January 2006 Archives

OK, so I'm not Prince Charming but she did agree to have her picture taken with me.

I'm going to Disney World soon.

I've never been before so this should be a real adventure. My kids are four and five. We are spending a few days on our own and then meeting some friends for a few more days. We are hitting four theme parks over the course of the week and taking a few days to spend at the pool relaxing.

My wife was explaining to the kids about the costumed characters like Mickey and Goofy that they might see at Disney World. My daughter listened, thought for a while and then asked "Will Jesus be there?" That amused me. I'm sure if Disney thought they could procure a license for major world religious figures they would do it. Disney is a special kind of temple isn't it? The priests look like more like mice.

I can't wait to see the sun, feel the breeze and be warm at the same time.

If you have any Disney travel hints for me please drop me a line.

I have been completely hooked on Craig's List recently. It's not the "furniture" or "sublets" section it's the "Missed Connections" section. These little notices amuse me to no end. They ads are a little stalkerish, more than a little self centered, quite shallow and occasionally very amusing. Most recently I was amused by the post where someone is looking for their lost youth. I find it both creepy and endearing that people think they can find love in the want ads after seeing someone for a few seconds at a stop light or at the deli counter of the local Kowalski's.

This week's theme for the annoyance of the week is things that leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Annoyance Number 1 - Bad Coffee

I love coffee and prefer it strong and black. Since I've been out of tea for the last couple of months I've drank a bit too much crap coffee. The coffee I was drinking was dreadful, but I didn't realize it until I had cleansed my palate with a few days of tea drinking last week. After a few days of tea I went to a local coffee shop and came to the conclusion that not only was the crap coffee bitter and nearly tasteless -- it was slowly robbing me of my ability to taste. Once I had weaned myself off of the crap coffee for a few days everything tasted better including decent, but not amazing, coffee from the local coffee shop. Crap coffee will deface your taste buds, coat your tongue in tar, make you think Lindsay Lohan is important and eventually turn you to the dark side of the force -- avoid it at all costs.

Annoyance Number 2 - The Senate and Judge Alito

I captured some of the proceedings from the confirmation hearings for Judge Alito and played it backwards to determine the true content. Here is an exceprts from the transcribed results.

The hearings are a farce. The process seems to exist to give us candidates who are adept at not saying much. It's a "no show trial" meant only as entertainment -- no actual judges will be harmed during the filming. Seriously, can't we have a process that even pretends to be enlightening?

My favorite commentary came from Adam Felber in his blog post titled "Politicians are from Mars, Judges are from Jersey" who pointed out sagely that judicial activism generally means judges doing what you don't like.

Glory Road

The unfortunate truth of sports movies is that at some level they all seem to be derivative of the Bad News Bears. Bad News Bears or not I still enjoyed Glory Road. The movie tells the story of the 1966 Texas Western basketball team who won the NCAA championship. The story is about more than just a game, it is a story about race in America. You can read a bit more about the story behind the movie on the wikipedia entry on Don Haskins .

It's a pretty good movie, it is predictable, but it told a great story without glossing over all the details. I give it three and a half stars out of five.

I'm so glad to not live in the "good old days" America depicted in this movie.

Saved!

by MGM (Video & DVD)

I watched Saved! last weekend. Having grown up in church it all seemed eerily familiar. I loved the movie even though it's a dumbed down teenie-bopper movie and it's plot is pretty thread bare. So why did I love the love the movie? It's because this simple minded movie contains a great commentary on modern, evangelical Christianity, it explores the dichotomy between appearances and reality and most importantly the characters reminded me of the best and worst in myself.

Best of all, the movie really brought one simple message, what really matters in the end was people who act in love without reservations.

So this person data mined a bunch of amazon wishlists. (Apparently the hard way, by web scraping rather than by using the easier and more efficient amazon web api.) He was able to then do some matching on book titles to determine which wish lists were more or less subversive. Then he used google maps to figure out where people lived.

You can bet the next time I interview a job candidate I'm going to check out what is on their amazon wish list. (Note to self, clean up amazon wish list next time I interview for a job.)

The best part is that this little experiment shows how data privacy issues often involve people voluntarily giving up their private information for a reason, in this case the reason is getting better presents. (BTW, I'm still waiting for that New Yorker Cartoon book.) So much for worrying about the FBI going to the library to figure out what I read.

[Link courtesy of Dave's Picks]

I was listening to the local classical music station and happened to hear the haunting song that is used in Ken Burn's documentary, "The Civil War." For some reason I needed to find out who wrote the song and when. I discovered that the song is called "Ashokan Farewell". It was composed by Jay Ungar in 1982 and recorded in 1983 by "Fiddle Fever" on their album entitled "Waltz of the Wind". There is a FAQ to go with the song that explains it's origins. The song plays for 59+ minutes of the 11 hour documentary. It's no wonder that song instantly calls up black & white images civil war dead strewn on battlefields for me.

I've been out of tea for a while, so I swung by Tea Source yesterday. I bought a packet of my old favorite tea blend, Prairie Passion. After some head scratching I decided that I should try another oolong, so after some guessing I decided to try "Green Dragon Oolong". After the second cup I've decided that this tea is my new favorite. The tea comes out much greener than most green teas I've brewed before. It tastes very smooth -- like honey. It also stands up to multiple steepings very nicely, making the steep price easier to swallow.

I got out this last Sunday for a short ten mile bike ride. It was fine except it started snowing a few blocks from home. I haven't gotten around to purchasing any long pants for biking in so by the end of the ride the snow had settled onto my legs making something approximating snow pants but not nearly as warm. I think the thing I liked the least about biking in January wasn't the cold, it was the road grime that covered me and the bike.

After consultation with my editorial board and the inspiration of the "THE 100 MOST ANNOYING THINGS OF 2005", I've decided to add a new category to the blog called, "Annoyance of the Week." I plan to chronicle all the things that I find especially annoying throughout the year. If you want to nominate someone or something as a candidate for annoyance of the week drop me a line.

My nominee for Annoyance of the Week is the radical American cleric Pat Roberts.

In week one of 2006, Pat Robertson distanced himself from the pack by stating that God had caused Ariel Sharon's stroke. Never mind the fact that Mr. Sharon is in his late seventies is overweight and has a stressful job. I'm speculating now, but it also looks like Sharon probably doesn't get enough exercise -- although he does look significantly more lifelike than the other radical cleric Jerry "Looks So Lifelike" Falwell". If all that weren't enough reason to have a stroke, MSNBC reports the stroke may have been caused by a medicine combined with a pre-existing condition. Pat has been outdoing himself lately calling for the assassination of foreign government officials and suggesting the reasonable voters in Dover, PA shouldn't ask God for help in the future. What an embarrassment.

If we all ignore him will he go away?

Seriously which job would you rather have -- Pat Robertson's PR guy explaining to the press what your boss meant to say or would you rather teach angry ferrets how to program with templates in C++? I say bring on the ferrets.

Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals

by Ed Emberley

One of the great things about having kids is that you get to revisit doing all the things you enjoyed as a child. That means I get to go sledding, play on swings, go down slides and spend time with crayons.

Elise got "Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals" for Christmas. After I spent hours scrubbing crayon off the walls of her room I realized that she must have a real passion for art. Wanting to encourage this passion I got her an easel and an art instruction book for Christmas. Ed Emberley's books contain fabulous step by step instructions for making a number of cartoonish animals. You can checkout samples instructions posted on his web site.

Without further ado, check out my latest materpieces.

Every once in a while I notice news blurbs where a celebrity of one sort or another has placed personal items for sale on Ebay. This weekend I was thinking, hey I'm a blogger -- practically a bush leaugue celebrity -- maybe I should sell some of my possessions on Ebay.

So now you can buy my old pants on Ebay.

I'm still working on my "Top Ten Reasons to Buy My Pants" list.

If you tell my wife you "bid on my pants" please be sure and ennunciate the "d" in "bid". She seemed startled when I said someone bid on my pants -- turns out she thought someone "bit" on my pants.

In all seriousness, while I've bought many things on Ebay, I've never sold anything so I'm curious to see how this goes. In my effort to declutter a bit, I'm hoping to sell or donate lots of stuff this year.

Remember if you aren't just buying my pants, you are winning them!

How to prepare a pomegranate with minimal splatter.

I loved serving the seeds arils during the holiday season. I'm going to make it a Christmas tradition at my house.

Check out the "Yearly Review" at Harpers.

Here is an example of what happened last year.

Did all that really happen or was it a bad dream?

[Link courtesty of boing^2]

Happy New Year!

It's time for those pesky New Years resolutions. Last year I resolved to be more thankful, drink more tea and spell check more often. Well I gave it a good try and for some definitions of the word success I was successful.

So what are my resolutions this year?

• De-clutter & simplify.
• Spend more money on things that matter & less on things that don't.
• Do something kind & don't tell anyone about it.

I'll let you know how it works out for me.