Radioactive Fallout

Inception

2010-08-05T16:37:00.004-04:00

Really like John C. Wright's thoughts on the movie Inception. I agree with everything he says about the merits of the film.

Inception

Natioanl Debt

2009-12-10T13:50:00.001-05:00

I've added the National debt counter for the United States to the side bar. Now you can watch us go broke in real time. Horrifying!

Batman New Times

2009-06-15T09:37:00.001-04:00

Adam West and Mark Hamill in a new animated Batman.

Awesome

Buying Brand Obama

2009-05-06T10:43:00.005-04:00

Interesting article here by Chris Hedges. Very much looking forward to his new book "Empire of Illusion"."target="_blank"

We're all being taken for a ride down the road to ruin and into a permanent nanny state. And the media is at least as culpable as the politicians.

Obama our Savior is not.

Think for yourselves people. Don't be bamboozled by the glitter and the hype.

book collection

2009-02-23T09:04:00.020-05:00

Over at The Skinner Neal Asher has recently been showing off some readers book cases and book collections. I thought I'd put up some of my collection. This is about half of my books. I may try and post the others later.

I'm also in the process of putting everything on Librarything.com I'm only about a third of the way there.

currently listening to

2009-02-20T09:06:00.006-05:00

and for your viewing and listening enjoyment...

the future of the e-book

2009-02-18T09:11:00.002-05:00

Gene Wolfe Reading Project

2009-02-13T15:42:00.006-05:00

There's a reading project going on this year for Gene Wolfe fans. It's the Gene Wolfe Solar Cycle book club. The goal is to read all 12 books in Wolfe's Solar cycle, one book per month, and discuss them online.

I've never read any of these books before but did enjoy his most recent book, An Evil Guest, so I decided to go for it. The 12 books are collected in 3 omnibus editions, The Book of the New sun, The Book of the Long Sun, and The Book of the Short Sun as well as one additional book, The Urth of the New Sun. But in my usual fashion I decide to get first edition hardcovers of all 12 individual books. Thank god for e-bay and ABE books.

The series is an epic fantasy with Science fiction Elements. It takes place (I think) in a far future earth where society is in decay, most technology is lost and people live more primatively. I love books like that. It brings to mind M John Harrisons Viriconium and even Stephen King's Dark Tower series although with a more medievel rather than Western feel as the Darktower is. The first book is The Shadow of the Torturer. I loved it so much I quickly read the next 3 books in the series. Wolfe is a fascionating writer. His prose is beautiful if somewhat oblique. hidden meanings abound and the narrator is not definitely reliable. That makes it fun and challenging to figure out just exactly what's going on, where things are heading and where they've been.

On the book club website only the Shadow of the Torturer is open for discussion now. Each subsequent book will be open on the 20th of each month. It's difficult to discuss just the one book when Ive already read the next 3. Many people in club have already read the whole cycle previously. 'm sure it's especially tough for them. People are doing a pretty good job of avoiding spoilers but some of the hints that have been dropped lead me to believe this will be a truly mind blowing epic saga when all is said and done.

As much as I want to continue the series I'm taking a brief break to allow the club to catch up a little. I'm currently reading Thunderer by Felix Gilman and will follow that up with his Gears of the City before I go back to Wolfe. I may just read Shadow of the Torturer agin to try and catch the little things I missed the first time around.

I highly recommend this series for anyone who loves literary Fantasy and SF

Politics test

2008-09-24T15:10:00.003-04:00

Here are the results of my politics test

You are a
Social Moderate
(56% permissive)

and an...
Economic Moderate
(55% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Centrist

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid.com: Free Online Dating
Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Seen and Not Seen

2008-03-10T09:54:00.002-04:00

He would see faces in movies, on t.v., in magazines, and in books....

He thought that some of these faces might be right for him....and
through the years, by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his
mind....or somewhere in the back of his mind....that he might, by
force of will, cause his face to approach those of his ideal....

The change would be very subtle....it might take ten years or so....
Gradually his face would change its shape....a more hooked nose...
Wider, thinner lips....beady eyes....a larger forehead.

He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other
people....they had also molded their faces according to some
ideal....maybe they imagined that their new face would better
suit their personality....or maybe they imagined that their
personality would be forced to change to fit the new appear-
ance....

This is why first impressions are often correct...

Although some people might have made mistakes....they may have
arrived at an appearance that bears no relationship to them....
They may have picked an ideal appearance based on some childish
whim, or momentary impulse....some may have gotten half-way
there, and then changed their minds.

He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake.

David Byrne

Piano recital

2007-11-07T13:04:00.000-05:00

I'm Back

2007-09-22T19:37:00.000-04:00

Thinking it might be time to start posting some thoughts again. Stay tuned.

The Cooling World

2007-03-09T14:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a little perspective on global warming courtesy of Neal Asher.

This will probably be a front page article in 2050.

Can you say: Natural cyclical variations?

What is NFCTD?

2007-02-20T08:57:00.000-05:00

Here is a cool link.

Click on different parts of the picture and new things are revealed. Be persistent. Very cool, creepy and macabre.

Fucking with Penn Jillette's head

2007-02-02T08:30:00.000-05:00

Penn Jillette thinks Neil Gaiman's blog has too much influence on the interweb. Neil would like to re-enforce that belief with a little practical joke. Click on the link below and add the link to your website or blog.

If enough people do this, when someone googles Penn Gillette, it will send them to Neil's blog.

Penn Jillette?

Politics, and why I stopped caring

2006-11-08T13:53:00.000-05:00

Well the elections are over and I couldn't be happier. Not because the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and the Senate both nationally and in my home state. I wish they'd lost quite frankly. Not because I think the situation in Iraq will improve now. It won't. Not because I think the economy will suddenly improve. It's already in pretty good shape as it is and this election should have no effect on that.

I'm happy because, at least for now, the campaigning is over. No longer will I have to watch those extremely vile and negative campaign adds that permeated the airwaves. This has to be one of the nastiest, mean spirited and just plain despicable campaign seasons I've ever witnessed. Both parties are guilty of appalling behavior in this one. This was especially true here in Indiana. Races between Julia Carson and Eric Dickerson, Sodrell and Hill and Orentlicher and Densborn were downright ugly. There was no discussion of the issues. Just name calling, mud slinging and wild, distorted accusations. And much of this was funded by the National Democratic and Republican parties.

I've come to realize that politics, by it's very nature, is inherently corrupt. Most politicians are primarily concerned with gaining power and maintaining or expanding it. At any cost. They put their own self interests above the interests of the people who elect them. Or they cow-tow to special interest groups who give them money and kick-backs.

Most politicians are ego-maniacs. They'd have to be to want to go into politics in the first place. They don't do things for you because they want to help you. They do it for your admiration, your adulation. They want to be worshiped. They are also, for the most part, elitist snobs. Especially the Democrats. They're the privledged, Harvard educated rulers of the world and we're the dumb ignorant masses who don't know what's good for us. So they have to tell us. They have to decide for us, take care of us, micromanage every aspect of our existence cause we're too stupid to do it ourselves. They say they're working for you. That they're for the common man, but they wouldn't want you moving in next door to them. They actually hold most of us in contempt. John Kerry's recent gaff about getting stuck in Iraq illustrates that point nicely. I don't think he was trying to denigrate the military with that statement. He was telling us that unless we've attended an Ivy league school, we're a bunch of slack-jawed booger eating morons.

Not every politician fits into this category. There are a few (Dick Lugar comes to mind) who I believe are people of integrity. But they're in the vast minority. I believe some politicians, especially in the House of Representatives go in with good intentions. But once they get a taste of that power they start to falter. They become junkies. Power junkies. And they need to feed the habit. And it grows and grows. Along with their over-inflated egos. And then they are lost.

I'm almost equally disgusted with both parties. The Republicans have really let me down over the last several years. They are supposed to be the fiscally conservative party. But government spending is out of control. Pork reigns supreme. The deficit is huge. Bush hasn't met a spending bill he doesn't like. What happened to the veto. Does Bush even know what that is. Then there's the lobbying scandals and the sex scandals. Those did the Republicans in this election as much as Iraq did. It just shows that the Republicans are as morally bankrupt as the Democrats. The increasing importance of religion in the Republican agenda makes me nervous. And now there's even a chance that Roe V. Wade is in jeopardy.

As bad as the Republicans have been the Democrats are even worse. They don't like to discuss the issues. They love to criticize. They love to smear their opponents with accusations, distortions and flat out lies. When you see them on TV, they're the ones yelling, interrupting and shouting down their opponents. Why are they yelling so much when they have nothing to say? Screaming "Iraq, Iraq, Iraq" over and over again isn't a discussion or a solution. It accomplishes nothing. But they don't have an answer for the ongoing difficulties in Iraq. They have no plan to fight terrorism. And I do believe that the threat from Islamic fundamentalists is the number one problem in the world today. Not just for us but for everyone. It's the most important issue. The Democrats offer no leadership. They offer no solutions to anything. Their usual answer to everything is to raise taxes, spend money on worthless programs that don't work, expand government and their control over us, and increase "entitlements" to make us even more dependent on them.

The politicians are also extremely partisan. They blindly follow the party platform, rarely crossing the aisle to vote with the other party. I can't believe that all Republicans are against gun control. I can't believe all Democrats are pro-choice. My own personal views don't coincide with any one political party (Libertarian comes closest I guess). Can't these politicians think for themselves. Don't they have strong convictions about anything? Important legislation gets voted down merely because one party doesn't want the other to have a "victory" and be able to say they did something good for the American people. Pathetic.

And the media exacerbates the whole thing. They are clearly biased. The major networks and CNN are clearly left leaning. Despite their claims of "fair and balanced", Fox news has a definite conservative bent. These organizations don't report the news. They distort it. They want to influence your thinking, your opinions. They don't want to present you with information and then have you decide things for yourself. They also seize on every little comment, whether innocent or not, and blow it way out of proportion. The media creates many of the so-called political scandals. Partly out of the desire for ratings, but partly to try and destroy their enemies, that is anyone who doesn't agree with their political views and leanings.

What depresses me most of all is the lack of civility exhibited by the politicians, the pundits and the media. And Americans in general. Politics has become mean spirited. People have become intolerant of others views. "Either you agree with me or you're an ass-hole". The word "hate" is used with abandon. I don't understand it. You may not agree with another persons political views but does that mean you have to hate them? I didn't vote for Bill Clinton. I don't think he did much of anything to help our country. But I don't hate him. Hell, I'd like to go out and party with him. And I could care less about Monica Lewinsky. Political debate has changed from a discussion of the issues to name calling and seeing what sort of skeletons you can find in your opponents closet. I don't like to discuss politics with friends and acquaintances anymore. That's because people can't debate reasonably. They take anything you say as a personal attack against them. It gets uncomfortable and ugly.

So I'm dropping out of the whole political scene. I don't care anymore. I'm not paying attention. It doesn't really matter whose in power. Things will only get worse. The Democrats will have their chance for 6 or 8 years and they won't do any better. An angry electorate will then throw them out and give the Republicans another chance. And they'll fuck things up. And so on, and so on... There's only one thing that could have any chance of stopping this downward spiral. And that is:

Term Limits

But that will never happen. Our corrupt politicians would never allow it.

The Road

2006-10-27T10:23:00.000-04:00

I just finished the book "The Road" by Cormac McCArthy. It was wonderful. And heartbreaking. And scary.

It's a post-apocolyptic story a la Stephen King's "The Stand" or Robert McCammon's "Swan Song". Except it's entirely different. It's what those books might have been like if written by Ernest Hemingway. It's not a story of good versus evil but rather one about human nature. And the will to survive.

The dialogue is minimal. The prose is stark and beautiful and haunting.

The only other Cormac McCarthy book I've read is "No country for Old Men". I loved it too. I think I've become a fan. Now I need to go back and read his earlier books.

reading list

2006-09-21T15:32:00.000-04:00

Some books I've enjoyed in the last 6 months:

This is just a partial list of the books I've read

but these are the ones I've enjoyed the most. All are pretty good reads.

library thing

2006-09-08T12:55:00.000-04:00

Hey all you book lovers and book collectors. Have I got a site for you.

It's librarything.com and it's very cool.

What is it?

It's a web site where you can catalog your book collection.

You can review books and read others' reviews.

You can join groups related to particular genres i.e. Sci Fi

It gives you book recommendations based on the books you already have in you collection.

Y0u can chat with other bibliophiles.

It gives you statistics on all of the books that have been entered on the site.

And lots, lots more. The coolest thing is the on line catalog. You enter the name of a book you have and click search. The site lists the book, author and various editions of the book. Click on the one you have and it's entered into your database along with a picture of the cover. Or you can enter all the info manually. Don't see a picture of the edition you have? No problem. You can upload a picture of your book or use a cover image supplied by other site users. So far, I've only had one book that I entered where there was no cover image of the edition I had, so I scanned it in and uploaded it myself. Now others can use that image.

You can organize your collection by author, genre, title etc. You can add tags (key words) to identify books that may be interrelated. You can then search your collection using these tags.

The coolest thing is viewing your library. You can view it in list form or cover form. If you view it as covers, you get pages of images of all of the covers of the books in your collection.

So far I've entered about 100 books into the site. Unfortunately, I have over 1000 books so I've still got a lot of work to do. But the book entry is easy so it shouldn't take too long. Once it's done I'll have a great database to easily reference my collection.

Check it out.

I have no time

2006-09-01T15:27:00.000-04:00

Work, work, work. It seems that's all I ever do anymore. My job is busier than ever. When I'm at home there are endless projects to do. I'm always at least three projects behind. The boys are increasingly in more and more activities which take up not only their time but mine. Labor day weekend is coming up and guess what? I have to work. All three days.

I haven't ridden my bike in a couple of weeks

I haven't finished a book in a while.

If I make it to the gym one day a week I'm lucky.

My bonsai trees are dying from neglect.

I'm suffering from a serious lack of free time. Down time where I don't have anything to do and can just relax. In fact, for myself and I'm sure many Americans, there's no such thing as free time. Time where you have no responsibilities and can just chill. Even when I find a few minutes, I can't really relax and enjoy them. There's always something I could be doing. Something I should be doing. I'm never caught up.

The "rat race" we're stuck in just keeps getting faster and faster and I'm struggling to keep up. It's probably more analogous to one of those gerbil wheels. I'm a gerbil in a wheel, running endlessley but never making any progress.

There's got to be a way to slow down, to simplify things, but I can't figure out how to do it. And I only think it's going to get worse. I can faintly see a light at the end of the tunnel but it's about 25 years away and I think I'll die of exhaustion long before I get there.

Help.

poor Pluto

2006-08-24T16:42:00.000-04:00

It's official. Pluto has been demoted and is no longer considered a planet, sniff...sniff...

Now we only have 8 planets.

What will Uranus do to fill the void?

toilet issues

2006-08-23T09:58:00.000-04:00

I haven't been posting much lately. I have decided to correct this posting deficiency by trying to write something every day. Even if it's only one sentence. Even if it's about things like #2 son's fecal phobia.

In a nutshell, #2 son doesn't like to wipe his own butt. He also will only poop naked. Until recently, he would strip down completely to take a dump. Now, he leaves his socks on. He also leaves the bathroom door open. I will walk by and see a 7 year old boy sitting on the toilet wearing only white socks.

He also hates pooping in any toilet other than our's at home. He refuses to do it in a public restroom (Probably a wise choice. I should give him a little credit here).

After careful consideration and much thoughtful analysis, I couldn't figure out why he did this so I asked him. He said "I don't want to get poop on me". Ah. He has a fear of feces. There is a medical term for this. Coprophobia. There is a web site devoted to this problem.

I can see how this could be a problem for him. We often refer to him as the messiest kid on the planet. He can destroy a room in under a minute. He can't eat anything without getting it all over him, the table, the floor, his brother, the neighbor's cat...I believe he knows this about himself. Thus, the fear of poop.

"Dad, I have to go poop"

OK, tell me when you're done.

10 minutes later: "I'M Done!"

I wipe his butt

"Am I clean?"

yes

Put's clothes back on.

This is the usual scenerio. Except for one time. I was at work and S had a bunch of girls over for one of those parties where one of the girls sells a bunch of junk to the others that they don't need and then tries to force the other girls to host a party themselves so they can buy more junk from each other and the hostess of the party can get free junk.

"Mom, I have to go poop"

OK, let me know when you're done.

Since the party was going on downstairs, #2 son went upstairs to use the facilities. The party was loud. The women were drinking. The son was forgotten.

I get home from work.

"Where's #2 son?"

Oh my god! she replied. He's upstairs pooping!

"How long has he been up there?"

Silence.

I run up the stairs and hear a little boy screaming hysterically "IM DONE!" over and over. There were tears in his eyes. I wipe his bottom and tell him how sorry I am.

"Mommy forgot you were up here". He'd spent approximately 30 minutes on the toilet.

To prevent this tragedy from ever happening again we have instituted a progressive butt wiping program. Initially, after pooping, #2 son had to wipe his own butt once, then we'd finish up for him. Then he had to wipe his butt twice. We would check his work and do additional wiping as necessary. Starting next week he's on his own.

If this technique proves successful, we'll use the same method for the clothes. We'll add in one clothing item that he must wear while pooping each week until he is no longer shedding any of his clothes onto the bathroom floor. I think it's going to work.

Now I need to get him to stop quoting John Cleese from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when he says in his silly French accent "You tiny brained wiper of other people's bottoms".

roast beef is back

2006-08-23T09:40:00.000-04:00

Another post from roast beef. It's the first one in about 2 months. That is not nearly often enough. And, while I enjoyed it, no further mention about isuue #2 of Man Why You Even Got To Do A Thing. What up?

Hey beef. Please, less nacho eating. More posting.

Clerks 2

2006-08-01T09:50:00.000-04:00

I saw Clerks when it first came out in 1984. I thought it was one of the funniest movies I'd ever seen. It was low budget and brilliant. From the Chewlies chewing gum salesman with the diseased lungs, to Jay and silent Bob, to Randal and Dante's philosphical discussions I laughed my ass off. The 27 blowjobs bit was classic. I've watched that movie over and over.It launched the career of Kevin Smith, and though his movies since that time have been hit or miss (Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Mall Rats), I'll always thinks of Clerk's as one of the best comedies of all time.

Not everyone loved it though. Some people found it offensive. My parents, for one. They walked out of the theater in the middle of the movie. That's something they never do. I'm not really sure which part of the movie pushed them over the edge because they don't like to discuss it.

If they found Clerks offensive they'd be shocked and apalled by Clerks 2. Talk about pushing the envelope. This movie is really over the top. I haven't seen something this offensive since John Water's Pink Flamingoes. But it's funny. At times. Fans of Clerks and Kevin Smith's other movies will like Clerks 2. If you haven't seen Clerks 1, I'm not sure I can really recommend this movie.

Some bits had me laughing outloud, giggling hysterically. Other parts had me cringing in my seat, covering my eyes and saying Jesus Christ. The rest of the audience responded in a similar fashion, with collective groans and exclamations throughout the show. Jason Mewes as Jay was fantastic as usual. The guy never changes. He still looks the same 20 years later. Jeff Anderson and Brian O'Halloran haven't aged as well. They look older and fatter than they did, which makes their characters seem even more pathetic. Rosario Dawson is a nice addition to the cast and Trevor Fehrman as Elias is excellent. Many of the jokes are recreations or reinterpretations of bits from Clerks 1 so if you didn't see that movie they might not seem that funny.

S and I enjoyed the movie a lot and we'll probably get the DVD when it comes out. Seeing it makes me want to go watch the original again. I can recommend both movies to people who enjoy intelligent but somewhat raunchy humor. Just don't go see them with your parents.

Floyd, Je ne comprend pas.

2006-07-28T15:45:00.000-04:00

Please Floyd. Say it ain't so. You're not a cheater. You didn't take steroids during the tour de France. Just say it's not true and I'll believe you.

And you know why? Because I do believe you. I don't think you won the tour by taking steroids. This so called "positive" test just doesn't make sense and I'll tell you why.

1. All of your previous tests were negative. How can you go through 16 stages of the Tour de France and not test positive and then suddenly have a positive test on stage 17, your fantastic come from behind victory?

2. Why would you take steroids only for stage 17. Steroids help build muscle and strength over a long period of time. You would get no benefit from a single steroid dose the day before the stage. You know that. You're not stupid.

3. You're not stupid. With all the controversy surrounding allegations against Lance in the past and the current allegations against the top riders who were excluded from the tour this year, it would be foolish to attempt any kind of doping during this years race. Right?

To paraphrase Johnny Cochran: It makes no sense. It does not fit. If it does not fit you must aquit.

Let me tell you what I think is going on: Warning: conspiracy theory ahead!

A. This could just be a case of testing error. The lab made a mistake. Hopefully this is the case and the backup sample will test negative and you'll be exhonerated.

B. For some reason your body naturally produced a high level of testosterone that day. I think this is feasable. Possibly this was your body's way of reparing itself after crashing and burning the previous day.

C. Someone intentionally rigged the test. Your urine sample was switched. Or spiked. I find this theory the most attractive of all. The French are very upset that a Frenchman hasn't won the Tour de France in 21 years. The last Frenchman to win was Bernard Hinault in 1985. Even more upsetting is that Americans have won 11 Tours in that time period! Greg Lemond, Lance Armstrong and now you. We all know the French hate Americans (even though we've saved their asses from annihilation time and again). I think they'd do anything to taint an American victory and create a scandal. Including falsifying drug tests. They tried to do it to Lance and failed. Don't let them do it to you. Who knows, maybe the whole doping scandal just before the tour that eliminated Jan Ulrich, Ivan Basso and other leading contenders from the tour was an attempt by the French to remove the competition so Christophe Moreau would have a better chance to win.

What can I do to help?

Well I'm afraid not much. But I'll tell you this. I'm no longer buying any Bordeau. It's California Cabernet all the way. And French cheese? Forget it. White cheddar from Ireland from now on. And my Serge Gainsbourg records? Into the trash!

And if by chance you did cheat and take steroids. Well, it's OK. I forgive you. After all, everybody does it.

Party on Floyd!

Tour de France

2006-07-20T14:25:00.000-04:00

As an avid cyclist I have been watching the Tour de France religiously the last 2 weeks and what an unbelievable tour it is.

First, many of the top contenders were kicked out, including Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso, because of a doping scandal before the race even started.

Next there was the surprisingly bad performance of the American contenders in the opening time trial (with the exception of Floyd Landis). George Hincappie, Levi Leipheimer and Dave Zabriskie all had bad days. Bobby Julich crashed on the time trial, broke his wrist and was out of the tour.

The Discovery Channel team, winners of the last 7 tours with Lance Armstrong are struggling mightily. Currently the highest place Discovery rider is Jose Azevedo in the 19th spot, 34 minutes behind the leader. What a huge fall for a once dominant team. The team leader, George Hincapie thought it might be his year to take over for Lance and win the yellow jersey. He's currntly in 32nd place, one hour and 7 minutes behind.

Then there was stage 12. With Floyd Landis starting the day with a small lead, Oscar Pereiro and Yaroslav Popovych went on a breakaway and the peleton let them go. They finished 30 minutes ahead of the yellow jersey group and Perieiro went from 28 minutes down into a 1 and a half minute lead over Landis. Incredible.

Stage 15 saw Landis get the lead back from Pereiro on the famed L'Alpe d'Huez and it looked like he was in total control of the race.
Then, the unthinkable happened yesterday on stage 16. Landis cracked on the last climb, La Toussuire, and lost 8 minutes to Pereiro and dropped to 11th place. It looked like the man whom many had picked to win the tour had dropped out of contention for the yellow jersey.

But hold on. Stage 17 and another crazy day. The final day of big climbs in the Alps, and Landis attacked. He rode away from the peleton up the first climb of the day, the Col de Saissies and ended up winning the stage by almost 6 minutes over Carlos Sastre. He gained back much of the time he lost yesterday and now is in third place, only 30 seconds behind Pereiro and 18 seconds behind Sastre. With the individual time trial to come which is Landis' speciality it looks like he's once again the leading contender to win the race. But who knows. So many crazy things have happened in this years tour it's impossible to predict the outcome for the last few days. I can't wait for the time trial!

One of the great things about the Tour de France is it makes me want to go out and ride my bike. Not that I don't ride a lot already. I'm just more excited about doing it. I watch these amazing athletes perform day after day and it motivates me. I push myself a little harder. I ride a little farther. I truly believe that professional cyclists are the best, most fit athletes in the world. They endure long hours of incredible suffering on the bike. What they do is amazing. And despite what many might think, the sport is quite dangereous. Serious crashes occur every day in the peletons. Or riders crash on the steep descents. I think those descents are crazy. They can reach speeds of 60 mph on a bike! I lose my nerve at about 40 mph. At 45 mph I think I'd fill my shorts.

Pirate of the Caribbean or Death Camp Refugee?

2006-07-17T10:42:00.000-04:00

Number one son has been talking about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead
Man's Chest for months. So of course we had to see it on opening night. I have to say I really enjoyed it. Almost as much as the first one. And the boys thought it was great. They're ready to go see it again (which we probably will do. We saw Star Wars Revenge on the Sith on 2 consecutive nights)

Then I see these photos of Kiera Knightly at the movie premier.

What happened? Where are her breasts? It looks like she took the title of the movie "Dead Man's Chest" a little to literally. Either that or she got a bad case of scurvy during filming. It looks like she hasn't eaten for months.

All I can say to this is Arrrrrrrrrrgh! Somebody give that woman a sandwich!

shock the man

2006-07-11T08:32:00.000-04:00

Well, this one is a little bizzare but strangely compelling.

Jason Mitchell is conducting a social experiment. With a dog obedience shock collar. He used this collar on his dog but after trying it on himself he felt guilty because it hurt so much.

Now he's giving you the opportunity to shock him. Or not. It's all up to you. You can buy shocks in varying levels of intensity from 1-4. Or you can chose to save him from the shocks by buying "saves".

He records all of the shocks on video which you can view either live on his web site or on a podcast at the end of the day.

I bought a level 4 shock and watched him do it. He had to do three level 4's in a row yesterday. He seemed to handle them pretty well but after reading some of the comments on his blog I think it hurts more than he's letting on. I felt bad about the shock so today I bought a level 4 save.

It's an interesting experiment. It gives you a glimpse of human nature at work. So far the shocks outnumber the saves 21 to 7. That's not surprising. I think most people have a slightly morbid or sadistic streak in them. That's why the media reports the bad news. The plane crashes. The murders. People are drawn to that more than they are the happy stories. That's why we slow down at car crashes and gawk. I think it would be great if there was a sudden outpouring of "saves" and Jason never got shocked again. But it won't happen. It's more fun to watch him squirm than to sit there and do nothing.

Then again this whole thing could be a money making scheme. Maybe it hurts less than he lets on. Or maybe he doesn't shock himself at all but fakes it. Who knows. I tend to think the thing is legit and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

I just want to know one thing. Where are the "Save Jason" T-shirts?

SF in the UK

2006-06-27T16:10:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a big day for me from a blogging standpoint. I had the first comments left on my blog. And from three different people. And one of them was from Neal Asher no less. Having one of my favorite SF authors leave a comment on my blog is very cool and somewhat amazing. I've also learned that he now has a blog on blogger. You can find it here.

In honor of this momentous occasion I decided to write on a topic that's been floating around a bit lately, and will also allow me to sing Mr. Asher's praises at the same time. Namely:

Are all the best Science Fiction writers today from the UK?

And my answer is: Yes, but I could be wrong.

I must qualify my answer because, most of the SF and Fantasy that I've read in the last five years has been written by authors from the UK (or Canada but that doesn't really qualify as UK anymore. Does it?) I just haven't read many American or other non-UK SF writers to really be able to compare. And why is that you ask? It's hard to say. Maybe I'm just not hearing about other writers. Maybe I've become prejudiced.

Here is a list of some of my favorite SF and Fantasy authors from the last five years. In no particular order they are:

Iain M. Banks
China Mieville
Neal Asher
Charles Stross
M. John Harrison
Richard Morgan
Neal Stephenson
Neil Gaiman (lives in the US but born and raised in the UK)

Where do I go when I'm looking for new material to read? Well, the internet primarily. I read lots of reviews at various SF web sites and blogs. I also read Locus magazine. It seems to me that whenever I read a review of a book that sounds interesting to me, invariably the author is from the UK. I don't know why that is. Is there some inherent bias in the reviewers themselves? Do they consciously or unconsciously give UK writers better reviews than their US counterparts. Is there something about British SF that makes it stand out? They don't all write the same kinds of stories. You can't lump all these writers together and say, Oh, that's British SF, and have anyone know what you mean. There's a wide variety of writing styles and sub-genres of SF and Fantasy and UK authors don't all fit neatly into the same one.

I think a lot of it is promotion and some of it is hype. Whenever I'm on line and hear of some hot new author with an eagerly anticipated novel, they usually turn out to be from the UK. Are the UK publicists that good and the ones from the rest of the world inept? Possibly.

Another factor is Amazon. If you order a book from Amazon.co.uk you'll get recommendations from them on other books you might like. These will be predominately British authors. If you purchase those you get more recommendations. It becomes self perpetuating.

One major problem today is that the volume of works being put out is incredible. You can't read everything. You have to pick and choose. How do you choose. Well for me, if I find something I like I stick with it. Meaning, if I read a book by an author I've never read before and I really like it, the first thing I do is go back and read everything he's written before. I read Asher's Gridlinked and was hooked. I then went out and read everything I could find by him. I think I've read them all except Africa Zero and Prador Moon and I've just received them from Amazon so I'm sure I'll be done with them in short order. I know that when the next China Meiville book comes out it will go to the top of my reading list. Because of these habits of mine, I somewhat limit myself in the authors I read. Some of these writers are so prolific that I could spend all my time reading a handful of authors and rarely run out of books.

But what about the books themselves. Most of the ones I've read lately have been great. And while you can't lump them all together there are similarities. Perhaps the hottest or most hyped British authors of the last few years are Charles Stross, Neal Asher and perhaps, Richard Morgan. What do their books have in common.

Well for starters, many of the characters in their books are "enhanced". They're stronger, smarter and have amazing abilities. This is typically achieved either through genetic manipulation (gene splicing), surgery or nanotechnology. These people are superhuman. They have amazing regenerative capacities. It's hard to kill them because with the state of medical science in these systems, almost anything or anyone can be regrown or regenerated. Or if the body fails, the mind can be digitally stored in a computer or downloaded into a new body. In essence, people become immortal. Unless their brains are vaporized and they don't have a backup stored somewhere.

Secondly, most of the worlds are populated with powerful AI's. Super computers who have either achieved sentience or are close to it. They seem to be all powerful and in many cases either run the whole show or are pulling the strings in the background.

Thirdly, in almost every case there is some overriding network or grid. Call it the internet of the future, and everyone is linked in. Only they're not linked by their laptop. They're linked in by augmentations wired directly into their brians. Or by nanomachines that flood their bodies. Or by special glasses or head gear they wear which give them heads up displays of the web and filters all of their perceptions through the grid. This keeps them in contact with the AI's and allows access to almost unlimited information and real time spying on almost anyone, anywhere. As well as holograhphic imaging that allows them to alter their environments to suit their needs, or alter their personal appearance to project an image that they want others to see.

Lastly, nanotechnology is prevalent throughout many of these stories. It seems that anything that can be dreamed of can be created or achieved through nanomachines. This is almost too easy and too convenient. Extruders that can create any object or weapon desired at any time? Nanomachines in the body that can heal any injury no matter how severe? Give me a break. I'ts too easy at times. Make the heroes work for it a little bit, will ya.

There in lies one of my major complaints with the genre. Sometimes the authors focus too much on the technology. They're so intent on coming up with new ideas and unique terminology or language that they forget to focus on the most important thing. The story. And the technology is too amazing. Having difficulty with a plot twist where the protagaonist is in a seemingly impossible, no win situation? Nanotechnology to the rescue! Some authors are more guilty of this than others. While I love Charles Stross, sometimes the "technobabble" can be bewildering. When reading Accelerando, I found myself having to concentrate extremely hard at times just to figure out what he was saying. He would throw so many new terms and new technologies at you that it became overwhelming. I had to try and break down the words into their component parts to deduce what he meant by them. Ususally I could do it but it made for exhausting reading at times. It also made it hard to figure out where the story was headed. I'm still not sure what the whole point of Accelerando was. It seemed more like a series of loosely connected stories, occuring over so many years, with the emphasis shifting so much that the ending had very little to do with the beginning.

In this regard I think Neal Asher is more successful as a writer. He's a better storyteller. Sure, he comes up with many amazing new ideas and new technologies and terminologies, but in the context of each story it all makes sense. The technology enhances the story but doesn't supercede it. His stories all have a discernable plot. There are good guys and there are bad guys, easily recoginzeable (usually). The bad guys have done something bad and the good guys are out to make them pay. The books read like mystery/thriller/spy novels with a final confrontation and a fairly definitive outcome. It makes for more satisfying reading. And that is what most readers want ( unless you're a book critic for the New York Times. In that case you have a disdain for fiction in general). They want a good story. Keep the technobabble at a tolerable level. Give us a page turner that keeps our interest.

Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovach's novels succeed fairly well in that respect. They read a lot like detective novels with a Sci Fi setting, and it works. The ideas and the new tech peak our interest but don't overwhelm the story.

This brings me to the new book by David Marusek: Counting Heads. He's an American author but this book has a lot in common with the aboved mentioned UK authors. The story is full of new ideas and new technologies. At once familiar but with some unique twists. I loved the whole "clone lines" concept with different lines of clones all having the same basic personality traits as their progenitors but each still being individuals. They all had their own names, got married and had personal lives not unlike people today. Except they were all clones. The book was full of nano technology and AI's, in this instance called Mentars, who seemed to be pulling most of the strings in the background. But I felt the plot was somewhat weak. The conclusion was unsatisfying. Too many loose ends. Too many unanswered questions. Maybe this is just the beginning of a long series of books and this is just to set the background. The ending certainly left a lot issues to explore and expand on. I also thought that the character development was lacking. With the exception of the main protagonist, Sam Kodiak, and Fred Lodenstain the Russ clone, we never really got to know anyone very well or understand what their motivations were. And Sam was not the most likable or sympathic character. What happened to him sucked but they way he responded to it and his subsequent actions made him seem more like a loser than a hero. This also raises the question: Just who is the protagonist in this story. It starts with Sam telling the story and occupying much of the book, but after he gets "seared" it seems to shift to Fred who is the major focus of the latter part of the book. This shift between main characters disrupts the narrative flow. And what about Ellen. Much of the book is spent trying to save her life and in the end what does she do. She's only worried about who she's going to cast in the latest holosim and doesn't seem at all intersted in who killed her mother and tried to kill her or what the reasons for this may be. This makes no sense.

Despite all of my perceived faults with the book (and what do I know. I'm not a writer or literary critic). I still enjoyed the book. There was enough innovation and the story was interesting enough to make me want more. For a debut novel it was very strong and I'm sure Marusek , if he continues this story and I think that he should, will expand , develop and refine these ideas and characters, and has the chance to create one of the great SF universes.

What was the point of all of this? Oh yeah. Is British SF better than all the rest? Maybe, maybe not. But it's mostly what I've been reading for the last few years. If anyone can recommend some new, exciting American SF authors I'd gladly give them a try. If David Marusek is any indication, there's a lot of promising talent out there. I just don't know who they are.

With one exception. I love Dan Simmons. He's been around for quite a while but his books keep getting better and better. Not only can he write SF, horror, hardboiled crime novels and main stream novels. The guy can just plain write. His Endymion and Hyperion books, as well as Ilium and Olympos are excellent Sci Fi. I especially love his horror books too. We need more writers with his versatility, whether from the US or the UK.

are you a reasonable member of the electorate?

2006-06-27T09:37:00.000-04:00

Here is an interesting test I stumbled across. It's designed to determine whether you are thoughtful and reasonable when it comes to your political leanings or are you a radical ideologue who always tows the party line no matter what.

I've always considered myself somewhat of an independent with conservative leanings on some issues, so I took both the Republican and the Democrat tests. I scored a 3 on the Republican test and a 1 on the Democrat test. I guess that makes me a moderate.

I'm sure Noam Chomsky would score a 10 on the Democrat quiz and Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter would score 10's on the Republican test. These crazies wouldn't let a little thing like facts get in the way of their beliefs.

What about Bill O'Reilly? I'm gessing a 4 or a 5. I don't think he's quite the idealogue people make him out to be.

what have i been doing

2006-06-23T10:27:00.000-04:00

What have I been doing? Not blogging for one thing. Too many things to do. Or, too little motivation to blog. I don't know. I do this in spurts. I haven't been feeling my muse lately I guess.

I have been :

riding my bike... a lot

doing yardwork... a lot

drinking red wine... a lot

reading... a lot

I recently finished Anne Rice's book The Witching Hour. I'd read the first four books in her Vampire Chronicles series but I had at least two people tell me they liked her Mayfair Witches books better so I thought I'd give it a try. I can say one thing for this book: It is long! Almost 1,000 pages. And the pages are large with a fairly small font so it's a whole lotta words. It was somewhat of a struggle to get through this book. Typically I read one to two books a week. This book took me a month. The story was pretty good but there seemed to be a lot of filler that could have been cut out without affecting the story. The long descriptions of the lives of every Mayfair witch from every generation got tedious after a while. It reminded me somewhat of Moby Dick. That's another book I struggled with. Page after page of long tedious decriptions of the intricacies of the whaling industry. Large chunks of the book read like a technical manual for whalers. You could have eliminated abut 3/4 of that book and been left with a pretty decent adventure story.

Perhaps the biggest disappointement of The Witching Hour was the ending. You realize when the book's done that the story is just getting started. It's like the whole 1000 pages was just the set up, the prologue, and the real story is about to begin. The story continues in the books Lasher and Taltos but after spending a month with the Mayfairs I needed a break from them so I'm on to other things.

The next thing I read was Everfree by Nick Sagan (son af the famous astronomer Carl Sagan). I read it in one day. It's the final book (supposedly) of his trilogy that began with Idlewild and Edenborn. I enjoyed all three books. Some intersting ideas. Everfree wasn't as good as the other two. The plot interested me less and there were many themes that started but were left undeveloped. A little more character development would've helped. This was the opposite extreme of The Witching Hour. I wanted more descriptions, more explanations. It seemed more like a novella or long short story than a novel. I guess if you look at the entire trilogy as just one book it makes for a pretty decent novel. It seems kind of light weight however if you compare it to recent novels by Charles Stross, Neal Asher or the debut novel from David Marusek, Counting Heads, which I'm currently reading. While Everfree is supposed to conclude the trilogy, Sagan has left the door open for future books in this series. The suggestion that an alien race may be responsible for Black Ep and all of the post humans problems opens up whole new possibilities and story lines.

In other news:

I am very excited because I just received in the mail, Roast Beef's new zine: Man Why You Even Got To Do A Thing. It was excellent. Very funny, very cool. Some brilliant writing. The story about Jesus and Mary Magdeline getting into a typical married couple fight is hilarious. There's also an interview where they discuss the amount of fiber that can be obtained from beans that are commercially available as compared to beans that are only privately available (What are these? Secret black market beans?) Made me laugh out loud. On his blog he just announced issue #2 of the zine is in the works. The "sex" issue. I can't wait. If you want to order a copy of his zine it can be found here.

What else? Oh yeah. Last night I taught the boys how to play poker. Number 1 son has been bugging me about it because he keeps seeing Texas Holdem tournaments on ESPN and he wants to play. He's all about the money. The wife was out with the girls last night so it seemed like a good time to play. I got a nice set of poker chips and a table for Christmas so I broke those out for the first time. I got an automatic card shuffler too but I didn't use it. I mean, what good is an automatic card shuffler? By the time I load the machine with the cards and push the button and then take the cards out I could have shuffled them 3 or 4 times myself, manually. This whole idea of an automatic card shuffler does not make sense to me. Unless, I guess, you are missing a hand or a whole arm. Then it might come in handy (sorry). Or, if you lack the manual dexterity in your fingers to shuffle cards and not have them fly out in a card explosion onto the floor. I have seen this happen and it is not pretty.

First I had to teach them the basics. You know, four of a kind beats a flush, that sort of thing. Then I told them about betting and tried to decribe some basic betting strategies. I told them about bluffing. Number 1 son like this idea alot. A way to trick people out of money even if you have lousy cards. Then we started with the basic games. They loved five card draw. We played that for an hour. When number one son made a fifty dollar bet I figured he was bluffing so I called and sure enough, he was. The very next hand, Number 2 son made a 100 dollar bet. We felt he was bluffing for sure so we both called. He had a flush. Kicked our butts and won the biggest pot of the night. Did I mention he's 6 years old? We played 7 card stud for a while and then Texas Holdem. The boys had a great time and mastered the basics fairly well. Except for one thing. Number 2 son couldn't quite grasp the concept of folding. He stayed in every hand whether he had anything or not. When I'd ask him why he didn't fold a hand he'd say "I forgot".

I'm planning more poker nights in the future. My goal is to get the boys proficient enough to be able to take the other kids in the neighborhood. I think that'd be a great way for them to increase their Yu-Gi-Oh and basketball card collections at no cost to me.

Next weekend is the big family reunion. My dad is turning 70 and he wanted his family around him so my brother and my sisters and their families are all coming home and we're going to spend 5 days together. We're going to Brown county and we're renting a boat to party on Lake Monroe. We're also celebrating my boy's birthdays. They'll be 7 and 9 years old in July. Number 2 son was born on the 4th of July. Should be fun. I always enjoy the chance to get drunk and obnoxious in front of my parents (who never approved of drinking and rarely imbibe). I also get to stress out my sister-in-law. She's a high maintenance, nervous type and it's easy and fun to push her buttons and watch her stress.

roast beef is the man

2006-06-06T17:00:00.000-04:00

Dang, I've just discovered my new favorite blog and it is grep by roast beef.

Roast beef is the man. He is fucking hilarious. I spent an hour reading almost all of his previous posts. Genius. One of my favorites is: man this time I got dragged to the yarn store. As a doctor I can appreciate hobbledy leg, humpity-knee and sass foot.

He says he's got a new zine coming out called Man Why You Even Got To Do A Thing.
I hope it's for real. I've got to get a copy. Roast Beef, if you're reading this let me tell you one thing. I must have a copy of this zine. Please send me one or tell me how to get one. Dang!

Revenge Is Sweet

2006-06-02T10:27:00.000-04:00

This is one of the best things I've seen on line in a while.

A guy buys a used laptop computer on E-Bay. When it arrives, it doesn't work and the seller won't refund his money. So the guy takes the hard drive out and puts it in another computer and low and behold, the idiot seller hadn't wiped it clean. It was full of personal information like bank statements and a copy of his passport. It also contained loads of embarassing photos such as pictures of womens legs that the seller took with his cell phone camera, picutes of the seller himself, and pornography including some gay porn.

What did the buyer do with all these goodies. Why, he created a web site on blogger and posted the pictures and info. It's called "The Broken Laptop I Sold On E-Bay". The site is hilarious. Since then another site has sprung up to continue the ridicule of the seller, Amir Massoud Tofangsazan. This site's even funnier and contains links and articles chronicling the whole story. Apparently the police are now investigating because a woman claims she bought an ipod from Tofangsazan on E-Bay, payed for it but never received it.

Davinci Code Review

2006-05-31T14:39:00.000-04:00

Well, the wife and I went to see The Davinci Code opening weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed it as did she. It's one of the few movies I've seen where they actually followed the book fairly closely. Sure they had to cut a few things out for times sake but I think the movie does justice to the book.

I can't really understand why the critics panned this movie. Lets look at this.

They said Tom Hanks was stiff and gave a lackluster performance. I'd have to disagree. I thought he did a good job portraying Robert Langdon. The character is a professor, not an action hero. What were the critics expecting? Harrison Ford? Robert Langdon isn't supposed to be an action hero and this movie isn't supposed to be Indiana Jones.

The movie was too slow and too "talky"? I guess with movies like Indiana Jones, the Tomb Raider movies, The Mummy, Romancing the Stone etc.. The critics expect all archeological type movies to be action thrillers. The Davinci Code is more of a thought provoking, intellectual mystery. It shouldn't be non-stop action like MI3. And besides, there were several good action scenes in the movie.

There was no "spark" between Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou. Well, there wasn't supposed to be. They aren't lovers. They didn't develop a romance in the book. It's more like a teacher-student relationship or a father-daughter one. Their relationship in the movie is exactly how it's supposed to be.

One thing the critics did like was Ian McKellan and I'd have to agree. He was perfect in the role of Teabing. He's been on a roll latley with this movie, The Lord of The Rings, The X-men and the latest Harry Potter.

I have a theory. I think most critics who panned the movie didn't read the book. Aside from the controversies played out in the media, they didn't really know what the book was like or what it was about. They were probably expecting a different kind of movie (i.e. Indiana Jones) and were thus disappointed. Aditionally, with all of the hype this book and the movie has generated over the last few years (best selling book in history other than the bible), they expected the greatest movie ever made. And it wasn't, but it was still very good. There are also probably critics who read the book and didn't like it, so were prepared to not like the movie as well.

S has her own theory. She thinks the Catholic church pressured these critics into panning the movie to try and discourage people from seeing it. Could this be another Catholic Church conspiracy? I don't think so. Some of the critics may be devout Christians in disguise who would have panned the movie whether the Church told them to or not but I can't imagine most critics succumbing to pressure from the Church. The Church doesn't have that kind of power anymore. But they used to. According to my father, when he was a boy the local bishop in the town where he grew up would release a list each week of approved movies and a list of which movies Catholics were not allowed to see. And his Catholic friends followed those orders. They wouldn't dream of seeing a movie on the unapproved list. Some of that power lingers today in the older generation. My dad said some of his Catholic friends won't go see the movie because The Church says it's blasphemous. I don't think the younger generation cares too much. It's hard to take the Catholic Church seriously these days. When I think of the Catholic Church I get a mental image of Father Guido Sarducci selling Pope-soap-on-a-rope.

The bottom line: If you liked the book then you'll like the movie. And seeing as how millions have read and enjoyed the book, the movie's going to do big business despite what the critics say. If you haven't read the book and you're not a devout Catholic you'll probably like the movie too. Even Christians with an open mind could find the movie intersting and enjoyable. After all, it's just an intersting story. A work of fiction... Just like the Bible.

The Davinci Code

2006-05-18T13:41:00.000-04:00

Well, The Davinci Code the movie premiers tonight and I'm planning on seeing it this weekend. The wife and I have been looking forward to it. We both read the book when it first came out and thought it was great.

I don't have much use for religion (or organized religion anyway). In fact, some people have accused me of being a devout athiest. But I do find religion fascinating and I think it's very useful for creating a setting or backdrop for mystery or horror novels and movies. Some of my favorite books and movies have religious themes or overtones. God vs. Satan, good vs. evil always makes for a good story. Classic horror films like The Exorcist and The Omen are about this. Adventure movies like Indiana Jones use religion as a plot device. More modern Sci Fi movies like The Matrix trilogy explores this, with obvious comparisons between Neo and Jesus

With the exception of The Passion of the Christ, I can't think of another recent "religious" movie or book that has created quite the controvery as The Davinci Code. The Catholic church is up in arms saying it's blasphemous. I find the whole" controversy" rather amusing. People are taking the book way too seriously and too literally. It's a novel of fiction for Christ's sake (sorry). I don't think Dan Brown actually believes that Mary Magdeline was the wife of Jesus and had his children. He and his wife, through research, uncovered various alternative theories about Christ and used then to create a mystery thriller. He embellished. He exagerated. He made things up. That's what fiction is. I loved the book but I don't for one minute believe the claims made in it. This stuff is made up (as is religion in general INMHO).

( if you will permit, a short digression)

Even if he didn't make this stuff up, are his claims any less valid than those made in the bible or by todays religious establishment? There's a serious lack of proof that any of this stuff is true. The Gospels could easily be works of fiction written by the Dan Browns of their time. It's just as likely that the gospel according to Biff as detailed in Christopher Moore's witty and most excellent book Lamb is the one true story of Jesus life.

Then there's the whole "my religion is right and yours is wrong" thing. According to a friend of mine, who is intelligent and otherwise rational about most things, I'm going to burn in hell because I don't accept Jesus Christ as my savior. If that's true, that means the vast majority of people alive on the planet today are going to hell. What about the millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Taoists Wiccans, Pagans who don't believe Jesus is the son of god. Are their souls damned? What if they're good people who spend their lives helping others and try to always do the right thing. They're going to burn because they're not Christians? That's ridiculous. Who's to say that Christianity is correct and Hindu's are wrong? Or vice versa. Many Muslims belive that everyone who isn't a Muslim is an infidel and deserves to die. If there really is a god, is that what He/She/It would want? I find it truly ironic that the most deeply religious people tend to be some of the most intolerant people. I thought that some of the major tenets of most religions are to be kind to people, treat them as you would be treated, respect others and their beliefs, turn the other cheek etc.. Not to mention the fact that the majority of the major wars throughout history have been fought over religious differences. And it's still going on today. Look at the Middle East! Talk about intolerance.

(end of digression)

An entire industry has sprung up around The Davinci Code. There have been more books written about the Davinci Code than Dan Brown has himself written. Books that purport to tell you "the real story" behind the code. Books that support it. Books that try to tear it apart. Books just trying to cash in on Dan Brown's success. There are guided tours of the sites visited in the book. There's The Davinci Code game for xbox and ps2. You can buy the Davinci Code Cryptex on e-bay. The list goes on and on.

Many in the catholic church are calling for a boycott of the movie but that will only increase the interest in it. It's sure to be a blockbuster unless...unless...

...unless the movie sucks! And unfortunately it looks like it might. I've read 3 reviews of the movie so far and none of them were good. 2 out of 4 stars was the best rating I saw. It's been described as slow, boring, talky and overly long. Lacking suspense or tension. Apparently, the more controversial aspects of the book are downplayed in the movie. Was this an attempt to appease the catholic church and give the movie wider appeal? They could have pushed the envelope with this one and instead it looks like they may have chickened out. Oh Opie, I'm so dissappointed in you.

I'm still planning on seeing the movie. I'll let you know what I think of it in another post. In the mean time, lets all hope that Tom Hanks has gotten a haircut.

boys will be boys

2006-05-11T14:46:00.000-04:00

The other day my wife walked into the kitchen and saw our number 2 son, N (who is 6 years old and in kindergarten) sitting on the couch with his best friend J who is also 6 years old. They were looking at a magazine together.

S approached to see what they were looking at. It was the Victoria's Secret catalogue.

As she got nearer she saw N point to a picture and say:

"Hey J, look at that hot chick!'

the vacation (that wasn't)

2006-05-09T14:59:00.000-04:00

I know it's been about two weeks since I've posted, but I've been busy.

Last week my wife went on one of her annual "girl trips". This is where she and 4 or 5 of her friends take a trip without the guys. This year they went to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I stayed home and took care of the boys. Doesn't seem quite right does it. I take a week off work so my wife can go on vacation. While she's gone I have to do all the work at home that she'd normally do and then some. And then when she gets home, I get to go back to work. What a deal.

I think they had a great time. I didn't get all of the details and I'm not sure I want to know them anyway. What I do know is this: the sun was shining every day, she spent a lot of time at Cabo Wabo, only bathed twice the whole week and says she can't look at tequila or margaritas again for a long time.

My "vacation" went something like this.

On Saturday morning I had a load of 20 yards of mulch dumped on my driveway to be spread in the flower beds and around the trees in our yard. For those of you who don't know how much that is, it looks something like this:

(not at all an exageration*)

*well, maybe

My plan was to spread the mulch on Saturday and Sunday but as usual the weather got in the way. It rained off and on every day of my vacation except for the last day. Of course the boys wanted to help me do it. And they wanted to get paid for it. Their idea of "help" is to fill their little red wheelbarrow with mulch, get about half way to the flower bed, and acidentally dump the mulch in the grass. I quickly decided that rake detail might work a little better so I gave them both rakes and said "I'll dump the mulch, you guys spread it out". That worked pretty well. They actually helped me for about 2 hours on Saturday which is about 1 hour and 50 minutes longer than they helped me last year. It took me till Monday afternoon to get the mulch spread and I did about half of it in a cold drizzle.

Instead of paying them the 5 dollars I'd promised, I took them to the comic book convention on Sunday morning which ended up costing me a lot more. This is a local convention they have every other month in an old, rundown Holiday Inn on the east side of town. Have you ever been to a comic book convention? Let me tell you about this one. First, my boys were about the only kids there. The clientelle was mostly men age 30-55, most of whom are probably single and still live with their mothers. There was a seperate room where these guys sat in folding chairs and watched Japinese anime on a 17 inch TV. Most of the videos featured scantily clad young girls with big eyes and big breasts who fought demons and villians while managing to act vulnerable and helpless at the same time. Those are fantasy women for these guys. It's the closest many of them will ever get to a real live girl. There seemed to be a brisk trade in bootlegged Japinese anime porno which sold about as well as the comic books. There were also a lot of action figures and comic related toys for sale. I heard one guy say he really wanted some Darth Vader figurine from 1982 but it had to be "mint in box". Does it make him any less of a loser if he doesn't actually play with the figurines? After about 45 minutes the boys had picked out their comics and the inevitable Yu-Gi-Oh cards and they were ready to go. Back out into the rain.

In addition to the mulch I had many other projects planned for the week.

Last fall I built a fire pit in the back yard. S said "I either want a swimming pool or a firepit". That was an easy one for me. "I'd be happy to build you a fire pit honey". So I got about one ton of stone, several bags of mortor and built one. It turned out pretty nice and only took about 9 hours to build. Now S wants a patio around the pit so she can put some furniture around it so we won't have to drag the folding chairs out and sit them in the grass. No problem, I've worked with stone before.

I went to the local stone center to pick out the flagstones I was going to use. I'd also decided to go ahead and get stones to build a walkway from our driveway to our deck that I'd been planning to do for a couple of years but had never gotten around to. I calculated the square footage of stone I'd need to cover the areas, picked out my stone, then asked my friend Pat from the stone center how much stone I'd need. "About two and a half tons" he replied. "Ya gonna take that with you?" I just looked at him. The prospect of laying that much stone was daunting and I didn't think I could fit it in the trunk of my car. "No Pat, I think I'll have it delivered". "That'll be eleven hundred dollars. We can get that out to you on Wednesday". Great.

Tuesday it rained all day.

Wednesday it rained all day.

Thurday morning I start on the stone. First I have to dig up the grass (possibly the worst part of the whole project), then I have to put down a layer of sand, level the sand, lay the stones and put more sand on top to fill in the spaces. Sounds simple right? It's not. First, the stones aren't uniform thickness so to get a relatively flat surface you need different levels of sand under each stone. The stones aren't flat on the bottom either. You have to lay a few stones together then pick them back up to adjust the level of sand underneath. Pick it up, put it down. Pick it back up. Scrape off a little more sand. Put it back down. You also have to put the stones together like a jigsaw puzzle. None of the shapes are ever quite right. I would use a rock hammer to try and shape the stones but inevitably they'd break in the wrong place. I started the patio at 9 AM. By 5 PM by back ached, my legs were sore, my fingers were raw and I was convinced the mole that's been digging tunnels in our back yard was standing there laughing at me, but the patio was done.

Friday morning. The sun is out for the first time that week. I start to work on the walkway and quickly realize that my friend Pat has greatly overestimated the amout of stone (non-returnable) that I'd need for the project. I finished the walkway in about three hours and still had about 3/4 of a ton of rock left. What to do with it? Why not build another walkway? This one would extend from the other side of the deck through a small garden area around the side of the house. By this time however I was sick of laying stone. And most of the pieces I had left were smaller and didn't go together very well. I basically threw the stone out in a semi-random fashion, poured sand over it and flattened it out as best I could. This is the least stable of the structures I built and I hope no one actually walks on it cause they'll probably trip, break a leg a sue me. It's nice to look at though.

Amazingly, despite the rain and the countless hours spent working in the yard I still managed to run the household in S's abscence. I got the kids up, got them breakfast and off to school everyday. Helped them with their homework, read to them at night, brushed their teeth, cooked, did the dishes, did the laundry and cleaned. Took the boys to a movie, The Wild, (I don't know about you but I think these computer animated movies from Disney and other studios have been awfully boring and unoriginal of late. Even my boys are starting to think they suck), took them out to dinner, took number 2 son to tennis lessons (number 1 son can't play right now because of his fractured tibia) and went swimming in the neighbors pool (in the rain) twice. We also managed to watch all nine hours of The Lord Of The Rings on DVD. The boys loved those movies. All-in-all, a pretty productive week. What I need now is a vacation.

The week was almost over and I was physically wiped out so I bagged the other projects and decided to spend my last 2 days off drinking. Pale Ale and red wine in varying quantities over the next 2 days soothed my aching muscles.

In the end it was all worth it. S came home and saw what I'd done and was thrilled. It looked better than she had imagined. I scored some big points with this one. Haven't figured out how to cash them in though. Any ideas?

Humility On a Bicycle

2006-04-25T10:34:00.000-04:00

About 2 years ago the wife and I decided to take up cycling. We thought it would be a fun way to spend some time to gether and a way to get some exercise. We previously had some old, cheap mountain bikes that we occasionally rode but not regularly. We never actually took them on a mountain and they weren't very well suited for riding round the neighborhood. Mine was too small and I looked like an adult trying to ride a kids bike. So, we headed to the local bike shop to check out the bikes.

This shop was huge with an overwhelming variety of types of bicycles and manufacturers. Not knowing exactly what we wanted we enlisted the help of one of the staff who was very knowledgeable.(Just about everyone who works in this store is a bike nerd.) With his help we elected to get hybrid bikes which are kind of a cross between a road bike and a mountain bike. S went for the comfort model and I went for a performance model which was very close to a road bike. We took our new bikes home and went for a ride.

It was fun. At first. We'd ride around the neighborhoods. We did a night ride around downtown Indy with about 5 thousand other people. We took our bikes to Chicago and road along the lake. We only had one problem. I wanted to ride fast and S wanted to ride slower. It became painful for me to have to pedal slowly or ride ahead and then wait for her to catch up. Apparently this is a common problem with couples who ride. Their riding abilities are different (the man usually being stronger and faster of course). How do you solve this problem? Why, get a tandem bike! We rented one and tried it out and it was fun. I could pedal as hard or as fast as I wanted and S didn't have to worry about falling behind. Sometimes I wasn't sure if she was actually pedalling but just enjoying the ride. It does take a little coordination and getting used to. You have to develop signals and the Captain (the one in front) has to warn the Stoker (the one in back) of upcoming hazards and such.

The other solution to the problem is to just not ride together. We do that more often than not. I would go out on long, hard training rides in the country a few times a week. The more I did it the more I got into it and it gradually became an obsession. I was riding all the time, by myself. I wanted to find some others at my ability level to ride with. A few of my neighbors rode and some of the guys I work with rode so I thought I might ride with them. The problem was, I couldn't keep up with them and the main reason was my bicycle. You see, there's a big difference between a hybrid bike and a high end road bike and I just couldn't hang with the roadies on my hybrid. I needed a new bike!

One of the things about cycling is this: You can never go fast enough. No matter how strong you are or how great your bike is, there's always someone out there who is stronger and faster. And you want to catch them. That takes training and that takes a fast bike.

Back to the bike shop. This time, however, I did a lot of research first so I new all about road bikes and new exactly what I wanted before I went in. I told the clerk which bike I wanted and he said " We don't have that bike in stock and we can't get anymore in. The manufacturer is sold out and won't make anymore until next years models come out". "When will that be" I asked. "About 3 months" he replied.

3 months? I couldn't believe it. There was no way I could wait 3 months for a road bike. I needed it now. I was not going to leave that shop without a new bike. So, I spent the next hour test riding about every road bike they had in the shop. I finally settled on one which was way more money than I'd planned to spend but felt like the perfect fit for me.

This is my bike:

Isn't it beautiful?

It's one of my favorite things. I
can ride pretty fast on this bike. I look good on this bike. I'm such a geek.

One of the other things about cycling is this: It can get very expensive. Not only do the bikes cost a lot of money but then you have to get all the gear. The helmet, the gloves, the bike shoes and socks. The padded spandex shorts, a myriad of bike jerseys for both hot and cold weather. Tools, pumps, glasses, heart rate monitor, bike computers, bike racks for the car. And none of this gear is cheap. As the obsession builds you find yourself making up excuses to visit the bike store. I need to get a spare tube in case I get a flat on the road. You go to the store for a 5 dollar innertube and walk out with a 75 dollar jersey, 3 new pairs of socks and a new multitool that fits perfectly in your saddle bag. And there's always components for your bike that may make it go a little bit faster. New gears. A new crank. Lighter pedals. Carbon fiber everything. It never ends.

So now I've got my new bike, I've been training hard and I'm ready to ride with the big boys. I ride with my neighbors. I ride with my partners. And I can keep up. I can hang (barely, at times). I'm even stronger than one of my partners whose been riding for years and has always made out like he was this great rider. But as strong as I've gotten there's lots of riders out there who are a lot stronger than I. I learned that lesson again this last weekend.

Saturday I went out for a 50 mile CIBA ride. There were about 200 riders. As is typical for these rides, the group starts in a pack but then quickly stretches out. There's always a group of about 25-30 riders who take off fast at the front. At the end of last summer I was in pretty good shape and could hang with this group for about 30 miles before I got dropped from the pack. On this occasion I lasted about 8 miles before I had to slow. It didn't get much better. At one point I was riding along and this girl (I say girl but she was probably about 35) pedalled right by me like she was hardly working. Just out for a leisurely ride. She was about 5'2" and couldn't have weighed more than about 100lbs. I told myself that's why she could pass me. She's got an advantage because she's so much lighter!

At about mile 17 I was riding by myself into a strong headwind only doing about 15mph when a group of 3 guys goes riding by. I quickly jump in behind them to get a break from the wind. Drafting really makes a big difference when cycling. I was able to catch my breath and get a second wind. I thought I'd try and ride with these guys as long as I could. It was a struggle. They pushed me to my limits. Two of them were clearly stronger than I and pushed the pace relentlessly. We would take turns pulling (leading),then rotate to the back. This lasted for about 12 miles till we made a turn and were no longer riding into the wind. At this point we all slowed down to get a drink and recover somewhat. It was then that I got a good look at the guys I was riding with. Two of them were older gentlemen and after talking to them a while I learned that they were each 62 years old. The third guy looked like he was about 10 years younger than me. I was chagrined. Here I was struggling to keep up with two guys who were 20 years my senior! It turns out they'd been riding bikes for longer than I'd been alive, but that was no consolation to me. One guy said he rode 7000 miles last year! I think I did about 2000.

Claerly this had turned into a macho thing for me. This was a test of my manhood. No way was I going to let 2 old guys ride away from me. I was determined to hang with them till the end of the ride and you know what? I did it. We rode hard, averaged about 21mph for the last 20 miles and I felt great afterwards. And both men said they enjoyed riding with me. That was a real compliment coming from such experienced and accomplished riders.

And another consolation: We dropped the 30 year old at mile 40. He just couldn't hang with us old guys.

More random bits

2006-04-24T13:51:00.000-04:00

The dangers of the internet. Beware!

Punch your way through a wall full of ice.

thanks to b3ta

If you hate Brussel Sprouts as much as I do you might enjoy this game.

One of the grosser things I've seen. The infamous piss diver video.

Painful

You can be George W. and defend the Whitehouse from terrorists

Nanotechnology

2006-04-18T10:38:00.000-04:00

I'm a big science fiction fan. Many of the current SF authors use nanotechnology extensively in their stories. Just about anything imagined can be accomplished with nanotech. Just read any books by Neal Asher or Charles Stross and you'll see what I mean.

What's amazing is, these ideas aren't so far fetched. Scientists are getting closer and closer to developing real machines that operate on a nano level.

Here's an article in The New Scientist on one such machine. It's a nanopore used to sequence DNA strands in microseconds.

You can watch a video of a computer simulation of the machine in action. They haven't actually built the machine yet but say that they have proved the machine will work and they do have the technology to build it. Amazing.

Are you a George W. Bush fan?

2006-04-18T09:18:00.000-04:00

For all of you who have been Bush supporters in the past but now find yourself questioning your decision to vote for him;

Take the George Bush loyalty quiz!

my score was a 7

facing the idea of my own mortality

2006-04-17T13:51:00.000-04:00

I've never thought of my parents as old. They've always looked very young for their ages. They've always been heathly. Heck, the men on my fathers side of the family typically live well into their nineties. I guess I just never thought about the fact that someday they won't be around. That day seems like something that should still be a long way off, in a distant and hazy future which I cannot yet perceive. My grandfather lived long enough to see my oldest son born. I've always expected my parents to do the same. We need to add another "four generations" picture to the scrapbook.

But now I'm not so sure.

Over the last few years they've had an increasing number of medical problems, some of them quite serious. Two years ago my mom developed breast cancer. She's also battled chronic headaches, back problems, bad psoriasis and a variety of other illnesses. My father was very healthy until last year when he herniated a disc in his back which really layed him out for several months. Early this year he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had surgery for that. Now, just yesterday he had a heart rythm abnormality which caused him to pass out and hit his head. He suffered a subdural hematoma, subarachnoid hemorrhage and a small parenchymal contusion to the brain. It seems like my parents are falling apart. And they're not that old. My dad will turn 70 this year and my mom is 67.

I've come to realize that despite their prior good health and our family history of longevity, either of them could be gone at any time. And this applies to me and my family as well.

In my profession I see fairly young people get serious illnesses and die every day. Or be killed in accidents. I never thought about it much. I'd become used to it. Desensitized I suppose. But I'm starting to dwell on it more. One day I saw three consecutive patients with metastatic colon cancer and they were all my age! I could develop colon cancer tomorrow. My kids could get hit by a car while riding their bikes. Or worse, be abducted by some psychopathic pervert. These things happen. You can't really prepare for them. The threat is always there.

Thinking about these things has caused me to start to reevaluate my life. Find out what it truly important to me. And I've come to the realization that I need to make some changes.

First, I need to reconnect with my parents. We haven't been particularly close the last several years. In part it's because they travel a lot and live in different parts of the country depending on the season so they aren't around that much. But partly it's my fault. I don't make the effort. I've always felt like I don't have that much in common with my parents. We don't have the same values. They have prejudices that I can't understand and cannot abide. They are extremely judgemental. We don't like to do the same sorts of things. In reality, we're probably not as different as I like to make out. And even if we are, should I let those differences keep me from having a relationship with my folks?

I think of how my mom felt after her mother died. Sure there was sadness but there was also guilt and deep regret. They didn't have a close relationship. When she was younger she didn't treat her mother well. And now that she's dead she wishes she could go back and do it all over again. Be nicer to her, spend more time with her. That's a mistake I don't want to make. I also think of my kids. Right now they love us and want to spend all their time with us. How would I feel if one day my kids didn't like me and didn't want to hang out with me anymore. I'd be extremely hurt.

Secondly, I need to focus more on my family. I need to play with the boys more.I need to have more patience with them. They're only going to be young once and I should have as much fun with them as is possible. I need to spend more time with my wife. Our relationship has taken a backseat since we had kids. Now that the boys are a little older and somewhat self sufficient S and I need to make more time to be alone together. Take a trip without the kids. Become close again.

Thirdly, I have to do something about my job. As I've mentioned in previous posts I pretty much hate my job. It's too stressful. The hours keep getting longer and longer. I get no enjoyment or personal satisfaction from it. The problem is, it's lucrative so I feel like I can't quit. I'm trapped. But why am I killing myself? For money? We've all read about those people who work hard all their lives, saving every penny, putting off vacations so they can save money for retirement and then what happens. They retire and 6 months later they're dead from a heart attack. Never got to enjoy that retirement or the fruits of their labor. All of that work for what? I've decided I need to enjoy life now. It doesn't make sense to put off things you want to do when you may not be around later to do them. And why spend your life doing a job you hate. If I quit this job I'd be alot let stressed and a lot happier. I'd probably be a nicer person too albeit a bit poorer.

I'm not afraid of death. At least, not my own death. But I'm not ready to go yet. I'd like to live a long time. I'm not sure if there's any sort of afterlife or not but I rather think there's not. Once you're dead you're dead. No second life. No second chance. That's why you have to live for the now.

I do worry about other people deaths however. The death of my parents would be upsetting. The loss of my wife would break my heart. The loss of my boys would be devastating. I can't imagine anything worse than losing ones child. It would be tough to keep going after something like that. I also think about what effect my death would have on others, particularly my kids. I have 2 wonderful, intelligent and sensitive little boys who would be profoundly affected by the death of my wife or myself. Could they recover from that? It would change them forever and not for the better. I don't want them to ever have to deal with that.

Well, enough of these melancholy ramblings. It doesn't pay to excessively dwell upon death. It's going to happen eventually and that is that. I've accepted this fact. I've got other things to do now. I have a life to live.

you're all right. stop being such a wimp

2006-04-13T14:44:00.000-04:00

Well it's happened again. You'd think we would have learned our lesson.

About three weeks ago #1 son started complaining of lower leg pain. We asked him if he hurt himself and he said no, his leg just started hurting. He said "I think I need some Motrin". (In our house Motrin is the cure for just about everything. Oh you have a brain tumor? Just take some Motrin. That flesh eating bacteria is chewing up your arm? Motrin should take care of that.) So we gave him some Motrin and he was fine.

2 days later the pain was back. He didn't have it all the time, just intermittently. Sometimes he'd go a couple of days without pain. Motrin usually took care of it. But over the next three weeks it got progressively worse and he said he was having trouble walking. When we got back from Spring Break we took him to get x-rays. They showed a possible stress fracture of his left tibia and a susequent MRI confirmed it.

This is what his stress fracture looks like on MRI.

The white area in the top picture is the fracture sight. The area is dark on the other 2 images.

So now he has 4 weeks of relative inactivity. No sports, no running, jumping or climbing. Just when the weather is getting nice. It figures.

This isn't the first time he's broken his leg and we thought he was faking. When he was 2 he jumped off a low platform at a playground. Later that day he said his leg hurt and refused to walk. We told him it was probably nothing and he'd be OK. After a week of him complaining we took him for x-rays and they were normal. Ah ha! See, your leg's not broken we told him. There's nothing wrong with you so stop whining. After another week of him saying his leg hurt we took him back in for more x-rays and this time they showed a fracture of his left tibia. The same bone he's broken this time! Sometimes hairline fractures in kids don't show up on x-rays for a couple of weeks. I know this. It's my job. But as is often the case, doctors usually ignore their own illnesses and those of their family members. They usually think it's nothing and you'll be better in a couple of days no matter what the problem is.

Now, #1 son is playing the guilt and sympathy cards big time. This is the second time he's had a broken leg and we didn't believe there was anything wrong with him. Are we great parents or what? We've become his personal servants. "Dad, could you get me a Dr. Pepper from the basement. I'd get it myself but my leg is broken". It's going to be a long 4 weeks.

The sad thing is, next time he complains about something hurting, or being sick, we probably won't believe him. "Just take some Motrin. You'll be fine".

Family vacations

2006-04-11T09:54:00.000-04:00

Just got back from a week of fun in the sun with the family, hence the lack of posts.(No, I don't own a laptop and even if I did I wouldn't take it on vacation. The whole idea is to get away; be incommunicado. I can live without the internet for a week). I'd have to say this was one of our best vacations ever. We did almost nothing all week. The weather was beautiful, the kids were happy and I didn't think about work one time. Days were spent at the beach, playing in the waves and building sand castles, or at the pool, floating on a raft with a glass of Foster's or Bass Ale in hand. We stayed up late watching movies, slept late every morning, ate lots of good food that we didn't have to cook and were generally lazy. Now that's my kind of vacation.

That is not my parents kind of vacation.

My folks don't understand the term "relaxing vacation". They don't get the concept of "doing nothing". They can't figure out why someone would want to sleep past 7 A.M.
"Get up at 10 A.M.? Why, you've wasted half the day!".

Want to know what my family vacations were like as a child? Think, the Griswolds in National Lampoon's Vacation. That comes pretty close.

Every summer my dad would take two weeks off and we'd pile in the van and take a driving trip to some part of the country. This was in the 1970's. We had a large conversion van with a fold down bed in the back. It was a lovely shade of brown with large orange and yellow stripes painted down the side. A true 70's masterpiece. It was dad, mom, me, my two sisters and my little brother. The six of us driving cross country. No DVD player. No video games. Just an 8 track tape player with a limited selection of choices. The rotation consisted of: The Statler Brothers, The Mills Brothers, The Manhatten Transfer, Abba's greatest hits and the soundtrack from Grease. Ask me to sing any song from any of those tapes. Go ahead, ask me. I can do it.

These were not relaxing trips. They were sight seeing trips. They were educational vacations. Up at the crack of dawn, into the car and we're off. How many interesting sites can we see in one day? A different motel every night. 6 people crammed into one small room. 2 double beds and 2 cots with suitcases everywhere. No room to move or stretch out. No privacy. Loading and unloading the car again and again. Hoping that the next motel would have a pool (which it seldom did and even if it had one was too disgusting to even think about going in). The kids teasing each other, fighting in the back seat, complaining "When are we gonna be there?". And dad with his "Settle down back there. Don't make me pull over. If I have to pull over you're in big trouble mister".

Another thing that added to the enjoyment was the fact that to varying degrees, everyone in my family suffers from motion sickness. Every morning my dad would break out the Dramamine tablets and break them into halves or quarters and we'd all take them. It seldom worked. We were constantly stopping at the side of the road for someone to vomit, or better yet, roll down the window while moving and hurl all over the side of the van because there just wasn't enough time to stop.

Now admittedly, some of the stuff we saw was pretty cool. The Grand Canyon was impressive. Mount Rushmore was nice. Caves were always popular. Amusement parks were always fun (except for the vomiting; motion sickness again). But some of it was extremely boring or just plain stunk. Williamsburg Virginia. Art museums. These don't hold much interest for a 10 year old. A 4 hour trip to see the second largest ball of twine in the world. It's a good thing he didn't know about this or we would have driven 3 hours out of our way just to see it.

How about some of these other attractions:
The Skinny Indian
Worlds Largest Muskie
Giant Hercules Beetle
Thermometer we saw this on our way to death valley
Carhenge looks pretty cool. I might actually go to see that.
South Of The Border is more typical of some of the cheesy places we visited.
I've been to Garnet Ghost Town. Guess what? There's nobody there. It's a ghost town.

Maybe Muffler man and Giant Girl should get together. Looks like a match made in heaven.

These summer exursions of ours were often long, slow, painful, exhausting torture sessions in an automobile. If the U.S. government wants to find Osama Bin Laden they just need to take one of his leutenants that's already been captured and send him on a car trip with my parents. He'll crack after the first day. I have vowed never to subject my kids to that kind of tourture. That is, as long as they behave. If they start disobeying me I might do it as punishment.

"Kids, if you're good we'll go to the beach this summer. but if you're bad we'll go here":

games and amusements

2006-03-31T10:12:00.000-05:00

Here are a few fun things to do on line.

Sketch Swap.

For the osessive-compulsive in all of us. Monk!

Test your intelligence with this tricky quiz.

Become a blues musician instantly.

Become a bacterium and grow, grow, grow.

Turbo Tanks

What do you do with a spare Giraffe? Milk it!

A challenging puzzle. I haven't gotten it right yet.

This may be my new favorite Chinese restaurant

A couple of optical illusions to amaze your brain:

Moving Wave

Oh my god. I've seen Jesus!

And yet another amusing video.

and finally, one filthy one.

F*** the S*** Not for children!

videos for your viewing pleasure

2006-03-29T13:51:00.000-05:00

The clown killer.

The Matrix Cow

"The Shining" in 30 seconds as reenacted by bunnies.

Counter strike Legos

Bad Parents

Lighting a candle

and finally

The Numa Numa Dance: A classic

On censorship

2006-03-24T12:31:00.000-05:00

A couple of recent cases have once again put the subject of book banning and censorship back into the news.

The first case comes from the great state of Texas where superintendent Ed Lyman pulled Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from the AP English program because of a complaint from one student's mother. As is so often the case in these situations, the mother, Cindy Pyo, complained about sexual content in the book as well as finding it offensive to Christians. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and the school board voted 5-2 to reinstate the book.

The second case comes from the not so great state of California. Parents of kids attending Malibu high school are objecting to the selection of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones for a campus wide reading program for 9-12th graders. Again, the parents are objecting to sexual content and in this case, violence. It's hard to believe this is happening in Malibu, California, a bastion of liberal "free thinking".

Both of these cases raise important questions about censorship and specifically, book banning in schools. Should a book be banned because a small minority of parents or students find the book offensive or think that it's inappropriate? My answer to this is no. What you have here is a small minority trying to impose their ethics and beliefs on the majority. They have no right to do that. Just because one mother finds a book offensive doesn't mean she should be able to prevent the other children from reading it if their parents approve of the book. And that, in my opinion is the crux of the matter. It should be up to each individual parent to decide what's appropriate for his or her child to read.

I can understand where these parents are coming from. Many of the books selected for school reading increasingly have graphic sexual content, violence and other mature themes. Some are definitely not appropriate for young children. If they don't want their child to read the book, fine. These programs always have an alternate book the kid can read. They don't force them to read the assigned book if the parents strongly object. But most of the time the "controversial" books that show up on the banned books lists are either classics or really outstanding current literature. That's why they were selected in the first place. And in these 2 cases the books were selected for either an AP English class or a highschool reading program. Were not talking little kids here. These are kids who should be able to handle this kind of material

I've read both The Handmaid's Tale and The Lovely Bones and they are both wonderful books. These are great pieces of literature, especially Atwood's book. She's a marvelous writer. When Cindy Pyo says "I'm appalled by this trash book. When garbage goes in, garbage comes out. This is trash and it will corrupt the American youth", it becomes obvious she knows nothing about literature. She wouldn't know a good book if it hit her on the head. Margaret Atwood is one of the world's best writers. She's widely considered to be Canada's premier novelist. True there is sexual content in the book and puritanical religious fanatics might be offended by the way the book attacks and satirizes fundamental religion, but this is one truly great and thought provoking novel.

Would I let my 8 year old read either of these book? No I wouldn't. But I might when he's 12 or 13. I think kids today are already exposed to more sex and violence at a younger age than we were as kids. I also think they understand what's going on better than most adults think they do. I think they are able to handle mature themes, tell the difference between reality and fiction, know what's right and what's wrong.

This leads to a second important question. At what age do you let your kids start reading books with mature themes or sexual content. We've been having this discussion recently on the SKEMERS newsletter. Specifically, this topic arose when some people asked if it was appropriate for a 10 year old to read Stephen King's It. Not only is the book scary (it's a Stephen King book after all) but there is a scene near the end of the book where there is a group sexual encounter among kids. Do you want your kids reading about that? The responses have been variable but most have fallen along the lines of "Yes. I'd let my kid read it". I don't think you can make a blanket statement about something like this. I believe it not only depends on the child's age but on the individual child as well. Some 12 year olds could read this book and not bat an eye. Some 15 year olds may read this book and be shocked or embarrassed. It depends on the individual child involved. It's up to the parents to decide if their child is ready for something like that. I have an 8 year old and a 6 year old. They're not ready for books like that. My 8 year old is pretty mature for his age and quite "streetwise". I might let him read It at age 11 or 12 if he wants to. My 6 year old on the other hand is completely different. I can't see him reading a book like that before age 15.

The point is, every child is different. It's the parents responsibility to make sure their child is reading appropriate material. It is not a parents responsibility to police other kids reading material. Books should not be banned. Period. If you don't want your kid reading a certain book then don't let them, but don't try to censor what others can read. You don't have that right.

* a footnote. Since I first posted this yet another case has come to my attention, this one in my own hometown. Parents in Lawrence township challenged the book "The Kite Runner" because of language and graphic violence. Fortunatley, the school board voted to keep the book.

Dragon Illusion Video

2006-03-22T14:10:00.000-05:00

This video is cool. I'ts amazing how the mind can play tricks on you.

What is the point?

2006-03-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

When I first created this blog a few months ago I did it primarily as an experiment. First, I wanted to see how easy or difficult it was. Turns out it's pretty easy. I guess that's one of the reasons there are so many blogs out there. Using the help files and various web sites I quickly learned how to edit html, change the look of my blog, and add things such as counters and blog polls. It was fun. A chance to be creative.

The other main reason for starting a blog was to have a place to write down my thoughts and opinions. I'm a fairly educated person who has always been interested in what's going on in the world around me and I've always had very definite opinions about most things. I thought this blog would be a place where I could organize my thoughts and ideas and present my arguments to the world at large. Isn't that why most people blog? To show the world how right they are about everything. Or how clever they are. Or witty. The internet is the ultimate stage upon which anyone can perform and show off their talents. Right?

Actually, I'm not sure that I really intended for anyone to ever read this blog. I haven't promoted it. I've told almost no one about it. I've always been rather reserved and introverted. Unless I get drunk. Then you can't shut me up. That's the time I let people know what I really think. (Me, at a party after way too much red wine "So, you're pregnant? I guess you're having a baby to try and save your marriage." Or this, also at a party where I've just lost some party game and felt like the others were cheating "Everybody here is an asshole but me!"). I'm not looking for recognition or public adoration. In fact, I've never cared (much) what people think of me. I don't need to have my thoughts or actions validated by others. This blog was mainly to be for me. An outlet. A release.

So why haven't I been blogging much? Oh sure, I've posted here and there. Told a few anecdotes, reviewed a book or two. But mostly it's just been posting links to things I've come across online. I guess I just don't have that much to say after all. It's not that I don't have opinions, beliefs or strong convictions about things. I just don't feel like writing about them. When I really sat down and tried to examine the reason for this change of heart, what I came up with was this: What's The Point?

Who really cares what I have to say about anything? I can express a viewpoint on this blog and there will be a number of people out there who agree with me and an equal number who won't. Such as: I believe that all the world's problems are either directly or indirectly due to religious fanatics and/or lawyers. (Which is one of the main tenets on which my philosophical foundation rests.) I'm probably not going to change many people's minds with what I have to say. The people who agree with me may continue to read the blog. The ones who disagree with me won't. I think that's the ultimate fate of most blogs. You just end up preaching to the choir.

What could I do to make this blog unique and interesting. Or at least interesting to me? I could go the entertainment route. Tell funny stories about my family and life like you'd find on Dooce or manky stories like the ones on Scaryduck. But I'm not as funny or clever as Heather B. or Scary and frankly I'm not sure I want to expose my family life on the internet for the world to see. I've got two little boys whom I think are hilarious but I'm pretty sure the only ones who'd find their stories funny are my relatives and I'm not sure I want them reading this blog. I doubt my wife would like me posting pictures of her on the web either.

I could review books. I'm a voracious reader, consuming everything from classics to science fiction to history to biographies. I've tried to do that a little on this blog, but I'm not very adept at literary criticism. I can tell a good book from a bad one, but have some difficulty in explaining this in an erudite or entertaining fashion. There are plenty of people on the web already who do a much better job than I ever could. Steph or Bookslut for instance.

What about a political blog. In the past I was very passionate about politics. I watched the news chanels, read the newspapers and stayed well informed on the current political issues. Now I'm just disgusted by politics. The political process in this country and the world at large is a mess. It's degenerated into partisan personal attacks and character assassination.There are no longer any meaningful discussions about the issues. Politicians seem to only be interested in getting re-elected and consolidating their parties' power, rather than doing anything constructive to help our country. The Middle East is in turmoil and probably always will be. European leaders are pathetic. Quick to criticize the US for anything and everything but unwilling to take any action or provide any real solutions for the crises that are consuming the planet.

I guess this takes me to one of my main points and that is: I'm very pessimistic about the way civilization is headed and about the future of our existence on this planet. Things seem to be headed in a downward spiral with no end in sight. Society as depicted in books such as Orwell's 1984 or Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale seem close to becoming a reality today. Postapocolyptic stories like King's The Stand or Atwood's Oryx and Crake are a real possibility for our near future. I fear for my children and the type of world thay will grow up in.

It's this overriding pessimism that I think is the real reason behind my developing apathy. I could write about the things that interest me, bother me, "get them off my chest" so to speak but again, what's the point? It won't make any difference and it probably won't make me feel any better.

So what should I do? Keep plugging along and hope I'll snap out of this funk I'm in and regain some of my passion for life? Continue to blog and treat this site as a sort of personal diary? Or just chuck it all, delete this blog and retreat to my study never to emerge again. Maybe the problem is that I haven't promoted this site or told my friends about it. Maybe I need the readers, the comments, the interaction with others to make this seem worthwhile. Maybe it's time I developed the courage to show my blog to everyone I know, let them read it and let the chips fall where they may. Yes, I think that's exctly what I will do.

Tomorrow.

March Madness

2006-03-14T13:11:00.000-05:00

Well it's that time of year again. The time of year when millions of Americans become obsessed with college basketball. The time of the ubiquitous office pool where brackets are filled in by people who are suddenly experts in college basketball despite the fact that they haven't followed the regular season and know little or nothing about any of the teams that made the tournament.

To paraphrase Dick Vitale: It's the NCAA Basketball Tournament Baby!

And to this I say: BFD!

I'm sorry. I just can't get into it anymore. I no longer care.

That didn't used to be the case. I used to be a big sports nut. I loved it all. College and professional hoops, football, auto racing, golf. The Olympics. I'd watch just about anything on TV. (Anything that is except baseball. I mean come on; baseball on TV? How do you spell baseball? b-o-r-i-n-g. Plus every game is essentially meaningless. "Well we lost. That sucks. At least we've still got another 145 games to play". How can you get excited about that.) I'd never miss any of "my teams" games. "Oh, you're getting married next Saturday? You know I'd love to come but there's a playoff game that day and I really can't afford to miss it. I'd be letting down the team." As if the teams success depended on my actually seeing the game; and wearing my lucky shirt.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact time when I became apathetic about the whole thing. It was probably more of a gradual process. At first I'd be like "if I don't watch today's game and they win, they'll still be alive in the tournament so I can watch the next game and if they loose, I'd just be pissed off and upset so it's better that I didn't see the game at all". Eventually it became "Oh, the games on? I can't watch it, I have to clip the cats toenails. Then I need to organize my sock drawer. The black and white socks are touching again".

What caused me to loose my interest in watching sports? It's probably a combination of several factors. As I've gotten older I've had less time to watch sports. Work's busier. I've got 2 kids who demand a lot of my time. I've developed interests other than sports. Reading, playing with my kids, riding my bike. I no longer have time to spend 9 hours on a Sunday watching back-to-back-to-back NFL games.

Then there's the cost of going to professional sporting events. At one time we had season tickets for both NBA and NFL teams. But the cost has gotten outrageous. Ticket prices are high, the concession prices are ridiculous, then there's all the "authentic" team apparel and merchandise you have to get. The average person can't afford to take the family to one of these games. They'd have to skip the rent or mortgage payment to do it. Then you've got these multimillionaire teenagers or twenty somethings who make like 5 thousand dollars a minute and billionaire owners complaining about the lack of fan support and threatening to move their teams to another city if their city doesn't build them a new stadium to play in. It's disgusting. What do they expect. If they want the fans to come out and support them, lower the ticket prices, cut players salaries, sell a cup of beer for less than 7 dollars. Jeez. There's no way these professional athletes are worth the millions they're making. It's sports for crying out loud. If professional sports didn't exist it wouldn't make a bit of difference to the planet.

That being said, perhaps the primary reason I stopped following sports is that it got to be too big of an emotional investment. I cared too much. It was too painful. When my team won it was thrilling. When they lost; depressing, demoralizing. It would ruin my day; my week. It was particularly painful the year the teams were good. When the teams sucked it didn't matter so much. You didn't expect them to win. When they did it was a nice surprise; a bonus. But when they were good things were different. Expectations were high. You thought they had a real chance. This was going to be the year they went all the way; won the championship. But alas, it didn't happen. They'd get so close, only to fail at the last minute, the last second. Or, they'd get get their butts kicked in the first round of the playoffs, eliminated by a lesser team. That's when I'd get really pissed off. "How could you loose to those jokers? Where was the intensity? Where was the effort? You get paid millions of dollars and that's the best you can do".

Frankly, I got tired of being continually disappointed year after year. One of "my teams" hasn't won any kind of a championship since 1987. That's almost 20 years of disappointment. I felt like I was wasting my time (and money). If I add up all of the time I've spent watching sports it probably amounts to a few years of my life. I could have put one of my kids through college with the money I've wasted. There are so many other things I could have been doing. So now I'm doing them. And you know what? I don't miss the sports much at all. Sure I'll still watch an occasional game. The superbowl for instance. But it's not important anymore. It's merely entertainment like a movie or a concert. I don't really care who wins or loses.

Back to the NCAA Basketball tournament.

Interesting fact about the tournament. Apparently our country loses billions of dollars in lost productivity because of the amount of time people spend on line at work following the tournament. It's only going to get worse this year as CBS is webcasting all of the tournament games for free. This is probably a somewhat bogus finding. If they weren't watching the tournament on line they'd probably be doing something else on line. The work would get done regardless.

As for these office pools, very few people that enter them have any idea what they're doing. While there are a few knowledgeable fans who can rank the teams correctly, most people aren't that good. They either A. Pick their favorite team to win it all irregardless of how good the team is or B. Pick the winners based on who is the higher seed for each game. They might throw in a dark horse picked at random and hope they get lucky but that's about it. In one pool I was in, one girl who entered picked her teams purely based on the color of their uniforms. Red teams beat gold. Blue beat green. Black lost to everyone. She came in third.

For those of you still into the tournament I hope you enjoy it. Me, I'll be reading the latest Charles Stross book or playing Parcheesi with the kids. And I won't be too upset when they beat me.

random bits

2006-03-14T10:17:00.000-05:00

No good deed goes unpunished!

I wish this was my home.

But if I can't have that then at least I'd like to have this.

One of my favorite "A Softer World" comics yet.

And finally, glow in the dark pigs!

Y'a du monde au balcon!

2006-03-10T13:11:00.000-05:00

I was having lunch with # 2 son today and he started playing one of his favorite games, "Stump the Dad". Both # 1 and # 2 sons love this game. It consists of them asking me questions they already know the answer to, in the hope that I won't get it right. Then, they can proceed to tell me the correct answer.

I love this game as well for the simple reason that I almost always get the question right. The look of amazement/disappointment on their faces is wonderful.

It usually goes something like this:

Dad, do you know how many miles it is between New York and Tokyo?

"6760 miles" I reply.

How did you know that?

"Because I know everything."

You don't know everything.

"Yes I do."

Todays exchange was similar. After I said "because I know everything" #2 son (who is 6 years old remember) said: "Alright dad, what's the French word for Vagina?"

I looked at him trying not to laugh, to not even crack a smile. But I couldn't do it. First a slight smirk. Then a barely muffled giggle. Then outright laughter. He started giggling too. He knew he'd come up with a good one. I looked him straight in the eye and said "I don't know". "Yes!" was his response, a huge grin of satsfaction on his face. So I asked him what the answer is. Turns out, he didn't know either.

Now I'm somewhat surprised that I didn't know the answer. You'd think that after 4 years of highschool French and 1 year in college I would have picked up a few naughty words other than the ubiquitous 'Merde' that everyone knows. I decided my education had been lacking in an important part of the French language so I decided to correct this deficiency. I proceeded to consult The Alternative French Dictionary. This is a wonderful resource for finding useful and colorful umphemisms for body parts, sex acts and swear words in general.

In answer to # 2 son's question I found this:

Noune (vagina)
Moule (vulva)
Chatte (pussy)
Cramouille (somewhat derogatory word meaning literally "wet slit")

I also found:

Doudounces (breasts) and finally
Y'a du monde au balcon (what a set of knockers)

Many more useful words and phrases are listed in the dictionary. The web site also has alternative dictionaries for just about any language out there. Hours of interesting reading. I urge everyone to conult this resource and try and work some of these words into everyday converation:

"There's a paper jam in the copier again; cette putain de machine!"

Google knows your secrets!

2006-03-03T09:47:00.000-05:00

This is scary and somewhat unbelievable. Read this article about Google Desktop.You need to protect yourself now.

I recently bought a new computer. Google Desktop automatically launches at start up. I thought it was pretty handy. But now we find out about the "Search Across Computers" function. On the surface it sounds great. You can access the contents of your computer's hard drive from another computer. Could be great for obtaning files at work from your home computer or vice versa. But, if you use this function Google stores the contents of your PC on it's servers for all the world to see. Anyone can get access to your files.

Do you want people looking at your previous year tax returns? How about your collection of internet porn?

What were the geniuses at Google thinking. At first they resisted the Bush administrations attempt to look at their search logs (and rightly so). Then, they turn right around and open up your computer to everyone. When did they come up with this great idea? Brainstorming in a pub after about 10 shots of Jagermeister? Maybe the bigwigs got a donation from Jack Abramoff?

I've disabled Google Desktop. I think you should too.

Hermione Granger: Girl gone wild.

2006-03-02T09:51:00.000-05:00

We're currently slogging our way throught the fifth Harry Potter Book;
The Order Of The Phoenix . We've been reading it to the kids everynight for about 3 months now. The first 300 hundred pages or so were quite dull and painful. We're up to about page 650 and it's finally getting interesting.

# 1 son loves Harry Potter. # 2 son, not so much. I'm somewhat ambivalent. I kind of lost interest after the third book. The movies however have been good. It's been interesting to watch the characters as they've grown older.

I wonder what my boys would say if they saw this picture?

Miss Emma Watson (age 15), who plays Hermione Granger in the films, swilling a beer in a London pub. (I wave my wand)-Drinkus Coronas inebriatos!

I'll never look at Hermione quite the same way again.

What's a druple?

2006-02-25T23:41:00.000-05:00

#1 son: Dad, can I have a few Starbursts and still have chocolate chip cookies for desert?

me: sure, go ahead.

#2 son: A few = 3 right dad?

me: That's right, a few = 3.

#1 son: Actually dad, can I have quadruple?

me: All right.

#1 son: Quad =4.

#2 son: What's a druple?

American Idol? American Idiots!

2006-02-23T13:36:00.000-05:00

My boys have discovered American Idol.

I'd successfully avoided watching that show since it's inception but now I'm being forced to sit through it by my kids. Number 1 son saw one of the early audition episodes, found it utterly and completely (to paraphrase Simon Cowell) hilarious and now expects the whole family to sit down whenever it's on for hours of family fun.

I think the show would be more appropriatley called American Idiots. I have to admit the audition episodes were funny. They were also sad, pathetic and just plain weird. If the contestants on this show represent a cross section of America then we're a bunch of desperate pathetic losers with overinflated, fragile egos. The fact that so many of the truly horrible contestants actually thought they had talent and could sing is truly frightening. These are some of the biggest freaks I've ever seen.

The entertainment value of the audition episodes cannnot be denied however. The truly awful signing, the horrible costumes and Simon Cowell's caustic remarks made it worth watching. The exchange between Simon and the guy who sang like Cher was classic.

"Why would you want to sing like Cher? There already is a Cher."

"I can do something else"

"What would that be"

"I can do Judy Garland"

"Why don't you consider being a female impersonator?"

"I won't do that. I'm not a transvestite"

"Let me get this straight. You want to be Cher. You want to be Judy Garland. But you won't wear women's clothes?"

Then you've got the Brittenum twins. These idiots went on American Idol on national TV even though there were warrants out for their arrest in Georgia and Tennessee. What, they thought no one would notice them on the number 1 show in America? They'd have been less conspicuous on America's Most Wanted!

I also loved the reactions of the ones who were rejected. Some were merely disappointed but others were truly enraged. Cussing out Simon, slamming doors, saying how they were " all that" and "the judges made a big mistake" and "America, you'll be seeing more of me. My career's just getting started". Yeah, their career in the food service or custodial industries.

The saddest part however were the ones who were truly devastated by the rejection. Saying how this was their one big chance and now their life is over. I felt like some of these losers might actually go home and take their own lives. I wonder if that's ever happened? Not something the shows producers would want to promote.

Alas, the audition episodes are over and now we're down to the real competition. 24 contestants of whom only about 6 can actually sing. Cheesy over the top performances of forgetable songs. Even Simon's schtick is starting to wear thin. If I have to hear him say "utterly and completely" (which he does 6 or 7 times an episode) again I'll go utterly and completely mad.

I might have to take it out on the boys. That would be their punishment for subjecting me to this mind rot.

Or, I could just embaress them like this:

F***ing Tourette's syndrome!

2006-02-23T11:50:00.000-05:00

As I'm sure many of you know, Tourette syndrome is characterized by uncontrolled swearing. Many people suffer from this disorder and we shouldn't make fun of them.

Really, it's not funny.

But you have to love the difference between the U.S. Tourette web site and the British one.

Ah those irreverent Brits.

Thanks to Sister Flo for this one.

Fox guarding the henhouse

2006-02-20T14:08:00.000-05:00

I keep trying to give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt and they keep letting me down. This time I think they've really lost their minds.

The Committe on Foreign Investment has approved the sale of Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company which runs 6 of our country's major ports to Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates. Read about it here.

So let me get this straight. We're going to let an Arab country be in charge of security for 6 major U.S. ports? What are they thinking. Isn't there supposed to be some sort of War on Terror going on? A huge threat to American security? Talk about rolling out the red carpet for terrorists.

What's next? Hiring an Iranian company to dispose of our spent nuclear fuel rods? Hugo Chavez to head our War On Drugs?

I think I'd better get started on that bomb shelter in the backyard.

blind cycling, bacteria and stupid stoners

2006-02-16T13:29:00.000-05:00

I took up cycling about 2 1/2 years ago and really love it.
But not as much as this guy.

Reading this whilst sipping iced tea from McDonald's.

and

It's true. Chronic pot smoking really does make you stupid.

New Touchscreen Technology

2006-02-14T08:53:00.000-05:00

This is really cool.

A new touchscreen, pattented by Apple, that allows you to manipulate images using only your fingers. You can resize the images, change their shapes, move images or zoom in on maps.

Watch the demo at Vic Divecha's Official Tech Blog

Just File A Lawsuit

2006-02-09T08:43:00.000-05:00

Sara Beckman got screwed. In a Reno, Nevada spelling bee she spelled the word "discernible" correctly but the judge says she was wrong and so she was eliminated. That sucks.

But what was her parents response? File a lawsuit. What kind of lesson is that for an eigth-grader. Life is full of disappointments. Life is often unfair. You just have to learn to deal with it. You can't go around filing lawsuits everytime something doesn't go your way.

I blame lawyers for this. They have promoted this attitude that has developed in our country. Everyone is a victim. There is no such thing as an accident. If anything bad happens to you someone must be to blame so sue them. You're entitled to compensation!

I also blame the parents. Sara's mom sounds like one of those parents who lives vicariously through their children's successes to make up for their own failures. The kind of mom who enters her daughter into beauty pagents at age three. The kind of parent who attacks the coach at a little league game cause their kid isn't getting enough playing time.

Sarah will probably get over this fairly quickly. Her mom never will.

8 Is The Gayest Number

2006-02-08T08:43:00.000-05:00

So. Was watching TV with the family the other night. Don't remember which program. One of the characters was talking about things that are gay. He said that 8 is the gayest number. He gave no explanation for why this is so.

My 6 year old son N had one however.

N: I know why 8 is the gayest number.

Cause when you turn it on it's side it looks like a butt!

What The Fuck Is Wrong With These Kids?

2006-02-06T10:45:00.000-05:00

David Riehm is a 17 year old high school student from Minnesota. He was recently suspended from his school and briefly involuntarily committed to a mental institution for stories he had written in a creative writing class in school. You can read about the case here. You can also read the actual stories he wrote and his teachers responses here.

In a nutshell, David wrote a story which included wet dreams, a boy getting a plastic cone shoved up his butt, and getting his head crushed by a bus with his head "collapsing in a misty red explosion". His teacher, Ann Mershon found the story a little disturbing and criticized David for his choice of subject matter. David didn't take this very well. He proceeded to write additional stories about his teacher and how much he hated her. He nicknamed her Mrs. Cuntcheson and wrote a story entitled "Bowling For Cuntcheson" in which he dreams about finding a gun and killing his teacher with it. The teacher reported David and he was suspended from school. The next day, officials from the state showed up at his home with a court order and took him away to a psychiatric facility. The parents are now suing the school, the principal, Ann Mershon and the state claiming among other things violation of David's free speech rights and wrongful imprisonment.

I find this case disturbing for reasons other than what you might think. After reading David's stories I can understand why Mrs. Mershon was concerned. "Bowling For Cuntcheson" is a thinly disguised death threat with obvious references to Columbine. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris wrote similar missives before they went on their rampage. You simply can't ignore threats like this because you can't tell if the student will actually act upon them or not. Kids who have gone on killing sprees in the past do not fit neatly into any one profile. These killers come from all socioeconomic levels. Some of them are quite intelligent. In almost every previous case the child did not have a history of any mental illness (at least not one that was diagnosed. Obviously these are pretty disturbed children).

Ostensibly this is a case about free speech. David's supporters say that he is a talented writer who was just expressing his creativity through his stories. David says that he writes about sex and violence because that is a big part of everyday life. To this I say Bullshit! The free speech rights guaranteed by our constitution do not include the right for a minor to make death threats against his teacher. In this country you don't have the right to say anything you want. You don't have the right to threaten someone with death. You don't have the right to publicly say false or malicious things about someone that aren't true (slander) or write about them (libel). You don't have the right to yell Fire! in a crowded theater. Ann Mershon was completely correct in reporting David to school officials and the school system was completely correct in suspending him. However, this is where things get a little out of control.

Do I think David Riehm is a disturbed young man in need of psychiatric help? Absolutely. Do I think the state of Minnesota should have him involuntarily committed to a mental institution? Absolutely not. This is another case of a school system and state authorities following a zero tolerance policy but failing to use common sense. That's the big problem with these policies. They lack flexibility and treat everyone and every situation the same regardless of the circumstances. Girl's getting kicked out of school for having an aspirin in their purse because of a no drugs policy. A boy getting expelled for accidentally bringing a plastic squirt gun to school in his backpack because it's "a weapon". These things actually happen. Why didn't school officials sit down with David and his parents and discuss the situation. Why swoop in and cart him off to the loony bin. Talk about overreaction! Maybe his parents weren't aware of the types of things he was writing about. I can't believe that if they knew they would actually condone this type of behavior.

Most kids at some point in their lives have teachers who they dislike or even hate. They may fantasize about bad things happening to their teachers (mainly so they can get out of tomorrows Math test or the History paper due next week). I don't think these kids actually want their teachers killed however. It's one thing to act out these fantasies in your head. It's quite another to write them out and then give them to the teacher in question. David Riehm must be either extremely arrogant or incredibly stupid or maybe a little bit of both. This is one of the things I find most appalling about the whole case. The level of disrespect he is showing to this teacher is incredible. When I was in school I'd never dream of sending a story like that to my teacher. I don't know anyone who would. Kids today don't seem to have the same level of respect for their elders as previous generations. Discipline in school has become a huge problem which interferes with the learning that's supposed to be going on. Many teachers spend much of the day just trying to keep the kids in line. Kids think nothing of acting out or talking back to their teachers, practically daring them to try and punish them. They know that there's very little the teachers can actually do. If the teachers do try to punish the kids or confront a behavior problem the child cries foul, claims that they're the victim and their parents rush to support them. Not my Jonny. He wouldn't do anything like that. This teacher must have it in for my little angel. This is a big part of the problem. Parents enable this bad behavior either through a lack of discipline or outright denial that the behavior exists. Parents today don't discipline their children. They either don't know how or don't have the guts to do it. Or else they buy into this new age crap where we don't want to tell Jonny he's wrong. It might make him feel bad and lower his self-esteem. We don't want to stifle his creativity. We know that when he says "fuck you, I hate you, I wish you were dead" that's just his way of expressing himself. Many of these kids are disrespectful, uncouth, uncivil little hooligans as a result.

In the case of David Riehm I think it goes a little deeper than that. After reading his stories I think he's quite disturbed. He comes across as a sociopathic personality who is quite manipulative. He tries to place himself as the victim in his story, the poor innocent student being persecuted by an ogre of a teacher who has it in for him. Teacher bad. Me good. To be able to write a story like "Bowling For Cuntcheson" and turn it in to the teacher it's about shows classic sociopathic and narcissitic behavior. Not only does he lack a conscience, he seems completely unafraid of the possible consequences of his actions. Instead of taking it constructively, Mrs. Amershon's initial criticism only serves to enrage him. In his mind, retaliation is the logical response. I'm gonna get that bitch! People like that scare me.

The writing itself is completely juvenile and lacks imagination. I can't believe his supporters think he's a talented writer. His initial story " Poor John Redfield" seems more like the kind of story third grade boys tell at recess to try and shock or impress the other boys or gross out the girls. This is creative writing? I'd consider "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini as an example of creative writing by a teenager.

Parents, it's your responsibility to raise your kids. Teach them right from wrong. Teach them manners. Try to instill in them a set of morals and a conscience. Discipline is important. Punish them if they do wrong. Don't encourage or enable this antisocial behavior.

There's a Reason It's Called Work.

2006-01-31T15:18:00.000-05:00

I was off last week. Didn't go anywhere, just stayed home. It was great. I relaxed, played with the kids, did alot of reading and worked out at the gym. S and I actually got to go out for an evening without the munchkins (a very infrequent occurance).

I read "Cell" by Stephen King and "The Cosmic Landscape" by Leonard Susskind. I've always been a big King fan and have read most of his books. This is one of the better ones of his more recent works. Somewhat like "The Stand" (although much shorter) but with a more modern twist. As usual, strong sympathetic, well developed characters. Not the strongest of endings(which was also a problem with The Stand) but over all a very good read.

"The Cosmic Landscape" is a nonfiction book by one of the worlds leading theoretical physicists. It's basically an introduction to quantum physics, String Theory and the origins of the universe. In the introduction he states that the book was written for the lay person. If your definition of a lay person is: a college graduate with a bachelors degree in physics, chemistry or biology and at least one or two higher level math courses then I suppose it is. I have a biology degree and a graduate degree and found some of the book tough to follow. The book purports to be a refutation of the theory of Intelligent Design. I'm not sure it succeeds on that level.

The proponents of intelligent Design claim that the universe is so complex and finely tuned that it couldn't have formed by accident. Suskind's answer is that there are essentially an infinite number of "pocket universes" out there with every conceivable combination of physical and chemical propperties. Our universe, and probably several others have the right combination to support our type of life. Most don't. Many of the universes fail. Some could perhaps support different types of life. Problem is, we can't see any of these pocket universes or really prove that they exist. They are all traveling away from our universe at at least the speed of light so we will never be able to see them or determine their physical makeup.

That's the problem with theortical physics. In an attempt to determine the make-up and building blocks of our own universe and explain the physical properties that we observe different theories are developed. But most can't be proved. Experiment physicists have just about found the smallest particles that can be found with the current generation of linear accelerators and as Suskind points out, you'd have to have an accelerator as big as the galaxy to be able to identify the tiniest particles that make up the building blocks of life. Just because the concepts make mathematical sense and the equations all balance doesn't mean that's the way things actually work. It's mostly just conjecture.

Also, who cares if these other universes are out there. We live in this universe and that aint gonna change. We're not going to be able to develop a worm hole or quantum tunnel into another universe. I'm no proponent of intelligent design. I think there was probably some sort of Big Bang and when things settled out our type of life evolved. If after the Big Bang the physical properties of the universe were different a different type of life may have evolved. It could have been conscious beings made entirely out of energy who raced around the universe at the speed of light. Who knows. Maybe those beings do exist in one of Leonard's pocket universes.

Putting aside the whole intelligent design thing I did find much of the book very interesting. I think string theory is fascinating. It's amazing how much we've been able to find out about the particles that make up our universe and how they behave. If you have at least an elementary backgroud in science you may find this book enjoyable. It's not easy reading but is worth the effort.

Somehow I've gotten sidetracked. What was the purpose of this post? Oh yes. I'm back at work this week and guess what? It Sucks! It's very busy, not very rewarding and totally stressful. Most of the people I work with are unhappy with their jobs. Everyone complains. Everyone is taken for granted. No one seems to appreciate what you do or tell you thanks, nice job.

I hear these self help types on TV and the internet telling us how we shoudn't stay in jobs that make us unhappy. We should do something that we love. Find something rewarding. Take a chance. Start a new carreer. To those people I say: Fuck Off! For most people on this planet it's not an option. We don't have the knowledge, the expertise or the financial means to just quit our jobs and try something else. We have bills. We have debts. We have obligations. We have wives with credit cards. We can't just chuck it all and go to Tahiti, become alcoholics and pretend to write that one great novel that we just know is inside of us.

I'm tired of people telling me that my job should be fulfilling. That it should be fun. That's B.S.
There really is a reason why it's called work. Because it is work. It's not supposed to be fun. If it was fun it would be called something else. Like, oh I don't know, maybe...fun?

By my calculations, if I don't win the lottery I'm stuck in this job for about another 20 years. How can I possibly survive? Red wine, Bass ale and single malt Scotch.

Bested By A Second Grader

2006-01-22T15:02:00.000-05:00

Growing up I was always into video games. When I was little there weren't very many. Pong on Atari was probably the first one I played. Space Invaders, Asteroids and Defender soon followed. I mastered Pac Man and could play it indefinitely. Then came Galaga, Centipede and a host of others.

In college, there was one particular game called Robotron that I played endlessly. I was the champ at this game. I played it so much I developed elbow and forearm pain that I termed "Robotron Elbow" I had to ice my arm down after each gaming session and take a bunch of tylenol or aspirin for the pain. This went on for months.

After college I lost interest in video games until Nintendo 64 came out. My wife bought me one for Christmas one year. This was before we had kids. I loved it. I would stay up till 3 AM playing games every night. Wave Race was a favorite. So was Star Wars Rogue Squadron. I quickly became addicted again. S would look down at me from upstairs, sprawled on the family room floor, legs cramping, sweat pouring from my face and say "don't you think it's time to turn that thing off and come to bed?" The Nintendo 64 soon became a source of contention in the house.

S: All you ever want to do is play video games.

Me: You bought the machine for me. I didn't ask for it. What do you expect?

This was probably not the wisest response I could have given. The silent treatment then ensued. This is worse than a knock down drag out argument.

Me: What's wrong

S: Nothing

Me: Are you sure? You're kind of quiet.

S: I'm fine.

After a few days of conversations made up entirely of sentences with one or two words I realized someone would have to give in. Somehow I knew it wouldn't be S. Eventually, to restore peace to the house I cut back on the game playing. Things got back to normal and all was well. Then we had kids.

A first became interested in video games about age 3. He was hilarious to watch. He loved racing games the most. He would stand infront of the TV jumping up and down in place while he played. When he needed to turn whatever car he was driving he would turn his whole body to the left or the right. At this point I could beat him in any game, every time. Life was good.

He gradually got better. He played a wider variety of games with increading levels of complexity. When Gamecube came out he wanted one of those. When Playstation 2 came out he wanted one of those. How could I say no? Video games soon became his life.

He gradually got better. I think he was 6 when he legitimately beat me in a game for the first time. By age 7 it was about 50/50. A is now 8. He routinely kicks my ass in just about any game out there. About the only game I can still win is Star Wars Rogue Squadron III. But A never wants to play that game. His latest favorite is Crash Tag-Team Racing. I win about 1 out of every 10 races. Video games aren't so much fun anymore. Not when you're routinely humiliated by a second grader.

Occasionally, A will ask my help with a game. It's usually one of those single player games where you're a character who has to find his way through multiple levels, fighting bad guys along the way. He'll get stuck on a level he can't beat and then he'll ask for help. I beat Rhino for him in the Ultimate Spiderman game and figured out how to beat Electro. He then took the controller and continued on with the game.

It's good to know he still needs me for something.

Sirius

2006-01-19T12:46:00.000-05:00

For Christmas, S got me a Sirius Satellite Radio. It's a"plug and play" type that uses an FM modulator to broadcast the signal to the car radio. I decided to install it that day.

I went to the garage (where it was about 25 degrees out) and proceeded to install the antenna. It attaches to the roof of the car with a powerful magnet. You then have to run a wire under the rubber edging along the back window, into the trunk and then up through the car to the dash. Simple enough, right? Wrong. The rubber edging around the window is very rippled and dried out since the car is about 7 years old. I couldn't get the wire to stay under it. Finally I got it to stay by ramming it under inch by inch with a popsicle stick, ran the wire up the driver's side of the car behind the plastic molding and found that it was about 5 inches too short to reach the dash. I drive a midsized car. How can the fucking wire be too short!? I had to pull the entire wire out, start over and run it up the passenger side where it reached the dash with about an inch to spare.

By this time I'd spent about an hour outside, my fingers were numb and S started peeking into the garage to see if I was still alive. She new better than to interrupt me or actually try to talk to me when I'm in the middle of one of my "projects". Once started I must move forward to completion without interruption, food, water or even a pee break. If I have to stop in the middle I loose all momentum and the chance of successfully completing the project in anything under 9 hours becomes infinitesimally small.

After successfully installing the antenna I mount the receiver on the dash, plug in the power source and turn it on. The instructions say (yes I actually use instructions sometimes) that at this point I should get a signal from Sirius saying that all is well and instructing me to call them to activate the service. Of course, I had no signal.

I called customer service and got a barely understandable representative who was probably based somewhere in Indonesia who proceeded to outline the different payment plans and options for the Sirius radio service.

"But wait" I said. "I'm not getting a signal. The radio isn't working".

"We have a one year plan, a two year plan or a lifetime membership for $599 Dollars. Or, you can pay month to month".

"I know English is not your native language but please try to understand me when I say: The Fucking radio does not work!"

"Please hold"

After five minutes she comes back on. "I'm sorry sir, I don't think I can help you with this. Let me transfer you to our product support department. Please hold".

Ten minutes later I'm sitting in the car, blue fingers, blue lips, bladder about to burst. I open the garage door and start the engine to get some heat. Then inspiration hits me. I back the car out into the driveway and voila. The signal appears. The car fills with sound. It's the weather channel, telling me that it's cold and snowing in the Midwest. No shit.

It never occurred to me that satellite radio wouldn't work in a garage but apparently it doesn't. There needs to be an direct signal from the satellite to the antenna. You'd think that they would mention this in the instructions. "Note: radio must be installed outdoors you idiot!"

Despite the installation hassle I really do like the radio. So many channels of commercial free music to choose from. I like the Chill channel 35 the best as well as most of the electronic/dance channels.

And, there's Howard Stern too. I tried listening to him one morning. What an idiot. Why he's getting paid 100 million dollars and a share of the company I'll never know. He's one of the least funny and talented people on the planet. "King of All Media"? How about King of bad 80's hair! His only interests seem to be lesbians and hookers. Have you read any of his books? I tried reading "Miss America" and lasted about 20 pages. One of the most boring and juvenile books I've ever encountered.

The other weird thing about Howard is his resemblance to Alan Alda. They look and sound remarkably alike. Alan is basically Howard, without the hair, 20 years older and a little more whiney. Alan Alda must secretly be Howard Stern's dad, or at least an uncle. Maybe he's his older brother who was given up for adoption when his mom had him out of wedlock at age 14.

One thing about the Sirius radio you need to know. The FM modulator isn't stellar. I frequently get background hiss, static and bleed through from other stations on nearby frequencies. It would be better to wire the unit directly into the car stereo so you don't have to broadcast over an FM frequency. Unfortunatley, my car stereo doesn't have that capability. Maybe in my next car.

Black Jack

2006-01-14T15:53:00.000-05:00

I have a cat. A diabetic cat. An insulin dependent diabetic cat. His name is Jack. He is Black.
Say hello to Jack:

I never thought I'd have a diabetic cat who needs insulin shots twice a day but here he is. We first noticed something was wrong when his hind legs stopped working properly. They kept slipping as if he was walking on ice and they didn't move with the front legs in a coordinated fashion. He couldn't jump up on the bed anymore (a bonus if you ask me) and he seemed extremely thirsty all the time. We couldn't keep his water dish full enough.

Then the real problems began. He didn't seem to be able to make it to the litter box anymore and started peeing all over the house. Strangely enough, he wouldn't pee just anywhere. He had to pee on something that was laying on the floor. Preferably a blanket but he wasn't picky. He peed on newspapers, plastic bags or any other relatively flat object. He woudn't just pee in the middle of the floor. There had to be something to pee on. We took Jack to the vet, tests were run (many expensive tests) and the verdict was returned. Dr. X-ray, your cat has diabetes and you will need to give him injections twice a day for the rest of his life.

At this point I thought to my self: This is the perfect opportunity to get rid of this cat. Now don't get me wrong. I like cats. I've had a number of them over the years and we've gotten on quite well. Particularly Tigger, an orange tabby who looked like Moris the cat and at one point in his life had to have been the worlds largest and fattest cat. Tigger was a house cat and was declawed but still managed to sneak out on a regular basis to go hunting. The way he got out was this. He was so strong that he would butt his head into the screen door in our kitchen repeatedly and eventually tear a hole in the screen just with the force of his head. I don't know how many times I had to replace that screen.

When I was single and lived alone I appreciated having a pet around for company. However, once I got married and had kids the pets gradually became a nuisance. I had enough to deal with without the added aggravation of cleaning up cat puke off the rug every few days. . It was always difficult to find someone to watch him when we left town. And one of my best friends is allergic to cats and has to be heavily medicated before he can come over. The hassle factor of having a cat quickly out weighed the enjoyment factor which the cat provided (which was actually very little; he is, after all, a cat. How much fun can they be?) And now at last a chance to live a pet free existance.

Yeah right. When I informed the munchkins A and N that Jack would have to go they promptly burst into tears. "No-o-o-ot Ja-a-a-a-c-c-k-k! sob sob! It was almost as bad as if I'd told them we were getting rid of the Playstation2 and all the TV's in the house. My wife, S, gave me the look and I new right then that this cat would remain a part of our household no matter what the cost!

It's 4 months later. Jack eats special (ie expensive) diabetic cat food, gets his insulin twice a day and has made a complete recovery. He can walk again, jump up on the bed and pees in the litter box. And I only have to clean up puke off the rug about once a week.

Speculative Fiction

2006-01-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

The family went to Florida for a week over Christmas break. I however, had to stay home and work. It wasn't too bad. The house was quiet. I wasn't constantly tripping over toys strewn about the house, and I got several nights of uninterrupted sleep (no children coming in at 2 AM claiming they just had a really bad dream and "can I sleep with you and mom?").

I also had time to do some reading. I mainly read science fiction, horror and fantasy with some mainstream novels, historical novels and a smattering of nonfiction thrown in. Lately its been British science fiction and there's some really interesting stuff out there.

First up: China Mieville

I hadn't heard of him before but I saw "Iron Council" in the book store, thought it looked interesting and bought it. What a wonderful book. I immediately went out and bought his other Bas-Lag novels "Perdido Street Station"and "The Scar". All three novels take place in the same world and if you're going to read them I'd recommend going in order starting with "Perdido Street Station". This is "literary" science fiction (or fantasy actually) at it's best. Mieville has created a world which has drawn comparisons to Mervyn Peak's "Ghormenghast" with good reason.

New Crobuzon is a once great city which over the centuries has fallen into decay. At one time the civilization must have been extremely advanced but much of the technology and knowledge has been lost. Some primitive steam driven machines and crude punch card computers are about all thats left. Magic or "Thaumaturgy" has developed in it's place. While reading these books I was also reminded of the world in Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series. Those books take place in a future world which has "moved on". Most technology has been lost and the people have reverted to an existence out of the American Old West.

Mieville's prose is beautiful and elegant but with a hard edge. His descriptions of places and events seem very real. One can feel the filth and decay; can sense the misery of the masses struggling to merely exist. The human and nonhuman species which populate New Crobuzon are mostly the downtrodden, the miserable, the lost. They're struggling against a corrupt and oppressive government only interested in maintaining power and a way of life for the priveledged few. Themes of racism, slavery and revolution are prevalent throughout the stories. New Crobuzon could be London 1000 years from now with all of societies ills and problems over the last 300 years alive and well.

The nonhuman species in the books are very well imagined. We don't actually know where these species come from. One or two may be actually alien. Some appear to be demons or beings that reside at least partially in another plane of existance. Many of the species seem to be mutated from insects or plants. There is an implication that there may have been some great disaster in the distant past (nuclear? thaumtaurgical?) that created these beings. This is never clearly stated. Then there are the "remade". These are humans who have for the most part been convicted of crimes and been punished by having their bodies surgically altered. Additional body parts and even machines have been grafted onto them and then they are made into slaves. The relationships between the human and nonhuman species are interesting and at times very moving. There is one cross species relationship in "Perdido Street Station" that is intimate and quite heartwrenching.

These three books taken together create an epic fantasy that ranks in the class of Peak or Tolkein. I hope Mieville's next work continues an exploration of this facinating world

Mieville's first book "King Rat" is something altogether different and yet it shares some common elements with the Bas-Lag novels. It's a take off on the "Pied Piper" tale. The setting is quite similar to Neil Gaiman's London in "Neverwhere". There are people living underground. There is dirt and decay. There is magic. Some of the main characters are insect or animal "gods", similar to characters in Gaiman's "Anansi Boys". I suspect "Neverwhere" influenced Mieville when he wrote "King Rat" and Gaiman was in turn influenced by King Rat in writing Anansi Boys. All three books seem to fit together.

Mieville also has a book of short fiction called "Looking For Jake" which I haven't yet read but plan to soon. He has also written a nonfiction book entitled "Between Equal Rights- A Marxist Theory of International Law" from Brill Academic Publishers. At $80.00 it's quite an expensive book so it may be some time before I try and tackle that one. Based on the title I think I know where Mieville's political leanings lie. Theme's of socialism are quite prevalent in the Bas-Lag books.

If you're looking for some interesting and beautifully written speculative fiction that will not only enthrall you but make you think as well then Mieville is for you. In future posts I'll talk about some other authors I'm currently reading.

Life Philosophy From the Mind of an 8 Year Old

2006-01-05T10:38:00.000-05:00

For Christmas my oldest son "A" presented us with a calendar that he made at school. Each month the calendar had a different popular saying or phrase. The begining of the phrase was already on the calendar and the child had to complete it.

For example: Don't count your chickens... before they hatch.
A stitch in time... saves nine.

You get the idea.

Most of A's responses were rather mundane except for one. October's phrase.

If at first you don't succeed... you're hopeless!

That pretty much somes up A's attitude toward life. I'm raising a real overachiever.

Ya'll ready for Christmas?

2005-12-24T08:24:00.000-05:00

Right off the bat I want you to know that I do celebrate Christmas. I'm also one of those people who is fed up with all of this politically correct BS surrounding the use of the word Christmas. We no longer have a Christmas party at work because two people (out of an organization of about 250 people) don't celebrate Christmas and are offended by the use of the word. What's so offensive? Do these people think that by going to a "Christmas "party they'll be magically transformed into Chrisitians against their will? It's not like we're forcing people to take communion or giving out baby Jesus action figures or anything. It's a party for Christ's sake!(pun intended). As long as there's an open bar I don't care if we're celebrating the birth of Christ or the birth of Katie and Tom's love child. Drink up and shut up!

That being said there is one aspect of this holiday season that's driving me batty. It seems like people here in the heartland have developed some type of speech impediment or social disorder. It's manifested by the inability to start a conversation with any words other than "Ya'll ready for Christmas?". What does this mean exactly? First off, I don't remember having my name legally changed to Ya'll. Secondly, what constitutes ready? Does it mean that I'm so utterly depressed by the day to day happenings of my mundane life that I can't wait for Christmas to arrive and let the spirit of the season wash over me, thereby uplifting my spirits and healing my wounded soul? Or does it simply mean I've got all of my Christmas shopping done, presents wrapped, kids in the car, heading out to Grandma's house for 10 minutes of frenzied gift opening followed by 4 hours of drinking and a nap on the couch? If you ask my kids, they're ready for christmas 365 days a year.

If you see me on the street and come up to say hello feel free to wish me a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a happy Talk Like A Pirate day or whatever other day you're into. Just don't ask me if I'm ready for Christmas.