewhat of an old Sinclair Lewis novel, It Can’t Happen Here, which tells a dystopian story of the U.S. falling ever so gently into fascist rule. I feel like I need to re-read it. But anyway. Before my browser gets too full again, here is your weekly serving of interesting stuff, featuring one of my favorite subjects: Technology! On Christians naively expecting the best web offerings from ministries they donate a pittance to (if anything at all): (via Challies ) In their mind, every Christian ministry is expected to have every possible resource (study tools, videos, books, audio, articles, apps, etc.) available on every possible platform. And they want it now! Not only do they want it now, that want quality, and they want it for free. A thank you is seldom heard when this is actually achieved, after all, it was online and therefore easy, inexpensive

Welcome to this SPECIAL EDITION of the Compedium! I’m off to work today but I had a little time this morning to clean out some more tabs from my browser… and to cull links from my email, as I’ve started to do a bit more reading on my phone and haven’t figured out a feasible way to save links from there other than by emailing them to myself. (If you have suggestions, especially ones that involve Firefox, I’m all ears.) Of course, none of these links actually have anything to do with Independence Day… but I don’t mind. I hope you don’t. I don’t quite believe this: Indianapolis’s single guys are willing to spend some three times the national average on a first date – and a website claims that the sum amounts to $226. Like, what could you possibly do on a first date that costs that much?? (For this link, I have to thank… my single male living-in-Indy cousin.) Anthony Bradley, a regular contributor (I think) to World Magazine, takes a short hop over to Journey through NYC Religions t