Yes, the results are in. I have pertussis. I also just found out that a positive test for pertussis requires the doctor to notify the state of Kansas of my misfortune, so I’m going on record somewhere as being very, very sick.

The good news is, there have been no further complications. Read my last post if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

So I’ve been sick for pretty much the entire month of September. After going to the doctor three separate times, I finally have a potential diagnosis: pertussis, AKA whooping cough. Let me tell you, whooping cough is not nearly as funny as its name makes it out to be. Last September it was H1N1, this September it’s pertussis. What will it be next September? Bubonic plague?

To be fair, I don’t actually know if I have pertussis. They took some nose drippings (seriously) and drew some blood to test for it, and I’ll have the results back in a few days. The good news is, now that I’m on the proper antibiotic, I’m no longer contagious. The bad news is, the complications that go along with pertussis kind of have me freaked out.

I’ll make another post giving the yea or nay on whether or not I have it, but in the meantime, if you’ve spent any time around me, you might want to read up on the symptoms to make sure you don’t catch it in case I have it.

Pharisees have a bad name in Christianity—one of the worst. They’re synonymous with most of what is undesirable in religion. As such, they were the most frequent target of Jesus’s rebuke, and the group that eventually got him killed. The freedom Jesus preached was the greatest threat to their carefully laid-out rules and stipulations, and the entire basis of their faith was threatened by these new teachings.

But the philosophy of the Pharisees wasn’t always so bad. It was, at one point, a revolutionary concept. The roots of the Pharisee philosophy emerged under the oppressive rule of Antiochus IV, who openly persecuted anyone who practiced the Jewish faith and tried to change their customs as well. The word Pharisee actually means “separatists.” They sought to figure out exactly what they could let go, and what they had to hold onto, for the sake of the purity of their faith.

So the grave mistake of the Pharisees wasn’t instantiating a bad philosophy; it was overcorrecting. They took a good idea and they let it become the whole of their faith, to the detriment of some other very important parts.

What does this have to do with modern Christianity? Quite a bit, actually.

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Well, frozen yogurt.

I just bought an ice cream maker, and got a little ambitious with our first project: sweet basil lime frozen yogurt. It’s not great, but it’s actually pretty good. Janelle’s not a fan, though, so we’ll probably be moving on to other flavors rather than perfecting this one. Ideas include:

• Sweet corn
• Cayenne chocolate
• Coconut hazelnut
• Raspberry Cabernet
• Pumpkin pie?

Or maybe I should stick to vanilla until I get the hang of it.

Well, I’ll keep you posted on what I make.

A few posts back, I was talking about that personality test where you can be either a lion, an otter, a golden retriever, or a beaver. Well, I wanted to take it again to see how I’ve changed in the last seven years, and I found that there wasn’t a single good electronic version of it online—not even on the official website. So I made my own. Here it is.

Of course, now that I’ve stayed up all night coding the test, I’m too tired to take it. I’ll take it in the morning and post a comment. What types are you, my loyal readers?

Patrick: Hey Brandon, are you free?
me: Do you mean in the Existential or Kantian sense?

I’ve had a special affinity for otters since I took a personality test on which I scored a 100% for the otter personality type—so much so that otter was a nickname of mine for a few years. So when Janelle discovered that Ireland has a massive mythological otter as a part of their heritage, she had to get me a Dobhar-chu t-shirt to celebrate my fearsome otter nature. Beware my large smashing rocks!

I just re-started Machiavelli’s The Prince. Everything I’d heard about it led me to believe it would be terrible, but I was actually pleasantly surprised when I picked it up and started reading it. A little ruthless at times, yes, but it has some pretty solid advice in there too. Here are some quotes I found interesting:

Men nearly always follow the tracks made by others and proceed in their affairs by imitation, even though they cannot entirely keep to the tracks of others or emulate the prowess of their models. So a prudent man must always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding. If his own prowess fails to compare to theirs, at least it has an air of greatness about it. He must behave like the archers who, if they are skillful, when the target seems too distant, know the capabilities of their bow and aim a good deal higher than their objective, not in order to shoot so high but so that by aiming high they can reach the target.

I say, therefore, that in completely new states, where the prince himself is a newcomer, the difficulty he encounters in maintaining his rule is more or less serious insofar as he is more or less able. And since the very fact that from being a private citizen he has become a prince presupposes either ability or good fortune, it would seem that one or the other of these should to some extent lessen many of the difficulties encountered. None the less, the less a man has relied on fortune the stronger he has made his position.

As the doctors say of a wasting disease, to start with it is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; after a time, unless it has been diagnosed and treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. So it is with politics. Political disorders can be quickly healed if they are seen well in advance (and only a prudent ruler has such foresight); when, for lack of a diagnosis, they are allowed to grow in such a way that everyone can recognize them, remedies are too late.

I’m not far into the book yet, but I’m looking forward to continuing with it. I can’t say I agree with everything in it, but it does have some rather insightful nuggets that will prove useful if I ever become a dictator.

The best way to jailbreak an iPod Touch.

Here’s a helpful post I made on Yahoo Answers on how to jailbreak an iPod Touch:

How to Jailbreak my iPod Touch 2G with iOS4?