I took the kids sledding tonight at a near by park. They loved it and I loved it. It was pure joy. I haven't gone to a really nice sledding hill in quite some time and I forget how nice it was. Elise looks to have gotten a little shiner from a wipe out she had. She kept on sledding though. No one would have trouble remembering to excercise if excerising was as much fun as running up a slippery hill and sliding back down.
February 2004 Archives
NitPickers Guide to LOTR.
Pretty interesting read showing deviations between the text and the movie. I have purposely stayed away from re-reading the books while waiting for the movies, so it was nice to see a concise summary.
I agree with the author's assertion that having Frodo send Sam home was a major mistake. The other items I can forgive Jackson for, but that one, I just can't fathom.
Miracle. What an enjoyable feel good kind of movie. The movie really captured for me the feeling of 1979/1980. The cars, the hair, and the news all seemed so real to me.
One of the characters in the movie Buzzy Schneider, a FOAR (Friend Of A Relative), is played by his son in the movie. How cool is that?
Even though I knew how it would end, I still felt a lot of the edge-of-your-seat excitement about the game with the Russians. I was worried the movie would be a rehash of the "Bad News Bears" but it wasn't, thankfully. O.K. so the movie won't provoke a lot of intellectual discussion, and it isn't a life changing ... but it was a lot of fun to watch.
Kurt Russell also nailed a Minnesota accent. What a great performance. You wouldn't know it was the same guy as in Overboard.
One song that stuck out for me on the soundtrack was (Don't Fear)
The Reaper, by Blue Oyster Cult. I didn't realize this song was released in 1976, for some reason I thought it was a song from the early 80's. Learn something new every day.
Very interesting thoughts from Caveat Lector. Among other things the author talks about people having "firewalled circles of acquaintance[s]". I have thought about this a lot while blogging. I wonder if a future or even current employer would read my blog decide they didn't like my political beliefs, my humour, my ideas and simply not hire me or subject me to some unspoken penalty. This concern leads me to some amount of self censorship. Not only does this occur from the employer perspective but also friends, aquaintances and family who might not share my religious, ethical, economic or political perspectives.
Perhaps blogging for me only exposes a broader symptom of wanting to refrain from offending people at the cost of sometimes not allowing people to really know who I am. Hmmm.
Then there is the stickier issue of intellectual property. My intellectual output is theoretically subject to the whims of a corporation. Will they ever crack down and tell people they can't blog? Will a future company impose stringent rules about blogging. Hmmm.
For now, I think I'll stick with a certain amount of self censorship. If I'm going to start being more honest and direct, I'll start with face to face relationships where I am not subject to archiving and googling and trackbacks.
One of those people
It strikes me that a lot of the Bad Stuff that happens in these scenarios has to do with carefully firewalled circles of acquaintance meeting unexpectedly, or façades suddenly failing. In my case, ideally, the circles all know each other and if there is a façade, it’s a lot broader and less exclusionary than the typical one.
In other words, no surprises. Folks can’t suddenly find out that I’m one of those people (vegetarians, feminists, leftists, librarians, RPGers—whoever those people are at the moment) and be shocked and horrified. If they’d read CavLec they’d have known all along. Nor can they pretend that I was so duplicitous as to hide my being one of those people from them. It’s all here, open to the world.
Any bosses I have from here on out will get told about CavLec from the get-go. They can read it. I encourage them to. Far better they should know what I am and what I say and what I do up-front, and decide they can live with it. Or discuss honestly with me what they can’t live with; I can be reasonable. What will never happen, though, is what happened to me my last job but one—I will not be told “Oh, sure, write whatever you want” only to land in boiling water when I write something the powers-that-be don’t go for.
--Link
Each time I install a new MS OS, which I do infrequently, I find there are a few settings that seem strange. Like I was having trouble sharing files on the home network. Luckily, one trip to google solved my problem.
Display the Sharing Tab in Folder Properties
Contributed by Paul Knight
In Windows 2000, getting to the Sharing options for a folder was simple: Just right-click, choose Properties, and you'd see a Sharing tab. In Windows XP, this feature is missing by default, but you can make the system display the Sharing tab if desired. Simply open up Folder Options (My Computer, then Tools, Folder Options) and navigate to the View tab. In the Advanced Settings section, scroll down to the bottom and uncheck Use simple file sharing (Recommended), a Mickey Mouse feature if there ever was one. Now share your folders on the LAN as you would in Windows 2000.
winsupersite .com XP Tips and Tricks
Lately I don't feel well represented by either the Republicans or Democrats. If there were a party that represented me what would they call themselves?
The Libertarian - Communitarian - Progressive - Conservative
- BullMoose - Compassionate - Anarcho - Crypto - NetCentric - Constitutional - Freedom party. Anyone else care to join?
"Say Hell did manage to freeze over, and Tweedle-Dee and Dum (who are looking more and more homogeneous all the time) were miraculously upset. Would much change? I'd think not. But I'm tired of settling for the lesser evil, people I can't respect or believe in with my head or gut, even marginally. It's the increasing self-loathing and guilt that are unbearable - I've only been convictionless because those who share my convictions are so unpopular? Despicable." -- jennie
I thought it was "evil of two lessers" ;-)
I like the idea of libertarians a lot. I feel a bit nervous about some of the changes they advocate for, like switching away from income tax to excise taxes. I believe if they managed to accomplish this, it would have the potential for very severe economic ramifications, not only in the U.S. but likely felt through the entire world. It would probably have an affect on the internation trading practices of all nations on earth. I have always had an affinity for most of their other stands, particularily on the topic of personal liberty.
The other concern I have about libertarianism, is that the only recent experiment in libertarianism was Russia, post-communism. A few people divvied up the governments former oil fields, factories, and natural resources. Then those people were rich enough to hire their own "police" aka thugs and do pretty much whatever they wanted. Didn't work out so well for the rest of the population at least in the short run. Now they are back to a more authoritarian state, although their resource have been divvied up now.
On the other hand, if the federal government stayed out of crime (except those crimes truly affecting interstate commerce), stayed out of education, and stayed out of people's lives generally it would be great.
Mostly what I like about libertarianism is that at it's core it's nostalgic longing for an older, simpler (pre-civil war) era, when the United States was considered a plural, when there was no federal income tax, when we didn't get involved in all sorts of foreign wars and alliances, and when government was remote, distant, and of almost no consequence.
Speaking of libertarianism, I just finished up "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". I liked it. I did find the pigeon english used by some of the characters annoying at times. All in all, good sci-fi. I especially liked the professor's idea of a two house congress where one house can pass bills (by 2/3 majority) and the other house can only repeal bills (by 1/3 majority).
I found my way to downtown St. Paul tonight to the Ice Palace. It was much larger and more impressive than I expected. Hint to others, no lines at 11:00 P.M.
For the first time in a few years, I have been fairly unimpressed with this year's crop of SuperBowl commercials. I did like the glass popsicle commercial.
Also let the record reflect that I didn't enjoy the halftime show, but I can't really remember enjoying a half time show at the SuperBowl. I just wish they would get rid of the smoke during the half time show it makes the picture look hazy and it can't be too good for the players to breathe.
