Country names

I dont know if this is weird or not, buit one night I couldnt sleep, and I was thinking about country names, and realized, that almost all country names have either an "i," or an "n."And it wasnt jjust a majority, it was an overwhelming majority. I then realized that i is a vowel, so there would automaticly be a lot of countries with an i in the name. But I thought even the n on its own was weird, because there a still a loit of countires with n. The only faukt in that one though is thats mainly because of common words at the end or beging of words like "north," and "Land." But even so, concerning i and n, if you have a country and want to turn it into a nationality, you eithern add an n or an i a the end. For example, America = American or Israel = Israeli. There are some exceptions to that rule like Japan China and Vietnam, because they become Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese, but they ALREADY HAVE AN "N" in the name to begin with. I thought that was kind of interesting and nearly frightening, but I think overall, it was worth it.

The Three Weeks

Its that time of year agian, the three weeks. No music, shaving, hair cutting etc. for three weeks. This is the period of time where we morun over what hppened to Jerusalem and The Bais Hamikdash(temple) al those years ago. The nine days are even stricter, but the music part is really the only part that concerns me. But its one of those things where once I can listen to it again, it doesnt seem like such a big deal to listen to it anymore. But during the three weeks I certainly have a hightened appreciation for music. Of course there are various customs on what you can and cannnot listen to, so its best to consult your local Rabbi, but accapella music is kind of an accepted outlet, or at least for Sefirah it is. TV is still ok though, or at least as ok as any other time. Ifeel like I have an added dimension of mourning thuogh, cause last week i had my bottom two wisdom teeth out, so its hard to eact solid food still. Hopefully I'll be able to survive the next few music free weeks, as I have in the past. I guess things could always be worse....

Lego

When I was younger I loved lego. I haven’t bought any in a while because I grew into videogames. Also I think I lost interest after they started making lots of Lego Bionicle clones. I noticed recently they made Lego versions of Batman and Indiana Jones. I didn’t even consider buying them. I realized recently that everything I do with my lego is based on Star Wars, and Star Trek. Megaphones and flashlights turn into laser blasters, and anything that looks like it can fly, can. The exception is Harry Potter. I bought loads of Harry Potter lego, but eventually I lost the instructions booklet for Hogwarts Castle and most of it got crushed in a bucket of lego and cannot be rebuilt. So I have about 10 Harrys and Rons armed with lasers and flying spaceships, and Voldemort is on the same side as space aliens and robots. The Harrys and Rons are ordinary and don’t use magic because there’s too many of them. (There is also monkey and parrot Jedi Knight, and if anyone thinks that’s weird they can explain Yoda)

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Mummy Voldemort tolerates no dissent from his minions. And he has a lightsaber.

Who is a Jew?

This is something that I wrote in a discussion board for a facebook group. It was on the topic of "if judaism is an ethnic group, can you be a christian Jew." Heres what i wrote:

I hope this doesnt offend any one or bore anyone:I dont know if youll find this relevant, but I argued with someone I know earlier. This is a very complex issue. Im still struggling with it myself, however, there is a concept in Judaism that you cannot convert out of Judaism, however that runs into trouble almost 600 years after 1492 when the spanish inquisition occured and even 60 years ago when the Holocaust occured because many Jews converted or hid their identity as jews for ever(possibly). Its alomost impossible to tell now(who is Jewish by blood), so what can one do, and the tough part is defining at what point you just "give up" and "decide" a persons(and/or their family) not a Jew anymore. On the topic of secular Jews, back in the Shtetls, If a Jew stopped being relgious, and I know thats a controversial term, they essentially left the community, and stopped being Jews. You either took what is now known as the orthodox path, or no path at all in the Jewish perspective. Ive come to the conclusion that outside of orthodox judaism, there is no such meaning of what a Jew is because every person has their own idea, and very few people come to agreement on this issue, so if you are a secular jew, there is almost no reason to worry about this concpet of a jewish ethnicity, becuase its whatever the secular jewish culture says it is. And secular jewish culture is very diverse and of course there is no agreement universally on this issue within that group of people who define themselves that way.

I thought this was very insightful and I i surprised myself with coming up with this idea...

American dad?

I happen to be a big fan of family guy and south park, and some other shows like that, but recently I was advised that American dad has been good lately. Keep in mind that when it first came, almost everyone hated it. But poeples opinions about these shows can change all the time, for instance after the cartoon wars episodes of southpark, a whole bunch of people I knew stopped watching family guy. Im willing to give American dad a couple extra chances and as a matter 0f fact I just watched an above average episode a couple of days ago. It was a little better than expected, but thats better than being worse than expected, I guess. In other news, if anyone reads this blog, please comment on soemthing...anything...
- Jake