I came across this absolutely horrendous rendition of “O Holy Night” (right-click to download for your listening pleasure!) on a humour blog that I often frequent (The Sneeze).

Now, I will be the first to admit that despite my Welsh heritage, I can’t sing (and my family will confirm this fact will far too much vigor) and I doubt that I could do a better job than this poor sap. But, I do know my limitations and I am never under the illusion that I can sing and I would certainly never record myself singing for on audition tape as this fellow did!

Take a listen and let me know what you think — can you do better?

Happy 2006 everyone! I truly wish everyone the best for this upcoming year.

I was pleasantly surprised (tickled pink, actually) to see Loren Rosson at The Busybody and Christopher Heard at Higgaion interact with my “Happy New Year — Qohelet Style” post.

Loren, in his post “The Wisdom of Ecclesiastes,” translates my post so to speak “in terms to which non-deists can relate,” while Chris — the equally if not even more estimable scholar of the Old Testament Hebrew Bible — offered some excellent critiques of some aspects of my interpretation in his post “On Ecclesiastes.”

While I don’t have the time right now to fully respond to Chris’s comments (new semester starting and all!), I will say that he may have caught me red-handed in a hermeneutical jump in regards to “life under the sun,” but I will maintain that הבל hebel is a terminus technicus of sorts for Qohelet and therefore a specialized meaning within the book is not out of the ordinary.

So, in the words of “The Governator” (who according to this Bible Code will be re-elected in 2006), “I’ll be back.”