From the archives: Replacing the word love in love poems with the word Batman

Photo by ewen and donabel

It's been over three years since I ran the first Love Poem Project, in which take a love poem and replace the word love with another word. I was asked to read this poem at a wedding; and I couldn't believe how many times the word love was in it. So in my head, I pretended I was saying Batman. Still funny to me.

“On Batman” by Thomas Kempis (Here's the original, in which the author has taken the word Batman and replaced it with the word love.)

Batman is a mighty power,
a great and complete good.
Batman alone lightens every burden, and makes rough places smooth.
He bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders
all bitterness sweet and acceptable.

Nothing is sweeter than Batman,
Nothing stronger,
Nothing higher,
Nothing wider,
Nothing more pleasant,
Nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for Batman is born of God.

Batman flies, runs and leaps for joy.
He is free and unrestrained.
Batman knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds.
Batman feels no burden, takes no account of toil,
attempts things beyond his strength.

Batman sees nothing as impossible,
for he feels able to achieve all things.
He is strange and effective,
while those who lack Batman faint and fail.

Batman is not fickle and sentimental,
nor is he intent on vanities.
Like a living flame and a burning torch,
he surges upward and surely surmounts every obstacle.

How smart are beer nerds about their beer?

photo courtesy of Grub Street

I recently wrote about some common beer nerd trivia over at grubstreet.com. I wanted to know if some things I took for granted about beer - bottles are better than cans! - were indeed true.

As part of that, I asked you to test your beer nerd knowledge.

If you haven't taken that test, or read the column on Grub Street, I encourage you to STOP EVERYTHING and do that know.

TURNS OUT that bottles are not better than cans FYI.

But if you have done those things - please see how the beer nerds fared.

But are these answers right? Go READ THE ARTICLE.

Test your beer knowledge

Photo courtesy of quinn.anya

Update on June 30, 2011 by Matthew

The answers and more (mainly me making fun of the answers), now available in my grubstreet.com column: The Truth Behind Eight Big Beer Myths.

Read and then SHARE please.

Doing your work, new workshop in July

In which I will host a workshop about how to focus on your work, especially insofar as that work happens on the interruption machine we call: COMPUTER.

Click to read more ...

Doing Your Work

Updated on June 1, 2011 by Matthew

A workshop about how to focus and work on the stuff in your life that needs working on.

Click to read more ...

Not About Wine with Kasper Hauser

If you subscribe to this blog and have not heard the newest Not About Wine, then get out the old To-Do list and write it down. I went over to the house of Rob Baedeker - a member of the legendary sketch comedy troupe Kasper Hauser - and the result was TRULY MAGICAL and WINE-EMENDOUS.

You can listen to the new program from this very site (stream it here), or of course, it'd be even awesomer if you subscribed in iTunes.

OH AND: Just one example of the glories of Kasper Hauser:

Old Book Cover - A Theme for Alfred

EXPECTATION SETTER: This post is very short, will not take you long to read at all, but is only useful if you are currently using Alfred on your Macintosh computer. I'm going to define Alfred using another Mac Nerd term: it is THE replacement for Quicksilver. AND QUICKSILVER was THE replacement for searching through all your stupid computer folders one by one.

If you already use Alfred and just want the meat of this post - go here to download my theme

I am nothing if not a keyboard shortcut fella. If I could get rid of my mouse, I WOULD. To help me do things on my computer using my keyboard only, I use Alfred - a productivity and app launching master app.So by way of intro: you should also be using Alfred probably if you are a Macintosh computer user.One of the joys of Alfred is that you can modify how it looks. Here is what it looks like out of the box.

I have modified this look to a style, so now when I launch Alfred (using the keyboard), it looks like this:

Download My Alfred Theme

You can use my theme yourself by downloading it here. Once downloaded, you just need to double-click (YES FINE, with your mouse) to install. Or by simply clicking this here link to install directly.

UPDATE: you will need Alfred 0.8.2 with the powerpack to get Themes.