Fully Conservative!

I can't decide whether to laugh or sigh over this one. Apparently conservatives over at the near-parody site, Conservapaedia (where they have started to define their own little reality, as opposed to the rest of the world, I guess) aren't happy with the Bible and have decided to rewrite it. (And no, this is apparently not a hoax nor a bad joke.)

That Jesus fellow was a bit too liberal for them. Too much 'give to the poor', 'care for your neighbor' and 'do unto others'. Nope! They want more support for the free market, less touchy-feely niceness, more condemnation, more paternalism, and more hellfire and damnation.

I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. Every single religious group wants to rewrite the bible/reinterpret the bible to fit their own views. That it took this long for "conservatives" to add their heavy-handed dose of moralism and politics to to the list is the actual surprise. I'm sure this version will emphasize their "family values", even if it means bastardizing the text to do so.

Where they got the idea that it was the "liberals" who wrote, edited, collated, and interpreted the bible, I have no idea. Obviously they aren't that knowledgeable about biblical (or world) history. But they want a Whole New Bible with all the 'bias' removed. Because, you know, two thousand years of biblical criticism, theology, and religious analysis have been totally wrong the whole time! Aren't you just quivering with excitement that a bunch of 'conservatives" have decided to FIX the bible?

What about the Biblical Literalists? Aren't the most conservative of the christian sects on the end of the spectrum that believes the bible is without flaw? And even if it is not inerrant, it is divinely inspired..do they really believe that everyone is wrong and that rewriting it is necessary? Will anyone using another bible transation be considered an un-believer now, since the message is changed? So much for the Bible as a holy book with inspirational power, eh?

And, just to add a dose of hilarity to the process - -they aren't actually going to go back to the original texts...they are going to rewrite the King James Version of the bible to fit their lovely set of beliefs. I suppose it's like a meaner, less-accurate version than the Surfer Bible, when you come right down to it. A target for ridicule and mockery, nothing more.

And just look at the criteria! I had no idea that christians were clamoring for a "fully conservative" version of the bible. Can you even call that a bible anymore?

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

Oh, yes, gotta make sure to preserve that paternalistic, opporessive male-dominated society. Them uppity wimmen are just causing problems left and right. (I'm curious where they are finding 'gender inclusive' language in any standard translation of the bible, except perhaps for humankind instead of mankind.) Is that what is emasculating? That we might say "humankind" or take the meaning of 'mankind' to mean men and women? Ok, let's go back to the sexist language of the bible and make sure to put women in their place - at home, as chattel. Oh, goody.

3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level

So, they should be reading in the original Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin, right? Admittedly, there are a boatload of "new age" translations of the bible that remove the purposely archaic and ponderous language of the KJV to make it more accessible to many people. It is dumbed down if it doens't contain the thees and thous and spakests? On what do they base the idea that a passage is "dumbed down"? -- just disliking the text is not reason enough. Well, ok, maybe it is for them. The KJV is already a primarily word-for-word translation, and the NIV is only slightly more understandable.

Anyone who has actually tried to read the bible in any of the original languages, or in a word-for-word parallel translation, would never say that the bible is 'dumbed down' and needs to be fixed. And, without understanding the very complex koine Greek (the original language of the New Testament), how can they possibly make any word changes based on the KJV alone? That is just dishonest and deceitful. But, truth doesn't seem to be the goal of this particular endeavor.

And, how insulting - the NIV is the 1978 translation of the Bible, long hailed as a very good translation, and is the most popular bible translation used by evangelical churches. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to be told that they are wrong.

4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle”.

Oh, yes. Because the original Hebrew and Greek texts used the wrong word. Words have specific meaning that can't just be discardes. That's staying true to the message of the original text. So this version is going to be specifically geared towards a conservative political and social agenda, no matter what the actual words in the original are. They don't really matter any more -- it's the way that they can be used and twisted now that are important. Gotcha. That sort of throws the infallibility and god's word part of biblical history down the tubes. And on what sort of scholarship do they base the comment "defective translation"? None, I'm guessing. I'm sure it's "We really want Jesus to say HATE here instead of FORGIVE, so we'll just change his words a teeny little bit...there! Now our social agenda has a biblical basis!"

This is the "goal" that is most objectionable, actually. What in the hell are 'powerful conservative terms"? Loaded code words? Why is the use of comrade - a venerable and context-appropriate word, objectionable? Because to the simple-minded it cannot mean anything except a left-wing label? Comrade and volunteer are not the same word and have very different meanings. What purpose replacing them except to skew the text?

5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as “gamble” rather than “cast lots”;[5] using modern political terms, such as “register” rather than “enroll” for the census

6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.

Conservative religion is nothing without the opportunity to threaten your opponents with hell and damnation. The bible actually has very little to say about hell...they must be adding it in to fulfil their own fantasy. Kind of scary, actually. And, this really sort of contradicts number 8 below about 'adding shit in that wasn't there to start with'. Must be ok if its their stuff.

7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Oh, because first century prophets were proponents of the free-market philosophy and Jesus was all for corporate sponsorship and wide-open capitalism. Well, that's obvious! How could we have missed that in the existing text?

8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

Um, inserted by who, exactly. What about the later-inserted passages that aren't so liberal, but that support their ideology...those are ok, right? These right-wing ideologs know better than the combined scholarship of the church history, what should and shouldn't be included? And we're talking about the collection of stories with possibly hundreds of authors, copied and rewritten hundreds of times with all the intention and unintentional changes that entails. THsi is like making a copy of a copy of a copy a thousand times removed and claiming that you have recovered the original meaning. What unmitigated arrogance.

9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels

Ah, so we can pick and choose which bits of the gospel they want to believe, because all those other authors aren't as accurate as a purported eyewitness without much evidence and who wrote contradictory stories. Got it.

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”

But they're not going to "dumb down" the bible, (see 3, above), just remove all that exceess, high-falutin' academic wordiness...complex ideas can rarely be expressed in simple terms, but these idiots are more concerned with the appearance of intellectualism than with actual accuracy. Hah. And what is "word-to-substance' ratio? I suppose that some of the more nuanced ideas might be a bit too dififcult for the Fox News cohort to grasp. They seem to want a soundbite bible, without any neccessity for actual critical thought or worry about shades of gray in interpretation.

They also don't seem to understand the reasons behind the different words and the ambiguities in the bible - preferring instead to gloss over the different authors, different ideas, different contexts to clarify their New Word for a simpler, more gullible audience.

What idiots.

It's not much different than the thousands of interpretatios and 'teachings' put forward by various churches, really. I've heard some really ridiculous and somewhat scary "meanings" attributed to bible verses by some people. So finally trying to codify your own "version' of the bible by publishing your edited, bowdlerized, "special" version isn't too far off. It's the next step, I guess - you can now claim the bible says anything you want, just rewrite it to say what you want and voila! Instant validation, espeically if you can still manage to claim divine inerrancy and the factual truth of the now-rewritten bible you just produced. How convenient.

Now, I don't take anything in the bible is anything more than allegorical myth, but I do accept that there is a historical body of scholarship that lies behind it. There are reasons that it says what it says, and contains what it contains, and you can evaluate the context, history, authorship, and concordance of the bible based on well-accepted criteria. As a work of literature, it has a long and colorful history. As a work of religious expression, it has been used and misused through history to rationalize and justify behavior, both good and bad.

I suppose that I should not be so upset over this particular revision - with several hundred bible revisions in English alone, the differences and changes are monumental already. I just recoil at the idea of rewriting it with a specific purpose in mind and presenting it as a 'corrected version' that fundamentally intends to change the content, not just the dialect, with very little scholarly input. It is as offensive an effort as expurgating classics, like rewriting Huck Finn to eliminate the racial content because it offended someone, or changing Shakespeare to eliminate "new" word usage, which are considered a gift to the English language. Neither of these things is improved by changing content, which is far different than translation. It's one thing to express the intent of the text in another language (even Cockney or Ska!) , quite another to change the meaning of the words without valid reason to.

logos (word) does not equal Truth, no matter how much you want it to (one of the suggestions is to replace the word "word" in the beginning of the Gospel of John, and replace it with "truth"). The rest of their "examples" on the website are equally specious. Shrewd does not equal resourceful, unless you intend to change the meaning of the passage. And only in the mind of a fanatic does using the word 'laborer' mean that the author has a socialist agenda. Tin-foil hat time, people. Get a grip.

Do we really need a more conservative message shouted from the pulpit? -- that's the way to create a Christian Taliban: don't question, don't think, just obey the hyped-up language and political ideals spoken from a religious leader. This rewrite seems to imply that every christian worshipping today needs to be more conservative, to combat some imagined flaw in society. And if you aren't that conservative, you are reading a dumbed down version (NIV) and not getting the 'real' message. That turns the tables a bit, actually - how often have non-believers heard "you're not reading it right. You don't understand it properly".

I think the bible has a lot of good ideas in it, and I think that using it as a guide for figuring out 'the truth' helps a lot of people. But combine the idea that 'we need to conservatize the bible with a political agenda' with the widespread acceptance of the bible as "gods words" - how many people will go along with the idea and shove the philisophy of the christian church even further to the right?

Hopefully, this farce will be rejected for what it is: a novelty, a boutique version of a book that is clearly recognized as a parody or amusing alternative version. Hell, the bible has been translated into Klingon and Elvish, there is a Rasta version and Surfer Bible and and Illumintaed Goth version. I think, though, that these translations are not trying to change the basic message, as the Conservapaedia version seems to intend. Hence, my complaint.

Well, maybe not the Klingon version. I can't imagine they're all into the Golden Rule.

Blurts of Muppet Laughter

This just made me laugh and laugh and laugh today.

From "bertisevil"

Push Poll

I got an automated push-poll from Huckabee this weekend that really irked me. Now, I tend to get calls for polls all the time from a variety of sources and I usually participate. I was quite fun when I was targeted by polls from every single candidate in the last election --I was getting two or three a day for a while right before the election.

At any rate, this one seemed like a particularly egregious push poll. I know that writing poll questions is an art -- the slightest change of wording in a question can radically change the response, and skilled question writers are in demand to get the questions "just right" so they get the answers they want. It's usually fun to figure out what the goal of a particular poll is based on the questions, and some are so biased to one particular answer that they are hard to respond to at all. Equating two unrelated things, for example (Do you think Obama should force through a public option regardless of public opinion, or should he institute death panels?) is one common approach.

At any rate, this started off with Huckabee's cheerful announcement that we were facing the worst crisis ever in health care and we needed to act and asked if I was willing to answer a few questions on "issues facing the nation". Sure. Why not?

First question: Do you consider yourself "pro-life"?. In the politically charged parlance of the anti-abortionists agenda, no, I do not. (I am always angered by the semantics used by them, too - the opposite of pro-life is not anti-life or pro-abortion, but that's a screed for another time). In any case, I replied 'no' to the voice-recognition poll.

There was a pause, a click, and then "thank you. We have a few demographic questions for you. Are you male? Thank you." Click.

The poll was apparently designed to either ignore or minimize any "non-pro-life" respondents, as far as I can tell. It definitely felt as if it was just cut off when I didn't answer in the positive to their filtering question. Would there have been further questions about health care and immigration and the rest of the issues Huckabee is always peddling if I had said that I was a pro-life voter? Will my response, that I don't agree with his basic premise, even be counted? Push polls are generally biased and heavy-handed, but this was surprising.

Most of the time these things don't bother me -- I've been called with questions that are pretty questionable from politicians of all sides, so this is not a right-wing or left-wing problem--it was just the abrupt nature of "oh, you didn't answer our question properly, we don't want YOUR opinion" that I came away with that left me feeling angry and testy.

I'm just too crabby today I guess. Ishoudl be outside in the cool, cool weather and enjoying the beautiful fall day.

Over the line

I disliked George Bush a lot. I thought he was a nasty piece of work, as did a lot of Democrats, Progressives, and Liberals. For eight years, we criticized his policies and actions.

I don't recall seeing the sort of hate speech that is currently being directed at Obama, being said about George Bush. I see signs to "kill him!", quotes from teabaggers that he should be killed, people openly carrying guns to his speeches, the knuckle-dragging gun nuts buying up guns and ammo "just in case" -- and stuf like this - a facebook pool "should Obama be killed?" (not the actual poll, but a screenshot and note on another blog).

No, I don't think this was a "joke". No, I don't think this was even remotely funny. I hope the secrete service pays a visit to this person. I'm not sure what this says about the conservative mindset or "the base" who is screaming about Obama, except that these are not the sort of people that I want in control of anything.

Joy of...Reheating?

Isn't this just the most oxymoronic product that ever existed? The Joy of Cooking was supposed to bring fresh cooking to the family table easily and without any muss or fuss...and they are now marketing prepared-ready-to-heat foods in the supermarket.

"Our products conveniently located in a single freezer door"

Um, doesn't that sort of fly in the face of, say, cooking?

Sure, prepared foods are much easier on the schedule, but I have to admit that I laughed at the source. I haven't had any of them, but reviews online are not particularly positive. Like any mass-produced, pre-packaged meals, they tend to be overly salty and unimaginative.

Of course, I shouldn't throw stones from my glass house. We don't often cook anything more complicated than baked chicken or paninis at home anymore. We've succumbed to the idea that our time is better spent elsewhere (and indeed, while it was available, we relied on Entres Vous for our meals). But Joy of Cooking Foods? Couldn't they have at least changed the name?

Nerdiest Nerd Ever

Ok, I'm the nerdiest nerd ever. I just loved this! Brilliant!

Jones soda has released the Dungeons and Dragons Limited Edition Spellcasting Soda. It comes in Sneak Attack, Potion of Healing, Illithid Brain Juice, Dwarven Draught, and Bigby's Crushing Thirst Destroyer. I totally need some of this!


BRILLIANT!

Fast Food Neophyte

We went to KFC for chicken for dinner today, as we are wont to do every so often, and as we sat in the restaurant eating our chicken bits and mashed potatoes...a couple and their little girl came in.

Their food arrives, and within seconds, the mom is back up at the counter 'returning' her mashed potatoes and gravy and asking for "fresh ones" because they have been sitting in the warmer for a while. (they package up the cups of potatoes and gravy and keep them warm, this has always been true). She is given a new order of mashed potatoes and gravy. Fair enough. Perhaps they were cold or the gravy was lumpy, I don't know.

But then, moment after she bustled back to her seat and rejoined her family, she is once again up to accost one of the clerks because her sandwich isn't "right". When poor employee made the mistake of asking what was wrong with it, she dragged him up to the counter to complain that her little snack sandwhich had 'the wrong bread' and didn't look like the picture on the menu. She actually pointed and demanded that this poor person acknowledge that the bread she had was different than the bread on the picture.

What?

Really, lady? You're browbeating a minimum wage employee because your sandwich DOESN'T LOOK LIKE the picture on the giant menu?

Have you never eaten at a fast food restaurant before? The food NEVER looks like the picture on the menu. That food is carefully arranged and painstakingly photographed to be the best looking food ever. The food actually made at whatever restaurant you have decided to frequent, is usually hot, usually fresh, but it's not photo-ready.

Oh, but she continued her tirade, demanding to know the phone number of the "higher up" manager (as opposed to the teenage manager on duty) to complain about how this was totally unacceptable. It didn't LOOK like that picture, not at all, totally different bread and they spent twenty whole dollars on dinner and they could have, you know, gone somewhere else and gotten fresh, carefully prepared food. Yes, she actually said that.

It was all the Adorable Husband and I could do, to not laugh out loud at them. We just rolled our eyes and snarked quietly as they continued dinner, with at least one more visit to the counter to complain about something else.

For pete's sake, you went to KFC. What did you expect? Haute cuisine and lovingly prepared entrees? Get a grip!

Bad Logic

Discussions with your doctor...

It's somewhat funny (but sad) because it's true.

Trained Monkeys

I got clued in to some"online computer training' that was being offered (name withheld to protect the innocent) and I've just been laughing my butt off over this.

Go ahead -- try it! Mousing Around Training

Really? Are there actually people out there who don't have any clue whatsoever how to use a mouse on a computer? Well -- perhaps there are. My father is not the most computer-savvy person, and I suppose his first introduction was rather hard for him. But most people are at least familiar with what they are, aren't they?

But eleven slides about the mouse before you even TOUCH it? That has to be the most simplistic training that I"ve ever seen.

I suppose it is a way to make sure that everyone has the same, very basic, knowledge about how to use the mouse and navigate in web pages. Of course, it's a bit insulting that the training is at the "trained monkey could do this" level.

"Exotic" mortages

I wish someone would explain why this sort of loan is even legal -- interest only, or worse, an option that lets you pay LESS than the interest payment, so the principal of the loan actually goes up every month.

I know that this sort of thing was popular to allow people who normally couldn't afford the payments to get much more house than they could normally buy. If you only have to pay the interest payments (or less!) then you can get a much more expensive house! You don't need to be "limited" to the houses you can actually pay for, but you can move up a notch and get a bigger McMansion for the same price! (Well, not really, but a lot of people didn't really anticipate this).

Of course, this sort of things works fine when the housing market is booming - your house will increase in value, so you will always be "ahead". But a slump in housing? You might owe substantially more than your house is worth, if you weren't making a dent in the actual loan amount.

That people were encouraged to get loans like this -- and sought them out because of greed or ignorance-- means that these homeowners are now behind the eight ball. They owe more than the house is worth, they are looking at payments that are going to reset and go up dramatically, and they can't afford to actually pay for the house they have already bought. I feel some sympathy for them, but it's tempered with the thought that they should have been more conservative and planned ahead. It's like all the poeple who got adjustable rate mortgages and were "surprised" by the huge increase in their payments as the rates went up 2 or 3 or even 5 percent at a time. How did they not know that was going to happen?

During the worst of the mortgage idiocy, people with no income, no savings, no jobs (I think they were calling them NINJA loans) were getting loans to buy houses. Now, I'm all for home ownership...but if you don't actually have income, you should never qualify, period. Irrational exuberance isn't going to pay the mortage payment when it comes due.

The housing market has improved some - it seems to be on the road to recovery here in Denver, anyway. But still, the house next to us - a new, custom-built home, is still sitting empty after nine months and the asking price has fallen from 740 to 620K. And still, people are just not nibbling. (Well, it is the most expensive house on the culdesac and while it's a nice house, it doesn't look like that much more house than the rest of us.

All the people who are now 'upside down' on their houses are in more desperate straits - many of them are going to just walk away from the deal. I wonder if we're going to see another wave of foreclosures even as the housing market improves, as these loans are adjusted.

And I still see ads on television for loans with no credit check. Aargh.

FINE Scottish Weather

We spent the day up in Estes Park at the Highland Festival -- and it was cold and rainy and gray the whole day. We were bundled up in good rain jackets and it didn't slow us down at all . Well, a little bit, sitting in the bleachers during the piping competition did get a little chilly and damp, but otherwise, it was a lot of fun.

We watched the Highland Games competition -- who on earth decided that flipping telephone poles end-over-end (caber tossing) was a good idea? Or throwing a 56 pound weight straight up over your head and over a bar 16' up in the air? Throwing rocks, hurling a hammer (a weight on the end of a pole) and flinging weights on chains...it's a show of pure strength in mots cases. The guy who won most of the competitions looks like an Iowa farmboy (well, a bit older now, and he's actually from Missouri, but you know the type). It was a ton of fun and everyone really got into cheering, even in the rain.


We learned the differences between Irish step dancing and Scottish step dancing (not the least of which is that the Irish step dancers have super-extra-curly-bouncy-hair), and sat out in the rain to hear the Piping Band competition - and even spent some time watching the herding dog demonstration. It was a ton of fun.


Lots of people in tartan, men in kilts and women in skirts, bagpipers everywhere, "traditional food", pints of Guinness. It was interesting to watch the men who were wearing the full kit (kilt, sporran, gillies, sporran, etc) : about half of them looked and acted like they were wearing a costume, and the other half were simply wearing clothes. Obviously some are more comfortable in the kilt than others. I think more men should wear them!

I found out that there is a local Gaelic-speaking group that meets in Boulder every week, so I may have to sign on and learn a bit of Scots Gaelic (as opposed to Gailge, or Irish Gaelic). Could be fun - and the group of people at the booth seemed really nice.

Wild Weekend

We're heading up to the Estes Park Highland Festival this weekend (even though the forecast says 'rain' - we've been toughened up by the recent trip to Scotland and we are quite sure we won't melt). Love the bagpipes, though!

But we are also considering attending the Eagle Potatopalooza! A potato festival! It just makes my little Polish antennae perk right up. A whole day devoted to POTATOES! Woot!

Potato races, baked potato contest, a street fair. All about potatoes!

Something's off

There is something wrong with the fact that a Kentucky school has not censured or even reacted to the fact that one of their coaches bussed the team to his church and had them baptized without telling the parents...

...yet the same school required parental permission slips for the students to watch President Obama's speech about staying in school and working hard.

Giant Maps

Mae was kind enough to come over and install the huge mural map that we bought - now we have a fabulous National Geographic map in our upstairs sitting room, just ready for pins and flags and pictures. It covers the whole wall -- it's about 9' x 6'.

(The picture is not our house, though -- my camera battery died and so I didn't get a picture of it in situ. I'll replace this one when I get the batteries charged!)

The Adorable Husband and I did not attempt to put this up ourselves - we know that wallpapering is dangerous work. Married couples should not wallpaper - they'll end up yelling at each other. Or at least, crabbing at each other quite seriously.

So I was a bit surprised when Mae (who owns ColorfauxCreations.com) brought her husband (my co-worker) to help. They've put up a few of these, she says. Hah! We definitely detected a bit of snarking between the two of them as they measured andpasted. We stayed far away, and sipped wine in the kitchen with their son (our housesitter). We all got a laugh out fo the fact that we had to cut a hole in the map for the light, which got was smack dab in the middle of Kazakhstan. Since we probably won't be visiting there in th enear future, we aren't going to miss it much.

But we solved the problem with the proper application of good steaks, wine, and fettuccine. Yeah!

Go Green!

Oregon State University researchers say that if you're serious about reducing your carbon footprint, the best way to do it is to have one less child. They claim the effect is almost 20 times greater than recycling, driving a high-mileage car, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs over your entire lifetime.

I am hereby going to stop feeling guilty about my carbon footprint and my refusal to use fluorescent light bulbs (which I hate with a white-hot passion that their icky light can't match).

Onion Strikes Again

BBC: Two Bangladeshi newspapers have apologised after publishing an article taken from a satirical US website which claimed the Moon landings were faked.

The Daily Manab Zamin said US astronaut Neil Armstrong had shocked a news conference by saying he now knew it had been an "elaborate hoax".

Neither they nor the New Nation, which later picked up the story, realised the Onion was not a genuine news site.

Both have now apologised to their readers for not checking the story.

"We thought it was true so we printed it without checking," associate editor Hasanuzzuman Khan told the AFP news agency.

This is not the first time the Onion has fooled a foreign journalist, but it is pretty funny. I even saw a couple of nutty posts on local forums about how the conspiracists had been Right! All! Along! Heh.

"We didn't know the Onion was not a real news site."

Missed Marketing Opportunity

The venerable geeky shop RadioShack has decided to 'upgrade' their image and is currently marketing themselves with the oh-so-hip "The Shack" moniker. Same store, same we-have-everything-you-need stock of electronic gewgaws and connectors and bits and pieces, just a new, hipper, younger image.

Well, they think it is, I guess.

It's pretty lame, if you ask me. Their marketing department has missed the actual demographic pretty widely if they are trying to attract a younger market segment. 'RadioShack might sell mobile phones now but they are primarily a techno-nerd source for parts and bits you can't find anywhere else.

The new name, 'The Shack', is not cool, it's awkward in the way that your parents tried to be all cool and shit when you were growing up. Embarrassing, maybe, trying just a little too hard to be "hip" and use all those words that 'young people use today', without quite recognizing how weird they sound. The first thought I had was that the marketing decision was made by a 50-something white guy in a business suit. (Of course, the whole campaign is probably the brainchild of some edgy new marketing company where the median age is 20, so I'm completely off base)

If they were actually tuned in to their real demographic, they'd have renamed the entire operation Electrode Hut.We'd all get the joke. And we'd think they were pretty cool for doing it, too.

Statistical Risk of Flying

I may never fly again. Kidding - I found this image on Incredimazing. Interesting.

The real biggie here is that, statistically, you are more likely to die in a nuclear accident than in a plane crash, and five times more likely to get hit by lightning. Well, that, and sit in the back of the plane, but we all knew that.

Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

Smaller/Bigger

This graphic is a fascinating look at the change in physical storage vs digital storage. As someone with a couple of terabytes of storage space on my desktop, it was pretty interesting.

From 8-track tapes to latest-generation iPods - the amount of stuff we can store. (click on image for the full version)

Disney Templates

Disney Templates: and you wondered why some of the Disney movies looked so familiar. I'm sure these are not the only ones, but someone spent a long time editing all this together. Cool

More evidence of a single brain

We had a minor problem here at Chez Phouka - we usually sleep with the windows open, and due to an ordering glitch, one of our honeycomb blinds has the cord on the wrong side. So when we raise the blind to open the window and put in the big square fan, it dangles down between the two windows. Thus, when there is a breeze, it rattles against the window frame.

It's been like this for years, mind you. It's not like we just did this last week and realized we had a clacking/clicking problem. Our instant diy solution was to tie a ittle loop int he cord and then, when we opened the window, slip the loop over the dangling tassel on the drapes. (hey, don't smirk. It worked fine! Well, it worked fine until the tassel started to fray and we could no longer slip the loop over it. )

So, one afternoon, I was sitting at my desk and realized that I have a couple of those little 3M Command hook things to hang my headsets on. A-hah! I trot upstairs, peel off the little adhesive bit and put a hook up behind the drapes, so we can just toss the loop in the cord on it and voila! No more problem.

So the funny part, that night at dinner, the Adorable Husband comments that the drapery tassel is frayed and we should stop at Target and get one of those sticky-uppy hooks, we could mount it behind the drapery and no one would ever see....

No, he hadn't seen my solution. No, we hadn't talked about it. We just came up wit hthe same idea, at the same time. Again. And a weird idea to boot.

We have one brain. Just one.

Not that oversized blue one!

I know that this email has been making the rounds of the blogosphere for years, probably. In fact, I think it's a David Sedaris piece, but I can't remember where i saw it first. I think last Thanksgiving. I, of the Turkey Flowchart, probably shouldn't be too critical, eh?

I was browsing the site "emails from crazy people" and this just set me laughing again.

I think everyone should show up at Marney's house with soup spoons, incorrectly sized casseroles, gloopy sauces, and lots of red wine. If this is real, the woman needs an intervention. If it's not, well, it definitely seems to ring true with people about their family holidays and is an inspired holiday-from-hell sort of story.

Not at my house, of course. Bring wine, bring whatever you want, we'll always have a good time!

Pharmacology is GOOD

Well, I survived the flu just fine. It was the subsequent EARACHE which finally sent me to the doctor on Friday. Accompanied by a sore throat that rendered me mute and unable to swallow, and with swollen glands tht made me look like I had a goiter -- yes, I finally listened to all the medical personnel in my life and saw the Doc.

I don't know what it is about an earache, but it turns a sane, normal, adult into a whiny, crying toddler. I spent at least part of Friday in the living room chair just crying, because nothing even made a dent in the pain.

One dose of antibiotics (and about six hours) and I was actually able to sleep. And swallow. I'm still pretty miserable, but at least I'm not considering just poking out my eardrum to release the pressure anymore.

Better living through chemistry! Woot!

Virus Central

I'm still here, I've just been horribly, awfully sick with the flu. Probably just the regular, run-of-the-mill flu with sore throat, fever, aches, and chills, but it was enough to absolutely floor me for four days. You have to be pretty damn sick to stay home from work when you work from home. I could barely get out of bed on Monday and Tuesday.

I'm back at work today but my brain isn't firing on all cylinders yet. And one side of my throat is still really, really sore and I look like a lopsided pocket gopher. Bleagh. The earache from the sore throat/swollen glands/whatever has reduced me to tears.

Gah. I hate being sick. I've run out of Mrs. Grass's soup, too. I may have to go back to bed....

And the Universe Implodes

In the long history of books made into movies, it is almost a given that the book is going to be better than the movie. The movie just can't capture the nuance and depth of a novel -- it might capture the look and feel of things, but there is always something missing in the movie adaptation -- the need to keep the movie under 2 hours, the inability to handle multiple storylines in that short a time, the need to simplify a complex plotlines for a movie audience...all of those things mean that while the movies may be interesting and enjoyable, the book is better.

But the rule is not always accurate. I've now read a book and seen the movie...and the movie is far superior to the book. As evidence, I present Julie&Julia based on the book/blog project by Julie Powell - a 30-year-old New Yorker who cooked her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, writing all along about the experience. The book is her memoir about the project, not just a book version of the blog. The movie is this book combined with Julia Child's own My Life in France, with the two stories interwoven.

The movie has gotten mixed reviews - most find Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child to be spot-on and perfect, and criticize Amy Adams' performance as "trying too hard".

I have to agree with the reviews on the "Julia" side of the movie -- the scenes with Streep and Stanley Tucci (as Paul Child) are absolutely charming. They are delightful together, and the story of how Julia Child came to cooking and then to writing the cookbook are lively and fun and inspired.

I don't agree with the criticism of Amy Adams, though - her "trying too hard" and "too whiny" performance is spot on to the Julie in the book. In fact, I found the character on screen to be far more likeable and less snotty than the 'voice' of Julie in her book. The complaints are that the character comes across as very unsympathetic, and to those who thinks so, I say, "read the book". She is.

The book is quite funny in places, and even insightful, but when I put it down, I disliked Julie very much. She has a grasping, desperate ambition to be recognized for the great and important person she thinks she is, and an almost paralyzing jealousy of her friends (all of whom are doing memorable and exciting things). She comes across as shallow, vain, desperate for attention, self-entitled, and whiny--the 30-something who just knows, deep in her heart, that she is important and special and dammit, no one else is recognizing that! Perhaps in real life she is a normal sort of person, but in print, the book is one long whine about how awful her life is and then about how happy she is once people start to pay attention to her for this "project". I read the blog when she did in in 2002, and was quite charmed by it then. The resulting book is not as engaging at all. At least not to me.

The movie cuts out most of the scenes where she interacts with her friends and family (in fact, the one scene in the movie with her friends is painfully awful for her - you really do sympathize and wonder why on earth she remains friends with this trio of bitchy do-nothings). The book is riddled with comments about her friends' love lives, jobs, exciting opportunities, and how they just don't understand her and how desperately she wants to do something notable. The desperation just doesn't come out in the movie as much - the movie paints her as a sort of hapless, helpless, unhappy woman trying to find her own inner meaning, trying to find something that resonates with her life. There's a little too much weeping, but on screen, the meltdowns are actually rather amusing.

We thought the movie charming (in that heavy-blow-to-the-head style of Nora Ephron, of course, not a lot of subtlety there), thought Meryl Streep did an eerily good impression of Julia Child, and in general liked the juxtaposition of Julia's story and Julie's story.

I (since the Adorable Husband did not read the book) thought the book was a bunch of self-indulgent dribble trying to sound insightful and meaningful, wrapped around some very amusing anecdotes about actually cooking from Julia Child's book. Meh. Perhaps I would have liked it better had it actually had both stories in it - maybe reading alternating chapters of Julie&Julia and My Life in France would have been a better way to approach it.

Score 1 for the movie adaptation being better than the book.

"Take Fewer Pills"

I've been seeing a commercial for Aleve fairly often lately -- and the gist of the thing seems to be "take Aleve! You have to take fewer pills!"

If you have arthritis pain, the voiceover intones somewhat ominously, if you take Tylenol, you could be taking "four times as many pills", a and shows a pained-looking woman looking at a box for another pain reliever..."two pills every six hours...that's 8 pills a day!" In another ad, we're assured that 2 liquigel Aleve work as well as four Advil.

While no one likes to take pills, I have to wonder about the line of reasoning that makes the simplistic argument that 2pills is better than 8 pills. Because those two pills purport to do the same thing as the eight or twelve pills the "other" medicine requires. You're simply taking more medication at one time.

Well, what if my headache or pain is gone in four hours, or six hours? Why would I take twelve hours worth of pain medication for it? Why overmedicate if you don't have to? Basically, the ads for Aleve are encouraging us to take more meds than we need, because it's "convenient" or easier. I'm sure I'm reading far more into this than I should be, but it airs so often during the day that I have become Officially Annoyed.

Is this necessary?

I just saw an ad for Chiquita Apple Slices Fruit snack. Basically, a bag of apple slices, marketed as a perfect, healthy snack! Pack it in your lunch, carry it with you -- perfect! Healthy!

Um...it's that hard to pack and carry an apple? Really? Why would I need to buy a pre-sliced, packaged apple? Apples are already one of the most perfectly packaged and portable foods. Small, roundish, protective skin....this is another of those products that are absolutely unnecessary, but they're trying desperately to convince people that they the nature-packaged, portable, easy-to-eat apple needed improvement. Why?

It's not like pre-made/packaged foods that actually do save some time (well, perhaps) like mixed salad greens or canned tomatoes or pineapple or something - -things that are not actually meant to be eaten as a single, self-contained snack. Then again, on the shelves at my grocery store are pre-cut carrot and celery sticks, salad packs, chopped and frozen onions, pancakes in a can, and a variety of pre-packaged foods. Some of them might save a little time, but others? Are we really so busy we can't eat an apple by ourselves?

I just had to laugh.

One of my Favorites

I've been going through the photos from the trip as I write the travelogue bits, and I really like this photo -- not perfect, of course, but it's one of my favorites.

Things have changed

A dozen people showed up with guns outside of the event center in Phoenix where Obama spoke yesterday. Two even had SEMI-AUTOMATIC RIFLES in addition to the dozen or more with handguns.

A man (later updated to 2 men) was seen carrying an assault rifle and a pistol outside the VFW Convention in Phoenix where President Obama spoke today, a local newspaper reports. (Click through for a photo.)

Local police said it's legal under Arizona law, but two officers kept close by him.

"If we need to intervene, we will intervene at that time," said Detective J. Oliver.

"Because we can" seemed to be the reason. Seriously? While yes, technically, these people could carry guns in public in Arizona, they decided that having them at a presidential event was a good idea? Wanting to exercise your right to bear arms is one thing, making a "statement" by carrying one to a presidental speech goes beyond that.

Can you imagine what would have happened if someone had showed up to a Bush event carrying an assault rife? For pete's sake, they hauled people away for wearing threatening T-SHIRTS whenever Bush spoke. There were "Free speech zones" for that sort of thing, you know.

To what purpose are these people bringing guns? I'm sorry, but I would be inclined to view this as an imminent threat, especially considering some of the signs being waved in the same vicinity and the not-so-subtle threats against the president aired by the teabagger brigade. Who do these idiots think they are? I'm sure they style themselves as some sort of patrioric freedom fighters, but I cannot see any purpose to their actions but intimidation and provocation. Why?

Let's put this in perspective, shall we? Wear an anti-Bush t-shirt to a Bush speech and get arrested. Carry a frikking RIFLE to an Obama rally and...it's ok? Wow. Things really have changed. And not for the better.

And, in case you are wondering, I'm not an anti-gun fanatic. I don't agree with the NRA, but I believe that rational gun ownership is fine.

Truth-o-meter

This was an interesting website -- statements about health care, ranked from true to false (with a few 'pants on fire!' graphics.) Michelle Bachmann is a lunatic, it seems.

There are an awful lot of lies floating around out there, and it's hard to figure out what the truth is if you don't have time to read the thousand+ page documents themselves. This was very interesting. I knew that the opponents were stretching the truth a bit, but, woah. I hadn't even heard some of these whoppers.

Quite a few of the quotes are from the campaign season last year, too. That's a bit misleading, but it does highlight how much all the candidates stretch things to make themselves look good.

I need to stop listening to the news. It's just pissing me off.

Fact-checking, anyone?

Apparently, opponents of health-care reform think that their message is more important than actual facts...and didn't fact check things. Even the really, really obvious things that could have been check with a 2-second query in Google, for pete's sake.

Investors Business Daily, in criticizing the Obama health care plan, charged that if the famed scientist Stephen Hawking lived in Britain, its National Health Service wouldn’t save his life, which “because of his physical handicaps is essentially worthless.” Mr. Hawking, 67, who has a motor neuron disease that is like Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a British subject and has received lifelong care from that nation’s health system.

Not only are they wrong on the basics (Hawking does live in Britain, he is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University and has received lifelong medical care there, which he has recently praised for prolonging his life) they are also wrong on their assertion that medical care in Britain would have left him out in the cold.

The magazine ran a standard correction merely stating that Hawking actually lives in the UK. No mention of their false premise, no mention that they had banked on it being true to make their point. The Columbia Journalism Review pointed out that the error fundamentally invalidated the editorial's main argument.

When you make an error of that proportion, where the correct information COMPLETELY DISPROVES YOUR POINT, don't you think a little crow-eating is in order? This was a mistake of the worst sort, just half-assed, lazy journalism. Obviously, if it's more important that the initial idea was floated so people can spread the talking point properly -- the truth doesn't really matter much, does it?

Wrong...and Wrong again

Art Laffer had this gem to say (last week, I'm running a bit late) about the health care controversy.

If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.

I'm actually too incredulous to laugh.

First off, who does he think Medicare and Medicaid are run by now? And the VA - these are all "done by" the government.

Second, the Postal Service is not run by the government. The Postal service is a quasi-governmental entity (it was spun off in 1970 by Nixon), as is the IRS. They are run as for-profit entitles. It remains a creature of the federal government, but it's been decades since it used tax dollars for its operations, and we have one of the most efficient, cheap, and reliable mail systems in the world.

Finally, I wonder what percentage of Republicans simply don't know that Medicare and Medicaid (and the VA) are government health care. Medicare is federal, Medicaid is state. It's socialized health care, as per their definition. I don't see anyone running about demanding that they be dismantled and replaced by private systems.

Hell, people in general don't seem to get this. I shouldn't single out Repubs (although they do seem to be less informed and more proudly ignorant than the Dems I know) -- how many people simply don't understand how those programs work?

They just feel "in their guts" that if a program seems to be working poorly, or is onerous, or causes issues, or does something they disagree with, that it must be a government program, because "government can't do anything right" and if something is working well, it must be a private entity, because only privately held corporations can make money and be successful.

They are wrong.

The ideologues think the Postal Service is a government department because it is huge, needs more money all the time, and is an effective monopoly. They think that Medicare and Medicaid, because they are efficient and timely, must be run by the insurance companies. Nope.

I'm not trying to say that all government programs are effective, efficient, and workable - that's obviously not true. Nor am I saying that all private efforts are horrible wastes and driven by corporate greed.

However, this oblivious ignorance of the existing health care options that are run by the government, and the insistence on scare tactics that try to convince people that they are going to get "dmv-style" service, or have "death panels" is ridiculous and should be a clear red flag that some of these people have no idea what they are talking about.

Stealing AC

So, I'm sitting at my computer yesterday and it's hot outside and it's getting warmer and warmer in my office. This is normal: me, two computers and monitors, two dogs...it tends to stay a bit warmer in here than the rest of the house.

I ticked down the A/C a bit to cool things down and on my way back to my desk, I realized why I have a problem:

The beasties are bogarting the cold air.

When the beasties flop down on the air vents, not a whole lot of the cool air ends up in my office! THEY are cool and comfortable, but the rest of the room gets awfully stuffy. Hah!

Best Family Costume Evah!

I found this image on a post from Friendly Athiest - parents and baby in Chef and Lobster costume. It just tickled me.


((no attribution on the photo - just from that blog))

Off to Baltimore

I've got client meetings this week in Baltimore. Be back Thursday!

Meeting the family

We had dinner with my sister and her boyfriend -- we're the first ones from the family to meet him (well, we are a pretty scary bunch). Nice guy -- the Adorable Husband gave him the 'Surrogate Older Brother Stamp of Approval". He seems to make Nin very happy, and I was very pleased to see that he's the first guy that she didn't desperately try to get us to like...she just let it be. I liked him.

And, being my sister, she also shared an embarassing tidbit with me after the fact -- apparently he got a bit nervous about meeting us and did a little manscaping: he trimmed his eyebrows and overdid it a bit. She said she didn't even notice, and he was very amused that she didn't see any difference between his normal, bushy-browed self and the clippered version.

I suppose if he's going to be around for a while, he'll have to get used to the fact that in our family, we celebrate those dorky, stupid, and embarassing moments -- often bringing them up ourselves about our own foibles. The Adorable Husband still doesn't understand why we do this -- if it's embarassing, why share it with all and sundry? Well, it's what we do.

Of course, the next time I meet him, I'm going to be staring at his eyebrows and will probably bring it up. It's a compulsion.

Backfilling

Backing up a bit - spending the weekend in MN seeing my Dad and getting him settled in. He looks really good -- still gaining strength, of course, but he's up and walking. He's doing much better at the MN altitude (more air!) and he and Pat have settled in at Jenna's. It's a tight fit, and I'm sure that there will be the inevitable conflicts of four people sharing a house, but the improvements are making everyone happy!

Wires, Wires, Everywhere!

Finally! A site to tell you how on earth to set up the home theater components you have unpacked on your basement floor -- what cables to buy, what settings to use, where everything is supposed to plug in.

Have you ever stared at this and thought, "oh, sure, yeah, THAT's intuitive!"


How to Hook up your Home Theater

It didn't have speakers and such listed, but those are usually easy to figure out. But cable-buying page and links to the diagrams for each component are great!

When Indigo Children Grow Up

This crossed my desk this morning, from CNN. A graduate of Monroe College in NY is suing the college (for the return of all tuition moneys) because she graduated in April and has not yet gotten a job, and blames the school for not finding her a job. The Office of Career Advancement (basically, the same help center that every college has to assist with job searches and resume writing), didn't do enough for her, she contends. Since she's still unemployed after she graduated with an oh-so-impresive GPA of 2.7 (please add as much sarcasm as you can to that sentence).

As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record. But Monroe's career-services department has put forth insufficient effort to help her secure employment, she claims.

"They're supposed to say, 'I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right -- can you interview this person?' They're not doing that," she said.

"They're supposed to say..." Really? In what alternate universe? Did your school call employers for you to set up interviews? I don't think so. I think Miss Thompson needs to rethink her assessment that employers are clamoring for graduates like her. Sorry, honey, you highly over-rate your attractiveness to employers.

Don't you love the part about good attendance? Like this is grade school and she'll get a nice plaque at the end of the year? And she contends that the school offered more help and support to students with higher grade point averages. I especially liked the part where she accused the school of favoring students with 4.0GPA's. Oh, yes, I'm sure they were hired first because the school made extra effort to showcase them to employers, rather than employers preferentially hiring those with higher GPA's. Of course that's the problem.

Her complaint adds, "The office of career advancement information technology counselor did not make sure their Monroe e-recruiting clients call their graduates that recently finished college for an interview to get a job placement. They have not tried hard enough to help me."

Yes, because it's someone else's job to get her full-time employment. Apparently she hasn't considered the possibility that the e-recruiting companies took a look at her resume and her academic history and passed. I never realized that the school was supposed to MAKE local companies give interviews to recent graduates. Does this woman actually think that the school was supposed to force businesses to interview her? To call anyone? Wow, wouldn't that be nice? Graduate and the school is responsible for making sure you get the job you want? Where is that guarantee in the small print?

The very idea that you'd SUE a school because you can't get a job is so ridiculous and mockable that I initially thought it was a joke. But now, Miss I'm-So-Speshul really does seem to think it's someone else's fault that she isn't employed. It's not like the school lied about accreditation or misled her as to the job market. They didn't prevent her from taking certain classes or refuse to assist her. She got the same education and opportunity that every other student did. They did nothing wrong at all, although she seems to think that they supposed to grease her way into a new job automatically. Because she's so special, I guess. That sense of entitlement is boggling.

Is she so stupid that she doesn't realize that there are, literally, thousands of people out there who are more qualified than she is? She's even outranked by most of her graduating class, for pete's sake, not to mention the people out there with actual business experience. In this economy, no one is guaranteed a job, certainly not a self-entitled c-student.

Perhaps she should have paid more attention in class and gotten better grades so she was actually attractive to the empooyers that are out there. Although, if this is her attitude, even with a perfect gpa she might not be terribly attractive to an employer. I know I wouldn't want to hire someone who expected the world on a platter.

I hope, I really, really hope, that she is smacked down hard and publicly over this. She's an entitled idiot and should be dismissed as such.

[Oh, and the Indigo Children reference in the title? Here's Wiki's take on it]

A Bit Late to the Party

Glenn Beck today exposed the Cash for Clunkers scheme to force your submission to allow the Govt. to basically set a VIRUS on your computer so that they can access all files on your computer at any time and turn those files over to the "authorities" and any one else they choose.

Years of exposés on government warrantless wiretapping and TIPS, and "Cash For Cars" is what gets the conservatives to cry foul? Are they kidding? Seriously, this is starting to read like an Onion article.

Coming just a bit late to the party, aren't they?

Paging Becky and Tim!

No, I really don't know any Becky and Tim, but someone sent me this link yesterday and I just had to pass it on.

Enter as evidence: one Craiglist entry (if you're not familiar with Craigslist, it's basically a huge on-line flea market/swap meet). Becky (of Becky and Tim) is offering "blank" Wedding Invitations.

But apparently, she is not quite clear on the concept of "blank".

These are probably not going to work if your name is not Becky and you are not marrying a person named Tim. That might limit your possible purchasing pool quite a bit.

Read the email exchange from the blog post, though. It's a hoot!

More Word Fun

I often laugh that the Adorable Husband thinks that punctuation is optional (he argues, of course, that it is not optional, but that he just writes a few lines and then think he should add something, anything, and so throws a comma or semi-colon on there).

Anyway, this little quiz has some bizarre punctuation marks - try it!

Stress Relief

This is what happens when I have an afternoon surfing the web while waiting for files to convert.

Having a bad day? Need a way to shake off that stress?

Peluches

Be patient - the main flash page takes a bit to load (they are apparently very proud of their fade-in logo). Turn on your sound.

Scroll over the cute little fluffy stuffed animals.

Feeling less stressed now? It certainly helped me!

Harder than it looks

Did you ever think about all the little words that you utter and read every day? We talk about a college graduate knowing about 20,000 words, and the average person using perhaps 4-5,000 during the course of normal interaction. College professors and avid readers and writers use perhaps 30,000. Shakespeare used 60,000. But, he was a huge show off.

But what are the top 100? This quiz was surprisingly hard. List the top 100 English words (picked by their frequency of use) in five minutes.

I got 47 the first time around, although I'm sure it ignored some of my entries!

Desperate Refusal of Reality

A recent poll (and take that for what its worth, of course) noted that less than half of Republicans polled believe that Obama is an American citizen. They assert that the current president is illegitimate.

This is the idiotic 'birther' conspiracy - apparently a bunch of IQ-challenged mouth-breathers are so upset at the idea that a bi-racial man is president that they are desperately trying to convince everyone that the current president wasn't actually born in Hawaii, but in Kenya and the Obama family has been conspiring to hide this fact for the last 47 years. The tin-foil hat brigade is demanding a birth certificate, and when that was provided, declared it fake and went on demanding "proof". At one point, some of them tried to argue that Hawaii wasn't a state when Obama was born there, and when that failed, they claimed he was born in Kenya, and then they tried to argue that his mother's second marriage invalidated his citizenship.

These people are IDIOTS. They are an embarassment to anyone with an IQ higher than 70.

They are ignorant of the constitution, ignorant of the laws governing citizenship, and so blindingly racist and stupid that they defy description. It's embarassing.

The GOP needs to get control of the wacko wing of their party and get them to shut the hell up, or they are going to lose any semblance of respectability they have. Cater to the idiots and people will think you are on eo

Computational Knowledge

And yet another COOL thing. Ask it a question ("meaning of life", "airspeed of an african swallow") or type in a mathematical formula ("integral of 1/sqrt(x*x + 1) dx" and click 'show steps', for example. Type in a date...I've spent the last hour trying to think of esoteric questions.

Wolfram/Alpha

Cool Tree Identifier

Yes, I'm spending an afternoon randomly surfing the web while I convert Mp3s to iPod audiobook format.

Here's a very interesting site by the Arbor Day Foundation - Tree Identifier. A guided Q&A to find out what kind of tree you're looking at. Cool!

How NOT to Design a webpage

This is NSFW (due to sound), and be ready to hit the mute button and close a loud popup window. But....wow. This is one of the most atrocious web pages I've ever seen.

http://hosanna1.com/

You've been warned! (and she apparently runs a web design service, too. Oh, my)

What's the Plus for?

I'm sure some of you will think we're horrible people, but laughter sometimes is the best way to deal with a crisis. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

As we were driving to the vet's last week, we started talking about euthanasia in the car, and how a doctor friend of The Adorable Husband's had just had their vet out to the house to euthanize their dog. Being a doctor he was curious about things, and discovered that the drug combination used is called 'TotallyLethal' -- well, another is 'Bluethenasia', so let's not be too hard on the poor marketing people, shall we?

But that's not enough. It's not just 'TotallyLethal"...it's TotallyLethal PLUS.

What on earth is the PLUS for? What possible effect of this drug is not covered by 'totally lethal'? Really? Marketing has gone a little overboard on this one, I think.

"I know!" I said, "It's the special Anti-Zombie Formula. That's the PLUS!"

We almost had to pull over, we were laughing so hard (and I still chuckle a little thinking about it). Yup. Totally Lethal, now with No More Zombies!

Very wrong, I know. Very inappropriate and I'm sure everyone thinks we're heartless and horrible. But we both loved Uulaq a lot, and laughter seemed a much better way to go, you know?

Beat Poet?

If you haven't see this, sit down - finish your drink (swallow!) and watch. Whoever thought to get Shatner to read this was inspired.

MediaMonkey

I have a boatload of music and audiobooks and other media on my computer, and I've been using RealPlayer to manage things and load music and books on my various iPods.

Why, you might ask, do I not use iTunes? I find it completely non-intuitive in the way it organizes things, difficult to browse, too geared towards "buying stuff", and quite slow when dealing with thousands of files. Nothing against Apple, of course - just that this particular application doesn't fit what I need.

Realplayer hasn't been particularly friendly lately, either. It is slow, has developed a recent tendency to crash my machine and lock things up, and maintaining the tags and information about the files is difficult and time-consuming. Move something (like organizing files or renaming a directory) and it suddenly is not accessible in RealPlayer and needs to be re-fetched and re-organised. I'm not exactly UN-happy with it, but not really happya, either.

Based on a few recommendations from the Invisible People online, I downloaded a demo of MediaMonkey, which manages audio files and ipods and a bunch of other mp3 players. I bought a license for the software within an hour! It's fabulous - fast, intuitively organized, automatically monitors files for changes, and has scripting support that lets me batch-update the tags and files to keep things neat and organized. Scripting! Woo-hoo!

It automatically identifies files that aren't correctly labelled, manages lyrics and cover art, supports playlists and podcasts...I'm seriously impressed. There is a free versoin, of course (which does not support file monitoring and some of the other advanced options), but a license is 20 bucks, and well worth it, in my opinion.

I've spent the last few evenings going through all my mp3 files and downloaded Audible books (it doesn't actually support the Audible format without a plug in) and renaming, re-tagging, and reorganizing things. It's a compulsive organizer's dream!

"Free" Stuff

A poster on the TT forum asked why fire trucks show up when you call an ambulance (because they are usually closer and can begin treatment before the paramedics show up in the ambulance, btw), which morphed into a discussion of the different types of fire and ambulance service - many people live in areas where fire protection and ambulance service are "fee-based" offerings. You pay a subscription fee each year to assure that you will get that ambulance when you need it.

A few people tried to assert that if you aren't a "member", you won't get the service and the fire truck won't show up when you have a fire. That's not true, of course, you just need to agree to pay the bills before they'll do anything.

Everyone bemoaned the the cost of joining the service and then someone came up with, "I live in a rural area, but my ambulance and fire are free. I don't subscribe to anything."

No. Your fire service and ambulance service are not "free". You are paying for them via taxes (usually a levy on property taxes). You just don't get a bill for the service. Government services are not "free" - roads and Medicare and the CIA and whatever else...we do pay for these things with taxes. Government money is not "free" money.

But there is apparently a contingent of people who do think that some things are "free" - and marketing has glommed on to the idea. Take for example, US Fidelity Auto Repair Insurance. Have you seen the ads? It's an insurance offering that pays for car repairs when your car is past its warranty period. Have an old car? Buy this in insurance an never pay for repairs again!

"Bob and Joe", intones the commercial, showing two men sitting in a repair shop, "own the same make, model and year of car." A make andmodel that apparently needs a new transmission or something. "Bob" paid almost three thousand dollars for a new repair...and "Joe", according ot the ad, "didn't pay a penny!"

Oh, yes, he did. In fact, he probably paid more than 3K for his repair since he's been paying a monthly premium for the insurance for umpty-years until he needed it. He just didn't see a bill for this particular incident. Do people forget that? I can't believe anyone falls for this sort of scam insurance. I suppose people figure they will "beat the system" nd be the ones who pay in a teeny amount and then have a huge claim -- but it's just like gambling....and the player rarely wins.

I just cringe every time I see the ad - because I know that someone, somewhere, will think this is the best thing ever and will save them thousands of dollars. Do the math, people! Do the math!

Uulaq

I've said it a dozen times here on the blog, but dogs really do need to live as long as we do.

We euthanized Uulaq tonight. She was steadily declining, and it was time.

She was such a sweetie.

Quote mines and making shit up

Bus campaigns, billboard campaigns - atheist organizations put up "there might not be a god, don't worry about it" and similar sentiments, and theists respond with a campaign of their own with religious quotes. Fine - I doubt the issue is going to be decided based on what is on the bus in front of you in traffic, but hey, no complaints here.

Well, no, that's not true. I will complain -- because the theists are putting up quotes that are entirely made up, and attributing them to famous, recognizeable people (notably the founding fathers). The group admits to ust making them up out of whole cloth because apparently it's ok to lie for Jesus.

From Tampa Bay:

The billboards showcase quotes from early American leaders like John Adams, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin. Most of the quotes portray a national need for Christian governance.

Others carry the same message but with fictional attribution, as with one billboard citing George Washington for the quote, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

“I don’t believe there’s a document in Washington’s handwriting that has those words in that specific form,” Kemple said. “However, if you look at Washington’s quotes, including his farewell address, about the place of religion in the political sphere, there’s no question he could have said those exact words.”

I could even forgive the quote mining (taking short quotes entirely out of context to try to prove a point). Misuse of quotes is pretty common in apologetics. Of course, in this case, the founding fathers being "quoted" are being portrayed as Christian when all available historical fact points to them being, at best, deists. But that, too, is not something that is going to be resolved by billboard. The strong anti-separation sentiments by this group, though, cross the line.

I object to the blatant lying. If you want to put up quotes by theists that support your position, then do the legwork and go out and find some actual quotes. Don't lie and then blush charmingly and argue that "he could have said it", as if that excuses the made-up quotes. If you can't show that he DID say it, don't attribute your own personal belief to George Washington, mmmkay? Otherwise, just present the quotes as your own opinion. That would be, at least, honest.

Great way to sway people to your side, theists. Everyone likes to be lied to, don't they?

Teaching to the Test

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- (AP) -- The Florida Department of Education says students at 12 school districts, including Miami-Dade and Broward, showed signs of ``template writing'' on the state's standardized writing test.

The department sent the districts letters identifying schools where students responded with similar phrasing in their essays on the 2009 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Examples include phrases like, ``I ran as fast as wildfire.''

The department says teaching to memorize and use such phrases distorts the writing process and makes the test more of a ``fill in the blanks'' type exercise.

Wait a second. Teachers, threatened with termination if they do not successfully get their students to pass a standardized test, are teaching standardized answers?

Oh, no one could have thought that could happen, could they? Color me surprised. Not.

Teaching 'to the test', anyone? Is this a foreign concept? Doh!

Don't get me wrong - given the situation, I don't think the teachers failed here, nor the students. The policy of punishing teachers and schools for failing to meet testing goals (while not necessarily giving them the tools and resources to meet them) is clearly at fault. If you make my job dependent on whether students got A's on their tests...well, you can be damned sure that is going to a primary curriculum task - and yet the PTB are surprised that it means students are simply regurgitating memorized phrases in a specific pattern?

Slow spiral down

Uulaq is old. Really old, for an Akita -- I think the chart at the vet logs her as somewhere around 100 in human years. She's been slowly failing over the last few months; horrible arthritis in her knees and hips, blindness, doesn't want to eat, sleeps all the time. We've got her on tons of pain-killers for her back and hips (an amount that would allow a ballerina to dance on broken feet, I think, and should render Uulaq a drooling heap in the corner) and despite it, she still has problems walking. Oh, she'll still wag to go on a walk, but she can barely make it to the end of the sidewalk behind our house, and spends half the next day recovering.

It's time. She's not having any fun at all. She is spending more and more time nervous and anxious because she can't see, unsure of where to walk in the house, avoiding the other dogs because they bump her, even slightly, and she falls down. The Adorable Husband called and we have an appointment at the vet on Thursday.

Dogs really should live as long as we do, dammit. Even neurotic, weird beasties.

Take That, Fiendish Device!

Less than 24 hours from the purchase and initial trial of the citronella-spray anti-bark collar...the weasels (I am strongly suspecting Berit, of course) pulled it down off the counter and chewed it up. Chewed the collar strap off the sprayer, chewed the brackets off the sprayer, left tooth-marks all over it.

Apparently, they didn't like it much, you think?

It still does work, though, so we used velcro and a creative rubber-band connector to attach it to the slightly-chewed strap. I can just imagine the beasties, though -"I've got it! Die, dastardly spraying thing! Ah-hah! You shall never work again, fiendish device! Bwaaahah!"

Too smart for their own good, the beastiea are.

Too Smart for Us

So, in an attempt to keep Berit from barking at everything, we finally succumbed and bought one of those citronella spray collars. It's sound-activated, and when she barks loudly, it spritzes a rather strong-smelling citronella mist up into her face. It's harmless, just startling, and it should hopefully (with much positive reinforcement) stop her from barking all the time at every single person that passes on the sidewalk behind the house.

We filled it up, tested it in the kitchen (blow into the microphone and it sprays) then called Berit over and fitted it on her and we all went out in the backyard to see if it would work.

First, we were out there half an hour and not one person went by the house. Usually, it's Grand Central Station back there between 7 and 9. Nada. Our neighbors out back (Greta and not-Greta) weren't outside, Willie didn't bark next door. No one. Hmph.

Then, two women walking by. Ah-hah! Someone to test this on. Berit always barks at walkers if they are talking. The dogs run to the fence...and do not bark. At all. Wha?

Moments later..a bicyclist! A worthy target for frenzied barking! One tiny, pathetic little woof, more of a mmmmrooo and nothing. They just ran along the fence and popped up to watch the cycle curiously. Something is quite wrong.

I'm beginning to think that she read the instruction manual when we weren't looking. She knows what will happen and she isn't going to bark at all!

It finally took a woman walking two dogs to get a real bark out of the beastie. She barked....ssssssst! and that just about set her back on her butt. Huh? What happened? Another bark, another spritz, and she's standing in the yard staring around suspiciously. We're all, "good girl! good quiet! good Berit!" and she is quite sure, I can tell, that we had something to do with it. We are eyeballed suspiciously, but she runs down to her normal barking position in the back corner...and doesn't bark.

This might work. We'll need to make sure she has it on every single time she's outside for a while (which might be hard, since as soon as Rowan sees the collar and weird box-thing on it, he is trying to chew it off -I imagine we'll go through at least one collar strap. We were a little nervous that she'd just figure, "oh. that's sort of annoying, but I shall bark anyway! Hah!", as some stubborn breeds are known to do.

Apparently she's a sensitive, delicate flower.

Doggie Denistry

Well, other than the smoking hole in my credit card, Rowan is just fine - he had root canal last week to repair a broken tooth and several other chipped teeth. Two plus hours of anesthesia and he's got one stubby, rounded off fang, but no problems at all.

I can't believe that they do root canals, crowns, and -- get this -- braces on dogs. Although to be fair, it was a much better option than pulling the tooth.

Now if we can just get Uulaq's meds balanced right so she feels better. We are starting to discuss what we should do -- she's just not having a good time anymore, we don't think. She's mostly blind, she's got terrible arthritis in her hips and back and has trouble keeping steady when she's walking, she is slowly losing weight and she's spending nearly all of her time sleeping. The Adorable Husband can still spark her interest by taking her for a (short) walk, but she's definitely on that slow, downhill slide.

Bah. Dogs should live as long as we do.

Meaningless or Meaningful

A group is lobbying to engrave a bunch of religious phrases on the US Capitol Visitor's Center, and their arguments are pretty flimsy. IN addition to suggestiong that it will cost more to fight the lawsuits than to just acquiesce and write religious slogans on public buildings, they dredge up the old "freedom of religion, not freedom from religion" argument, which they only seem to use when it's THEIR religion they want to display or give benefit to.

I find it extremely inappropriate to put religious phrases on secular buildings. Whiile I might not like religious decorations in public squares at holidays, they are transient and reflect the celebration of the season. But continuing to add christian imagery (and make no mistake, these groups are not lobbying to put "Hail, Baal!" on the building, or "Praise Allah" anywhere in Washington DC) to public buildings is attempting to give a specific religion primacy. 'In god we trust' is not referring to Quezlcoatl, I'm sure.

No one has ever suggested that people cannot practice whatever religion they want (as long as they break no other laws)- we only speak up when they want to force everyone else to give special recognition to their particular brand of religion. Criticism is not oppression, and suggesting that perhaps not everyone agrees with you is not persecution.

But here's where I get a bit confused:

"Put 'In God We Trust' on visitor's center, and be quiet already"

Let's start by pointing out the First Amendment doesn't grant freedom "from" religion, just freedom "of" religion. It doesn't ban religion, it provides freedom for all so that one denomination doesn't dominate or become the official state religion. Whether you practice a religion or not is up to people's preferences.

My irony meter just pinged. Yes, that's right. You can practice however you want, but you aren't allowed to coerce the rest of us into accepting, believing or following their dogma. And yet, anyone who disagrees with publicly funding and supporting expressions of specific faith is "the need-to-be-offended type" or an atheist or agnostic who obviously hates America and all it stands for.

But it's a meaninless social construct, they argue. It's a rote phrase stripped of its religious meaning. It's cultural. We should put it everywhere! Those people who are trying to prevent the project are just killjoys and are over-reacting!

No one is forced to worship because they saw the motto on a $20 bill. Or because they recited the Pledge of Allegiance. It's pretty innocuous.

You know what? You can't have it both ways. Either religious slogans on money, on buildings, are harmless, innocuous phrases wihtout meaning, and we shouldn't get all upset about it, or they are so important that if someone criticizes them they are hateful (atheists) and obviously want to destroy civilization.

This can't be good

For all the fans of the Twilight novels ("Twi-fans", apparently)...there's going to be a graphic novel! Ooh! Swoon!

Really, I'm rather horrified (and overly amused) at the idea (the books are cover-to-cover Mary Sue drivel with a heavy helping of weird-stalker vibes and tween girl angst that is at once hilarious and creepy). The little illustrated article about the new offering had me giggling at the fan versions that have already surfaced..with some odd and sometimes bizarre fan-illustrations. Just scroll through the slide show without giggling, I dare you. I double-dog dare you.

But it was the comments that had me snorting out loud.

"I never thought Stephenie would allow this--I am so happy! My husband might actually let me frame some of these for the walls being a graphic novel nerd himself."

"I am THRILLED to see Twilight being brought to this form. I think the animation should be true to the book as that is the original story we have all fallen in love with."

Can't you just hear the sparkly squeals of joy?

New Client

Eek - I should have posted this earlier in the week (so I'm pre-dating it, sorry).

Started at a new client this week -- well, back to an old client, sort of. I'm doing some work for the other division of the client I rolled off of in March and leaving several months of testing behind on my internal project at work.

I'ts nice - I know the people, they specifically asked for me to return, and I will be working from home again until some time in November, at least. Woot!

I love my job!

PA Notes

I've been looking for any excuse to have a quick giggle lately, and I got such a kick out of PassiveAggressiveNotes.com -- we've all seen those oh-so-snarky notes and someone has gone to the trouble to collect them.

It's a hoot.

Mock me now

Yes, just mock me. I am taking Rowan in to a dentist to possibly have a root canal done this week.

Rowan, if you are new here, is a DOG. He cracked off part of one of his lower fangs, and our regular vet said that we can either have it pulled out or consult with a specialist to see if might need a root canal to ensure that he doesn't get an abcess in the tooth. They might simply pull the tooth, but if we can avoid that and save the tooth, well, we'll do a root canal. I think it depends on whether enough of the tooth remains that it can be smoothed out and sealed properly.

Yes, root canal for dogs. When I expressed surprise that they did such a thing, the receptionist assured me that they also do braces. On dogs.

OK, I might be on the far end of weird dog owners, but even I wouldn't consider braces for my dog. That's just weird.

Tiny CIties and Pirates!

I picked up a new computer game last week. I find most computer games to be sort of brainless, aimless relaxation time - a way to turn off the brain from thinking about work or other problems, and just drift for a couple of hours.

Yes, I know it makes me a huge geeky nerd. I'm certainly past the age where I should be considered "a gamer", I guess, but I enjoy them.

At any rate, the game is Anno 1404: Dawn of Discovery, which is a city-building strategy game with pirates! It's fascinating and I have lost a number of hours to this time-sucker over the weekend. Setting up cities, building roads, sending ships off to trade good and fighting off pirates - its

Fascinating. And geeky. But highly recommended!

Waiting for the other Shoe

If you've watched the news at any point in the last week, it's been filled with Michael Jackson retrospectives, heath-care debates, the governer of South Carolina digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole every time he holds a press conference, and, just for some comic relief, Sarah Palin quit.

Because she needs to focus on other things, she says. Because she doesn't want to be a lame duck and be ineffective in Alaska, and apparently she oesn't like not getting her way. It's pretty common, she says, and we're just being mean (and being threatened with lawsuits) in criticizing her rambling, incoherent and hastily-put-together speech.

And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.

While I'd love for any media pundit to actually ask the question, "Sure, yeah, you betcha. Name a few." I know it won't happen. That would be just mean, you know.

So someone else did the research. Let's assume that she is referring to just Governers for the moment - so..."countless others" have resigned to follow a 'higher calling'. Well, let's see.

In the last 50 years only 33 governors have resigned:

• 15 resigned in order to accept a presidential appointment
• 11 resigned because they were elected or appointed to Congress or VP
• 3 resigned due to scandal
• 2 resigned after being tried and convicted of felonies
• 1 due to illness
• 1 resigned in order to prepare his fourth run at the presidency

Notice a pattern here? No one resigned because they were a lame duck or unpopular or not getting their way or even being investigated. Apparently, she's planning ahead for one of these reasons, right? Because I cannot see how quitting in the middle of her term is a positive act at this point. But I'm not a True Believer. Can someone explain this? I can't imagine a valid run for president (or any other national office) after conclusively proving that you simply can't handle the pressure or the job and have to quit.

Can anyone find numbers on congressional resignations? I can find yearly summaries, but nothing overall.

The TV is off at our house. If I see one more Michael Jackson piece or tribute concert or discussions about getting tickets (tickets?) to the funeral...ugh.

Bang!

Oh, the joys of having a pet who is terrified of fireworks, and a neighborhood full of teenage kids who set of bottle rockets and fireworks at all hours. Nothing like being woken up a half-dozen times by a frantically barking dog who can hear fireworks miles away.

We hid in the basement and watched WALL*E during the worst of it - the thunderstorms early seem to have lessened the number of fireworks displays.

I don't think we've actually SEEN fireworks in a couple of years. Sigh.

Signs of things to come

see more dog and puppy pictures
This made me giggle uncontrollably.

I haven't posted anything in weeks, I know. It's been busy!