Historically, we've gone shopping for The Turkey Feast and bought a bottle of sage. Since my recipe uses about half a bottle of sage, some time last year we looked in the cupboard and had...SEVEN half-empty bottles and cans of sage.
So when on the shopping trip this year, we both looked at the spice aisle and said to each other -- "oh, no, we have TONS of sage at home and dont' need another bottle to add to the collection!"
So, as I was making my fabulous stuffing this evening, I reach into the spice cabinet for sage.
NO SAGE.
Nothing. We both rummaged through the cupboard, disbelieving. How could there be NO sage? How could we possibly be OUT?
Well, at some point during the year, we apparently decided to clear out all the old, half-used bottles and made a note to buy a fresh new bottle from Penzey's before Thanksgiving. And forgot.
The Adorable Husband is currently at the grocery store, buying sage, while I do the rest of the stuffing recipe. Hah!!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Eating Bees
Berit, sneaky weasel that she is, ATE A WASP (or two) late on Wednesday night. It apparently stung her on the tongue and roof of her mouth, so her eyes swelled shut, her face is all lumpy and blotchy, and she feels really, really sick. We pumped Benadryl into her fast, and the swelling went down, but she just got more and more agitated and spent the night pacing and whining and crying. DH slept out on the porch with her, since the cold air seemed to calm her down a bit. SHe was up all night and she looks just horrible.
Took her to the vet this morning, thinking she had some sort of intestinal problem (the pacing and crying are classic signs of bloat/torsion), and our vet thinks that she is just VERY allergic to wasps and that as it goes through her system (the little dead wasp carcass, that is), it will continue to make her sick for a day or so. Steroids and benadryl to make sure she isn't so twitchy and agitated, but poor stupid puppy!
I wonder if we need to have an epi-pen or something? She was breathing, ok, but her whole face swelled up, and her tongue was all lumpy. Scared us to bits!
Took her to the vet this morning, thinking she had some sort of intestinal problem (the pacing and crying are classic signs of bloat/torsion), and our vet thinks that she is just VERY allergic to wasps and that as it goes through her system (the little dead wasp carcass, that is), it will continue to make her sick for a day or so. Steroids and benadryl to make sure she isn't so twitchy and agitated, but poor stupid puppy!
I wonder if we need to have an epi-pen or something? She was breathing, ok, but her whole face swelled up, and her tongue was all lumpy. Scared us to bits!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Appalling
Catholic Church Threatens To Stop D.C. Services For Needy If Gay Marriage Passes
What with this and the latest offer to the Anglican church to take back their anti-gay members...well, the Catholic church has mad it very clear that they are more interested dogma than in people. Shame on them.
And, since they seem to be throwing their weight into the political arena - perhaps we should be considering their tax exempt status. That seems fair.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.Apparently a medieval dogma is far more important than, you know, actually doing good. Nope, can't actually love they neighbor if it contradicts your systematic and entrenched bigotry. So let's pull out of helping the poor, ministering to the needy, if the city doesn't kowtow to our demand that they deny marriage to a part of the population.
What with this and the latest offer to the Anglican church to take back their anti-gay members...well, the Catholic church has mad it very clear that they are more interested dogma than in people. Shame on them.
And, since they seem to be throwing their weight into the political arena - perhaps we should be considering their tax exempt status. That seems fair.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Thank you.
To all those who served, to all those who have fallen, thank you.
The world is better for the sacrifices you have made, the risks you have taken, the difficult tasks you have performed. Risks and sacrifices that most of us never have to face.
Thank you.
The world is better for the sacrifices you have made, the risks you have taken, the difficult tasks you have performed. Risks and sacrifices that most of us never have to face.
Thank you.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Shrinky Dinks
Remnember Shrinky Dinks? The acetate sheets you colored, cut out, and then shrunk to thick, clunky plastic in the oven? Did you ever think they'd be useful in a scientific lab? Hah!
In 2006, Michelle Khine arrived at the University of California's brand-new Merced campus eager to establish her first lab. She was experimenting with tiny liquid-filled channels in hopes of devising chip-based diagnostic tests, a discipline called microfluidics. The trouble was, the specialized equipment that she previously used to make microfluidic chips cost more than $100,000--money that wasn't immediately available. "I'm a very impatient person," says Khine, now an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine. "I wanted to figure out how I could set things up really quickly."
Racking her brain for a quick-and-dirty way to make microfluidic devices, Khine remembered her favorite childhood toy: Shrinky Dinks, large sheets of thin plastic that can be colored with paint or ink and then shrunk in a hot oven. "I thought if I could print out the [designs] at a certain resolution and then make them shrink, I could make channels the right size for microfluidics," she says.
So she drew out the designs, and when they were shrunk, used them as a mold for her microchannels. While not perfect, the solution has gotten a lot of attention -- both critical and enthusiastic. Now that she's started, of course, people are working on other applications of her "shrinky-dink model". How very cool!
Saturday, November 07, 2009
..into the silence
Yeah, I've been quiet for a few days.
New computer game.
Very absorbing, time-suck of a computer game. So instead of doing anything constructive with my evenings, I've been battling ogres and dragons and zombies.
I'm seriously getting too old to stay up until 2am playing games. It makes getting up for work pretty hard in the morning. But it's fun!
Dragon Age: Origins
Lovely game, and - -as I've found out over the last four days -- it drags you in for hours. Great voice acting, good graphics (although not the best I've seen) and an engrossing storyline with so many different options that I've barely made it out of the first city. I keep wandering around talking to everyone.
New computer game.
Very absorbing, time-suck of a computer game. So instead of doing anything constructive with my evenings, I've been battling ogres and dragons and zombies.
I'm seriously getting too old to stay up until 2am playing games. It makes getting up for work pretty hard in the morning. But it's fun!
Dragon Age: Origins
Lovely game, and - -as I've found out over the last four days -- it drags you in for hours. Great voice acting, good graphics (although not the best I've seen) and an engrossing storyline with so many different options that I've barely made it out of the first city. I keep wandering around talking to everyone.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Trick or Treaters SCORE!
Perfect weather, and we had TONS of trick-or-treaters. It's been hit or miss around here, really. The first couple of years, we had a total of 10 kids show up - we were apparently too far out on the edge of the development to be worth hiking all the way out for candy (at least for most kids).
At the old house, we used to get HUNDREDS of kids on Halloween. But Old Town is neat little rectangular blocks and is pretty small. Every single kid went out and followed the same path. The new development is all curvy and full of dead-end cul-de-sacs and we apparently just don't get the volume. Lots of parents around here take th elittlest kids to the mall for trick-or-treating, though.
It doesn't stop us from buying a bazillion bags of candy, though, so when we actually did get a ton of kids last night we had plenty of candy! Lots of neat costumes -- plenty of star-wars Clone Wars, ninjas, a fire-fighter, Indiana Jones, plenty of little fairy princesses and gangsters. Even a tiny little munchkin dressed as a cow who managed to say 'ticker teet' and 'fank yoo' loudly and with enthusiasm, albeit with a little prompting.
At the old house, we used to get HUNDREDS of kids on Halloween. But Old Town is neat little rectangular blocks and is pretty small. Every single kid went out and followed the same path. The new development is all curvy and full of dead-end cul-de-sacs and we apparently just don't get the volume. Lots of parents around here take th elittlest kids to the mall for trick-or-treating, though.
It doesn't stop us from buying a bazillion bags of candy, though, so when we actually did get a ton of kids last night we had plenty of candy! Lots of neat costumes -- plenty of star-wars Clone Wars, ninjas, a fire-fighter, Indiana Jones, plenty of little fairy princesses and gangsters. Even a tiny little munchkin dressed as a cow who managed to say 'ticker teet' and 'fank yoo' loudly and with enthusiasm, albeit with a little prompting.
Intellectual Dishonesty
[Edited to add (11/4/09) that not only is Comfort dishonest, he's a plagiarist, as well - see the comparison of his "introduction" to "A Brief History of Charles Darwin" by Dr. Stan Guffe]
When Ray Comfort announced that he was going to give out free copies of Darwin's Origin of Species with his own, special introduction, I was ticked off, but figured that getting the book into people's hands was more important than worrying about the fifty pages of dribble that Comfort felt he had to put in the intro. Bad enough, but his idiocy is pretty easy to debunk and no one interested enough in reading Darwin's book was going to give him any credit.
But now, I've read that the book is actually EDITED. Yup, whole chapters are missing -- you know, the ones that Comfort doesn't agree with, and that ones that contradict his little fairy story of how life ended up where we are. He can, of course, the book is out of copyright, but if he's going to drop chapters from the book, he should be honest enough to admit it. Honest enough to leave the book intact and let his "arguments" stand for themselves. He can't. He's got nothing but debunked and rejected stories that can't stand up to criticism or even casual attention. So he has edited the book shamefully while still representing it as the original. It's dishonest to the extreme.
His response? It was too expensive in the initial printing -- "too many pages", but the second printing, the one that will go to students, is intact. I'll believe that when I see it - he's shown that truth is a rather fluid concept.
When Ray Comfort announced that he was going to give out free copies of Darwin's Origin of Species with his own, special introduction, I was ticked off, but figured that getting the book into people's hands was more important than worrying about the fifty pages of dribble that Comfort felt he had to put in the intro. Bad enough, but his idiocy is pretty easy to debunk and no one interested enough in reading Darwin's book was going to give him any credit.
But now, I've read that the book is actually EDITED. Yup, whole chapters are missing -- you know, the ones that Comfort doesn't agree with, and that ones that contradict his little fairy story of how life ended up where we are. He can, of course, the book is out of copyright, but if he's going to drop chapters from the book, he should be honest enough to admit it. Honest enough to leave the book intact and let his "arguments" stand for themselves. He can't. He's got nothing but debunked and rejected stories that can't stand up to criticism or even casual attention. So he has edited the book shamefully while still representing it as the original. It's dishonest to the extreme.
His response? It was too expensive in the initial printing -- "too many pages", but the second printing, the one that will go to students, is intact. I'll believe that when I see it - he's shown that truth is a rather fluid concept.
Ray said "The first printing of 30,000 was an abridged edition. It was abridged because it was too many pages (too expensive) for a giveaway. In the book, we explained that the removed chapters could be downloaded freely online at www.originextra.com
The second print of 175,000 (which has just come off the press) was the complete book--that's the one that will go to students. Nothing is missing from the original book. Not a dot. Thanks for asking. I appreciate it. Best wishes."
Does this make any sense to anyone? So, it was too expensive to give away the full book, but now they are going to give away the full book for free. That's a pretty thin excuse. Didn't expect to get caught, I imagine.
In the meantime, the absurd abridgement is out in the wild. It's been sent to various outlets for review and can be pre-ordered on Amazon. Which version has been sent out? Guess.
Unfortunately, it will be hard to thoroughly read the version that Comfort will be distributing on college campuses in November. The copy his publisher sent me is missing no fewer than four crucial chapters, as well as Darwin's introduction. Two of the omitted chapters, Chapters 11 and 12, showcase biogeography, some of Darwin's strongest evidence for evolution. Which is a better explanation for the distribution of plants and animals around the planet: common ancestry or special creation? Which better explains why island species are more similar to species on the mainland closest to them, rather than to more distant species that share a similar environment? The answer clearly is common ancestry. Today, scientists continue to develop the science of biogeography, confirming, refining, and extending Darwin's conclusions.
Likewise missing from Comfort's bowdlerized version of the Origin is Chapter 13, where Darwin explained how evolution makes sense of classification, morphology, and embryology. To take a simple example, why do all land vertebrates (amphibians, mammals, and reptiles and birds) have four limbs? Not because four limbs are necessarily a superior design for land locomotion: insects have six, arachnids have eight, and millipedes have, well, lots. It's because all land vertebrates descended with modification from a four-legged ("tetrapod") ancestor. Since Darwin's era, scientists have repeatedly confirmed that the more recently two species have shared a common ancestor, the more similar are their anatomy, their biochemistry, their embryology, and their genetics.
So, Mr. Comfort, because he can't really counter the information, simply omits it. Where their "evidence" fails, they just ignore it. No one with on iota of ethics is going to support it, and this has simply cemented the opinion of rational, thinking people that Comfort is intellectually dishonest (as if we actually needed this particular incident, but there it is). He has a fabulous strawman idea of what atheists believe and continually conflates evolution with abiogenesis, and procedes to tilt madly at those instead of actually addressing the reality of evolution and scientific fact. It would be funny if it weren't for the people who actually think he's honest and accurate.
If you want to propose a different model for life on earth, you really do have to address ALL of the points of the other model. Your new theory has to account for ALL the empirical evidence and ALL of the facts available. Ignoring them simply shows that you can't and it's pretty pathetic.
If he wants to slice and dice the book, fine. But at least have the decency to note that it is NOT the entire text, that you have abridged and edited it to fit your own agenda, and don't attempt to market this as the real thing. What he is doing is dishonest and manipulative.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Some more Creepy
The Uncanny Valley is the observable revulsion that humans feel when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans just a little too well They become "too real" but there's something just a little off that squicks you out.
The best example I've seen is the live-type animation used in The Polar Express -- the characters looks real, but not real enough, and in fact (to me) resembled animated corpses. Your brain initially thinks "oh! person!" and then something subtle (or not so subtle) about the face starts to make you uncomfortable. New video games often have this problem - the characters are rendered close enough to humans that you begin to really notice the not-human twitches and tics and movements and it is unsettling.
There is a really good gallery of images that trigger the Uncanny Valley "ick" factor -- it's interesting ot see which ones really make you cringe. (nothing gross, just some weird and creepy faces, don't worry).
My first exposure to this sort of effect was when someone sent me the link to a child pageant photo retouching website -- weird zombified freaky kid pictures for pageants. Eeeu. The site is worth clicking through (keep clicking "more" on each page) just to see how totally bizarre they are.
And for some truly fantastic CGI art (that may or may not fall into the Uncanny Valley), check out the gallery here. WOW.
The best example I've seen is the live-type animation used in The Polar Express -- the characters looks real, but not real enough, and in fact (to me) resembled animated corpses. Your brain initially thinks "oh! person!" and then something subtle (or not so subtle) about the face starts to make you uncomfortable. New video games often have this problem - the characters are rendered close enough to humans that you begin to really notice the not-human twitches and tics and movements and it is unsettling.
There is a really good gallery of images that trigger the Uncanny Valley "ick" factor -- it's interesting ot see which ones really make you cringe. (nothing gross, just some weird and creepy faces, don't worry).
My first exposure to this sort of effect was when someone sent me the link to a child pageant photo retouching website -- weird zombified freaky kid pictures for pageants. Eeeu. The site is worth clicking through (keep clicking "more" on each page) just to see how totally bizarre they are.
And for some truly fantastic CGI art (that may or may not fall into the Uncanny Valley), check out the gallery here. WOW.
Bwaaha! Beware!
I hope you will all stay far, far away from the demonic candy this Halloween season...Prayed over by witches, you know. And passing curses with each trick-or-treater.
Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network posted a blog by Kimberly Daniels recently that warns Christians to forgo celebrating Halloween because of its evilness. Daniels specifically calls out candy as a source of soul-molestation:
Of course, the CBN page linked above has been "removed" (oh, I wonder why!) but you should still be able to read the whole lovely screed from Google's cache.
Consider for a moment, though, just how batshit insane you have to be to be scrubbed from Robertson's website.
(and just edited to add: have they considered that if these hypothetical demons really wanted to have the most impact, they would curse christmas candy and christmas presents, and be drawn into all those nice christian holiday festivities. I mean, really, possessing candy at Halloween is for amateurs.)
Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network posted a blog by Kimberly Daniels recently that warns Christians to forgo celebrating Halloween because of its evilness. Daniels specifically calls out candy as a source of soul-molestation:
"During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches."Seriously, I thought this was a fine example of Poe's Law -- it was just so ridiculous and over-the-top that I thought it was a joke. It's not, sad to say. People are unbelievably ignorant of Hallowe'en history, and prefer to make up an anti-christian strawman for this co-opted holiday of Samhain. I can't believe anyone takes it seriously -- it's a secular holiday here, and has been for a very long time. Any demonic taint has been created by the overly-gullible
Of course, the CBN page linked above has been "removed" (oh, I wonder why!) but you should still be able to read the whole lovely screed from Google's cache.
Consider for a moment, though, just how batshit insane you have to be to be scrubbed from Robertson's website.
(and just edited to add: have they considered that if these hypothetical demons really wanted to have the most impact, they would curse christmas candy and christmas presents, and be drawn into all those nice christian holiday festivities. I mean, really, possessing candy at Halloween is for amateurs.)
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Just a note
Two things about snow: 1) if you must go out and shake snow from the trees, wear a scarf and a hat with a brim and 2) it is impossible to see what two WHITE dogs are doing in the dark in the snow. They vanish entirely.
Most of the lovely snow will be melted by the weekend, though. Sigh.
Most of the lovely snow will be melted by the weekend, though. Sigh.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Snow snow snow
Ha! Snow at last! And bunches of it! I have to admit I love the snow, when I can sit at home, all cozy and warm and don't have to go anywhere.
The Adorable husband, of course, drove down to Aurora to class today. He took E470 around and it was slippery enough that he slid off the road, through the median, across the two lanes of oncoming traffic (not that there was any, luckily) and into the ditch on the opposite side. He was able to drive back out, didn't even need a tow or anything, but WOAH! It took him an hour and a half for a normally 40 minute drive.
He has two days of class way down south -- last night, after looking at the weather projections (up to 2 feet of snow), I made him a hotel reservation about 2 miles from his class. I totally don't want him to be trying to drive home if it's supposed to keep snowing 1+ inches per hour all day.
Fun!
The Adorable husband, of course, drove down to Aurora to class today. He took E470 around and it was slippery enough that he slid off the road, through the median, across the two lanes of oncoming traffic (not that there was any, luckily) and into the ditch on the opposite side. He was able to drive back out, didn't even need a tow or anything, but WOAH! It took him an hour and a half for a normally 40 minute drive.
He has two days of class way down south -- last night, after looking at the weather projections (up to 2 feet of snow), I made him a hotel reservation about 2 miles from his class. I totally don't want him to be trying to drive home if it's supposed to keep snowing 1+ inches per hour all day.
Fun!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
And so it goes
Just to let you know how our weekend is going -- the Adorable husband went to Veloswap yesterday and bought a new bike. Quite nice - a hefty commuter sort of bike (not a lightweight racing bike, and not a heavy-duty off-roader, sort of in-between), and once he brought it home and put it all together, off he went to test out the bike.
It has front shocks, so he figured he'd try riding in the field near our house.
Which is why, less than ten minutes later, it is back in the garage and we are off to buy new tubes for both wheels.
Goatheads. The little suckers are sharp enough to easily pierce the tires and puncture the tubes. He had to pick them out of the tire by hand before he could put in the new ones - the thorns are tough enough to go through shoes (tip: never wear Crocs in a field with goatheads).
That's just how things have been going. We're both crabby and snarky today.
It has front shocks, so he figured he'd try riding in the field near our house.
Which is why, less than ten minutes later, it is back in the garage and we are off to buy new tubes for both wheels.
Goatheads. The little suckers are sharp enough to easily pierce the tires and puncture the tubes. He had to pick them out of the tire by hand before he could put in the new ones - the thorns are tough enough to go through shoes (tip: never wear Crocs in a field with goatheads).
That's just how things have been going. We're both crabby and snarky today.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Which one?
This flowchart is slightly offensive and rather funny -- of course it only covers a half-dozen of the thousands of options, but it does narrow the field a bit, if you were not-so-seriously wondering....
Thursday, October 22, 2009
122 below windchill
A friend of ours is currently at the South Pole - isn't that cool? He's scheduled to come back in November after four months in the cold and snow. One of the engineers also at the site has been posting a blog and videos - the one below is the walk from South Pole Station to the lab. It's rather long and a bit boring, but it definitely gives an idea of what the weather is like. Oy!
You can read the blog (not by our friend, but by one of the other engineers) at FreezeDriedEngineer
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Brilliant!
I often post that I am lucky enough to have a spouse who is Very Handy. He can fix just about anything. In fact, when he can't fix something, I start to worry!
But he is BRILLIANT.
Case in point: we discovered yesterday that we have a substantial water leak in the basement somewhere -- the carpet in the workout area downstairs is in varying states of damp --> soaked across most of the room.
But we couldn't SEE any source of the water. It was somewhat obvious that it had to come from the utility room somewhere, but the floor was dry. There was no spot near the baseboard along any wall where the carpet was "more wet" to indicate a leak, there were no pipes in any of the other walls, no sign of water on any of the walls or baseboards, and the really, really wet spot was in the middle of the room. Huh? How?
We briefly thought that it was actually seeping up from the floor, but that made no sense at all.
So, we st up the fans to start to dry things out, to see if we could find the source o the problem.
Now, I have a really serious phobia about water in the house -- having lived in an old house with various leaks and weirdness, the sound of running water in the house freaks me out, and the thought that we had water from SOMEWHERE leaking into the basement made me very, very anxious. When the Adorable Husband simply shrugged and said we were doing all we could and had no idea what was going on...well, I mgiht have been a bit snarky, too.
So the Adorable Husband, after dinner, sets off downstairs to find the source of the problem - humoring me, of course. About an hour later, he emerges triumphantly from the basement...we have a humidifier on our furnace, which has a drain pipe that is wired to the drain in the floor. It was not "leaking" or missing the drain...but the drain itself was silted in and after about ten minutes, it filled in entirely, and the water runoff from the humidifier filled in the small depression and was wicked up by the carpet. It would only happen when the heat was on -- which it was quite often last week, but hasn't been for a week, and only when it twa son often enough to fill up the drain and overflow. We hadn't been down in the basement for a week or so, so the carpet has been sittig down there, soaking for a at least week, even though th eheat hasn't run in at least that long. Ugh.
We apparently hit the right combination of temperatue and furnace activity to cause the problem. I'm really surprised at the amount of water that travelled along a low point in the concrete and into the other room. Wow. Luckily, it is absolutely clean water, so I hope if we get it dried out, we won't have weird mold problems.
But Yeah! for patient, handy Adorable husband!
But he is BRILLIANT.
Case in point: we discovered yesterday that we have a substantial water leak in the basement somewhere -- the carpet in the workout area downstairs is in varying states of damp --> soaked across most of the room.
But we couldn't SEE any source of the water. It was somewhat obvious that it had to come from the utility room somewhere, but the floor was dry. There was no spot near the baseboard along any wall where the carpet was "more wet" to indicate a leak, there were no pipes in any of the other walls, no sign of water on any of the walls or baseboards, and the really, really wet spot was in the middle of the room. Huh? How?
We briefly thought that it was actually seeping up from the floor, but that made no sense at all.
So, we st up the fans to start to dry things out, to see if we could find the source o the problem.
Now, I have a really serious phobia about water in the house -- having lived in an old house with various leaks and weirdness, the sound of running water in the house freaks me out, and the thought that we had water from SOMEWHERE leaking into the basement made me very, very anxious. When the Adorable Husband simply shrugged and said we were doing all we could and had no idea what was going on...well, I mgiht have been a bit snarky, too.
So the Adorable Husband, after dinner, sets off downstairs to find the source of the problem - humoring me, of course. About an hour later, he emerges triumphantly from the basement...we have a humidifier on our furnace, which has a drain pipe that is wired to the drain in the floor. It was not "leaking" or missing the drain...but the drain itself was silted in and after about ten minutes, it filled in entirely, and the water runoff from the humidifier filled in the small depression and was wicked up by the carpet. It would only happen when the heat was on -- which it was quite often last week, but hasn't been for a week, and only when it twa son often enough to fill up the drain and overflow. We hadn't been down in the basement for a week or so, so the carpet has been sittig down there, soaking for a at least week, even though th eheat hasn't run in at least that long. Ugh.
We apparently hit the right combination of temperatue and furnace activity to cause the problem. I'm really surprised at the amount of water that travelled along a low point in the concrete and into the other room. Wow. Luckily, it is absolutely clean water, so I hope if we get it dried out, we won't have weird mold problems.
But Yeah! for patient, handy Adorable husband!
Haka
Rugby makes football look like a sissy game.
Even though they have a dance routine.
Another version here: All Black's Haka, and here: Rugby Dance
Friday, October 16, 2009
Good Life Lessons
"New Moon: Because what healthier lesson to teach teenage girls than that attempted suicide will make their boyfriends come back to them."I've read the whole Twilight series, mostly out of curiousity because my niece was hooked on it, and all the internet buzz. Ugh. Not only are they ill-written, Bella is the mary-sue-iest Mary Seu Evah! -- but the message in the books: stalking and desperate neediness and control are good things is a bit worrisome to me. I can see why it appeals to the 13-year-old girl crowd, but to adults? If vampires float your boat, there are far better series out there for you.
And they don't sparkle.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Come Fly Away
If you watched television at any point today, you probably saw video of the runaway UFO-looking balloon north of Denver today. The story was that a 6-year-old boy had climbed into the balloon and it had taken off unexpectedly (whether he did it on purpose or not was the topic of much speculation). It careened from near Fort Collins down towards the airport, which shut down northbound flights, climbing as high as 13,000 feet before touching down in a field in Weld County.
I could see the helicopters just north of our house.
The kid was fine, btw. He apparently accidently set loose the balloon and hid in the attic of the garage, afraid of getting punished. Just about what I'd expect from a six-year-old who had just lost his father's experimental weather aircraft/balloon thing. I'm glad he's ok.
The news coverage was instant, constant, and inane. This is national news? This required every single idiot on Twitter to post about it? I'm sorry, but the first thing I thought was "oh, how horrible, I hope the kid is alright...." and then the immediately thought that this is simply Tragedy Porn.
You know, endless breathess coverage, interviews with anyone who has ever seen the family, footage of crying family members and endless discussions about the situation back and forth among the television crew and in-studio anchors, repeating over and over the few facts they know. This was fairly unusual-how often do you see a floating UFO balloon?--but the story affected no one but the family, possibly their neighbors, and the rescue personnel called out to respond to this possible emergency.
There might have been a frightened six-year-old in the balloon, and I can only imagine how terrified the family was...but to throw it up on television for a few hours and bring all other news and activity to a screeching halt is ridculous. Reminds me of the hours of live television coverage of the white bronco attempting to flee police at low speed. Really? This required all stations to cover it and live footage online and thousand and thousands of Twitter posts? (don't get me started on twitting, either, or tweeting or whatever they call it).
People glued to the television waiting with bated breath for the next moment's news. Watching people digging out of an earthquake, watching video of tsunamis over and over again. Hours and hours of video of a fire burning.
Tragedy Porn.
Or maybe I'm just a horrible curmudgeon.
I could see the helicopters just north of our house.
The kid was fine, btw. He apparently accidently set loose the balloon and hid in the attic of the garage, afraid of getting punished. Just about what I'd expect from a six-year-old who had just lost his father's experimental weather aircraft/balloon thing. I'm glad he's ok.
The news coverage was instant, constant, and inane. This is national news? This required every single idiot on Twitter to post about it? I'm sorry, but the first thing I thought was "oh, how horrible, I hope the kid is alright...." and then the immediately thought that this is simply Tragedy Porn.
You know, endless breathess coverage, interviews with anyone who has ever seen the family, footage of crying family members and endless discussions about the situation back and forth among the television crew and in-studio anchors, repeating over and over the few facts they know. This was fairly unusual-how often do you see a floating UFO balloon?--but the story affected no one but the family, possibly their neighbors, and the rescue personnel called out to respond to this possible emergency.
There might have been a frightened six-year-old in the balloon, and I can only imagine how terrified the family was...but to throw it up on television for a few hours and bring all other news and activity to a screeching halt is ridculous. Reminds me of the hours of live television coverage of the white bronco attempting to flee police at low speed. Really? This required all stations to cover it and live footage online and thousand and thousands of Twitter posts? (don't get me started on twitting, either, or tweeting or whatever they call it).
People glued to the television waiting with bated breath for the next moment's news. Watching people digging out of an earthquake, watching video of tsunamis over and over again. Hours and hours of video of a fire burning.
Tragedy Porn.
Or maybe I'm just a horrible curmudgeon.
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