Weird Al's Song of Love

 "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice" Ephesians 4.13

Soon it it'll be time to  "celebrate" Valentine's Day again and I decided to go through a rigorous analysis of the metaphors in Weird Al's unique ode to love, "One More Minute" Please consider this is a love song parody, and should be taken lightheartedly. If you are familiar with Weird Al's work, you'll know what I mean.If you have recently been dumped,or re-re-dumped,I would suggest prayer and fasting and connecting with someone who truly cares about your feelings...............In other words DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. If you've ever had a bad breakup you will be able to relate.

The song begins with a straightforward accounting of the recent events in Weird Al's life

Well, I heard that you're leavin' Gonna leave me far behind 'Cause you found a brand new love,You decided that I'm not your kind.
So I pulled your name out of my Rolodex and I tore all your pictures in two and I burned down the malt shop where we used to go.Just because it reminds me of you. Poor Al seems to be willing to suffer for this relationship. As a resident of California, his act of arson is subject to between three and eight years in jail. But there's no metaphor at issue yet.

That's right, you ain't gonna see me cryin' I'm glad that you found somebody new 'Cause I'd rather spend eternity eating shards of broken glass. Than spend one more minute with you

Now things get more interesting. Obviously, Al isn't going to live forever,(unless he is born again,which seems unlikely at the time of his writing this song) but we can reasonably interpret "eternity" to mean "the rest of his life". So how much glass would Al eat in his lifetime?

The average American lifespan is around 77 years, and the song came out when Al was 26, so we're looking at 51 years of eating glass. Typical human stomachs range in capacity from 1.5 to 4 liters. If we assume that Al eats three square meals of broken glass each day, and that each meal comes in at the low end of capacity, that's 4.5 liters per day, or 256,230 liters of glass in his lifetime. How many bottles would Al have to smash to get that glass? Let's figure that a 16-oz. bottle (roughly 0.57 liters) can be shattered into glass representing about half as much volume, or 0.285 liters, meaning that Al will need 899,052 typical soda bottles to meet his commitment. Let's hope he can buy them wholesale! or not.

I guess I might seem kinda bitter You got me feelin' down in the dumps'cause I'm stranded all alone in the Gas Station of Love and I have to use the self-service pumps

If Al is stranded at the self-service pumps, assuming he drives a car with about 20 mpg fuel economy, and

does about 15,000 miles per year, with an 18 gallon gas tank (assuming he fills up every time he hits 16 gallons), he'll fill up 46.9 (call it 47) times. Assuming he saves about $0.30/gallon by not using the full-service pumps, he'll pocket $281.Lets just pray his his sake and ours that the gas prices level out. So this doesn't work out badly for him -- actually, it's just about perfect.

Oh, so honey, let me help you with that suitcase.You ain't gonna break my heart in two' cause I'd rather get a hundred thousand paper cuts on my face,Than spend one more minute with you

Talk about getting rid of baggage.The paper cuts sound painful, but it's not much of a sacrifice on Al's part. How much blood do we get out of a paper cut? This proved hard to estimate, Since it draws about 0.3 micro liters, we'll guess a paper cut comes in at about 0.5 micro liters. If Al gets 100,000 paper cuts on his face, and each one bleeds out .5 micro liters, he'll bleed about .05 liters. A standard unit of blood for transfusion is 495 mL, so since Al has only lost about 1/10 the amount of blood needed for a transfusion, the odds are good he'll live through this one and just need a ton of batman band-aids.

I'd rather rip out my intestines with a fork,Than watch you going out with other men.I'd rather slam my fingers in a door,Again and again and again and again and again

As for ripping out his intestines with a fork, the procedure is called seppuku.It involves a sword called a wakizasi which has a blade about 20 inches long, roughly three times the length of typical forks so if Al tries to commit seppuku with a fork --- he's in a lot of trouble. This may be his intent -- since Al doesn't mention having a second, he's probably trying to commit jumonji-giri which is an enhanced version that's even more painful than the standard version.Slamming fingers is not that big a deal...it hurts less than a broken heart....Lets continue.......

I'd rather have my blood sucked out by leeches.Shove an ice pick under a toenail or two...

The leech issue is complicated, because it can depend on two fairly divergent measurements of how much blood a leech can suck out. An article from the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development indicates that a leech can suck about 4.7 mL over 3 hours, or roughly 1.6 mL/hour. But another article, admittedly a more popular-science treatment of leeches in medicine, suggests that the correct figure is more like 15-30 mL over a period ranging from 20 minutes to an hour. At an average of 14-18 pints of blood per human adult, it would take one leech (working on 16 pints, or 7.5 liters), about 4687 hours to completely drain Al. Assuming Al doesn't eat or drink anything, since loss of 30% of blood volume can lead to

irreversible shock, it will take the leech about 1406 hours, or 58 days, to finish Al off. He'd die of thirst in just 15 days, though, so 4 leeches would be needed for the job. To do it in one day, he'd need 60 leeches, and at $4.75 a pop, that would mean Al would need to add just $4 to the money he saved from using the self-service pumps at the Gas Station of Love. So he shouldn't act on this for at least a year.

Actually, once the leech gorges itself (according to the pop-science article), it's done eating for up to 18 months while it digests, slowly. Assuming reasonably that 30% of blood volume works out to 2,250 mL, or 150 leeches. Which means he'll really need to spend about 2 1/2 years at the gas station to save up the money for his continued act of love,during which time he might reconsider.As far as the icepick is concerned,that could really hurt depending on which little piggy Weird Al decides to assault.

I'd rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue,Than spend one more minute with you 
This always sounded to me like the second-most impressive claim in the song (trailing only the grand finale), but the truth appears to be far more depressing -- it's actually not nearly that much of a sacrifice. According to an article on toilets at Grand Central Terminal ,there are only 32 ladies' stalls, and 6 men's stalls, in the public area, plus 4 more of each in private areas which can be hired out for receptions according to a FAQ a the GCT website. Having said that, the only bathroom listings shown in the GCT web site's directory are on the lower dining concourse, just like the article said was the case prior to the remodeling job it discusses, so it's entirely possible that these figures are accurate. Admittedly, 46 toilets is 46 more than Al is willing to clean with his own tongue, but the lyrics make it sound like we're talking about several hundred.It would be far more impressive if he tried this at Wrigley Field during April or Soldier field during mid December.

Yes, I'd rather jump naked on a huge pile of thumbtacks Or stick my nostrils together with Krazy Glue,I'd rather dive into a swimming pool filled with double-edged razor blades Than spend one more minute with you

How many thumbtacks could get stuck in Al if he jumped into said pile? Well, Al is 6' 0" (from his website), and 170 pounds, so we'll figure that he's got a waist size of about 32", Treating Al as a cylinder, which has a surface area of 2*pi*r*^2 + 2*pi*r*h, and dropping the first term since he doesn't really end in neat circles, we get a rough surface area of 7234 square inches. We'll take off about 20% to deal with deviations from non-cylindricality, for about 5780 square inches. Thumbtacks come in a range of sizes, from 5/16" to 1/2" heads. We'll go with the 5/16" size, assume no overlap, and also assume that he gets completely covered with tacks from rolling around after the initial impact, which means that at 0.31 square inches per thumbtack, Al will be on the receiving end of 18,645 thumbtacks, which works out to $658 worth using the nice nickel-plated ones .That's at $3.53 per box.Sticking the nostrils together with Krazy glue just means Al would not be able to blow his nose for a while so its the less of his sacrifice for love.

So how many razors it would take to fill Al's hypothetical swimming pool? A standard Olympic-sized swimming pool runs 50 meters by 25 meters by 2 meters, or 2500 cubic meters. Browsing the web for straight razor dimensions yields mostly dimensions specified in terms of cases, not blades, but reasonable figures seem to be about six inches long, two inches wide, and a half-inch thick, which means that at .0034 cubic feet per blade, or .00009 cubic meters, it would take 25.4 million blades to fill the pool.

And finally, the ultimate act of self-destruction, Al's concludes:

I'd rather rip my heart right out of my rib cage with my bare hands,And then throw it on the floor and stomp on it 'til I die

We can't really speculate on how many stomps Al would get, but we know that you can rip a man's heart out of their rib cage and have it continue to beat, as documented in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where the act was performed by Mola Ram.

Weird Al has helped us to see that being miserable for love can be quite expensive, and fairly painful to boot. So make sure you keep Christ at the center of your relationship and give your significant other a hug today, (if you have one) and you will thank them for saving you several thousand dollars in leeches, thumbtacks, and razor blades....not to mention attorney's fees and jail time. Then take them to your nearest El station to thank them for saving you from having to clean the place. The moral to this song is to get Better not bitter.... Practice Forgiveness because Bitterness will leave you in pain and cost you plenty.Trust God's healing Love to make you better.....So will it be a Happy Valentine's Day????

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres"

PB-

The Top 10 things Noah Might Say

By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household…” (Hebrews 11:7)

Been Experiencing quite a bit of rain lately,Time to dust this one off.

Hey Noah, could you impart a little age-old wisdom? Well, if he had a talk show- Letterman style what might make his top 10? Here's a good guess.

1. We’re all in the same boat. Pentecostals,Charismatics,Assemblies of God,Covenant,Church of God,We all use different oars but we are all in the same boat and there's an odd smell in here-I think its coming from the Pentecostals.

2. Plan ahead;Its good to have a Home Depot credit card in your wallet. After all, it wasn’t raining when I built the ark.

3. Stay fit. When 600 years old you reach look as good you will not.Hmmm? You may be asked to do something really big like save the world? If I could do it, YOU have no business pouting about crossing the fifty hump.

4. Don’t listen to critics. Everyone in town thought the Ark idea was a big joke, certainly a poor idea. Too bad for them Michael Phelps wasn't around.

5. For safety sake, travel in pairs. Jesus sent His disciples out in pairs. I brought in the animals in pairs.It seems to be working for the Mormons and JW'S.Two are better than one,We is stronger than me.

6. Snails got on board with the cheetahs. Doctrine and Speed isn’t the issue, faithfulness is.(He that endures to the end) Inch by inch even the inchworm made it in time. there's room enough for everyone-Except for the Pentecostals-they have their own boat

7. When stressed, float awhile. I couldn't’ change the trajectory of the storm outside but I could trust God and adjust my sails.Try to control the environment inside (except for that smell!) If you can't, then just play phase 10.

8. The ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals. (Cue Celine Dion) Christ’s salvation is simple; not elaborate. Sometimes a raft serves a better purpose than a submarine. Simplify....and don't be afraid to get wet.

9. Woodpeckers inside are a greater threat than the storm outside. Be careful who you invite on board because you’ll have to put up with them the whole trip.

10. God really does have a sense of humor, considering what a platypus looks like.

If you are at your wits end don't worry,there is a rainbow coming after the rain. No matter how severe the storm God comes through with signs to steady and assure the heart. Tomorrow is bright. Noah knows. His story is one of great faith. After he had done all he was commanded to do then God took over and did what he could not do. Sure being on the Ark was tough with a lot of responsibility.A lot of mouths to feed.Maybe even lonely at times.It seemed the storm might never end.Dry land no where to be found.Be faithful,trust God,you will land where God wants you and when you do he will open the doors to your future. Make sure friend that you are “in Christ” because the only security we have is found in Jesus. Pharaoh sunk like led to the bottom of the sea but Noah’s faith, like a bulging inner tube, lifted him and his family up above the cresting waves. The cream always raises to the top and so do people of faith. The only question however that I want to ask Noah when I finally do get to see him is, why did he not squash those two mosquitoes? Maybe the insects survived on their own? At least he needs to explain why he let that pair of squirrels on board.Maybe to spark a revival? Oh I know, he had to obey everything he was commanded but did that have to include saving the the platypus's? In that he is the Marlon Perkins of his day and a perfect model for faith. In this hour when another catastrophic storm seems inevitable and talk shows are a dime a dozen we could sure use a few more men like Noah.........

Nuff Said,

Is it "Walmart Or Church? Hmmmmm"?

 I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122:1)

Saturday is usually Walmart day for the Shiflett household.What's so great about wally world? For one thing, Walmart has “Glad” bags. Gladness is missing in a lot of churches today. Where's the beef? Remember that commercial? I was perusing the shelves at our Super-Walmart in Romeoville...(its not just Walmart anymore) and thought how is it I can get a burger at Walmart and Target when some churches fail to deliver a meaty inspired sermon on Sunday Morning? The pulpit is now used for stylish infomericals.Look how great we are. We believe in giving back to our community! while people sit on the pews starving to death spiritually? Shouldn't be so! What's happened to the beef? Have we become spiritual vegetarians?Afraid to use our teeth? Afraid to take a bite or get bitten? Once bitten,twice shy? No doubt, you've seen the commercial about the filthy fifth-grader who came home with mud and grass stains on his jeans. His mother threw the clothes into the washing machine announcing, “I guess we’ll have to Shout it out!” If you have a tough stain Shout it out! Joshua authored that slogan some 2,500 years before the grocery clerk knew anything about it. Marching around the walls of Jericho, he cheer-led his troops with the words, “Shout for the Lord has given you the city” (Joshua 6:16). David echoed the Shout commercial. He believed in voice and volume – “O clap your hands all ye people, shout unto God with the voice of triumph” (Psalm 47:1)Uh not in some churches. Of course I also use “Sure”. Remember the line? – “Raise your hands if you’re sure!” If we’re going to sing “Blessed Assurance” we ought to be sure about our sureness! We are definitely blessed,but not totally sure. Peter warned us to “make our calling and election sure”. That is one reason why people in churches today don't lift their hands in praise; their not sure. Of course some get embarrassed, just like the commercial used to say, “Sure, not sure; sure, not sure…” Undecided today?

 

You can also go to Walmart and purchase “Dove”'Cheer", “Icy-Hot”…now there’s an oxymoron. The Christ in the midst of The Revelation Candlesticks demands that we be “cold or hot” (Revelation 3:15). He promises to spew loose, lazy, lethargic, lackluster Laodicean lukewarmness out of His mouth! Try saying that 10 times! Next, you can find “Bounty” down the Super Center aisle. “Bounty”, you know, is the “quicker picker-upper” and boy we could sure use a pick-me-up in church? I'm not talking about a beer summit after service,some might consider that an "Obamination".How about a "Cheer" party during worship? Some outreach programs could use some "Miracle Gro" and "Gain" Walmart or K-Mart,Target, any of those one-stop-shopping-sources, beam with religion.

So Walmart or Church? Well Walmart has great parking, but so does the church; great prices and great products. We too have all these things going for us, but there’s one problem, the parking lot at Walmart is always jammed while the parking lot at some churches is usually disgracefully empty. Why don’t we attract more traffic? Do we lack “Joy”? Where is your joy, under the kitchen sink? Nehemiah voiced that “the joy of the Lord is your strength”. Joy attracts. Oh, and I can’t forget that Walmart has those fabric softener sheets; you know the ones, they call ‘em, “Bounce”! We bounce when we shop. Why do some have to sit like wooden statues at church? Gotta close. I noticed there is one product missing at Walmart that we used to use on wood furniture at the Shiflett house, “Glory”. The corporate giant has no Glory! That is the one product we have sole rights over – “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord…” (Haggai 2:9) So where is the Glory? Joy? Bounce? Cheer? Are we consumers that would rather be entertained than truly give our "All"?? As the world turns we need to get with it because we only have One life to live and The days of our lives seem to be too young and restless for God's Guiding light into Another World but that's a sermon for another day.....

PB-

2 Hospitals,A Lego and an Engagement......

Originally Posted June 18,2008..In celebration of our 3 year anniversary engagement,I am re posting this devotion today!


"The peg driven in so firmly shall be wrenched out and give way, till everything that hung upon it shall come down" Isaiah 22.25

Stormy winds
What is the main Lego that holds the world in place? What holds your life together?.Each having their little house. Isaiah prophesied a day when the master-Lego (peg) would be wrenched loose and once expunged the whole society would drop like ten-thousand cables on a suspension bridge snapping at once.Do you know what is holding your life together today?What are your hopes pinned on? Diana and I had quite a week leading up to the "Official" engagement this past Sunday.What was to be an awesome day could have been disastrous.Our big day arrives and I wake up to stormy weather, get disturbing news that my best man had a heart attack late Saturday night, and on my way to pick Diana up for service,I get a second call that my house maybe burglarized.Oh yeah,and then there's my bloody ear,don't ask..please don't ask.Nothing in our world is stable or sure unless it has a secure foundation. Our master Lego has a nebulous name called God. Some see it as a higher power, morality, Law, perhaps truth but whatever name you give “it”, actually “Him”, we are all aware that there is a central “something” that holds it all together. God certainly held us together while it seemed everything and everyone was falling apart around us last Sunday.

What doesn't make sense
Does anything make sense without God? An atheist has been described as “a man who has no invisible means of support”.We had a wonderful move of the Holy Spirit Sunday at church.An awesome time of fellowship afterward and while on our way to visit Ed in the hospital we get a call that our beautiful little niece Mallory had lodged a Lego up her nose!...again don't ask ,please don't ask! When the going gets rough we need an unseen anchor. No matter what happened Sunday, what made Fathers day special is that our Father God was the center of our fathers day holding us together. If God isn't there, then we have no framework, no star to steer our little boat by, and we are tossed from wave to wave of inane and meaningless existence, with no star, and hence no harbor.Everything else is a house of cards and fallen Lincoln logs.Is everything that hung on your original Lego starting to fall? Your hopes,your dreams? Look at your life today,your relationships and center them with the foundation of the Father's perfect love.

A Rainbow Connection
David asked, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3) Foundations.Our forefathers took the mallet of freedom and drove the Lego of righteousness into its hole and hung the hopes of a new world upon it. Our new world is held together by our Heavenly Father and this is his day! When we get a secure footing on biblical truth and learn to trust, fear, obey and love God; Our Dad's hand will hold our life secure . Rousseau said, “If there is no God we would have to invent one to keep people sane”. Well there is a God and He alone can keep us sane and centered when all else is seemingly crumbling around us. As we fellow shipped and prayed with Ed,(who will be ok by the way) We get the call Mallory and the Lego are no longer symbiotic.Crisis averted! Oh,and no one broke into my house,it was just one of those Romeoville wind's that unlodged the garage door.The ear is fine,again I would appreciate it if you didn't ask! Please don't ask.On Fathers day-Engagement day God proved to be the master Lego himself holding us and everything together.Romans 8.28 with a lemon slice at Chili's.In the end,we had a rainbow connection.Our Father's day ended with sunshine and pizza.He even arranged for Diana and me to get a free Starbucks...............
What a mighty Papa we serve!

Nuff Said,

Just Drop It

“The woman then left her water pot…” (John 4:28)

Ever meet know someone who is constantly living in the past? The kind of person with a rear view mirror mentality.Can't let things drop? Jesus was such an attraction that when people met Him they had to drop what they were doing, they dropped what was in their hands, dropped everything to follow Him. It was impossible to do both. His magnetism was so strong that it summoned all faculties. Earthly concerns were weakened and cancelled out. Peter, Andrew, James and John let their fishing nets drop. “They immediately left their nets and followed him” (Matthew 4:20). That would include net worth, net gain, net income and all other nets.Our hands have to be free to receive heavenly gifts.

The Samaritan woman let her water pot drop. She had returned empty to Jacob’s well day after day after day. Married five times and living with the sixth she knew how momentary and unsatisfying earthly thrills were. Her bucket was symbolic of her life. She would leave full but return empty. Drugs, booze, pleasure, money, sex, boats,cars,they all are like the water pot. Hebrews says the pleasure of sin is at best “for a season”.Yeah sin can be a blast for a moment,but what happens (cue BB king) "When the thrill is gone'? Jesus offered her “living water” that would be in her “a well springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). She came with a empty bucket but left with the whole well. With new energy, excitement and a new lease on life she let her water pot drop and ran to town proclaiming, “Come see a man that told me all things that I ever did”. If you want to be well, you have to let your past drop.

Another character, Bartimaeus, let his beggar’s garment drop. He didn’t need that identity any longer. “And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus” (Mark 10:50). Elisha did the same when he took his clothes “and tore them into two pieces” (2 Kings 2:12) in preparation to receive Elijah’s mantle of power. To receive the new we must discard the old. We can’t gain the new life while clutching the old life. Let it drop. The disciples had to drop old methods. Before they caught fish, now they would catch men,The Samaritan woman had to drop old habits and living patterns. She had trekked the trail to the well in Sychar same time, same route, same routine, for probably years. It is difficult to drop a bad habit.But we have to let our water pots drop.The things that enslave us,the sin,the weight that does so easily beset us. Try letting go of your coffee pot. That will prove the dominance of daily routine. When circumstance, perceived reality, the cynics and skeptics and even your own self sees you as a blind beggar, you become a blind beggar. The prejudices you hold on to, the fears, the security blankets, nets, water pots and acquired mindsets must be dropped. Pry your fingers loose if you must like the woman at the well: Jesus saw something in her, that made her see something in Him.His living water can’t be embraced with the water pot of the past still in your hand.............

PB-