Elves with Grappling Hooks

Picked up in Pharyngula this week: Ray Comfort -- the guy who idiotically preaches that bananas are proof of god's existence (and is pretty much a pariah even in creationist circles)--has a new book out bashing atheists and evolution and science and whatever else he figures isn't godly. He's quite convinced that there is a huge conspiracy to ensure that his book gets bad reviews...he never seems to comprehend that his book gets bad reviews because he's a class A idiot and his book sucks, but there you go.

Here is a sample of his 'reasoning"

I simply expose atheistic evolution for the unscientific fairy tale that it is, and I do it with common logic. I ask questions about where the female came from for each species. Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to mate, otherwise the species couldn't keep going. Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species in creation.

There is so much wrong with his line of 'argument' that I don't even know where to begin. It's just jaw-droppingly stupid (and he wonders why rational, intelligent people are panning his book? Wow).

He apparently thinks that since he doesn't understand evolutionary biology, that it must be wrong. He has absolutely no idea what evolution is and does, no idea about biology, and even less of an idea about common logic. He apparently thinks that females are a distinct species from males, I guess. A few people might agree, but that's not based in biology. Yes, the theory does explain this, there is no coincidence about it - a mutant male dog does not suddenly arise from a population and have to find a mutant female dog -- they evolve from existing species which have male and female; this is trivial, noncontroversial, and well-established. To question it shows a lack of understanding of basic facts and aggressive ignorance of the fact that this has been explained over and over. I don't understand specifically how magnets work, for example, but that really does keep me from blathering on about how it's really little tiny elves with grappling hooks that keep papers stuck to my refrigerator. If someone suggested that, we'd all laugh them out of the room.

And to think, thousands of people listen to this drivel and think it's correct and logical. This is marketed to the ignorant and the fanatical believers to keep the "controversy" boiling away. No wonder we have ongoing issues with science and religion in the classroom. A persuasive voice and charismatic manner do not equal intelligence and truth. We should know that by now.

Have Briefcase, Will Grade

I talked to my sister today, who related this story about my nephew, Peter. He was in yesterday to get new glasses (apparently he is very, very farsighted) and when they went to pick out frames, he passed on the thin metal frames that all the other kids are wearing, instead opting for Buddy Holly-style black glasses, because "only nerds wear those other glasses". Definitely has a sense of style, the boy does.

He's taken to carrying a briefcase to school, and wearing a brimmed hat to school as well. Did I say style? Well, maybe "style" is not quite the right descriptor...but second graders are a weird lot.

Anyway, today while the class was doing something else, he sat at his desk, and wrote out a page of "homework questions". Then, he asked for a hall pass, snuck into the library and made 22 copies to hand out to the other kids in class. At the end of the day, he collected them and brought them home "to grade"

This is the point where my sister discovered what he'd done. He sat down, all business-like at the kitchen table, with a red pen and smiley-stickers, and graded the work that he had made up and passed out to his class. Which they apparently had actually done!

Not only did he write the page (with questions such as "who was the second president?" and some fractions questions, he graded them at home and will probably try to hand them back out tomorrow!

Kids is weird.

Redesign

The Adorable Husband laughs that whenever I get bored, I redesign the interface of the website, and I think he's right. I got tired of all the green and redid the main index pages and navigation on www.phouka.com, as wel as cleaning up a whole bunch of links.

Still doing some cleanup - I noticed some bad links in the pharaoh site and some missing sections, and added some placeholders for things, too.

See? This is what happens when I have long evenings to myself and a brand new version of Dreamweaver! Hah!

Google Timelines

Discovered an interesting thing on Google (which is, as far as I can tell, omniscient) -- when you search for things with some historical relevance, there is often a link to a time line included.

I have no idea how it works, and of course the dates are pulled directly from websites and could be all over the place, but it's pretty neat. It's part of the Google Archive Search.

Here's one for Caerlaverock Castle, and another for the Lincoln Monument. Hey! They've got Erie, too.

Speyside Whiskey Festival

Score! The Speyside Whiskey Festival in Scotland is the first two weeks of May. Distilleries that aren't normally open to the public will be open for tours and testings, special whiskey tasting sessions, dinners, and all sorts of fun things going on.

Woot!

Introspection

Brain Differences Found Between Believers In God And Non-believers

"You could think of this part of the brain like a cortical alarm bell that rings when an individual has just made a mistake or experiences uncertainty," says lead author Inzlicht, who teaches and conducts research at the University of Toronto Scarborough. "We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They're much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error."

Well, that's interesting. I suppose we could take it a couple ways --as a positive side-effect of belief, letting believers be calmer or less prone to anxiety, and as a negative one which lets them "off the hook" when they make mistakes and thus less likely to be concerned about them or contemplate the consequences of errors. In some places this could be great - making a mistake while cooking dinner or mispronouncing a word aren't going to impact anything, but making a mistake while balancing your checkbook or performing surgery could be disastrous.

If you don't experience anxiety and don't do some introspection when you make an error you will probably make the mistake again and you probably aren't going to make any necessary changes to your behavior. It is also interesting to note that people who have less anxiety tend to make fewer mistakes (well, that's kind of a doh!, isn't it). Of course, crippling anxiety and fear of making mistakes would be just as bad. Off to see if the whole study is available....

You can't read too much into these studies -they tend to be flawed, but I never even realized that we have an "uh-oh!" switch that goes off when we make a mistake or are in a situation where we could make mistakes. That's what that frisson of nerves is!

I'm packed!

...and so far, have nowhere to go.

I got all revved up for a new customer gig in Salt Lake City, which everyone assured me would start on the 9th and oh, we'd better move quickly on this one!

And nothing. They're still waiting for the contract stuff to come back. I sent an email to the person coordinating this and haven't heard a peep. Bah.

They keep saying it might start "later in the week", and all I can say is, well, I already told you I'd be off on vacation the 13th-18th, since my sister is coming with her son for Spring Break. Hah!

Don't get me wrong, I'm making very good use of the time at home without a current client (going over technical docs, reading through the new technology releases, etc), but I get very anxious when they keep telling me something is "just over the horizon"

New Software

Eh, sorry I've been a little flaky lately. I've been working on getting the website updated with all the stuff from Ireland (yea, I know, it's been a couple of years....) before we go on the next trip and realized that it was time to upgrade my ancient version of Dreamweaver.

I've been trying to come up to speed on the new version (five years of changes cover quite a bit of ground, in a technical tool) and so I've been a bit distracted!

Frasca

Our fabulous neighbors asked us to come with them to Frasca, a very highly-regarded northern Italian restaurant in Boulder. It's gotten tons of great reviews, and it's been on our list of 'places to go' for quite awhile.

I can definitely recommend it. Loved the food, the place was absolutely packed (they have two tables that are for walk ins, everything else is booked months in advance, apparently) and the food was great. It's a four-course menu, small portions, fresh ingredients...yum! I had a lamb cutlet, risotto and egg, and sea bass. The Adorable Husband had duck ravioli and grilled sirloin. You can see the current menu linked from the site - it changes from week to week, with major changes seasonally.

Definitely a 'special occasion' restaurant, and a wee bit pricey, though. The wine list is more like a wine catalog, and they serve fresh cut proscuitto, speck, and salame from a salumi bar. Fun!

Shallow end of the Gene Pool

A woman in Ohio was given a ticket for driving her minivan while talking on the phone, and breastfeeding her infant daughter. With other kids in the car.

Well, if that isn't an invitation to a Darwin Award right there, I don't know what is.

She "told police that she does not deprive her child when the child is hungry".

She doesn't want to deprive a hungry child for a rew moments, but risking killing them all in a traffic accident is a-ok. That's a rather odd set of priorities, isn't it?

Abandoned once again

The Adorable Husband is up skiing again this weekend. There has been snow every single day this week, the weather is gorgeous (a bit cold in the mountains) and he just couldn't resist.

I'm quite sure he's not actually trying to kill himself; he's taking it easy and says that he feels fine!

Watermelons

The southern CA mayor who sent out an email with a picture of the white house lawn covered in watermelon plants and the comment, "no easter egg hunt this year" has resigned. His constituents have expressed concern with working with him, given the overt racist overtones of the email, which he says he sent to a "small circle of friends". Obviously, in the land of the Internet, these things really can't be expected to remain private - one of those "friends" took offense and publically chastised him.

Grose says he accepts that the e-mail was in poor taste and has affected his ability to lead the city. Grose said he didn't mean to offend anyone and claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with eating watermelons.

"Unaware of the racial stereotype". Which is an obvious lie. If he didn't know that it was a racial slur, why did he send the image? What's funny about it, if you don't associate watermelons and black people? What did he think was funny about it?

Unfree Loos

DUBLIN (AP) -- Is a bathroom an optional extra when you're at 30,000 feet? Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary seems to think so -- and says his no-frills airline might charge customers to use its aircrafts' toilets.

You know, I was all set to get really upset about this, but realized -- they're flying places for quite literally, a few bucks - if I spend less on my airline ticket than on my cup of coffee and donuts in the airport, plugging a coin in the toilet isn't too outrageous.

Well, it is, but it's right in light with Ryanair's previous actions...

Eventually we'll be paying for air and a seatbelt, I just know it.

Immoral "morality"

I am really getting tired of idiots. When will people realize that this religiously -inspired, ridiciulous, repressed, and dysfunctional bigotry against women is unacceptable?

Oh, well, this is Colorado Springs. I shouldn't be that that surprised, I guess. The fringe and fanatical loonies are thick down there.

This time, the lawmaker was Sen. David Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, who voted against a bill requiring pregnant women to be tested for HIV because, he said, it would wrongly protect women and their unborn children from the consequences of "sexual promiscuity."

"We do things constantly to try to remove the negative consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly," he said.

Schultheis' comments, which infuriated Democrats and exasperated some Republicans, came two days after Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, cited Bible verses to argue homosexuality is an "abomination" and a sin comparable to murder in a debate over a bill extending health benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

Once again, a republican religious conservative (who I can only hope does not actually represent any large percentage of them) would rather have women and children DIE than do anything that might suggest that sex is not dirty, immortal, horrible, and something to be ashamed of. In their eyes, a single mother is so awful, so horrible, so digusting...that she and her child should be taught a lesson...one that might result in actual death, but that's apparently less important than making an (im)moral point. Like the idiots who oppose an HPV vaccine because it 'might encourage promiscuity', this moron opposed testing for HIV because, obviously, women need to be punished when they get pregnant. Because the only way you get AIDs is promiscuity, right? Only sluts would ever be exposed. A single mother is, by definition, BAD. Totally ignores the point that a pregnant woman might be exposed to HIV for many reasons, not just that she's a promiscuous slut. A woman can be exposed to HIV in her own marriage, exposed via her job, exposed by a blood transfusion and happen to be pregnant at the time. But no, in this idiot's mind, only single mothers need have any worry of AIDS, and if they do, it's their own fault.

I am beyond outrage. I am sickened by this attitude.

If you believe the christianist (and I use christianist, not christian, because these people are the antithesis of Christian and really represent the paranoid, phobic fringe) neo-conservative movement, this sort of thing will be the downfall of civilization. Personally, I think the fact that it's acceptable to cite Bible verses as a logical and reasonable argument for anything is a sure sign of the downfall of civilization. It is neither -- and in this case is being used to thinly cover rabid bigotry and intolerance. I wonder if Sen. Renfroe is actively lobbying for an end to restaurants serving shellfish (which is remarked on as an "abomination" in 10x as many verses in his Bible). I rather think that he hasn't actually read those parts, you know?

But opposing AIDS testing because it might catch HIV early enough to treat, and therefore prevent women and children from being punished for some imagined sexual excess? Because that would be an acceptable 'negative consequence for poor behavior? Fuck that noise.

What sort of medieval, mysogynistic asshole even thinks these things?

What sort of sick f*ck says this:

What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,” he said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.”

Wants babies to get AIDS.

Read that again: WANTS BABIES TO GET AIDS to prove a point.

Barbie Memories

I really didn't have a lot of Barbies as a kid, especially after The Barbie Tanning Incident involving the Easy-Bake oven. But I was reading through a website snarking on the dresses at the Oscars and came across this absolutely perfect description of my relationship with Barbies:

When I was a little girl, my grandmother had these pillows in her bedroom that I was OBSESSED with. They were peach, and they were covered in lace, with lace trim. They were VERY feminine and therefore made perfect staging areas on which my Barbies could try and strangle each other -- my Barbies led very dramatic, soap-operatic lives, which is to be expected when there are twenty women fighting over two men, one of whom was ostensibly married (that would be Todd, of the Tracy and Todd wedding set, and he had some issues -- most notably that the rubber band which attached his top half to his bottom half broke when he was dancing too vigorously at his wedding reception, leaving him at worst a paraplegic and at best unable to sit down, depending on the needs of the story I was concocting). Occasionally, my Barbies would commit suicide over something or other, or one would run the other one down with the pink Corvette, or one would get trampled under the hooves of Barbie's horse, Dallas, or one would be tossed down the elevator shaft of the Barbie Townhouse, and when that happened, I often set their bodies down on these pillows for the viewing before the funeral (during which all my other Barbies, as well as said pillow, were swaddled in some excess black lace my other grandma gave me after I told her that I thought it was inappropriate for Barbie and her cronies to be so SMILELY at a funeral, even if one of them was quasi- or wholly responsible for the death).

Hah!

Refrigerated Butter

I just saw a rather odd commercial showing women trying to "soften butter" -- bashing it with a rolling pin (just the butter, so it's all over the counter and rolling pin), putting it on a barbecue fork over the grill, blowing on it with a hairdryer, inexplicably putting it in the dryer.

Note in all cases, it's an unwrapped stick of butter.

This leads me to think that advertisers and butter manufacturers believe that we are seriously concerned about spreadable butter. Now, I'm as frustrated as anyone else by not being able to put butter on my toast because it's too cold....but is this seriously a problem?

At which point, it occurred to me that they also assumed that everyone keeps their stick of butter in the refridgerator at all times, taking it out only long enough to hack off a shard and then get it back in the fridge as soon as possible. I can only think that this is because of some misguided idea that butter will "go bad" if left out on the counter overnight. Instantly, perhaps.

Is this really that common? Does everyone but me put the butter dish in the fridge?

I mean, sure, leave butter out in a hot room for a few days and it will go rancid...but we must use it fast enough around here that it doesn't sit out that long, even when we lived in Georgia. Well, that, and for half the year, it's cold enough in our house now to keep the butter pretty chilly just out on the counter.

I grew up in a household where food was left out all the time and I don't honestly recall that we had any more bouts of stomach distress than anyone else, so I'm probably not the most consistent follower of the "rules" for safe food. Oh, we're very careful about raw meats, especially chicken, but rushing to get everything into the fridge or on ice immediately? Not so much.

So, no, makers of spreadable-canola-oil-butter-blends, I am not going to trade rich butter taste for the ease of "spreadable from the fridge". And, advertising with spaz-people who put butter in the dryer isn't going to convince me to buy the product. I don't want to be associated with people who can't manage basic daily tasks.

This explains a lot

Apparently, I think like a man. That explains a lot about my alpha geek status, doesn't it?

Your Brain is 27% Female, 73% Male

You have a total boy brain. Logical and detailed, you tend to look at the facts, and while your emotions do sway you sometimes...You never like to get feelings too involved

What Gender Is Your Brain?

No Uitwaaien

We've been having gale-force winds for the last few days -- house creaking, banging, and howling wind. The kind of wind that makes me a bit nervous to be on the second floor.

This usually isn't so bad, but the lot next door is still just dirt and least an inch of it has been relocated into my house. Every single window sill (despite having all the windows closed and locked, with good weatherstripping) is dirty, and there is a plume of dirt on the carpet from a gap near the door hinge. The stuff is insidious.

We went outside last night and thought that all the mulch in the backyard was gone -- but we realized that it was indeed there, just under a thick layer of topsoil.

It's been too windy to walk outside; the gusts will knock you sideways. The Adorable husband has been making fun of me for saying that I like uitwaaien (walking in windy weather for fun) and that I just missed my best chance.

Not Getting it

If television commercials are to be believed, our homes smell like rancid gym socks and dead animals, and require constasnt puffs of fragrance from little plug-in machines to make them smell tolerable enough that we can invite people into our home.

Glade commercials with women embarassed about not having a "fresh" house, animated characters married to centipedes having to spritz things because of shoe smells, people hiding in bathrooms to snort the new, fresh smell. People driving in circles or laying on the carpet smelling the just-Febreezed clean scent are a little creepy. The commercials are weird.

We have Glade and Febreeze and Oust sanitizer spray to ensure that you can't smell what you're cooking for dinner, lest it offend someone, various dual sprays and timed sprays and heated plug-ins and fans. Scented candles in a bazillion different strong odors. What is WITH this?

I can't stand the fake flowery smells that most of these things put out. It's cloying and too strong and give me a serious headache. The ones that swap different smells every few minutes are the worst, you can't get used to the smell and the overlay of hawaiin lei and jasmine starts to stink to high heaven after while.

Oh, I'm all for a nice gingerbread smelly candle at the holidays, but having one of these things going every single day so that your house smells like a chemical factory seems like overkill.

I just saw a commercial for a new Febreze scent ''Brazil Carnival''. What? What does this possibly smell like? Sweaty drag queen, aged urine, and vomit?

Mmm. Count me out.

"Not Dead Yet"

I was a wee bit worried about the Adorable Husband skiing -- it's the first time this year, he's new on beta-blockers, and, let's face it, he tends to forget that he's not 22 any more.

So he sent me a few pictures to prove he's fine.

No Valentine's Day

The Adorable Husband took the day off and went up skiing for the weekend.

Yes, over Valentine's Day.

I don't DO Valentine's Day. I'm scarred for life over Valentine's Day.


Second grade - spent two days in art class making decorating shoeboxes for our valentines cards. Coverd in shiny paper, with glitter, cutout hearts, lace, the works. We were so excited, and everyone put their box up on the front table with their name on it. The teacher gave out a list of students in the class.

I went home and made handmade, decorated valentines for everyone on the list. Each one was different, each one lovingly colored and lettered. I carefully carried them to school on Valentine's Day and put each one in the kid's box. Even in second grade, we snuck around a little, so no one saw us put the extra-special nice valentine in the cute boy's valentine box.

After lunch, everyone picked up their box from the table and opened it.

I got NO VALENTINES.

Zero. Zilch. Nada. My box was empty. Despite my name in glitter on the side, there were no valentines for me in the box. Other people had dozens of them, and some people even got little candies or chocolates.

I had none.

The Teacher had missed my name when she typed up the class list.

Public Service Announcement

Just popping in to say that Totino's Mega Pizza Rolls are not as good as the Regular Pizza Rolls.

The ratio of crust to filling is way off. You can't eat them when they're very hot, since the huge pizza rolls ooze out the other end more often and they just don't get as crispy.

I'm sounding very much like Sheldon, aren't I?

Good Summary

Here's a very good summary of the stimulus packages in the House and Senate - this is the first time I've seen a clear comparison. Nice!

Travel Karma

Yeah! The Adorable Husband found tickets on sale (again - they were on sale two weeks ago and we were arguing over the dates for the trip and missed the same - the price doubled the day we finally decided!).

Hooray! Hooray for pods! Hooray for BA!

The tickets were a bit more expensive than the previous sale, but very, very doable.

Hooray for the Adorable Husband!

No Hope

You may hear mention of "The Lady Hope" story about Charles Darwin's deathbed conversion and denial of his works, on the celebration of 'Darwin Day' this week.

It's a hoax. It's completely false, and while some religious types still drag out the dead horse to flog it whenever Darwin is mentioned, it's looking pretty ratty and worn by now. Even AiG denies it.

We have eyewitness accounts of Darwin's death. The story is idiotic and transparently false, unsupported by any historical evidence and contradicted by all that we do have. Period. Please don't fall for this one again.

Unfolding of Language

I'm reading an absolutely fascinating book called the Unfolding of Language, which attempts to provide some idea of why language changes and how it changes from early proto-languages to the vagaries of modern languages.

Why do we have plurals that end in s, but some words change completely (man/men)? Why all English verbs except "be" share first- and third-person forms(he ran/they ran, but he is/they are)? How did the "vowel shift" that changed language and spelling so dramatically occur? Why do related families of language sometimes have completely different structures? Why are some the same, even in languages that are not directly related?

The author is a Semitic language expert, so much of the book focuses on the 'template-based' word formation used there. The idea that the base meaning of a word can be expressed by three consonants, and they are plugged in to a template to get all the dozens of forms is interesting, and really starts to show how patterns in language really define it. We all see the patterns, of course -- if I give you a made-up noun (let's say, 'furf'), you instinctively know now to talk about two furfs. If my made-up noun is 'woopy', the same instinct produces 'woopies'. Why? Why isn't it woopys?

One of the primary arguments in the book is the general intent of speakers to 'make order out of chaos' and generate rules and predictable patterns in language -- but that it doesn't always work, because it is in distinct contradiction to the desire to vary words and sounds to create more concise meanings.

It gets a bit technical, but if you have any interest in linguistics at all, it's a great book. Very accessible, really, but I suggest reading the glossary in the back first if you aren't very familar with grammtical terms.

Big Bang Theory

I love Big Bang Theory (a sitcom on CBS on Monday nights). I think it's one of the funniest things I've seen on television in years -- probably because I know all of these geeky people (the Adorable Husband would argue that I am these people).

One of the main characters - Sheldon -- is the epitome of the geeky, socially backwards physicist who is confused and bemused by normal social interaction and lives by a set of rules he has "figured out" about how things are supposed to work. When told that a birthday present is an "expected social contract", he stops arguing against it and embraces the idea - if the RULE says it's so, it is.

If you've ever met anyone with Aspergers, or somewhere along the autism scale, you recognize the behavior: conversations have a set of rules that need to be followed, and you can almost see them going through the list to figure out how what the next response should be.

There's a very interesting article in Slate that discusses if Sheldon actually has Aspergers or not, and how the writers and producers of the show have built the character. There is no mention of the word, but

Sheldon is an exaggerated sitcom characterization, granted, and yet how else does one describe a string theorist who insists on playing Klingon Boggle and Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock? A prodigy who experimented with his home's staircases to find the exact variant in height at which his father would trip? Who discourses at length upon the precise parameters of Christmas gift-giving? Or who refers to engineers as "semi-skilled labor"—and is then surprised when they take offense?

He's endearing, in an annoying way, and his often misguided attempts to understand normal human interaction (he makes a flow chart on how to make and keep friends) are as central to the show as the primary storyline of Leonards unrequited love for neighbor Penny.

From the article, it looks like the Asperger's community finds the show real and sensitive. And funny. Let's not forget funny. We laugh with the geeks, not at them. Or, well, I do -- since I am apparently one of the tribe.

Illogical conclusions

This was linked through Pharyngula, and I had to add my own comments, since I was really pissed off by the article. An op ed piece, titled "Questions Darwinism Cannot Answer" appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald. It's full of the standard nonsense, but then the author comes up with this incomprehensible statement:

[Richard Dawkins] won't take his depiction of Darwinism to logical conclusions. A dedicated Darwinian would welcome imperialism, genocide, mass deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, euthanasia, forced sterilisations and infanticide. Publicly, he advocates none of them.

Why on earth would any rational person advocate for any of those things? And what the hell is a "dedicated darwinist"?

It's obvious that the author (who is a Professor of Theology) doesn't understand Darwin, or evolution, or pretty much anything else he talks about. Great strawman, though. Lots of straw in that one. No actual brain, of course, but the scarecrow sure looks good.

Darwinism (which is a creationist shorthand for atheist, or sometimes evolution, and and entirely wrong shorthand, at that) is NOT any of those things (heck, it doesn't even exist - the whole area of study is evolutionary biology and hasn't been strictly about natural selection for decades. We don't call the theory of gravity Newtonism, do we?). It does not advocate or support any of the horrors that are listed. The basic theory of natural selection doesn't imply any of these things -- unless you have misunderstood and redefined "survival of the fittest" to fit your anti-atheist screed. How he thinks that imperialism, genocide, deportation, ethnic cleansing, eugenics, or any of them are the "result" of Darwins theories -- especially in light of the fact that Darwin espoused absolutely ZERO of these ideas -- is just boggling. And then to assert that atheists should support these things? That shows a frightening misunderstanding of atheism, evolution, Darwin's theores, and science in general.

That a professor of Theology cannot differentiate between a descriptive scientific theory, and what that means, and social efforts justified by charistmatic fanatics shouldn't surprise me, I guess. His aim is not scholarly, it is dogmatic.

I'm sure somewhere, someone tried to rationalize their actions based on "darwinism", but that doesn't suggest that the natural result of accepting that Darwin's theories have been largely supported is any sort of social ill. The conclusion is simply stated as fact and then the author goes on to bemoan how we awful atheists can't even be honest enough to support these things properly. I call bullshit.

Methinks that the dear Dr is trying (rather hysterically) to blame every social ill he can think of Darwinism (when what he really means -- and later brings up -- is atheism) in order to bolster his extremely weak argument that religion has better answers. Sounds as though he is simply upset because atheists don't espouse those things that rational people would find abhorrent. This denies him the ability to put atheists firmly in the anti-social, pathological category once and for all, and then be able to attack his charicature with abandon.

His premise seems to be that 1)god exists 2)some people don't believe, ergo 3) those people are responsible for all social problems. It's ridiculous and insulting. He apparently doesn't even have a decent grasp on world history, either. What irony, when a theologan accuses "darwinists" of being imperialists and genocidal when the bible fully endorses the concepts of imperialism and genocide , where they are acknowledged as great things and the will of god. The other things he listed? Religions around the world have been used as justification for all of them, too, does that mean we should require all believers to fully support these and advocate for them? No. To build a mythical "darwinist" and assert that this person would obviously support these things is dishonest and explicitly manipulative. Powerful ideas can be used and misued.

Religion has a get out of jail free card that science isn't allowed to play. When atrocities such as the inquisition, the trail of tears, or bombing of abortion clinics are done in the name of a god or a religion, it's a perversion of the true beliefs and morals of said religion, but any atrocities blamed on science or scientific theories are the logical conclusion to those evil scientific theories. Nice how that works, isn't it? Heads I win, tails you lose.

I'm getting really tired of the old canard that atheists have no morality. Sorry, all you theists out there who keep repeating it, I really won't be committing atrocities any time soon to fulfill your made-up idea of how we should behave.

Cruel...and funny

Yes, I'm a bad person. This made me laugh hysterically.

Babies Eating Lemons

No Shirt, No shoes

One of the idiotic stories showing up this week is that Andrew Card, former Bush Chief of Staff has been criticizing Obama for doing work in the oval office without his suit coat on. One of the much-hyped "rules" of the Bush White House was that anyone entering the Oval Office had to have a suit on. There are stories of him locking the door and ejecting people who did not follow this rule.

You know, to properly respect the office or some such nonesense. Card is claiming that Obama is somehow denigrating the office or not taking it seriously or something equally as ridiculous. Apparently, for Republicans, it's more important to look like you're doing something, than atually doing it. And Card keeps popping up on the new talking about it, like a broken record.

It's a stupid rule, and one that Bush (and others) broke on many occassions. To make an issue out of it is just ..weird. What's important is what's done in the Oval office, not how people look doing it. It's not a photo op, it's a working government. One respects the office by honoring its place in a constitutional system, not by wearing a suit. I (and everyone else, apparently) find nothing wrong with the president settling down to actuall get work done with his tie loosened and his jacket off. He's not meeting foreign dignitaries in a t-shirt, people. Get a grip.

Evidence of Evil

If you ever doubted that the Catholic church values women only as instruments for producing more catholics, all you need to do is look at the recent legal hoopla in Italy about a case involving a brain-dead woman and efforts to allow her family to let her die with dignity. The high court agreed, but politics and religious agendas again has to get involved - and it's disgusting.

But in an extraordinary turn of events, the country's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, after consultation with the Vatican, has issued an emergency decree stating that food and water cannot be suspended for any patient depending upon them, reversing the earlier court ruling. On issuing the emergency decree, Berlusconi declared: "This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate."

Justifying his campaign to save Englaro's life, the prime minister added that, physically at least, she was "in the condition to have babies", a remark described by La Stampa newspaper as "shocking". Giorgio Napolitano, Italy's president, has refused to sign the decree, but if it is ratified by the Italian parliament doctors may be obliged to resume the feeding of Eluana early this week.

So, the Vatican apparently advised that this woman -- or this woman's body, let's face it, she's brain dead and is merely an animated corpse at this point -- is still "alive" because she could gestate children. That's just...evil. So the government can step in and make that sort of valuation, and argue that it's reason enough to perpetuate this macabre and painful circus.

First off, I find consulting the Vatican about anything to be a perilous and stupid choice -- there doesn't appear to be a group on the planet less in touch with reality lately (see: holocaust denier bishop hoopla). And it surely is reassuring to me that the Catholic church values women based on her ability to procreate, rather than any other criteria. Yep, that's thinking right out of the Dark Ages. Makes me feell all warm and fuzzy inside -- and very, very glad that I can't have children any longer, so if I'm ever in a vegatative state, some asshole politician isn't going to step in and argue that I still should be kept alive becuase I could be an insensate incubator.

Wii Woe

My sister has a Wii, and for Christmas (well, a little late) we got her a Wii Fit. Those things are very, very popular and hard to find. (They love the Wii, btw -- she says the boxing game, played with Peter, is extremely cathartic.)

Apparently, when you stand on the little board thing for the Wii Fit the first time and start it up, there are all sorts of measurements and it asks you questions and determines your BMI, "real" age, and all sorts of things.

So Nin calls up and is quite upset at the stupid machine. It pegs her "real" age much older than she is, and the chirpy little happy voice announces, "Oh! You're Obese!" when it completes its analysis. The worst part is the happy chirpy voice. It's supposed to be motivating, I guess, but stating the obvious and being happy about it is not very nice! Believe me, anyone getting on this thing and getting their ass kicked by the hula hoop activity knows they aren't in shape. No one needs reminding. And Nin is far from obese, if you ask me!

Then again, the "rules" say that the Adorable Husband is overweight, too -- for his height, he's supposed to weigh less than 200 pounds, they say. No way -- he'd be a stick-skinny little beanpole person if he was that skinny. Even at his "best" weight, in the Army when he was really, really in shape, he was between 220 and 230. I think the BMI rules are not very realistic in many cases.

I'm not making any claims that I'm "big boned", of course. I just don't need constant reminders that I'm fat if I'm really trying to do something to change that. Maybe the Wii Fit should have a "positive-only" switch, so it says, "You're doing so much better than last week! Yeah, you! You've lost a pound! Wooot!" instead of reminding you that you have so far to go.

We don't have a Wii, although with the huge screen downstairs, we really should consider it. I'll let you know if we get a Wii Fit and then throw it out in the front yard when it starts to insult us.

Weird? Me? Naaah..

And I present to you two of the 104 pages of Scotland maps that I have laboriously covered with dots marking the locations of all known castles, castle ruins, and stray piles of rocks. And a few distilleries. The maps are 2 miles per inch.

Mock away.

Fourteen is enough

I really wish people would stop referring to the recent birth of a litter of 8 children as "a miracle".

It's not a miracle. It's a travesty of medical ethics and idiot parents and irresponsible treatment. This family already had SIX children, and opted to have eight embryos implanted during IVF and apparently they don't agree with selective reduction of the implanted embryos because they oppose abortion.

This is so damned unethical all around. How does a woman with 6 kids even GET fertility treatment at all, let alone implantation of EIGHT embryos? I'm sure that TLC will have a new show in the works immediately, but who on earth is paying for the several months of NICU for these eight preemies and how are they going to raise all these children? It was "too painful" to consider aborting some of the fetuses to avoid having a fekking litter, so it's better to let these kids suffer the very common and very serious problems associated with being a low-weight preemie -- developmental delays, health problems, the works.

Miracle my ass. It's not "god's will", which has also been bandied about. No, sorry, your deity has nothing do to with this. Bad medicine, bad decisions, and morons all around.

School

I'm in Milwaukee, teaching class this week.

There's a used bookstore in the airport. Why don't ALL airports have one of these?

When they're wrong, they're REALLY wrong

The 10 Most Embarrassing Award Winners in Automotive history.

You have to love any article that describes a 2002 Thunderbird as:

The result was an overweight, softly sprung roadster that looked great outside, was agonizingly boring inside, and dreary to drive. And at about $40,000, it was stupidly expensive. If anyone was going to drive this T-Bird, it was platinum-haired women prone to carrying small dogs wherever they go

Deserves at least a quick read!

Medical Care is a perk?

Ok, I'm a bit irked. The doctor that the Adorable Husband and I have been seeing for almost 20 years now is leaving private practice and is no longer going to directly see patients as a primary care physician. He is handing over all his patients to his partner in the practice -- a guy we like well enough, but really haven't seen very often. We're pretty low-maintenance patients, I think. Maybe one appointment a year?

Anyway, so we weren't too terribly happy with seeing the new guy -- but today we got a note in the mail that he's changing his practive to 'premier medicine": i.e., he's going to charge patients a yearly fee to be included in his patient list. This "private doctor" model was floated a few years ago and is apparently pretty popular. THe doctor has fewer patients (200 vs 2000) and you have a more personalized experience, longer appointments, less wait time, etc. They still bil your insurance for any services, of course, the extra fee is just to buy into the club. He will no longer see any patients who do not pay his service fee. They can be seen by the nurse practictioner in the office, or they can go find another primary care physician. So sorry, buh-bye!

Well, thank-you-very-much, Doctor. If it was our original doctor doing this, we probably would seriously consider the 3K+ yearly fee. We like him, he has our whole history. But a new doc? Bah. I guess I didn't realize that medical coverage was now a super-secret club avaialble only to those with an extra couple of grand to spend. He could have at least waited a year or so, so the patients got to know him and might consider this sort of thing.

We're going to be out looking for a new PCP, I guess.

The Plague Returns

I was feeling fine. I was still nursing a wee bit of a cough, but feeling fine.

No longer. The cough and sore throat have returned, and I feel like I have a head full of cotton. Ugh. I slept in this morning, dragged my butt out of bed and slumped downstairs to try to work. I don't think it's going to last long.

Waaah. I want to go back to bed. With a woobie and a good book and warm socks.

Swearing In

With all the discussion over what book is used in the swearing in, I have a humble suggestion:

Swearing in the president, an affirmation to uphold the Constitution, should be done on a copy of the Constitution itself.

Better yet, the inaugural ritual of the Presidential oath should be done at the National Archives on the original Constitution.

I think that would correctly represent the intentions of the Founders, don't you?

Equality and Freedom

I am reminded how thankful I am that I have choices, that I have options in my life that previous generations did not. That I can expect fair treatment and honest medical care. That I can choose when and how (or if) to have a family.

"On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services.

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere."

...and on we go

President Obama re-took the oath of office with Justice Roberts yesterday, in private. I can only assume it was to avoid any kerfuffle about the 'wrong oath' and to fulfil the ritual requirements of inaguration for personal reasons. Just to get it right (and to silence the critics who say it wasn't valid).

And you know what? A few of the nutjobs are back -- now they are claiming that the oath wasn't valid because he didn't take it with his hand on a bible.

Let's get a little clarification here. First off, they argue that by saying 'execute faithfully' vs 'faithfully execute' (with a split infinitive no less), he didn't take the oath as specified in the Constitution, and thus it is not valid and he's not rightfully president. They are apparently ignorant of the fact that Obama is president, legally and lawfully whether he says the words or not, whether he says the right words or not. His term began as 12:00, when the previous president's term ends. Period. He was elected. Everything that he has done since that time is valid, legal, and permitted. (See Amendment 20: The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January...; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.) There is no need, as some news people have suggested, that he needs to RE-validate what he's done up until the point when he retook the oath.

But there is another issue here, that they are ignorning (and which falls in line with the new complaint of no bible at the oath). Wait, I thought the argument was that he hadn't been a stickler for the rules as set forth in the Constitution. Right? Shouldn't they be arguing that the oath, as administered, is still wrong?

Here you will find a copy of The Constitution of the United States, in it you will find that the oath taken by Obama is not the oath contained in said Constitution.

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the United States."

You will notice that the words "So help me God" are not there. They are not part of the "official oath". So, even if he repeated the oath word for word from Roberts, Obama still hasn't said the 'right oath" -- don't hear the wingnuts complaining about that. Can you imagine the hysterics if a President ommitted them?

The National Archives says George Washington added the words "so help me God" when he took the oath at his 1789 inaugural, and most presidents have used it since. However, some have argued that the first eyewitness account of a president using those words came at President Chester Arthur's inauguration in 1881. I have no problem with adding it -- a devout person affirming or swearing on their belief in god is fine. It is meaningful to them, regardless of how meaningless it is to me.

But now to freak out about the fact that no bible was used in the repeat of the oath starts to stray into different territory. If they're so concerned with being 'true' to the contitution (and for some of them, I wonder if they are familiar with it at all), then they should know that there is no mention of the bible for the oath in the constitution. They should drop the 'so help m god', and be done with it. If they want to be consitutionally accurate, that is.

They should reacquaint themselves with the fact that the only real mention of religion in the Constitution is this:

Article VI, 3: ...but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

I thind the whole thing is a non-issue, really. Bible, no bible, split infinitive or no split infinitive. It makes no difference except to fill airtime on the hundreds of news shows. My real interest is the swirl of conjecture, conspiracy theory, and nutty ideas that are being floated out there. It's fascinating and irrational and amusing.

Subgenres

Whilst browsing around looking for a booklist from one of my favorite authors, I discovered that many of the authors that I like write a specific version of scifi/fantasy novels that are called 'manner punk', or 'fantasy of manners'.

I've always enjoyed scifi/fantasy/paranormal sorts of novels for fluff reading - the creation of new worlds and new societies and the details of how things go together has always interested me. Some of my favorite books have complex social rules and vast, detailed histories developed by the author. I've never liked space opera or technological sci-fi, nor unicorns-and-dragon types of fantasy (well, with a few exceptions) and discovered today that there's an actual name for the style of writing that I like. Who'd a thunk?

Imagine my surprise to realize that I have books by all the authors listed by the Wiki site, and my all-time favorite fantasy author, Emma Bull, is among them.

Of course, I wasted two hours today reading all about the various subgenres of fantasy and sci-fi books. Elfpunk, Cyberpunk, Spy-Fi, Time travel, New Wave, Pulp. Cool!

Well, it IS Fox nerws

Yesterday's inaguration was a grand success, according to everyone. Millions of people, great performances, great speech, generally a good time. No one was arrested, Ted Kennedy is back on his feet, it certainly looked like everyone had a great time.

The only hiccup in the formalities was the boofed swearing in -- Justice Roberts stumbled the wording of the oath (and Obama was apparently excited enough to jump in a little early) and so this little rite was not smooth sailing, as the two men played a version of 'What's my line'. They both chuckled about it later, and it was a small (almost amusing) interlude.

But almost immediately online, came the question of "is he really president? The oath was screwed up!". I would expect this from knuckle-dragging conspiracy theorists, hunkering down with their new guns in their mother's basements (oh, sorry, their fortified bunkers), but to hear an anchor on the news asking that question?

Chris Wallace of FOX News wondered if, due to the fumbled oath, Obama really was president.

By law, Obama became president at noon Eastern, regardless of the ceremonial oath of office. But that didn't stop some from speculating and others from kidding.

Was he joking? I really can't tell.

But the fact is that some forums on the web are abuzz with complex "legal discussions" as to whether that invalidates the assumption of the presidency. Really? It would be really funny if it didn't follow hard on the heels of the whole "he's not really a citizen! His birth certificate is fake!" and "He's a secret muslim!" nonsense over the last few weeks.

Get a grip, people. It was an embarrassing, if amusing, flub. Let's get on with business!

Gloating, just a little

It's over 70 degrees here today. Blue skies, faint breeze, and SEVENTY DEGREES.

Neener, neener to the cold Minnesota winter!

Change!

Watched the inauguration of the President Obama this morning -- did you SEE the millions of people crowded into Washington DC? Wow.

A couple of things I noticed:

1) I heard nothing about "Free speech zones" and segregating protesters. In fact, I really didn't hear anything about protesters at all except in vague references from the Secret Service about white supremacist group threats. I'm sure there were some protesters, but they apparently weren't segregated somewhere out of sight.

2) Obama gives a very good speech. The fact that it was a subtle smackdown of the policies, behavior, and beliefs of the previous administration was an added bonus (for those of us that believe we've been going in the wrong direction). I actually feel excited and patriotic. And everyone was still and silent during his speech - that was stirring, too.

3) I was just listening and couldn't understand a single word of Aretha's song. I had to actually check what it was supposed to be! Plus, a string trio was an odd choice for music, but quite stirring. And the Marine choir has sopranos.

4) The crowd was singing 'Na na na, Hey Hey, good bye" as the helicopter took off. You could hear it faintly.

5) The new White House website is really nice.

And another thing! We non-believers actually got mentioned in the inaugural speech! We were included. I don't think that's ever happened before.

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."

Yes. That is change I can support. I'm sure the hand-wringing will start soon that he's "not really christian" (along with the wingnut assertion that he's not even american) and religious groups will decry his inclusion of those other religions, but I can only hope that this is a sign that the goverment will have a more secular bent. Tolerance of other views has been lacking lately. I appreciate that Obama, up front, recognized that there are many different and valid views. Yeah!

More Sun!

Having just returned from a fabulous vacation in the sun on the Ruby Princess, my Dad and Pat have already planned for the trip next year on the sister ship, the Emerald.

Peter apparently was very enthusiastic about the trip, and so my parents have already made reservations for next year. We have the same cabin.

It's worth a chuckle or two, to get reservations a year in advance, but it's awfully sweet. We had such a good time and I'm glad that my Dad did, too. It's harder for him lately, and I'm glad he enjoyed spending time with us.

Social Dud

I have succumbed to social networking peer pressure. I joined Facebook. (mostly to keep track of what's going on in my sister's life). Sigh. I have two friends. Two. I am obviously not a social butterfly.



I am on linkedIn, too. Next thing you know, I'll be publishing rude pictures on MySpace and never leave my house.

Oh, wait, I already don't leave my house. I should be embarrassed, I know.

The Joys of Old House Ownership

I no longer live in an old house - I spent almost 12 years in a centengenarian brick Victorian with just about every old-house problem you could imagine, and loved every minute of it. We loved the fixer-upper-opportunity-dream-home aspect of the house, and learned to live with its quirks and foibles. Things dripped, or creaked, or leaned; windows squeaked and stuck, doors swung open or shut depending on the weather, a breeze blew through most rooms on a windy day. There weren't any doorknobs in the house for six months.

We were lucky. The Adorable Husband is a handy husband. I really recommend them for any house owner - it's so much cheaper to have a genuinely adept fixit person who can repair the sprinkler system or change a light switch or fix a leaky faucet or build cabinets or refinish floors.

My sister is not so lucky. Not only does is she not the handiest person around, she doesn't really have a staff of handy people to help her. And she has an old house which was even less well-cared-for than ours was, I think.

So, in the frigidly cold weather in Minnesota this week (37 below, anyone?) she has had a host of problems. The kitchen faucet froze. The furnace starting making weird clicking and popping noises. The main water supply pipe to the house froze and burst. If it could go wrong, it did, and luckily she had Christmas$ to pay for the repairs.

She still is not listening to my (less subtle) urging to move to Colorado (where it was a balmy 40 degrees today and will be near 60 by next week), but I do sympathize with the Money-Pit Aspects of owning a house.

Perfect (Water) Landing

A US Airways jet apparently took a goose to one engine on takeoff from LaGuardia, and the pilot made a perfect water landing in the Hudson River -- no one was hurt, everyone was pulled off the slowly sinking aircraft by local ferries that arrive in less than 3 minutes (the people were standing on the wings) and the pilot had enough time to walk through the plane two times to ensure that no one was left on board before left the plane. Pictures here.

Bravo! Talk about calm, cool, collected thinking in a crisis.

Apparently the landing was perfect enough that some bystanders thought that they were filming a movie or something. Wow.

Good Riddance

From Bush's going-away address:

As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation. And I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe.

Might I point something out, dimwit? You received those briefings before 911 too. You just didn't pay any attention to them.

Rare occurrence

The Adorable Husband stayed home sick from work today. He NEVER does this. I'm actually a wee bit worried about him!

It's just the horrible chest-cold/flu stuff that's going around, but he's miserable.

TILT: Silver Spoons

Everyone understands the saying, "born with a silver spoon in his mouth" -- used rather pejoratively as a reference to inherited wealth and all the perks that come with it. Someone born to wealth but not having worked for it, for example. It's a silver spoon vs anything else because spoons are heavy and most households had many of them -- hence they represented a large portion of the wealth in a family (don't you just love Wiki?)

What I didn't know was that it also has some reference to health. Children fed with silver spoons tended to be healthier than those fed with other kinds of spoons, since silver has antibacterial properties.

Thinks I learned today while watching History Channel.

No Skiing for Us

We cut short the TUSC Ski weekend trip by driving home on Saturday night -- both of us are still sick, and being up in the mountains with a wheezy cough is not pleasant.

We drove up Friday night and had a lovely dinner with our friends -- very good seafood -- and spent our Saturday alternately napping and hitting the local outlet mall looking for Harry and David pears and a new leather belt. We were quite successful!

The Adorable Husband decided that since he's still a) sick and b) new on beta-blockers, that skiing was probably not a good idea. I feel rather bad that he missed an opportunity to ski -- he has so few of them. We thought he might take a snowboard lesson so that he can go with Peter when they come out for Spring break, but that would have been too much activity, too, I think.

My company sponsored dinner at the Keystone lodge, and afterwards, we headed home instead of spending another night. I wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed.

It was a lovely weekend, really. Relaxing and a chance to catch up with everyone.

Not-quite but Pretty Close

Some new Ford cars are being marketed as "Partial Zero Emissions Vehicles".

Partial Zero Emissions?

Uh, either you are ZERO emissions, or you are NOT. Zero is a binary option here -- ZERO or NOT-ZERO. If you are not zero, you have some.

A Partial Zero Emissions vehicle is just a very low emissions vehicles, but it still has emissions. You are just "almost zero", or "just about zero" or "still some teensy bit", but calling it a Partial Zero Emissions vehicle sounds like marketing hoo-ha.

And it is, technically. All of this is being driven by the CA statute requiring zero-emissions vehicles and this was a bone tossed to the automobile industry to allow them to show progress towards the goal, even if they aren't actually there yet. They can't claim 0, so they made a new category of extra/ultra low emissions and called it "partial zero" to make everyone feel good, apparently.

This vehicle category was created as part of a bargain with the California Air Resources Board (CARB), so that the automobile manufacturers could postpone producing mandated zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), which will require the production of electric vehicles or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. - from Wiki.

I'm not arguing with the progress (yeah for low emissions vehicles), but with the nomenclature. It's just stupid and silly and misleading. Call it "Almost Zero", if you have to, to add to the confusing maze of acronyms related to car emissions, but "Partial Zero?"

Friendless

I actually joined MySpace in order to see pictures of my sister's new washer and dryer (her ancient machines died right after Christmas and she got a fabulous deal on new front-load GE machines that have steam and forty-leven programmable settings.)

Anyway, I signed up, put the rather meager information for public consumption out on MySpace, and sent a friend-request to my sister. She accepted.

And then commented on my wall: "Awwww...am I your only friend?"

I can just imagine her voice, and I'm still giggling about it.

WiseDecor

Wisedecor.com has put up photos of our "Welcomes" in the foyer. Cool! We're sort-of-famous for a week or so!

We're even linked off the front page.

Post-vacation sickness

It's absolutely predictable. Vacation...then Deathly Sickness.

Both of us are absolutely floored by some sort of respiratory thing that has us coughing, hacking, snot, and sore throat.

Ugh. This had better clear up soon. Going back to work is bad enough. Going back to work sick is not fair!

Cruise: Homeward Bound

We never saw Jenna and Michael, or Nin and Peter this morning -- they were off the boat and to the airport long before we even got up, I think.

Everyone has to be out of their stateroom by 8am (and remember that we've already given our luggage to the porters) so we rushed up to get breakfast in the buffet before we met our disembarkation group at 9:15. We ran into my Dad and Pat at breakfast. They are Elite members, so they have a special lounge to wait in, and since their flight is later in the day from Miami, they had an hour or so to kill.

We were off the boat at 9:15, picked up our luggage (which has already been screened or xrayed or whatever it is they do to it) and sailed through customs and out into the terminal to find a taxi.

What a MADHOUSE. Busses from the airlines, busses from the cruiseline, five thousand people trying to get off the boat and to the airports -- and another ship on the other side of the pier heading our direction, too. We waited in a taxi-rank, which supposedly would let five or six taxis line up -- but they were being hailed long before they got to the taxi line, so they never actually arrived. People were just walking up past the ranks and flagging down a taxi on their own (it seems to be every man for himself when you get off!). It was very frustrating. Next time, we'll hire one of the private cars -- can't be more expensive than a transfer, I imagine, and having someone specifically waiting would be useful.

Well, it wasn't really necessary this time -- our flight doesn't leave until late afternoon, so all this foofaraw right now is just to get out of the way. We did finally get a cab to the airport, checked in our luggage, and then stared at each other for awhile....yeah, I want to spend seven hours in the airport. Hmph. We got in a taxi and went to a nearby mall, had lunch, wandered around a bit, and didn't come back until about 2:30.

Our flight is delayed about an hour (others were delayed 2-4 hours, depending on where they were going) and it was absolutely packed. Once in Atlanta, we had a bit of dinner and went off to wait for our flight back to Denver. It, too, was late. But - it also had upgrades available so we have about a microsecond of discussion and upgraded to first class, figuring we could sleep better on the way out. We got on the plane...and then sat for almost two hours at the gate while they got more fuel (because of weather conditions), let on more passengers, etc. We just enjoyed the free drinks and settled in to sleep once we finally took off.

Home at 1am. And to bed.

Cruise VII

Another day at sea, which is actually kind of a relief after the shore excursions and activities this week. We all have spa appointments for manicures and pedicures this morning, while 'the guys' hang out (probably watching football). It was very relaxing and I managed to snag a cancelled appointment for a facial later on in the day. Score!

The Adorable Husband felt a bit under the weather this mroning -- he's trying to catch a cold, I guess, so he slept in and just joined us for lunch. I was so relaxed and noodly after my facial that I joined him for a nap afterwards. We did take in a bit of the football game on the giant screen, but mostly we just lumped around and relaxed.

And packed. In order for disembarkation to work smoothly, they want to collect everyone's luggage around dinner time the previous day. So we had to pack just about everything up and set it outside our stateroom. This is not such a big deal for us - I'm perfectly happy to wear what I did to dinner on the plan tomorrow, and use the shampoo and stuff provided by the ship...but poor Nin has about forty different bottles of "product" that she is not willing to give up. Luckily, you are reunited with your luggage at customs in the morning, so she just put everything in a tote bag. Oh, the perils of good skin care!

Since it was our last night, the three of us pooled together to tip our room steward. Tipping is technically included in the room fees (they charge 11 dollars per person that is pooled and divvied up among the waiters, stewards, etc.). But Piotrek was extremely helpful and we were pretty demanding (everyone got locked out of their room at least once except us, and needed extra towels and such!) so we added a bit. It seemed fair, at any rate. They get about a two bucks a day per stateroom otherwise. It's probably not necessary, but we're notorious over-tippers anyways.

At dinner, there was the traditional Parade of the Baked Alaska -- Pat mentioend it as being very common on cruises, and lo-and-behold, they did. It was, I'll admit, a tad cheesy: there are no open flames allowed on ships any more, so the traditional Baked Alaska still on fire being paraded through the dining room was not allowed: they had, instead, little electric lights on top. Kind of like slightly-browned UFOs. It was rather odd. Tasty, though.

They had escargot at dinner, too. I can't eat them. I mean, eeeeuuuu! Snails. But that doesn't stop me from soaking up the garilc butter with bread and eating that, of course. Peter tried on (they were done perfectly, according to everyone who ate them) and declared them, "ok". He also ate an appetizer of chicken, mushrooms, and sweetbreads. After much conference around the table, we decided to tell him that it was braaaiiiiiiiinnnnnns. That was pretty funny.

We all adjourned to the casino after dinner. My Dad loves to hit the craps table with his sons-in-law. They have no idea how the game works, really, but it's always exciting. Everyone went back to their rooms early, though. They put everyone in groups (based on their flights, their rooms, and whether they have transfers to the airport, etc) and have specific times for those groups to meet and get off the boat. I think everyone except us had to be off the boat by 7:45am.

Cruise VI

We swam with Dolphins today! Got in the water and had rides and pushes, and got to swim in the lagoon with three dolphins. It was a lot of fun! More interactive than the "dolphin touch" that they did in Ochos Rios, and definitely a cool experience. The dolphins seem to enjoy it, too.

The dolphin we had in our group, Marina, was quite young, and she sometimes decided she didn't want to do what the trainer asked, so she'd do something else and then circle around. I think if dolphins could actually laugh, she would have.

Peter was great - he swam out to get a belly ride, held his arms just like he was supposed to, and laughed the whole way in as she pulled him along. It was really fun. I snorted a bunch of seawater trying to get my mask on. I'd totally do this again if I had the chance! Nin didn't come on this one (she went to get a massage instead), since she finds the rubbery skin of dolphins kind of squicky.

We all went back to the boat for lunch -- it rained on the way back up the pier. It's pretty funny to see people who are already wet, already in swim suits, squealing and running in the rain. It came down in sheets, but c'mon, you're already wet! Jenna and Nin went shopping in Cozumel and we met them after lunch. The two nurses in the group - the Adorable Husband and Nin -- were alternately horrified and intrigued by the vast array of drugs available in the drugstore. Heart meds, serious antibiotics and antidepressants -- the sorts of things that would be dangerous if taken incorrectly! Serious stuff.

My SIL commented on an earlier Cruise post that she'd always imagined that a cruise was kind of cheesy -- more like Love Boat with people playing shuffleboard and a perky cruise-director and that sort of thing. I have to admit I had much the same thought. Our vacations are 180 degrees from this planned, organized, well-run sort of tourist trap that I imagined a cruise would be. But it was very liberating not to have to plan everything, and to know that there was any one of a dozen activities going on at any time that I could join, or a hundred others that I could do on my own. Hang out with family when you want to, hang out alone when you want to - plenty for everyone to do and enough that interests everyone that it's a lot of fun. There was a fully staffed Kids program (three, actually, for kids 2-7, 8-12, and 13 and older) that had activities just for them, pools to swim in, movies to watch, live entertainment (jugglers and magicians and comedians) in the plaza, and about a dozen different venues to sit and have a nice glass of wine and enjoy something tasty (sushi, anyone? lovely little plates from the international cafe, cheese plates, etc).

While there actually was a shuffleboard area, it was dwarfed by the electronic golf, the spa, the daily Wii-competitions on the big screen, and cooking demos. If you wanted an active vacation, there were a hundred different hikes and walks, and zip-line tours, and watercraft to rent in every port; on board there was a full-sized gym and even fitness classes. If you wanted a lazy, lump-about vacation, there was the balcony, the pool, the beach, the theater. Punctuate that with excellent meals, and it's pretty nice.

We wandered down to find gelato and little munchies after a quick walk through town. It was too humid after the rain, I was actually getting tired just trying to breathe it! We listened to the violinist in the plaza, enjoyed a cookie and a glass of wine, and just relaxed for the rest of the day. It was a great day!

Cruise V

New Years Eve! The ship has tons of parties planned, and lots of things going on for the New Year. We have dinner reservations at the steak restaurant on board (in addition to the two main dining halls, which have a set menu, there are two speciality restaurants on board, a steak house and an italian restaurant).

But first, off to Grand Cayman. Our ship got the short straw, and had the furthest out anchor point, but they started transferring people to shore by 7:15. We were up and out the door not much after, and caught a taxi to the public beach access on Seven Mile Beach -- a long strip of soft, white sand beach on the western part of the island. IT's lined with hotels and resorts, but there are still lovely public beach areas. We snapped up beach chairs and umbrellas (which can be a bit spendy!) and sprayed each other down with sunscreen.

The water is warm and so clear that you can snorkel in really deep water and still see the fish and rocks below. We hung a little closer to shore, just floating aimlessly in the water and watching Peter do his fish impressions. Jenna even clambered down into the water (although we had to give her a hand getting back up into the beach).


We spent maybe four and a half hours on the beach, but then the Adorable Husband had a massage appointment, so we all stuck together and headed back to the tenders and back to the boat. Jenna and Nin wanted to shop a bit, but with all the sun we couldn't summon enough energy to even try. It was enough to just walk back to the pier and we were dozing off on the ride back.

We all got dressed up in our fancy clothes and met in Dad and Pat's suite for champagne before heading down to dinner. Which was fantastic. The scalloped potatoes were addictive and dangerous, and followed great steaks and wine and a lovely bottle of Veuve Clicquot. But it was the chocolate dessert that nearly did us in. We fairly waddled from the restaurant. The Adorable Husband had five desserts. Well, bits of five of them. Even he couldn't finish!

We surrendered and were in bed before midnight. Hah!

Cruise IV

Jamaica is lovely -- green and hilly and beautiful. And touristy, of course. The ship docks at the main port in Ochos Rios and once we get off the ship, it's tourist city. Quite literally -- they have built a "village shopping" area just off the pier that is geared towards tourists shopping and effectively buffers you from the actual people and city. Jenna and Michael hired a cab for a ride around town, and headed off immediately while the rest of us waited for one of the excursions to go off and meet dolphins and see Dunn's Falls. This is one of the most popular things to do while onshore for the day. Pat and Mark and Nicole and Peter got into the water to learn about dolphins and get a kiss and touch them (although they didn't get to swim with the dolphins on this outing - Pat started out with the most conservative option, since Peter is often a bit anxious about these things. It was a lot of fun, if a bit disorganized. My dad came along, but it was too much walking through the nature park to the beach, and he and Pat went back to the boat after they were done.

We stayed back with Nin and Peter and had lunch, then took the shuttle to the waterfall. One of the options is to climb the falls -- everyone links hands and snakes their way up the 700 foot falls, scrambling up the rocks and through the different terraces. It's not as easy as it is made out to be, actually -- we were a bit boggled that it was allowed, actually. There is no way that anything like this would be allowed in the states, period. But, if you have a good group and everyone works together, it's easy enough to get up the rocks. I, however, am a klutz, and after slipping once and falling on my butt (because the guy in front of me let go when I tried to scramble up, and then bashing my head not once, but twice, on the concrete bridge, I bailed out about halfway up, along with a bunch of other people. They said that the hard part was already done, but I'm still sporting a half-dozen bruises from the climb, so I'm not so sure! Mark and Peter, though, toughed it out and made it all the way up! Nin was very concerned that Peter had been scared or freaked out, but he was just fine with Mark and did a great job. You really, really need good, solid, rubber-soled shoes for this one. And a waterproof camera!


We were all soaked and sunburned and ready to go back to the ship, and we caught one of the last busses back to the pier. I have a goose-egg on my forehead, which is sunburned. Wah!

There is a huge age range on this cruise - lots of kids (600!), lots of older people. Apparently the average age of the cruise goes up dramatically after the holidays. Princess is not a "party" cruise, like some of the other cruise lines, and the passengers tend to be older. There are tons of activities for kids, though. One thing thatI have noticed, though, is that there is a (hopefully) small group of cruise passengers who are just rude. They don't say please or thank you, they don't even make eye contact with the many staff on board, they just order them around as if they are somehow beneath notice. It's kind of weird. Yes, I know the staff is there to serve, but barking, "water!" at a waiter without bothering to look up and just shaking your glass while continuing your conversation with someone else is just rude. Snapping orders at people, or expecting them to read minds to bring what you wanted, and not what you asked for, is out of line in my book. I was raised to ask for things, not demand them, even when they will be delivered without question. "Yes, please, if you could bring me a glass of diet coke, that'd be great!" is a much nicer answer to 'can I get you a drink?' than "diet coke!" accompanied by an airy wave of the hand.

I wonder if it's the "all inclusive" part of the cruise concept that breeds this. You pay quite a bit of money to be waited on hand and foot, perhaps some few people take it a bit too seriously and think that they are entitled to instant, complete gratification of all their demands. I don't know.

The cruise also has a pretty loose dress code, too. Some cruises have many "formal" nights, and the rest of the time everyone still dresses in snazzy clothes. We have two formal nights -- which means that suits and dresses are worn to dinner, but the rest of the time is casual. Dinner is always a bit more dressy than daytime, but a pair of khakis is more than enough. YOu can't wear your bathing suit into the dining halls, and they frown on jeans or shorts. But everything else is fair game. The Adorable Husband complained that hti sis the first time he's been on vacation where he had to bring a suit. But it was fun to see all the people dress up (and some people really dressed up, in sequined evening dresses. Or, in the case of some of the Japanese tour group, in full, formal kimono!

I think I'll limit the days I have to wear high heels on vacation to one or two.

I thought that I packed pretty lightly (at least compared to my sisters -- and after seeing some of the luggage being hauled onto the ship, I am even more boggled). But I realized that I could have packed half what I did and had plenty of clothes to wear. I wish I had another bathing suit -- putting on the suit this mornign was a wee bit clammy -- but could have managed with a couple of t-shirts, a beach coverup, one medium dressy outfit (khakhis and polo shirt) and one dressy outfit (dress). I pretty much wore the same thing every day, and the Adorable Husband wore a swimsuit and t-shirt most days, too. I spent 90% of my waking time in a t-shirt and bathing suit and flip-flops.

Cruise III

A day at sea, after yesterday's lovely beach-lounging. We're heading to Jamaica, so we have a day to explore the ship and laze about at one of the many pools. We slept in a bit (we didn't get to bed until 2am after the infirmary excitement), and met everyone at the main pool for drinks and lounging at lunchtime.

The boat is huge. 950 feet long, 165 feet wide, carries up to 4000 passengers and 1200 crew. The Ruby Princess is a new ship (Oct 2008), and it's very comfortable. There is a huge theater (where they have live shows and movies), an enormous video screen on the top deck that shows movies, four pools, three dining rooms, a wine bar and international cafe, library, pub, a couple of nightclubs, a casino, spa, the works. We wandered around poking our noses into things and just enjoying the breeze from the deck. It's nigh on impossible to get a lounger around the pool, but there are plenty of other places to relax and enjoy the sun.

Our room steward is Polish -- his name is Piotrek, and he got everyone's last name right the first time (which is not common if you're not actually polish, too). The crew of the boat hail from all over -- we saw a ton of people from England, Italy, Serbia, Slovakia, Greece, Thailand, the Phillipines, China. Apparently, the jobs on cruise ships are contract gigs, and there is fierce competition to get the slots. Some of the people we talked to were on their sixth or seventh contract - each one is six months long, and they work 12+ hour days most of the time. We often saw the wait staff from one restaurant working elsewhere later in the day -- enough so that we asked if they were just locked in the hold for the few hours they weren't on duty! They have their own quarters and lounges (and even a pool) belowdecks, since htey aren't really allowed to mix with the passengers in their off hours. They have their own crew mess, too, so they don't really get the same food, either. But everyone seemed to really like it (and going for four years at a stretch adds some credence to that claim). Me? Well, I'd be hard pressed to be that pleasant to everyone all the time!

We stopped and got a "soda stamp" -- food is always included on the boat (except for some speciality cafes), but soda, coffee, and any alcohol will cost you. You can buy a stamp up front for 25 bucks that lets you drink soda for free all week. For us, it was a great deal. We drink a lot of diet soda, so it was worthwhile to get. THey have a coffee stamp, too, but that's less of an issue since coffee is included with meals. and you only pay for coffee at other times.

Dinner was excellent - seafood and lamb and steaks. The menu changes every day, and it's worth it to wait for dessert. Michael, my BIL, has it down: order two or three desserts up front to save time!

Despite the number of people on the boat (I think we were near capacity), it never really felt crowded in most places. The pool was always crowded, of course, but we never waited in line or got caught in crowds going to any of the other parts of the ship. Intellectually I know there are some 5000 people on the boat, but it doesn't really seem possible. Dinners are not crowded, the theater was rarely full, even the main plaza seemed open and airy. There are simply so many places for everyone to go that they rarely end up in the same one, I guess. We only aborted our plans once when too many poeple showed up and that was to the movie showing on the upper desk with the huge outdoor screen -- we were a little late and couldn't find a lounge chair free.

The boat rocks a little when underway, but it's almost soothing. I can't imagine that anyone gets seasick on a boat this big, but the doctor last night assured me that many people do. I find the gentle rocking very pleasant, actually.