Got my semi-annual letter from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, with a check for $5.61. That’s about what’s it’s been for several years now. It’s nice being able to depend on a steady income.

It’s a royalty check from InterVarsity Press. My three Murphy’s Law books are long since out of print in the United States, but two of them are still available from Brendow, a secular publisher in Germany: Murphy’s Laws of Parenting, and Murphy’s Laws of Marriage. You can get them on Amazon/Germany. In fact, if you order some, you’ll ensure that I continue rolling in das gut German dough.

I don’t know how many ways the profits are split at this point. With IVPress, cartoonist Rob Suggs and I split 15% of the profits (after our advance was covered). With the German publisher, it gets split four ways: InterVarsity gets half of whatever tiny percentage of the royalties Brendow contracted to fork over in licensing publication rights. Rob and I split the other half. These things are obviously selling like hotcakes in Germany, hence my monstrously generous royalty check. It could be that Germans don’t particularly care for hotcakes.

If you’ve tried to comment on my posts, you encountered the frustration of having your computer just spin, as if it’s trying to send your comment but not getting anywhere. Well, your comments were, indeed, getting to me (often, several copies, as you kept hitting the “post” button). That behavior obviously needed to be corrected on my part. Done.

According to Popular Mechanics:

• Macs, both laptops and desktops, run Vista faster than PCs.
• PCs, of course, are actually designed to run Windows operating systems.
• Vista was more sluggish than Leopard. Duh.

So I’m horrified by factory farming, which grossly abuses cows, pigs, and chickens. What should I do about it?

The other day, I bought some eggs. I noticed containers marked “Cage Free” which promised that the chickens weren’t pumped with vitamins and hormones. They were 80 cents more, but I decided to buy them. If you go on the basis of cost, then you merely support the factory farming industry, which is all about sacrificing humane treatment in return for efficiency…which means lower costs. But while hoping for the best, I remained a bit skeptical. Was I merely being fooled by the packaging?

A little. Some internet searching told me that “cage free” doesn’t mean the chickens roamed free. They might still be packed into huge sheds. They’re just not jammed into cages stacked to the ceiling, unable even to flex their wings–which accounts for 95% of U.S. eggs. The “free range” label only means the henhouse had a door that was open part of the time, enabling chickens to get outside if they wanted.

What I really want is “organic certified,” which means the hens had plenty of access to the outdoors, they ate organic feed, and weren’t injected with drugs. “Free farmed” means the operation met some rigorous standards of the American Humane Association. I didn’t see any such labels in my grocery store. There simply isn’t much demand for humane treatment. People prefer cheap eggs.

It’s so much more convenient to NOT know the abuse animals suffer to provide our meat and eggs. It would be easier if I didn’t watch those myriad videos on You Tube. But I know, and I can’t ignore it.

At the same time, I realize there are sanctimonious people eager to scoff, “If he only cared as much about lost souls as he cares about stupid chickens….”

(I wrote about factory farming on February 18 and February 19. People left comments both days, comments which just got published yesterday. As I explained yesterday.)

For the last month or so, Dad’s been building me a display cabinet for my bayonet collection. I’ve watched it come together with eager anticipation. My bayonets have been displayed in a wall case in the basement, a case which once displayed my niece Paula’s Barbie collection. From Barbie to the battlefield. I don’t think Ken is a bayonet kind of guy.

Anyway, Dad called to tell me that the cabinet was finished. Pam and I picked it up on Wednesday. Last night we decided where to put it–a spot in our great room–and I spent the next two hours filling it up. The bayonets rest on dowel pegs, giving me a lot of flexibility in how I arrange them. I fit all 43 bayonets, plus 4 fighting knives, into the cabinet with room to spare. I’ll be able to squeeze in another 8-10 bayonets.

The cabinet is beautiful pine with black hinges and handles. There are four doors–two large ones for the upper part, two smaller ones for the lower part. I LOVE it.

Here are some photos–the entire case with doors closed, the upper part, and the lower part. Click on the thumbnail to get a large view.