Chris Barna’s Weblog

I’m going camping for a week so there won’t be updates until friday. Have fun, change the world.

I’m struggling my way through William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom and I discovered early on that there were quite a few words that I didn’t know. So, instead of interrupting the story, I began writing all the words down on index cards that I keep in the inside cover of the book. Here are some fun [...]

The radio show This American Life is making its television debut tomorrow at 10:30 Eastern/Pacific time on Showtime. If the cartoon posted on boingboing yesterday is any indication, the show looks like it will be really good. I don’t have Showtime though… dangit!

In the final episode of the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers“, World War II had ended and the men of the 101st airborne were trying to figure out how to pass the time. Sadly, the official peace declarations did not put an end to the death in the 101st. People were still being reckless and [...]

Two of my passions are surfing and saving the world. Sadly, these two do not always go together very well because of the nature of the chemicals used to produce surfboards. Luckily, a company called Homeblown US has developed what they call the first “green” surfboard blanks. According to the company, about 50% of the [...]

With all of the recent news about religious illiteracy in the United States, I got to wondering not just how well people know the stories in the bible but if people even know which books belong in which testament of the bible. So I put together a little survey. The idea is simple. Just match the [...]

Sinkpositive is a cool idea for an environmentally friendly sink and toilet combination. What it does is takes the water you use to wash your hands after using the bathroom and uses it the next time you flush your toilet. This is cool for a couple reasons. First it gets you to wash your hands [...]