A number of members of the church I’m part of regularly visits the local nursing home and runs a church service. This is for the residents who are unable to get out and go to church on their own, or even accompanied. These occasional services consist of a number of (traditional) songs, a short talk, some prayer, and afternoon tea. It’s quite lovely, and there are a number of residents who quite obviously look forward to it all month (we can only go every four weeks or so).

I went for the first time on Sunday, and gave an abridged version of the sermon I preached at church. When we were sitting around before the service started, I overheard one of the ladies, who looked a little sour, complain to no-one in particular. She exclaimed “I wish she would shut up! She does it all the time – it’s constant! It’s driving me mad!”

It was only then that I overheard another of the ladies humming, slightly out of tune. She was in a bed-chair, with almost no ability to move herself. She couldn’t speak.

All she could do was make noises in her throat – in this case, she was humming.

I’ve been in nursing homes before, and it always scares me that I might end up so debilitated one day, unable to move or speak… only hum. Yet at the same time I was comforted and a little awed at these Christian people, many of whom had been Christians for twice or even three times my lifespan.

This woman was aged, crippled, unable to speak or move unaided, and hummed all the time. Constantly.

What was she humming?

Amazing Grace.

There’s a flickr group I stumbled across set up to chart out songs graphically, which is a neat idea. My favourite is a map:

There is a wide variety of other submissions. Some of my favourites include: bar graphs, timelines, decision trees, more charts, calendars, processes, venn diagrams, binary outcomes, and more charts.

Fun.

If you’re not an engineer, this comic is all about the situation:

If you’re an engineer, in particular an electrical engineer, the punch-line is the second frame.

(Some of the labs I tutor are disturbingly close to this.)

It reminds me of xkcd – reasonably often I read this great webcomic, chuckle, and think of the scant half-dozen people I know that might get the gag (Exhibits A, B, C, D, and E; extra-credit for the comment attached to the image: roll your mouse over the comic).

The warning on the site sums up the content:

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Nerd gold.

Calvin reading… check.

Hebrew translation… check.

Greek translation… check (well almost, but will be by tomorrow).

Time for a holiday. See you all in a week.

I have N.A.D.D.

Gotta go.