Test your Biblical knowledge–which of the following are eunuchs from the first chapter of the Book of Esther and which are comic book monsters created by Jack Kirby?

Mehuman
Moomba
Biztha
Rommbu
Bombu
Googam
Ozama
Gorlion
Harbona
Gormuu
Bigtha
Gruto
Abagtha
Zethar
Zarkorr
Karkas

Answer in the comments.

Another week closer to death and here’s what I have to show for it:

1. Blogging (goal – 250 posts/year): For the 169th day of the year, I needed 115.75 posts and this is 116. It’s as bad as I can do without failing.

2. Health (goal – 100 miles/lose 25 pounds): I ran nine miles this week, putting me at 47.1 miles while needing 46.30. I lost 3.2 pounds, for a total of 15 pounds in two weeks. Unfortunately, I had gained 18.5 pounds since January so I need to drop 28.5 pounds by New Years.

3. Writing (goal – 105 submissions) – I needed to send out 48.62 manuscripts by today but I’m on 53.

4. Video (goal – 3 video projects) – Nothing this week but I’m already done with this one.

5. Spiritual (goal – 30 books of the Bible) – Just starting The Book of Ester, the 19th book of the year while needing 13.89.

6. Cultural (goal – support 24 local cultural event) – Devilboy refused to see the Frisch Marionette Variety Show so I’m stuck on 10 events, needing 11.56.

7. Top Ten (goal – 150 works) – Finished The Love Suicides of Sonezaki, “Gunga Din,” and Mother Courage and her Children, making it 82 works so far while needing 69.45. I don’t have any more short works yet so I’m probably not going to make this one.

8. Webkinz (goal – 2 million Webkinz cash/complete all classes) – Needed 1,629,200WK; have 1,630,147. Graduation is September 11 at best.

9. Libraries (goal – 5 new libraries) – Still on three, needing 2.32.

10. Kids (goal – 100 events) – There’s plenty of stuff to do but the kids are lazy. Only 40 events, needing 46.30.

I’ve been speeding through the Bible and finished The Book of Judith just a while ago. Like the Book of Tobit, it has a slow pace but a good narrative.

Maybe I’m becoming more and more critical in my old age but the resolution of Judith struck me as weaker than it did the last time I read it (while Jerusalem is under siege by Nebuchadnezzar of Assyria, Judith, an attractive widow, dazzles the Assyrian general Holofernes into getting drunk with her so she can cut his head off).

There’s no denying that men, including military leaders, have been done in by feminine wiles. The problem with Judith is that the entire Assyrian army falls to pieces after seeing Holofernes’ dead body. If the Assyrians outnumbered the Jews to the extent that the book claims, even without leadership, they should have been able to win through superior numbers.

But why am I trying to make sense out of a story in the Old Testament? Again, the Book of Judith isn’t as strong as I had remembered it to be but it’s still one of the best books of the Old Testament.

I had good memories of the book of Tobit but, upon the second reading, it didn’t hold up well. The plot is as entertaining as any book of the Bible except for the Third Book of Maccabees.

Tobit, a faithful man, sleeps outside only to have birds poop in his eyes, blinding him. His son goes on a journey to collect a family debt and meets a young woman who has been married five times but is still a virgin. I know that sounds like a famous dirty joke but, in this case, a demon is strangling the woman’s husbands before they can consummate the marriage. Tobit’s son and a friendly angel manage to fight off a monster fish and use its body parts to drive off the demon and cure Tobit of his blindness.

Did I mention there was a dog, reputed to be the only positive depiction of a dog in any of the canons?

This sounds pretty good but the execution is painfully slow. . . in other words, it’s in the Bible. My memories of it were better than the book itself. Tobit could make a pretty good movie depending on how the whole consummation problem is  presented.

The next book is Judith which has already been made into a decent movie back in 1914.

I finished the Second Book of Esdras. It’s not in most Christian canons for a reason.

The Book of Ezra has always been one of my least favorite. True, the Bible blames women for being raped, commands killing infants and pregnant women, and makes demands of human sacrifice and genocide, but Ezra always struck me as the worst. In his first book, Holy Ezra literally cries and rips his clothes like a three-year-old when he learn that other Jews have married gentile women. Being the decent fellow that he is, Ezra convinces the men to dissolve their inter-racial marriages and send their wives and half-breed children out to the desert.

The Second Book of Esdras is only vaguely related to Ezra but I judged it guilty by association. I was wrong The Second Book of Esdras is like dropping LSD while watching the Golden Girls.

Much of the book is descriptions of visions with Q&A sessions about them. “Can thou maketh an image of the human voice?” An angel asks. Well, yeah, haven’t you seen the beginning of The Outer Limits?

One of the strangest visions comes in Chapter 11 when a giant three-headed eagle appears and a group of his feathers take over the world. Not the eagle–the eagle’s sentient, talking feathers. Bush, Obama, giant eagle feather–they’re all pretty much the same.

There is another book of Esdras that I could read next but a message popped up, saying “Opening this page may damage your computer.”

Okay, fine. I’ll just move ahead to the Book of Tobit, one of my favorite books of the Old Testament.

It’s day 162 and that means:

1. Blogging (goal – 250 posts/year): This is post #112, a little ahead of the 110.96 posts I needed for today.

2. Health (goal – 100 miles/lose 25 pounds): One stinking mile in a week puts me at 38.1 for the year. I should have 44.38. I lost 11.2 pounds on my first serious week of dieting, meaning I have to lose another 32.8 pounds to make my goal.

3. Writing (goal – 105 submissions) – I’ve sent out 48 manuscripts with the pace being 46.61.

4. Video (goal – 3 video projects) – No new work but I’m finished with this one.

5. Spiritual (goal – 30 books of the Bible) – I needed 13.32 books to be on track but I’m halfway through the Second Book of Esdras, my 16th book.

6. Cultural (goal – support 24 local cultural event) – I was going to an event but the kids were so bad that we stayed home, keeping me at 10 events while I needed 10.65.

7. Top Ten (goal – 150 works) – I read “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and Volpone, putting me at 79 works, ahead of the 66.57 works I needed for the goal.

8. Webkinz (goal – 2 million Webkinz cash/complete all classes) – I needed 1,616,600 WK by today and managed 1,616,827.

Bad news–Webkinz doesn’t factor graduation like I figured it so the earliest I could finish would be September 5.

9. Libraries (goal – 5 new libraries) – With the latest library, I’m up to three, only needing 2.22.

10. Kids (goal – 100 events) – I’ll post about Camp Stepping Stones soon, but with that and a library animal program, we’re up to 39, needing 44.38.

The Milford-Miami Township branch library of the Clermont County system is the third new library that I’ve visited this year. It looks very impressive from the outside with one of the biggest library parking lots that I’ve ever seen.This gave me false hope because I had a reverse Doctor Who moment when I walked in–I was expecting it to be bigger on the inside.

It did make a good use of space by using a meeting room as a “quiet room” and shelving material in it. That’s a idea that I’d like to see other libraries try.

I have four free library cards to surrounding counties so I didn’t spring for the $15 to get a Clermont card but, overall, everything looked in place.

This, as the title spoiled, is the blog’s 1,000th post.

My first blog started back on February 8, 2004. In 2004, I posted 631 times; in 2005, 390 times; 144 times in 2006; and, due to log in problems, only four before ending the blog on January 11, 2007. In less than three years, that’s 1,169 posts.

I deleted my second blog due to stupid issues and, on January 21, 2009, I started this one. Obviously, I’ve taken more time to reach 1,000 but these posts are more elaborate than the old blogspot blog. Probably no more entertaining but at least longer.

I was about to give up on my resolution of reading the Bible. Last year I was mostly positive towards the New Testament but the Old is driving me batty. The first time I read the entire Bible, I especially disliked the Book of Ezra and this time was no different.

Last time I read the Orthodox Canon’s First Book of Esdras, essentially a different version of Ezra. Esdras was better than Ezra but not by much, and I didn’t bother with the second book.

This time I tried it and the Second Book of Esdras is one of the best in the Old Testament. Canon to only the Slavonic Orthodox, the book is more of a Q&A session between God and man.

It made me remember National Lampoon’s Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes of the Bible which boiled down to “God creates man. Everything man does makes God mad.”

2 Esdras 8:34 reads “For what is man, that thou take displeasure at him?”

Again, I’m not a member of any of the Orthodox churches, but they have the best canon.

I’ve built up a number of entries from Daniel S. Burt’s The Drama 100. I should have read most of these years ago but I tell myself better late than never.

Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello – When I was a sophomore in college, my creative writing instructor told me to read this play. After a few decades, I finally did. If I had read it when I was younger, I think the play would have had a much greater impact on me. As it was, I enjoyed it but didn’t have the reaction my instructor was hoping for. The metadrama still works but the world is so drenched in meta these days (it’s one of the biggest categories on this blog), that it just isn’t the same.

Endgame by Samuel Beckett – Again, this is a play that I wish I had read when I was younger. The worst thing about Endgame was that I’d heard so many references to it that I knew the basic plot and techniques. The writing itself definitely held up but I wish it was all new to me. The first time I watched Psycho, just by pre-Internet buzz, I already knew that it was Norman dressed as his mother. It just isn’t the same knowing too much beforehand. Still, ”Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” I’m glad I finally read it.

Translations by Brian Friel – At last, a play that seemed right for my age. If I had read this play earlier, I don’t think it would have clicked for me. The whole English/Irish language conflict wouldn’t have made sense (my sister and brother-in-law lived in Dublin back in 2000, and the current state of Ireland’s language fit well into what the play was about).

The Brothers by Terence – This will probably be my last Roman drama for a long while, if not my entire life. It was much better than I’d expected but my pro-Greek/con-Roman ancient drama bias isn’t quite dead. I’m very happy to have read the play because now when a conservative blow-hard starts to spout off that all the troubles in the world started in the 1950s when parents tried to be friends with their children due to the demonic heresies of Dr. Spock, I can point out that the Romans did the same thing, and considering their fondness for sentencing crucifixion to fairly mundane crimes, it shows that lenient parents don’t necessarily raise sissies (I don’t agree that being friends with children is the best thing a parent can do but this play proves that it wasn’t an invention of the 1950s).

Woyzeck by Georg Büchne – Maybe I should have read this earlier in life or waited a few years but this play didn’t do much for me. In fairness, the author died at 23, leaving the play unfinished. It might be that the themes of the play have been repeated over the years so that, for me, encountering them here didn’t have its original impact.

Cloud 9 by Caryl Churchill - I would have much rather watched a performance of this play than have read it. I could keep track of characters who were male in one part and female in another but it would have been easier if I’d read it after a good night’s sleep.

Travesties by Tom Stoppard – I wouldn’t have picked this as Stoppard’s best play (I’d pick it as his second, after the one that does to Hamlet what this one sort of does to Ulysses). On its own merit, I liked everything about it–addressing memories, literature, history, dramatic conventions and styles. And I’d still rank it as Stoppard’s second best.

Phaedra by Jean Racine – Of all the plays so far, this was the one that I’m surprised I’ve never read. The name “Racine” was only vaguely familiar and I couldn’t place the character “Phaedra” at all. Once I started, I remembered the myth but it’s not the part of Theseus’ life that I would have focused on. Then again, that wasn’t a problem in Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now that I think about it, Phaedra would make a great tragic counter-balance to Midsummer Night’s Dream for a class.

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov – I was unprepared for this play. No one could deny that it’s full of strong material but I had a tough time sorting through it. I guess everyone from its first performance has had difficulties working out the tragedy or comedy aspect of it. Again, despite its critical acclaim, I wouldn’t have picked this as Chekhov’s best work.