So yesterday was Easter. It’s just one of several Christian holidays that, like Christmas, have made it into the “mainstream” culture of America and the rest of the world. We’ve added the little bunny’s basket of eggs to the imagery of Jesus, and everyone’s pretty happy with that. I don’t hate the bunny. I absolutely love the stuff in those Cadbury creme eggs. The thing that fascinates me about Easter, as compared to the other mainstreamed holidays, is how unacceptable Easter actually is to non-Christians, and how crucial it is to Christians.

Let me put it this way: no non-Christian can logically acknowledge and celebrate Easter and still be a non-Christian. Easter is the lynchpin of the entire Christian faith, and Christians believe it celebrates the turning point in the history of the world. Compare it to Christmas. You’re celebrating the birth of Jesus. Even non-Christians often agree Jesus was born and existed in some way, so Christmas isn’t hard for them to buy. But Easter? If the event Easter is celebrating actually happened, it would be proof that Jesus is exactly who the Christians say he is. In general, people don’t come back from the dead without something seriously supernatural going on. And in this case, Jesus’ resurrection would be proof that God had accepted the sacrifice he had made three days earlier.

For some reason, it just strikes me as being so odd that we’ve got Easter decorations everywhere (at Target, at the doctor’s office, wherever), and I know for certain that many, many people simply won’t or can’t believe in the event that Easter proclaims.

What it comes down to is this: if Easter’s resurrection didn’t happen, Christians (including myself) are the sorriest bunch of suckers on the face of the earth. But if it did, their “winnings” are so great they can’t be measured. There’s something so stark about that. I just love it. All that spiritual tension, wrapped in pastels.

I just got some spam with hilarious “From” names on the messages. The names were “Pronto U. Hegemony”, “Shawled H. Commercialize”, and “Legible J. Fuselages”. I just love this stuff. These remind me very much of my old spam friend, “Probabilities D. Oafish”.

If you love laughing at spam, check out Spamusement. It’s a little reminiscent of explodingdog (Sam Brown is my favorite modern artist, by the way), but Spamusement is obviously a lot less serious.

If you’re a Mac fan, you’ve probably already seen the PodBrix people’s stuff. They’re basically Apple lovers and Lego lovers who have put their two loves together in one product. My friend Kevin wrote a blog entry about them awhile back. Since then, they’ve sold their third item, a t-shirt called the Brixwear 1000, which has a custom-made iPod shuffle magnetic clasp on it and features their 1K Brix shadow-dancing lego man. I guess you kinda have to see it.

I’ve gotten both the 1K Brix and the Keynote minifigs they’ve sold, and I got the t-shirt too, but I decided not to keep it in the hopes that I can turn a little profit with it since it’s so rare and it was only on sale for 18 minutes. So I’m selling it on ebay.

If you wish you had one of these, or you know someone who does, do me a favor and follow that link! Thanks.

I couldn’t decide what color I wanted my blog to be next. First it was orange, then green, but what could be better than green? So I decided that I would have it be all the colors of the rainbow, one at a time. So now my blog will cycle through the entire color wheel every 5 minutes. I’m sure at some point I’ll add a little widget so you can make it stop, or make it go slower or faster. I tried to choose a nice, easy medium speed that would allow you to actually see the color changing without making you seasick.

I love the way it shows how cool PNG images are by allowing the color to come through the PNG at the top of the page. Now that’s a dynamic background.

I wrote the code to do it completely by hand without looking anywhere on the ‘Net for tips. The algorithm that makes it work is especially interesting, and I must say it’s probably the most difficult one I’ve done lately. Those colors are not pre-programmed. They’re calculated based on the logic of how red, green, and blue combine to create color, and what the pattern would look like for each of those colors if you moved your current color along the rim of the color wheel, as I’m doing. Check out my color shift javascript if you’re a geek, and see if you can figure out how it works. I left some comments in there to help you out. It’s really beautifully simple. I’m proud to say it worked the first time I tried it. w00t for good planning!

I can’t tell you how tempted I was to put this into effect and not mention it for awhile, and see if people made comments like “I think something is wrong with my monitor…” and so on. That would’ve been hilarious.

The deep purple is my favorite.

Here are three more iTunes codes, one of which is courtesy of my kind and generous friend David S., who can’t redeem his code because his wife works at an Apple Store. Please give David your condolences in the comments. Best condolence gets another iTunes code. Warning: I’m a very subjective judge.