January 2005 Archives

I just watched "Pieces of April". It was really enjoyable. I was amused by both the horrifying and the humorous moments of the film, but wasn't in love with the movie, until the end. The last few minutes of the film, though happy and perhaps straining believability, really made the film for me. I also enjoyed the way some of the building's residents really helped April. I want to be the kind of person who would help someone in holiday distress.

The idea that sometimes people can put down their long held resentments and just be real humans who simply love, forgive, or at least tolerate each other, without pretense, bitterness or pain is very attractive to me. That's why the ending of the movie spoke to me.

The New York Times had an interesting bit on parenting blogs.

Personally, I love reading about parent's struggles with parenting. I can't stand the kind of parenting literature that preaches or turns parenting into a three simple steps to success revival. I would much rather hear real people tell me, "It's really hard, but you and your children will probably survive it."

When I read about other people's experiences I don't feel like such a freak for thinking things like "If an adult bit and hit me the way my kids do, I would open up a can on them!"

I was talking to a friend of Jeannie's, who said that since her kids were born she had stopped reading fiction and began to exclusively read books on parenting. I get depressed just thinking about it.

• Jennifer Weiner's response.
• Ayelet Waldman's response.

I would also like to note that I am uniquely gifted at both complaining and marveling at myself, which makes me the perfect blogger, at least according to the NYTimes.

Ed Emberly writes books for kids which are geared at helping kids learn to draw. His web site has a ton of projects, which can be printed and downloaded at no cost. I'll try these at home and let you know what I think. I think this will work great for Matthew and Elise.

[Link courtesy of b^2.]

The 2005 Coffeethon ended last night at midnight. In the end, I tied for second with 9 cups of coffee.

The first four cups were delicious. Cups four through eight required a little discipline to finish. The 9th cup tasted fine but didn't agree with my stomach. I couldn't even consider another cup of coffee. I've definitely renewed my faith in the economic orthodoxy of diminishing returns. The marginal utility of the tenth cup of coffee was indeed quite small.

On the flip side I was quite certain I could leap tall buildings with a single bound and two feet seemed like a safe following distance while driving home at 85 miles per hour.

PostSecret is a web site which collects and posts confessions that people have sent in to the author in the form of a postcard. I love reading this. Some are funny others are scary; the best ones are both funny and scary.

I'm going to have to think up one this weekend and send it in.

How about this confession, "My blog is a secret cry for attention."

The Coffethon is in full swing today. I'm up to 4 cups so far. You can follow my progress through the day on the results page.

I feel great, btw.

So thanks to MoCo Loco, I was pointed to this site, Office In a Bucket.

Can you imagine your first day of work at the next cutting edge mega-corp; instead of being shown to your office you would be handed and bucket and told, "Just find a clear spot in the warehouse and blow your office up. Be sure not to use thumb tacks to hang up your children's art projects." It seems so absurb, I wonder if it's a spoof.

What next Porta-potty-in-a-bucket?

One of my favorite copyright activist groups takes up the Eyes on the Prize issue.

Seriously folks, it appalls me that copyright law, which is intended to encourage the producers of intellectual goods, serves now to squelch the dissemination of history. I knew when I first read Right to Read that knowledge would eventually be locked up by media corporations. It sickens me to see it happen.

Just a friendly reminder that you have been invited to hang out with me at The Qwest, next Tuesday night, to hear on of my favorite bands, "Bowling For Soup". See the FAQ I posted for more details.

A co-worker named Larry had a box in his office yesterday for an item that his wife wished to return. It was some sort of "cropping station table" that people use in their pursuit of scrapbooking.

We were both amused by one of the bullet points on the box.

So in a huge font it says.

Infinitly adjustable to ANY height

But in wee letters it adds, Between 20" and 40".

1. I love the spelling of "infinitly"
2. I love the fact that this thing can be adjusted to ANY height as long as it's between the minimum and maximum. By that logic my height is infinitely adjustable between 5' and 5' 10", depending on my slouch.

I should have some fine print tattooed somewhere on my body disclaiming anything that I might have said.

A few months ago MPR purchased a small college radio station which played classical music.

People were nonplussed and more than a few people were irate as it meant less choice for people who like classical music.

In the last year or so I had gotten rather attached to the alternative classical station, mainly because there were fewer gruesome reports of Iraq casualties for my children to ask about. "Daddy what is an Improvised Explosive Device?"

Then MPR surprised me with the announcement that the new format for the station would be sort of adult, eclectic, alternative, contemporary music station. When I heard about this I was both happy and irritated. I had pretty much given up on commercial music stations as I was irritated by their short playlists and constant commercial interruptions so I was thrilled that someone might play some interesting music with fewer interruptions. At the same time I was irritated by the fact the MPR news station had broadcast numerous digs at how bland and bad commercial music radio had become. It's like they were priming us for their entry into the market. By profiling certain non-traditional Adult Album Alternative stations they were creating a little astroturfing campaign that would lead people to their station. I hate feeling like a sheep. Baaahhh.

So now the station is up and running. You can catch a stream if you like. It's pretty good. I admit it's a treat to listen to interesting music I've never heard before, broadcast without commercials.

This new station has already helped me in my continuous search for my feminine side, which manifests itself by my love for girlish music. My newest find is Rilo Kiley. Here are a few quotes from lyrics on the album, "More Adventurous".

I know I'm alone if I'm with or without you
but just bein' around you offers me another form of relief
When the lonliness leads to bad dreams
and the bad dreams lead me to callin' you
and I call you and say "C'MERE!"

And it's bad news
Baby I'm bad news
I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news

And it's bad news
Baby it's bad news
It's just bad news, bad news, bad news

Any chimp can play human for a day.
Use his opposable thumbs to iron his uniform
and run for office on election day
fancy himself a real decision maker
and deploy more troops than salt shakers.

I think I've pointed out the blog Seraphic Secret before. Many of the entries deal with the death of Robert and Karen's son, Ariel. His writing about grief is so real and so human; you can't help but feel his loss when you read his posts. Here is an excerpt from a recent post.

I have always struggled with people who have all the answers. I was raised in a church where they had all the answers, direct from God. Turns out they were asking the wrong questions and mistaking their own wishful thinking for the voice of God. (I've come to think we all do this from time to time, it's just a matter of degrees.)

I heard all the trite answers about death growing up; "God had a reason" or "It was for the best" or "They didn't have enough faith." I always rebelled against these answers. I never wanted to believe in that monstrous God.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade my pastor died. My family was quite close to the pastor and his family. We were over at their house all the time. He was 29 or 30 at most. He had two small children, the oldest was five I think. The younger child sat next to me at the funeral and doodled in a coloring book. At one point during the service he looked right at me and asked, "Why is my daddy in that box." Even then I knew there was no good answer and I just shook my head and said "I don't know why your dad is in the box."

To this day, I still want to believe that his dad wasn't in the box. More than once I have been somewhere and saw someone who reminds me of Pete. In my heart, I still want it to be Pete instead of someone with his curly red hair and swagger. I've wanted him to shake my hand and tell me he had to be in some government witness protection program. I've always wanted to believe he was still alive somewhere.

I think the best we can hope in life, is not answers to all of life's questions but simply having people in our life to hold us when we ask them.

In my New Year's Resolution I proposed that I drink more tea this year. I am happy to report that I am doing just that. Some work friends took me to a little shop near my office called Tea Source. I purchased a filter and some Black Currant tea.

I'm really enjoying drinking tea. I never really gave loose tea much thought, because I don't like dealing with the mess. I have always liked the Good Earth herbal tea, but it doesn't taste right in the packets, and I can't drink a whole pot of it, when brewed from loose tea in the coffee maker. But now, with the magic filter, I can brew one cup and completely enjoy whatever kind of loose tea strikes my fancy.

My friends gave mixed reviews of "Lost in Translation". People either loved it or thought it was boring.

I fall firmly into the "loved it" camp.

Like Garden State the director and actors transcribed feelings I've had but couldn't necessarily articulate to the big screen.

The feeling of being someplace and feeling "lost" or being out of sync with everything around you was so intense in this movie. It's a feeling I've had on more than one occasion.

I just finished watching Garden State.

After thinking about the scene where "Large" fades into the wallpaper, I realized that one of my new Christmas shirts almost fades into the paint in my bedroom.

This movie truly moved me.

I've had the experience depicted in the movie where everyone appears to be moving around you.

I've had the experience of finding that one person in life who understands you for almost no discernible reason.

I've had the experience of feeling like I loved someone so much that life with the most meager, meanest existence possible, if shared with that person, would be just great.

And let's not forget, I just went back to Milwaukee and saw an old friend.

Seeing small pieces of my life depicted on the screen was both uncanny and cathartic. Now don't get the idea my mother is dead, depressed, or was in a wheelchair or that I've ever been prescribed or taken anti-depresants, rather I identify with the ideas and moods shown in the movie.

I've been listening to the soundtrack for a while. It's one of the best soundtracks I think I've ever heard. The songs comfortably fit the mood and sequences of the movie almost as well as they seem to fit my mood at present.

When I like something so much, be it a song, a book, a movie, or whatever I wonder if something must be wrong with me or it. I have that feeling about this movie.

Seeing this truly great movie makes me even more frustrated by all the truly bad movies I saw last year. Excepting the Lord of the Rings trilogy which is in a movie category all by itself, this is the best movie I've seen since "The Matrix."

Robotic Nation

This is exactly what I have been trying to tell people for some time, although I think this guy paints a far too dystopic view of the future.

It will be interesting to see how the take-over of traditional retail positions by robots will affect the general economy. Will there be enough robot repair, refurbish and programming jobs to offset all the fast food and retail jobs that will be lost?

When these kinds of systems are in place, what will a person have to do to get really wonderful personal service? When you complain to a manager will you simple get a videoconference with someone in India, China or Pakistan?

His ideas remind me of a sci-fi book "Kiln People" by David Brin. In that book, which I never finished because it was too boring, almost no one has a job because everyone can make these golem like creatures at home. These creatures that have your memories and can do any menial task. Some are even capable of quite sophisticated work. These golems then expire and can download their memories back to you. It interesting to think about a future where almost no one works because there just aren't any jobs available. For a better review take a look at this.

While walking today with a Guy from work, I was reminded of his plan for fighting spam and punishing spammers. His suggestion is that any spammer should have the products they are hawking tattooed to their forehead in indelible ink.

It's an interesting idea.

No one worries about making a fashion statement if you are simply trying to keep warm.

After reading The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, I decided to pick up another book by this author. I chose, "In the Lake of the Woods".

It was a very interestingly written story, which posed as a mystery, but in the end left bits of the puzzle missing, allowing the reader to piece together their own ideas about who the characters really were and what they did.

The book was set in Minnesota and had a very authentic feel to it.

I really enjoyed the non-traditional chapters which consisted of excerpts from books and the criminal investigations, which the book referenced in overt and oblique ways. They fit very nicely into the story and in their own way added to the narration.

Amazon link

In the Lake of the Woods

I recently read two books written by Chuck Palahniuk, "Fight Club" and "Survivor". I really enjoyed them both.

Fight Club

I had recently seen the movie and I loved it. I immediately got the book at my local library. I loved the book as much if not more than the movie. The author really has an interesting way to tell a story where it seems like the story is happening around the characters rather then than the alternative of the characters making the story happen. I loved it. The whole notion of duality in the book was far more robust than in the movie.

Here are some of my favorite quotes.

Survivor

This book started slow for me. I liked the idea well enough, but it was just really slow until somewhere in the middle of the book. I am desperate to know if all the cleaning advice offered in the book actually works. For instance, if you soap the inside of a crease in a pair of dress pants before ironing, will it really make the crease sharper? Then somewhere in the middle of the book, I really started to like it and by the end I was completely hooked. It was very unsettling to read a book where the page and chapter numbers are in reverse order.

In some ways his writing reminds me of William Gibson, except that when Mr. Palahniuk has a really clever original idea, he develops it completely as part of the story, while Mr. Gibson blows you away with the idea and never completes it.

One other interesting bit of the story for me was that I've know people raised in religious colonies, which made the entire story more real to me.

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts. The author has a wonderful gift for twisting a phrase or thought.

Amazon Links

• Fight Club
• Survivor

Rebecca notes a problem with tags that goes beyond spamming, namely people who purposely pollute the public tag-space to be funny, offensive, or to push their own political agenda. I suppose this is a specialized case of spam. I still think this folksonomy idea is very cool, but we'll see how it plays out over time.

If you've been using the internet long enough you can remember when spam first became a problem for you. While filtering has taken care of nearly all my email spam, I still have the occasional problem of comment spam on the blog.

To combat comment spam, I have used the MT-Blacklist spam filtering plug-in, closed commenting on old entries, banned repeat offenders, and now even started offering TypeKey authentication. These measures have reduced the comment spam problem to background noise.

I have always thought that if spam didn't pay, the slimy people who send it might spend their time on other pursuits, like say bilking the elderly out of their retirement savings. Unfortunately, spam does seem to pay enough to keep them in the game.

Comment spam is slightly different than email spam. With comment spam, the spammer is trying to use a whole stack of internet software to increase their rank in search engines, and thus drive more traffic to their scam web sites.

Today, I was pleasantly surprised to see in my RSS reader, that the MSN search folks were going to support a novel modifier of the A HTML tag, namely <A HREF="LINK" REL="NOFOLLOW">. The idea being that if comment spammers increase their "pagerank" by polluting blog comments, that search engines would ignore those links with the NOFOLLOW attribute set.

It's a very simple idea, which appears to reduce the incentive for comment spammers to bombard blogger web sites. I don't expect them to change their habits overnight, but perhaps they'll move on once comment spamming is deemed less effective.

After reading the MSN search team blog entry, I thought to myself, "I suppose I could make a plug-in to MovableType to automate that." Tonight when I logged in to my MovableType installation I saw the announcement that there is already a new plug-in available.

The cold war between the forces of good and the evil empire of spammers continues. The first presidential candidate who promises to send the spammers to Gitmo gets my vote.

According to this TSA document knitting needles are allowed on planes, but spear guns are not.

What gives? Those knitting needles look sharp.

The part of me that likes to think up funny ideas, which are funny right up until the point where you get put into jail, thinks it would be funny to fly with exactly one of each of the allowed items.

[ Link courtesy of b^2 ]

Upgrading to MT 3.14 was relatively painless. Other than a little driver error when I uploaded some files as binary, which should have been ascii, it all went smooth.

Unfortunately, I can't really say the same for enabling TypeKey. This should really have been covered better in the MT Docs.

Fortunately, I found some help.

• TypeKey Authentication for Comments
• Migrate Your MT 2.x Blog To Movable Type 3

As of right now, commenting using typekey still seems wonky. I also haven't tried trackbacks yet. I'll figure it out later.

Maybe I should have done a fresh install in a different directory, then manually merged templates.

I'm finally taking the plunge and upgrading to MT 3.xx. Expect instability for a few minutes.

Blog t-shirt.

[Link courtesty of b^2]

I love funny t-shirts. I never buy one, but I like to imagine what it would be like to be the kind of person who might wear one.

So last week, when Elise and Jeannie were sick I took Matthew to pre-school. Once a week, I guess, the parents sit in a room and have a parenting class. They spent the first 45 minutes or so in a time they labeled "Joys and Concerns". During the "Joys and Concerns" part of the show, people told one awful story after another about children melting down in stores while other shoppers just stared, dysfunctional family gatherings, siblings walloping each other, and little girls who won't wear their coats or get dressed on schedule.

The saddest thing to me is that I actually enjoyed it a little. I don't know if it was my recent reading of the novel "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk or what but I really enjoyed listening to their stories.

The problem was that I wanted to inject humor into the discussion, which clearly was not on the agenda. I managed to censor myself successfully. Other parents would say something like "I notice children are often needy at six o'clock, maybe you should do you medical transcription later in the night." I wanted to say "Have you thought about vodka on the rocks for breakfast?" or "Your assignment for the week is to start a fight with a stranger."

I shared the only joy of the day. I said I had a nice trip on the train with Matthew. When I said this people just looked at me like I had gone for communion at church and said, "No thanks, I just ate I'm stuffed" or "Do you have the cheesy wafers?"

I have to go to this class more often.

The 14th annual Coffee-thon is coming up soon, tentatively scheduled for January 28th, 2005. Last years winner drank 28 cups of coffee. Do I need a doctor's note to participate?

It's been a cold weekend. Right now it's a balmy 0° F (-17° C). The only nice thing about these cold days is no on looks askance if you walk around looking like a thug in a crime sketch.

Elise has been going to ice-skating lessons. After the first class Elise confided to Jeannie that she had been frightened the ice would crack and that she would fall into the water and drown. Even with that fear in her mind, she got out there on the ice and followed directions and kept working on her skating and falling skills. Daddy's little girl is a real trooper. We've since reassured her that there is no way she'll drown at the local ice arena as the ice is just inches thick. I think she felt a little less trepidation about yesterday's lesson.

Since I've been on a journey down memory lane recently, I thought I would post a picture from my high school year book of me. (Sorry about the low quality.) It's really one of my favorite pictures of myself ever. Where did all that hair go?

I ran into this essay by Jonathan Franzen, The Comfort Zone which I really enjoyed. His riffs on the joys of the old Charlie Brown comic strips really brought me back to a time in my childhood where I was reading the same old Charlie Brown collections. This sentence in particular stuck out as it reminded me of how I felt at the same age.

I finished reading the article before realizing that the author was the same as "The Corrections" which I read and enjoyed last year.

The folksonomy meme just got a little louder. Technorati has added support for tags, like del.icio.us and flickr.

Here is an interesting essay on the topic.

I think it's all good until the spammers show up and you know they will.

The internet is great, there are dictionaries, quotation collections, encyclopedias and a host of other archives. However, I haven't found the one thing I'm looking for, a collection of phrases that are cliché.

"What about me" Amy suggested my blog might form the basis of such a collection. While I appreciate the encouragement, I don't think my blog is definitive enough to qualify.

I am sitting in my living room tonight surfing, while I watch The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart. I love this show. I haven't enjoyed a late night comedy show this much since the early, quirky days of Letterman. There was a great visual gag tonight about how the Bush administration can and does justify anything be recalling 9/11.

When this show is good, it's the funniest thing on any screen, TV or movie.

Lately, I've been thinking about how to make my blog more compelling. Today, while perusing my del.icio.us inbox I ran into this essay on Building a better blog. I'm not sure about all the advice offered, but the item entitled "Develop an Authentic Voice" captured my attention.

I want to find a way to more frequently write in an authentic, honest, original and passionate way. It's far too easy for me to hide behind the trivial, dishonest, and obfuscated.

Folksonomy

This is a great new word, obviously related to the word taxonomy. It is a way to describe the natural way people classify things when given the opportunity to assign keywords and very little feedback. This blog for instance uses categories for posting. Those categories exist in a flat namespace without hierarchy. Some of the categories are very descriptive, like "Movies to see" while others are hodge-podge like "Current Events" which is meaningless a few days after it is written. Yet, mostly it works, for fun examples see web services like flickr and del.icio.us the current darlings of the blogging set.

Last month someone tried to insult me by calling me a blogger. I found that to be extremely amusing.

Why was the fact that I blog supposed to be insulting? I think it's because bloggers, it is supposed and probably substantiated, that by and large bloggers have a certain kind of network sized egotism that makes them believe that the little bits of text, graphics and audio they publish on the web are of interest to the world.

What can I say; it's both a curse and an awesome responsibility to have such a gigantic ego.

When I was in Milwaukee I made arrangements to visit an old friend Lindsay, and her husband for dinner. She is someone I hadn't seen since high school umpteen years ago.

BTW, Did I wear my "I'm blogging this t-shirt or was it implied?"

I haven't spent much time with old friends so I didn't really know what to expect. Driving to dinner, I was a little concerned about awkward silences or perhaps having just being so different now that there wouldn't be much common ground to talk about.

None of my fears came true. Instead, I had a lovely evening of animated conversation and laughter. I felt free to be myself. It was as though our old friendship had been hung up in a closet, and we took it out, dusted it off, and to my surprise it still fit. It was the highlight of my trip to Milwaukee.

Riding home on the train reflecting on my trip, I realized how my life has been routinely punctuated by really wonderful girls or women. My mother, Shannon in 1st - 2nd grade, the girl who walked to school with me in 3rd and 4th grade, who was it in 5th and 6th grade, the girls in debate club in 7th and 8th grade, strange Nicole who helped me get my first job, Shelly of the long unrequited -- then requited crush, Lindsay a confidante when I was a senior in high school, my wife Jeannie -- obviously, now Elise. [ Now don't get the idea that this list if comprehensive and don't feel slighted if you're not included. I'm sure I've forgotten, purposely or otherwise, more than a few of you. ]

I can't imagine life without the profound influence these women have had on me.

This would be an interesting way to organize my memoirs, each chapter with a new female heroine or villain.

I just finished up "The Things They Carried", by Tim O'Brien a Minnesota writer.

The book was really good. It was a series of short stories ostensibly about Vietnam. The stories were haunting; each chapter had both its own unique beauty and horror.

The last story, which ties together some threads in the book and isn't so much about Vietnam, was one of the most amazing pieces of writing I have seen in a long time.

I finally understand why I like telling stories, my desire to write them down, my desire to re-visit even the dark moments of my life. I'm just trying to breathe life into the ghosts, to save them, to bring them back to life.

When writing is good enough to help you grapple with your own heart, it's very good.

At the State Fair I lost my prescription eye glasses. I grabbed a very old pair I had in my drawer and wore those until I got around to getting an eye exam and ordering new glasses.

So the new ones finally arrived.

And for comparision's sake, take a look at the old ones.

Now what I want to know is what I was thinking some six or seven years ago when I picked out those giant round frames. Did my eyebrows really need their very own prescription? Did Harry Caray help me pick out this frames?

Matthew was a dream on the train to Milwaukee. He had squirrelly moments in Milwaukee, but they were exactly what you would expect from a 4 year old.

By far the funniest moment of our time together in Milwaukee was at a puppet stage in the Children's Museum. He poked his head and puppet covered hand out from behind the curtain and he announced that the audience should shut their cells phones off and that pictures were not allowed during the live performance. It was hilarious.

These words really intrigue me. Periodically, I have moments where I feel all alone, as if there isn't another person on this planet who is affected by life in the ways that I am or that my actions and reactions to life are unique to me and my peculiar set of defects

It's a kind of vanity to believe that I'm so original either in my faults or virtues. When I discover how very ordinary either my vices or virtues are, it's both a relief and a bit of a let down.

I'm headed to Milwaukee this weekend. I don't get back to my hometown very much since high school. I don't know why I don't go back more often, there are no traumatic memories associated with Milwaukee.

Matthew is going with me and we are taking the train. It should be interesting to see how well we travel together. We've taken a ton of car trips in the 3-5 hour range. He does great on those trips and I'm expecting the same for the train. The train has the added flexibility of getting up and walking around, which will make it a little different as I'm used to traveling with Matthew in situations where we are both securely fastened down. I'm expecting it to be fun for both of us. If it works out, maybe he and I can go to Europe together, although I suspect he has an even lower tolerance for art museums that my usual traveling companion.

I looked up an old friend from Milwaukee who has graciously agreed to meet up with me Saturday night. I am so looking forward to that. I've never been to a high school class reunion nor have I spent much time hanging out with friends from Milwaukee since my high school graduation. I've had brief email chats with a few select people, and even dropped in on one friend in 2002, but that's about it. I love to hear people's stories, so it should be interesting to catch up after all these years.

Everytime I go back to Milwaukee, I am struck by this very odd feeling where the streets and sights are both familiar and foreign to me at the same time. It's a very odd sensation.

I have just found out that one of my favorite bands will be playing in Minneapolis soon. Since I have wanted to hear this band play for a very long time, I am super excited.

Why am I telling you this? It's because I'm going and you are invited too!

I've prepared a handy FAQ for you.

I just learned today that one of my favorite bands, Bowling for Soup, will be appearing in Minneapolis, on February 1st at the Quest Club. I can't wait to see them. Hopefully, I can convince someone to go with me.

If you haven't listened to this band, you really should. They have this great sound, funny lyrics, and amazing delivery.

I saw Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou last night with Jeannie. It was a very odd movie. If I hadn't see the Huckabee's movie so recently, I would say that Life Aquatic was one of the oddest movies I have seen in a long time.

Here are my New Year's Resolutions in no special order.

• Drink more tea and less coffee.
• Be more thankful.
• Three resolutions drawn randomly from Davezilla's excellent resolutions.
• Spell-check my blog posts a little more often.

BarlowFriendz: A Tale of the Uh-Oh's: Amelia Takes A Fall

Just go read it.

At dinner recently, my bride was talking to the children about a Panda we had seen at the San Diego Zoo a number of years ago. When told that the Panda looked sad, the children wondered why the Panda looked sad. My wife theorized that it might be because the Panda was so far from home, or that there were too many people staring at it.

I said, "I know why the Panda is sad, it doesn't like people anthropomorphizing it."

To my knowledge, it was my first off-the-cuff recursive joke.

I was thinking the other day that it would be really funny to do a spoof of "Sk8er Boi" called "N8er Boi". Lo and behold it's already been done.

Sometimes a song sticks in your head and you can't help but think about it all day. The song "Ghost" by the Indigo Girls is the song is stuck in my head on this the first day of 2005.

I think everyone is love with ghosts to one degree or another, I know I am.