AWV Archive

Welcome

2008-10-11T22:26:00.001-04:00

This is the AWV archive. Aurora Walking Vacation was originally an AOL journal, and was ported over to the Blogger.com service when AOL ended their support for journals/blogs in November of 2008. This archive contains every entry and every comment made between June, 2004, and October 2008.

Because this blog contains many graphics files that were stored on AOL's ftp servers, and was part of a community of blogs on the AOL service, when AOL discontinued support of those products, this archive became a collection of broken links and little red Xs. All of the text entries remain, but many of the links will no longer work, and virtually none of the graphics will display after November 1, 2008. I may attempt to repair some of these entries as time allows, but it will not be a high priority.

From time to time, I may choose an old entry from this archive, and reproduce it on the new Aurora Walking Vacation. This blog, however, will not be active at all. If you find something interesting, and would like to comment, please do not do so here. Please direct all comments and questions to the new Aurora Walking Vacation.

Another one makes the move...

2008-10-09T10:44:00.000-04:00

My Cowboy Poetry blog now happily resides on the Blogger network. This time I did the transfer from the Firefox browser instead of from the AOL client, and it went much more smoothly. The AOL browser has many 'modifications' that makes it behave differently from other Internet browsers, and I suspect it just doesn't mesh up with the transfer process software properly. If you are having difficulty with the transfer of your journal, try doing it from outside the AOL client.
However, I had the same result with the pictures on this journal as I did on my previous one. Blogger says that the graphics in your journals will be ported over to Google's Picasa service, but that did not happen. More when I figure it out.

More information about going to Blogger

2008-10-09T09:05:00.000-04:00

Karen, of Outpost Mavarin, has posted a more detailed entry about transferring over to blogger. Read it here: Tips For The Great AOL-J Migration. Thanks Karen.

Hello Blogger!

2008-10-08T23:51:00.000-04:00

   The tool to transfer your AOL blog to Blogger.com is now available. Read the post on Magic Smoke for more details. Those of us attached to AOL USA, Canada, or Mexico received an email updating us about the change, and directing us to the Blogger page where the import process begins. Those who are members of any other AOL service (e.g. AOL UK, or Europe) will not have gotten an email. Never fear, the import process will work for your journals as well (so I have been told). You'll just have to spread the word throughout your communities yourselves.

   I experimented with the import tool by transferring my poetry blog, (not cowboy poetry), to Blogger this evening. This was my experience.

   I went to the AolToBlogger page, and began following the directions there. I signed into my Google account. I entered the journal address of my blog in the box provided, and clicked on the "sign into your AOL account" button. That took me to an AOL sign in page, where I entered my screen name and password.

   If you are concerned about the security of your password, don't worry. You are signing into AOL's secureID service, so all Blogger gets is a message back from AOL saying you are who you say you are. They never actually see your login information.

   After that, I was taken back to a page where I was invited to click to begin the transfer process. I clicked, and was taken to a page that said my journal was being transferred, and that it might take a few minutes. I waited for almost fifteen. I never got an error message, nor did I ever get a message telling me the transfer had been successful. I got nothing.
   I gather that the next step should have been my blogger dashboard page, where I could complete the publication process of my new blogspot blog, but that never happened. I closed the page, and manually logged into blogger, where I found that my new blog was there in my dashboard, with a message that said, "click here to complete the import process." So I clicked there. And it completed the process. And now (not cowboy poetry) lives on blogger.

   The reason I chose to use that blog for the first test was that there were not very many entries in it, so it would be easy to tell how successful the transfer was. As far as I can see, every post, and all of the comments were successfully transferred over. One note of importance. All of the pictures and graphics are still hosted on AOL Hometown, so when that closes at the end of the month, they will all turn into little red Xs. The pictures will have to be moved to a new home, and all the posts will need to be manually edited to redirect the urls to the pictures' new home. That'll be tedious.

   So, I was successful, but with a couple of tiny snags. The process was certainly not completely seamless, and I can see that many who are computer neophytes may have problems. My suggestion is not to wait. Start now. If you have difficulty, you'll have a couple of weeks to get it worked out before the axe falls.

   I'll try to transfer another one of my journals tomorrow, using a slightly different path, and report on how that went. Stay tuned.

Not enough time

2008-10-02T23:22:00.000-04:00

Just archived the month of November, 2004. At this rate, I'll be done saving all my old entries by sometime early December. I'm not going to make it, am I?

Best. Quote. Evar.

2008-10-02T16:49:00.000-04:00

On the demise of AOL journals...

"I shall miss this blog, but it's just a vessel."
--Dornbrau, of Dust Bunny Club of North America (new address pending)

And the spit hits the fan...

2008-09-30T14:18:00.000-04:00

   AOL today announced they are "sunsetting" several products, including AOL Blogs/Journals. As of October 31, 2008, every AOL Blog will disappear. They claim they will be offering a way of automatically migrating our blogs to another blogging platform, but you know me; I'm skeptical. So, I'll be spending every spare minute over the next few weeks backing up Aurora Walking Vacation to my home computer, so when the migration plan either doesn't materialise, or doesn't work, I won't have lost anything.
   I already have a blogger.com blog set up for AWV. I've never posted in it, but I created it way back when the banner ads bruhaha erupted. So for all three of you regular readers, never fear, AWV will go on.

   More details as they are available.

edit 2:28 PM: I have been told that International AOL Journals and Blogs users may not be in the loop regarding information about the plan to migrate to another platform. According to my information, a plan is already in place, the new platform will be blogger.com, and even though we lowly non-Americans will not be kept abreast of developments, the migration system will work for all AOL journals. So, if you are an International AOL user, keep your eyes on the people connection blog for instructions for all US users, and remember that we can use those same instructions for our journals. This in no way mitigates my strong recommendation that we all take pains to back up our blogs long before the end of the month.

Listen

2008-09-26T00:54:00.000-04:00

   I've been working out.

Picture Will Farrell saying that. No, wait...Picture Colin Farrell saying that. Maybe Colin Firth? Never mind.

   I've been going to the gym. Prime motivations: strengthening the core muscles for golf, and strengthening the muscles that support the knees for curling. Also, the whole not having a heart attack any time soon factors in there.
   Here's the thing, though. Exercise is boring. Seriously! Doing a half an hour on the treadmill (while maintaining an average heart rate of 142-152) isn't that much of a struggle...physically. But by the time I'm going on ten minutes, I'm so excruciatingly bored I'm begging for it to end.

   I noticed that many people at the gym wear iPods (or other mp3 players). "Hey," I thought, "I have an iPod." I decided to try it out. I went out and bought a pair of headphones, and took my iPod with me the next time I worked out. Didn't do anything for me. I mean, there's already music playing at the club. Sure, my iPod has my music on it, but it's still just music. It fades into the background, and my mind wanders. And the place it most commonly wanders to is the thought of how mind numbingly boring exercise is.
   Then, I had one of those oh-so-infrequent brilliant ideas. Podcasts!

   For those of you not in the know, podcasts are simply Internet "radio shows" that you can download to your iPod (or other mp3 players) and listen to at your convenience. There are hundreds of podcasts on dozens of different topics available for free download on iTunes.
   Me being me, I downloaded several with a skeptical theme, like Skeptoid with Brian Dunning, Skepticality, and The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Some of them are short and sweet. Brian Dunning's podcasts rarely go for longer than about eleven or twelve minutes. Others are longer, with Skepticality and The Skeptic's Guide both usually ringing in at just over an hour long - which, as it turns out, is almost the perfect length to listen to during a workout.

   You know what? It works. The subject matter is intellectually engaging enough to pass the time, while being light enough to allow partial attention to be paid to other things. Like the soccer moms doing their Dancercise class.
   Yeah, this whole iPod thing is really working out for me.

And 'cause we're talkin' 'bout iPods, here's your Friday random ten:

1) Cheap Day Return - Jethro Tull
2) Carefree Highway - Gordon Lightfoot
3) G Minor Medley - Leahy
4) Mailman - Soundgarden
5) Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby - Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch
6) Rocky Mountain Way - Triumph
7) Atom Tan - The Clash
8) Dreams - Fleetwood Mac
9) The Cool, Cool River - Paul Simon
10) All Canadian Surf Club - The Tragically Hip

Tags: iPods, podcasts, skepticism, memes, friday random ten

Dems may have misjudged GOP strategy

2008-09-08T23:38:00.000-04:00

   Left wing mouthpieces all around the blogosphere have been laughing and pointing at the Republicans recently. Actually, they've been laughing and pointing at Republicans for years, but they've been even more outspoken recently over what they perceive as a major strategic blunder by the McCain camp.
   I'm speaking, of course, about the appointment, by John McCain, of Sarah Palin as his running mate. The initial response by the lefties was to call out the McCain strategists as fools for actually believing they could steal votes from the Hillary Crusaders. Because that's what this move immediately made people think - that the GOP was hoping to garner votes from those militant feminists who claimed they'd vote for McCain before they voted for Obama, just because he had the temerity to take away the nomination to which their girl was entitled.
   The idea is, of course, patently ridiculous. Hillary's supporters would no more truly vote Republican in '08 than they would move to Canada if the GOP won in '04. I mean, hundreds of prominent bleeding heart liberal celebrities vowed to leave the country if the Dems lost the previous election, but last time I checked Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon haven't moved their shit into the empty townhouse around the corner from me.

   Anyone who really believed that cadre of screeching feminists would vote Red before they'd vote Black is just plain stupid. And while the GOP rank and file might benefit from the use of spell check at times, the high uppity-ups of the Republican strategy machine are not stupid. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
   No, the choice of Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential nominee was not born of any delusional thinking on the part of the GOP team. It may, however, have been born of general delusional thinking on the part of the largest and most powerful voting block in America over the last decade - the Christian Right.
   You see, the evangelical nutcases that put Bush over the top in '04 just didn't seem to be cosying up to John McCain in quite the same way. Johnny's just too damn... reasonable. And God knows, we can't have that. No, the fear that women in the USA might be allowed to make procreative decisions for themselves once in a while; the fear that court decisions upholding the constitution, like the one in Dover, Pennsylvania might continue to happen; the fear that your children might be taught about the real world in school, instead of some fanatasy world based on a three thousand year old novel; the paralysing fear that the annual town Baby Jesus diorama might have to be taken out of city hall, and displayed somewhere inexplicable - like a church - had taken hold of the bible belt, and McCain's people could feel the wackaloon vote slipping through their fingers.

   Enter the white knight of the Republican party. Sarah Palin, riding to the rescue, Bible in one hand, twelve gauge in the other. She can kill, clean and cook dinner, homeschool her children, quote Scripture, govern an entire state, and look hot for her husband all at the same time. Truly, she is the perfect woman.
   Well, the perfect Republican woman. When she starts telling people that the war in Iraq is a holy crusade, the Democrats start whispering behind their hands and snickering. They shouldn't, though. They should beware. Because a whole lot of pick-up driving, rifle-toting, bible thumping, wife beating American voters just got a whole lot more comfortable with the Republican party in 2008.

   Advantage McCain. Obama? Your move.

Tags: politics, obama, mccain, sarah, palin, wackaloons

Chapter 84

2008-09-08T22:34:00.000-04:00

I had a couple of things I wanted to ask you all about, but right now I can only remember one. Hopefully the other will come to me.

I'm looking to buy a tenor saxophone for Matthew to play in the high school band. We've rented one each of the last two school years, but for what that will cost over the next four, I figure I can just buy one. I would probably be more interested in a good value for a half decent used one than a cheap new one, but I really have little idea of just what it's going to cost. Is there anyone out there who has any knowledge in the area and can offer some advice?

Tags: advice, saxophone

More breakfast at Casa Little

2008-08-23T12:24:00.000-04:00

After we came home from the gym this morning, I whipped us up an onion, mushroom and zucchini omelette with Beemster cheese (I like Beemster cheese). It went something like this:

Lightly saute thinly sliced onions in a little bit of sesame oil for about five minutes.
Add some chopped fresh garlic. Saute for another minute.
Add sliced mushrooms and chopped zucchini. Salt to taste. (I also added a bit of butter here because the onions had soaked up all the oil.) Continue to saute until mushrooms and zucchini are soft.

Whisk eggs. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour into pan.
When eggs are almost cooked through, add veggie mixture, and grated Beemster cheese. Fold egg over veggie and cheese mixture. Cook another one minute per side.

Serve with fresh coffee.

Get kiss on the cheek from wife.

Mmm.

Tags: recipe, omelette, onion, zucchini, mushroom, beemster, cheese, breakfast

One year ago today

2008-08-20T21:03:00.000-04:00

“When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.”--Rabindranath Tagore

Last year: Ouch!

Today:

Can't see the scar very well in this shot.

Tags: blogplugs, injury, healing

Cruel, cruel summer

2008-08-19T22:16:00.000-04:00

Noooooo! It's too soon. It can't be over yet...can it?

Tags: summer, autumn, I'm so sad

I don't like Thursdays

2008-08-16T15:53:00.000-04:00

   Bob Geldof didn't like Mondays (and who could blame him), but Thursday is the day I hate. On Thursday nights I have to work at the Kwik-E-Mart until the store closes. And then I have to clean, and "face" my department. And then, I start to despise the entire human race.
   When I say, "face," I mean I have to walk up and down every aisle in my section, making sure each and every product is in its proper home, and they are all pulled right to the front of their shelf, or hook, so that the first customer of the day the next morning will be greeted by a store in which every shelf appears full. As I do this, of course, I come across the detrius of humanity.
   First it's the empty coffee cups. There are usually going on half a dozen of them scattered amongst the shelves of garden hoses and octane enhancers. Listen, I don't mind if you need your "Tim's" fix. We all do from time to time. But seriously, when I take a cup of coffee into the grocery store with me, I save the empty cup until I have an opportunity to throw it into a proper garbage can. I don't just put it down somewhere between the onions and the garlic. Doing that would make me an inconsiderate slob.
   And as if that isn't bad enough, some people actually come in and eat their lunch while they shop. Dude! I have no desire to fish out the half eaten cheeseburger that you stuffed down between the sunblock and the insect repellent. And the left-over "Nachos Supreme" tucked behind the basketballs? That's just wrong, man.
   The next thing I have to deal with is the out of place product. Some slack-eyed soccer Mom picked up a box of wine glasses all hell and gone over in the Housewares department, and round about the bicycle tires aisle she decided she didn't want them after all. She could have just left them with the cashier when she got there, but no. I have to find them after closing, hidden in behind a mountain of Raleigh boxes, and lug them all the way back over to Housewares myself. That's a good fifteen minute walk.
   Then there's the open boxes. The 12 volt tire inflator box has a glossy, full-colour picture of its contents on the front, but that isn't good enough for people. They have to see what it reallylooks like. But, lacking the basic intelligence and dexterity to figure out how to open a cardboard box, they have to rip the freaking thing to pieces, pull out the entire contents, tear the plastic bag to get the product out and crumple up the instruction sheet. Then, when they decide it meets their approval, and they want to buy one, they leave the open box on the shelf, and take a new, unopened one.
   Open boxes, however, can't get my blood boiling half as badly as the empty boxes. Empty, as in: contents stolen. Come on, the two pack of tail light bulbs was only $2.99. But you only needed one, so you ripped open the package, put one in your pocket, and left the other one on the shelf. If you were gonna steal, why didn't you just put the whole freaking package in your pocket? It's not like you were being considerate. I can't sell the half a pack you left behind. Every Thursday night I have to write off at least a dozen items that I've found empty packaging for. And that's on a slow night.
   And don't think it's only the punk kids who are stealing, either. I looked it up. Those tail lights were for a Lexus. Doctors and Lawyers are just as likely to rip something off as anyone else. By the time I get home on Thursday night, you could just take a picture of me and post it in the Wikipedia entry for, "Misanthropy."

   Here is the latest edition of the Friday Random Ten list. I've found that I cannot listen to all of the songs on the iPod in one week's worth of driving, so this list will only appear every second to third week from now on.

1) Ain't Nuttin' But Music - D12
2) Strange Thing, Mystifying - Cast, Jesus Christ Superstar
3) Her Majesty - The Beatles
4) Turn Up The Night - Black Sabbath
5) I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) - Genesis
6) Never Let Go - Josh Groban
7) Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! - The Beatles
8) Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love - Van Halen
9) Tina - Flyleaf
10) Concerning Hobbits - Howard Shore/London Philharmonic Orchestra

Tags: Kwik-E-Mart, rant, misanthropy, memes, friday random ten

Can you say, "inventory management problems?"

2008-08-09T21:56:00.000-04:00

   So, I was doing some re-merchandising of the ignition wire sets, and... What, you didn't know the Kwik-E-Mart sold ignition wire sets? Sure we do. They're just down the aisle from the vacuum cleaners, across from the extension ladders, and right around the corner from the Slur-Pee machine.
   So, I'm re-merchandising (that means taking some things off a shelf, and putting other things on the shelf), and I got curious about some of the quantities we had in stock. I decided to look up a few of the wires to see what they were for. The first one I picked up was for a 1989-1992 Mazda RX-7, and that's it. That was the only car it would fit.

   We have seven sets of them.

Tags: kwik-e-mart, humour, things that make you go hmmm

Hammer

2008-07-29T13:58:00.000-04:00

   I'm forcing myself to write this. Every time I open my test journal these days, I close it again unedited. I just don't seem to have the desire, or will, to put my thoughts down here. Part of that, I'm sure, is the fact that I'm busy. The Kwik-E-Mart demands my time from early morning to early evening. Then I come home and make dinner. By the time we've cooked, eaten, cleaned up, and done any daily chores that need doing, I'm too tired to spare any intensity of thought or emotion for the blog.
   Add to that the time I am spending on curling club business (I'm on the board of directors), at the gym (my wife convinced me to join again), walking the dog (he won't walk himself - well, he will, but we want to make sure he comes home again), and doing other daily, mundane things, and I barely have enough energy just to read other people's blogs. Creating my own content seems beyond me right now.
   I have no plans to shut this blog down, but I expect postings to remain infrequent for the foreseeable future. I still have a bunch of stuff percolating in the test journal that I intend to finish. Realistically, though, I can't put a timetable on that. So, for those of you who do visit regularly, I'm sorry for being a boring blogger. If you're looking for something interesting (a little bit goofy, but interesting none-the-less) to read, try doing a search for "crackergate." Let me know what you think about what you find.

   Here are the last two friday random ten lists from my iPod updates.

July 25

1) Amigos Para Siempre (Friends For Life) - Sarah Brightman (with Jose Carreras)
2) It Would Be So Nice - Pink Floyd
3) Road Buddy - Dar Williams
4) A Saucerful Of Secrets - Pink Floyd
5) Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby - Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch
6) Into Everything - Moist
7) Bus Stop - The Hollies
8) Life Has Just Begun - Spirit
9) Mull Of Kintyre - Ashley MacIsaac
10) You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet - Bachman-Turner Overdrive

July 11

1) Pump Up The Volume (12" US Version) - Marrs
2) That's How... - D12
3) Who Wears These Shoes - Elton John
4) Nebakanezer - The Black Crowes
5) Dialing For Dharma - FM
6) Not Too Late - Norah Jones
7) Better Place To Be - Harry Chapin
8) Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies
9) Any Way You Want It - Journey
10) Tell Me On A Sunday - Sarah Brightman

Tags: boring blogging, busy busy busy, Kwik-E-Mart, friday random ten

Friday random thirty...'n' stuff

2008-06-30T23:21:00.000-04:00

   Here's Matt looking decidedly dapper at his Grade 8 graduation Wednesday night. That's right, next September he'll be in High School. It is to shudder.
   Although I outwardly scoff at sentimentality, I have to admit there were times during the evening when I had to blink a bit, because I had "something in my eye." This group of kids impresses the hell out of me. During the graduation ceremony every single award winner was heartily cheered by the entire group. In fact, during the closing presentation, a slide show of student photographs past and present, every single student's picture was met with delighted squeals and cheers. Not one child could claim they were left out, held in less regard than any other. I predict great things for these students over the next four years, and beyond.
   For more pictures, visit my Flickr photo set for the event.

**this is a dividing line of text**

   Wish me a Happy Blogaversary. As of yesterday, AWV is four years old. It's still not too late to take advantage of our two-for-one offer.

**this is a dividing line of text**

   Also, Happy Canada Day tomorrow. This July first, Canada will be one hundred and forty-one years old. Sure, that's nothing compared to y'all's two hundred and thirty-two years, but that just makes us younger and hipper.

**this is a dividing line of text**

   Also, also, having been horribly remiss, here are three whole weeks worth of Friday random ten lists for your perusal. Have a great holiday, be it tomorrow, or Friday.

June 13th

1) I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
2) I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues - Elton John
3) Silent Warrior - Enigma
4) Now - Days Of The New
5) Just One Of Those Things - Branford Marsalis
6) Eagle Will Rise Again - The Alan Parsons Project
7) Arnold Layne - Pink Floyd
8) Children And All That Jazz - Joan Baez
9) A Million Vacations - Max Webster
10) Navy Bean - Tracy Bohnam

June 20th

1) Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon) - The Mamas & The Papas
2) Spoon For A Knife - The Jive Kings
3) Thirty-Three - Smashing Pumpkins
4) Good Company - Queen
5) Wild World - Cat Stevens
6) Your Song - Elton John
7) Hello Goodbye - Live On Arrival
8) Dance With The Devil - Breaking Benjamin
9) A Million Vacations - Max Webster
10) Goodbye Cruel World - Pink Floyd

June 27th

1) Why'd You Lie - Colin James
2) Fight - The Tragically Hip
3) Lagavulin - Wide Mouth Mason
4) Lithium - Nirvana
5) Next Contestant - Nickelback
6) Dolly Dagger - Jimi Hendrix
7) Starseed - Our Lady Peace
8) Touch Me - Ian Thomas
9) Supernova - Mike Oldfield
10) Black Sabbath - Ozzy Osbourne

Tags: family, milestones, blogaversary, canada day, memes, friday random ten

This morning

2008-06-19T16:32:00.000-04:00

Me: "Hurry up, Matthew. If you don't leave the house right now, you're going to be late for school."

Matthew: "Well, I'm going to be late, then, because I'm not going anywhere without straightening my hair."

Oh, the many joys of raising a fashion conscious teen!

Tags: family, humour, fall out boy hair

Special characters

2008-06-09T20:14:00.000-04:00

In a comment to my previous entry, Bea asked,

"how do you make that little degree symbol, anyway? I can't find it on my keyboard."

   Well, Bea, don't beat yourself up over it. You can't find it because it isn't on your keyboard. The degree symbol (º), and many other similar symbols, like the Yen (¥), Pound (£), and Euro (€) symbols, or the copyright (©), and trademark (™), symbols are special HTML entities. They are available using the html editor built into your journals software. For example, in order to create the degree symbol, switch your edit text box to the html setting, and type "°" (without the quotes). When you switch back to the text view, you will see the degree symbol.
   One of the most useful html entities I have discovered is the 'non-breaking space.' You may or may not have noticed, but the AOL Journals software has a tendency to eat spaces. You'll type something in, click 'save,' and check the result, only to find that the space between two words has disappeared - likethis. You click 'edit,' and insert a space, then click 'save' again. Sometimes that even works, but often, no matter what you do, those two words remain gluedtogether.
   The solution is simple. Switch to html view. Find those two words, and right between them, type " " (without the quotes). This will insert a space between those two words which is, in typeface lingo, non-collapsable. It forces the text editor to leave a space in there no matter what. The only odd thing that sometimes comes up is the fact that the 'non-breaking' part of that space means the text editor will never insert a line break between those two words. So if they occur near the end of a line, using a non-breaking space can result in a non-uniform line length.

   Sound too complicated? Never mess with the html functions of your journals software? Never fear. The most commonly used of the html entities all have keyboard shortcuts which work in most word processing programs and Internet browsers. If you are using Windows™, these shortcuts use the 'ALT' key and the numeric keypad buttons. For example, the degree symbol can be easily inserted as you type by holding down the 'ALT' key, and typing the numbers 167 on the numeric keypad. When you release the 'ALT' key, the degree symbolº will appear.
   Here is a list of available special ALT characters. Your browser may not support all of them. Have fun experimenting.

Tags: html entities, alt symbols and characters, degrees, blogplugs

Suddenly, Summer

2008-06-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

   Summer happened this weekend. Friday the mercury hit 33ºC. For you 'Mericans, that's just about ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit. Only ninety-two, you expostulate. But remember with our 65% relative humidity that feels like about 114ºF. In the shade.
   Still it wouldn't seem quite so bad if it weren't for the fact that Thursday's high was 19.5, or a lowly 67 degrees. I think we need to relabel our months up here. So far this year, we've had January, January, March, March, March, and August.

   Last night the wife and I went down into the city to a little bar - right near our first apartment - to see a band called Headbone Station. One of the band members is an old high school buddy of mine, so we thought we'd check 'em out.
   Except when we got there we found out they weren't playing that night, regardless of what their MySpace page said. So we sat and had a beer and listened to the Pete Martin reggae karaoke experience instead. Man, I'll tell you; there's a real feeling of responsibility in being the only members of an audience. It was like we were in some little cabana at an unpopular resort somewhere in the Caribbean. Pete was playing just for us. We felt guilty leaving after only one beer.
   Well, not that guilty. He wasn't really all that good.

   Now, here are two Friday random ten lists for your perusal...

Friday, June 6th

1) Abacab- Genesis
2) Indian War Whoop - John Hartford
3) Please Love Me Forever - Tommy Edwards
4) The Times They Are A-Changin' - The Byrds
5) Wondering Where The Lions Are - Bruce Cockburn
6) Fast Car - David Usher
7) Every Breath You Take - The Police
8) Obsession (Reprise) - Robert Michaels
9) Betrayed - Avenged Sevenfold
10) The Navy Song - Billy Talent

Friday, May 30th

1) Cocaine - Eric Clapton
2) Kind-Hearted Woman - Colin James
3) Uncle Salty - Aerosmith
4) Spawn Again - Silverchair
5) My Friends - Dar Williams
6) Miracle - Matt Dusk
7) Breakdown - Guns 'N' Roses
8) Nautical Disaster - The Tragically Hip
9) The Fire - Reel Big Fish
10) I Ain't Gonna Be Your Monkey Man - Willie Dixon

Tags: summer, it ain't the heat it's the humidity, headbone station, friday random ten

Lesbians shack up, depend on cheating males for reproduction...

2008-05-28T13:11:00.000-04:00

Same sex couples in the wild are more common than once thought, reports Yahoo! News, via LiveScience.com.

Says the report:What happens when there is a shortage of males and a female wants to have a family?

In the case of the Laysan albatross, females shack up with eachother for years and take turns raising offspring, research now reveals.

But wait! Where do these offspring come from? Well:

10 ofthe 16 chicks that belonged to female-female partners were fathered bymales that cheated on their female mates.

Evil lesbian chicks luring men away from their wives. Can you imagine?

Tags: lesbians, cheating husbands, laysan albatross

Saturday random thought

2008-05-24T22:28:00.000-04:00

I really don't spend much time thinking about American politics, but it occurs to me that the Democrats are in for another four years of bitter disappointment. I just don't believe that a majority of Americans will vote for a woman, or a member of a visible minority.

Tags: politics

Friday random ten(s)

2008-05-23T18:28:00.000-04:00

   iTunes keeps doing weird shit. I used to have over 5900 songs in the library, but now it's telling me there are only 5875. Somewhere, iTunes has lost some songs, and I don't understand how. One of the ones I was able to pin down as being missing was track 16 of the soundtrack album from the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Tracks one through fifteen are there, as are seventeen through nineteen. Sixteen has disappeared. I know it was there when I originally copied the CD to iTunes. Now it's gone.
   And I mean gone totally. When I manually go looking in the iTunes music folder, the rest of the files are all there, and track 16 is not. Where did it go? Matthew tells me there are entire albums missing. We're going to have to recopy the discs, which is a total time waster. I hope none of the songs Matthew downloaded from the iTunes store are missing, because we haven't backed them up yet.

Stupid iTunes!

   And now, because I was negligent last week, here are two (2) Friday Random Tens.

May 16/2008

1) Lucky (Boomtang Boys Mix) - Bif Naked
2) Whoa - Midnight Oil
3) Legend - Nelly Furtado
4) Guys and Dolls (Reprise) - Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin
5) The Unforgettable Fire - U2
6) More Today Than Yesterday - The Spiral Staircase
7) Jennifer's Body - Hole
8) Peace Train - Cat Stevens
9) Tourniquet (Live) - Evanescence
10) Growing Up - Bruce Springsteen

May 23/2008

1) Coloured Rain - Traffic
2) Crocodile Rock - Elton John
3) Patio Lanterns - Kim Mitchell
4) Hanger 18 - Megadeath
5) Medley: The Munster Cloak/An Poc Ar Buille/Ferney Hill/Little Molly - The Chieftains
6) What's It Take - Robert Palmer
7) Wasted Time (Live) - The Eagles
8) On The Boulevard - Murray McLauchlan
9) Wake Me Up - Norah Jones
10) Love Reign O'er Me - The Who

Tags: music, iTunes, friday random ten

100 movies - the last 10 (plus 1)

2008-05-20T22:27:00.000-04:00

   I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "I don't believe it." But yes, it's true. I have finally reached the final edition of the list of "100 movies I really like." I started this thing over eight freaking months ago (if this had been a list of 100 TV shows I really like, I could have said, "eight frakking months ago" there).
   Now, remember that these movies have been listed in completely random order (actually determined by an online random number generator - no, I don't remember which one), so these are not necessarily my ten favourite movies. They are just the last ten left after I named ninety others.

   (Actually, I have only named eighty-nine others, haven't I? I accidentally listed The Fugitive in both this list, and this one.) So, here are the movies. Comment on my choices as you will.

Alien - Earlier on this list I named the sequel to this film, Aliens. This is an entirely different creature (heh). In fact, this is much more of a Horror/Suspense/Thriller than a science fiction film. Heck, the audience doesn't even get to see the monster until almost the end of the movie. Also, the alien's method of reproduction falls under the category of most creepy sci-fi concept ever.

Big - Tom Hanks wasn't an unknown, by any stretch of the imagination, but Big was the film that lit the fuse on the rocket his career was to become.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day - What better way to deal with a man who can't act than to cast him as a robot? Heck, it worked for Peter Weller. I originally had the first Terminator movie here, but decided I liked the second one better. Hasta La Vista, Baby!

The Pink Panther - No, not the recent one starring Steve Martin. Are you kidding me? I'm sure Martin wakes up every morning, looks in the mirror, and askshimself, "what the hell was I thinking?" Who decided it was a good idea to remake a movie starring one of the funniest human beings who ever lived? And has that person learned their lesson?
   Seriously, there is no one who could ever match the comic genius of Peter Sellers in the role of Inspector Clouseau.

Shrek - This movie was in the can when when Mike Myers decided Shrek should have a Scottish accent. So he went back into the studio and revoiced Shrek's dialogue for the entire film. At some point after that he walked away from the Sprockets project because he didn't want to release a steaming heap of crap that would make money anyway just because he was in it. That's just the way Mike rolls.

Lethal Weapon - In the best tradition of The Odd Couple. Detectives Murtaugh and Riggs are among the best cop partnerships ever filmed. Also, Gary Busey puts his natural born creepiness to good use as Mr. Joshua, the former special forces nut job/bad guy.

A Beautiful Mind - There had to be at least one Oscar winner on this list. Didn't there?

La Femme Nikita - The American Remake of this film, Point Of No Return, was actually pretty good. Credit where due, director John Badham didn't stray too far from the original. The original, a French film directed by Luc Besson, is described by one IMBD user as, "cooler than a fortnight in Antartica wearing a bikini, drinking chilled vodka with ice-packs strapped to your body."

Desperado - Antonio Badaras is almost as pretty as Salma Hayek in this one. This may be the most cinematographically attractive shoot-em-up movie ever made. Your mileage may vary.

First Blood - I can still see Sly pulling a needle and thread through his own skin (shudder). I think Richard Crenna's costume had an actual board sewn into it in this film. Brian Dennehy elevates everything he appears in. OK, maybe not Tommy Boy.

   That's ten. I have now listed every film that appeared on my original list of 100. The only problem is, that original list only named ninety-nine different movies. So I owe you one. That fact is what has held up this last entry of the series for so long. I just didn't want to try and come up with one more movie to add.
   Circumstance to the rescue. We went out to the theater to see Iron Man last night. Let me tell you, it rocked. The decision to cast Robert Downey Jr. was an inspired one, and he pulled off the role with ease. We totally believed his transformation.
   The special effects were top notch, with special mention due the suit effects. It looks totally real. I thought Jeff Bridges overplayed his part a little bit, and I never quite bought Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, but Downey carried every scene he was in, and was able to lift the film past those deficiencies, and the few slow spots in the story. I highly reccomend you see this in the theater, with the Big Screen, and the Big Sound. It's worth the over-inflated tickets and popcorn prices.

   Also worth mention were the previews preceeding the movie. The new Indy was the most notable, and I suspect we'll be back in the theater before the month is out to see it. The Dark Knight looks excellent, although I'm not a huge Batman fan, so this one will wait until it hits DVD. Also pretty funny looking were Kung Fu Panda, and You Don't Mess With The Zohan, Adam Sandler's latest. Although I suspect we saw most of the funny bits of the latter in the trailer.

   Well, there you have it: one hundred movies I really like. Not an entirely comprehensive list, and were I to compile it again, I would not be surprised to see huge differences in the movies selected. At several points during this process, I have smacked myself on the forehead and said, "I could have had a V8!" Or at least remembered another film that should have been here.
   But then again, I have carefully disclaimed any intention to make this list actually representative of anything other than a bunch of movies I really like throughout the whole process. Just in case you're interested, here is the full list, in the order I originally wrote them down, all those months ago:

1:Bull Durham
2:Star Wars
3:Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
4:The Maltese Falcon
5:The African Queen
6:Casablanca
7:Raiders of the Lost Ark
8:Blade Runner
9:The Rock
10:Big
11:Serenity
12:Back to the Future
13:Moulin Rouge
14:A Knight's Tale
15:Braveheart
16:The Fugitive
17:Frailty
18:Ghostbusters
19:Gladiator
20:Highlander
21:The Hunt for Red October
22:The Incredibles
23:The Iron Giant
24:Jurassic Park
25:Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
26:Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
27:The Matrix
28:Monsters Inc.
29:Pink Floyd: The Wall
30:Shrek
31:Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
32:Spiderman
33:Stargate
34:The Legend of Bagger Vance
35:This is Spinal Tap
36:Hard Core Logo
37:A Beautiful Mind
38:The Bourne Identity
39:Underworld
40:The Transporter
41:The Terminator
42:School of Rock
43:Men in Black
44:The Last Temptation of Christ
45:Ice Age
46:Armageddon
47:Ocean's Eleven
48:The Green Mile
49:Agent Cody Banks
50:Titan: AE
51:Die Hard
52:Beverly Hills Cop
53:Cast Away
54:Aladdin
55:The Lion King
56:The Nightmare Before Christmas
57:They Live
58:The Wizard of Oz
59:Scrooged
60:Stripes
61:Memento
62:Alien
63:Aliens
64:Ferris Bueller's Day Off
65:Saving Private Ryan
66:Hang 'em High
67:High Plains Drifter
68:The Sixth Sense
69:Little Miss Sunshine
70:Toy Story
71:Twelve Monkeys
72:Casino Royale
73:Blood Diamond
74:The Road Warrior
75:True Lies
76:Apollo Thirteen
77:Chicken Run
78:Close Encounters of the Third Kind
79:E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
80:La Femme Nikita
81:Shanghai Noon
82:The Fugitive
83:Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
84:Payback
85:The Pink Panther
86:Rain Man
87:Ruthless People
88:Shakespeare in Love
89:Mrs. Doubtfire
90:True Grit
91:Victor/Victoria
92:Benny and Joon
93:The Untouchables
94:Soylent Green
95:Gattaca
96:The Fifth Element
97:First Blood
98:Predator
99:Desperado
100:Lethal Weapon

really 100:Iron Man

<< previous ten

Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

As if millions of elbows cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

2008-05-11T15:46:00.000-04:00

   I was on my way out to take the dog for a walk when my wife stopped me at the door. "You should," she suggested, "take a hat, and a jacket, and maybe an umbrella." She looked up at the rapidly greying clouds scudding across the sky. "I've got a bad feeling about this," she said.
   "Oh, so what," I asked. "You've got The Force, now?"
   "No," she answered. "I've got The Arthritis."

Tags: family, humour

Friday (Saturday) random ten...and more

2008-05-10T21:47:00.000-04:00

   Here are the first ten songs randomly selected by iTunes to refill my iPod yesterday afternoon.

1) Unknown Soldier - Breaking Benjamin
2) It's a War In There - Dar Williams
3) In The City - The Eagles
4) Wild Is The Wind - Bon Jovi
5) Please Don't Ask - Genesis
6) The Least Of My Troubles - Paul Nicholas
7) Liars - Ian Thomas
8) Accidents - Alexisonfire
9) Desert Elysium - Ottmar Liebert
10) I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) - Genesis

   Over the past few weeks, as I've been updating my iPod, I've noticed the occasional pairing of songs that seemed somehow...apt. It was brought to mind by the ironic juxtaposition of the first two items in this week's random ten list. It might be, like the above example, a noticeably interesting pairing of song titles, or it might be two songs that seem to go together content wise, or it might be two songs that contrast or clash stylistically - enough so to make me take notice; to say, "heh."
   Not sure what to call the phenomenon. I thought of 'peculiar pairings,' or 'curious couplets,' but if you've got another idea, let's hear it. Anyway, I may point out the occasional serendipitous occurence of this event from time to time. You know, when the things happen to strike me.

   Other peculiar pairings in this week's iPod listing:

You And I, by Queen, followed by Entre Nous, by Rush.

Caroline, by Fleetwood Mac, and Gal Yuh Good, by Shabba Ranks

Just Reality, again by Shabba Ranks, followed by Not Dreaming About You, by Edward Bear

And I got a bit of a chuckle out of the 125th and final song in this week's list: sixteen seconds of Queen's Another One Bites The Dust recorded backwards by Matthew when he was bored and playing around with Audacity a few weeks ago.

Tags: music, iPod, iTunes, memes, friday random ten

Confirmation bias explained...

2008-05-08T00:36:00.000-04:00

...so that everyone can understand. Click here.

Tags: skepticism, humour, confirmation bias, cetic

Day off

2008-05-06T23:50:00.000-04:00

   I spent the bulk of today doing some work out in the yard. I installed a solar powered light in the shed, so we can see if we need to get something out of it at night. I also installed some ropelight along the fence bordering our patio, to add ambiance when we are sitting outside during the evening with a glass of wine.
   Of course it all sounds so simple when I say it like that. In reality it was anything but.

   The first thing I did was dismantle our old patio unbrella, which entailed removing the set of lights attached to its spars. I then put up our new patio unbrella, and spent about twenty minutes trying to reattach the light set to it. I managed to stop myself just short of stomping on all the lights, and ripping the umbrella to shreds with my bare hands, and decided to leave that task to my wife, who actually has some, you know, patience.

   I tackled the solar shed light next, which went something like this:

Hold up solar panel to mark position of holes.
Put down solar panel.
Walk into house to get pencil.
Attempt to sharpen pencil by whittling at it with a utility knife.
Watch as a three inch piece of pencil lead slides out and falls on the floor.
Attempt to sharpen other end of same pencil.
Watch as the remaining three inches of lead fall out of pencil leaving me holding a six inch long, wooden straw.
Root around in tool box for another pencil.
Examine new pencil, and wisely decide it is sharp enough.
Walk back out to shed.
Hold up solar panel to mark position of holes.
Put down solar panel.
Walk into house to get level.
Walk back out to shed.
Hold up solar panel to mark position of holes.
Find that level will not fit between the solar panel and the eaves of the shed.
Eyeball it.
Mark position of holes.
Get out cordless drill.
Discover battery is dead.
Put battery on charger.
Find the spare battery is OK.
Take drill out to shed.
Go back inside to get drill bit.
Discover drill bit is too large.
Go back inside to get smaller drill bit.
Drill pilot holes.
Attempt to install screws.
Go back inside to get screw driver...

   Get the picture? I'm only halfway done by this point. Suffice it to say I was successful in turning a simple, fifteen minute job into a two hour, profanity ridden exercise in frustration and futility. But the shed light works now.

   Next chore was the rope light installation. Should have been a piece of cake. I was warmed up. Almost all of my tools were already outside. Hah! Never underestimate the perversity of our world.
   Opening the ropelight package, I discovered that Noma had thoughtfully included everything I needed to perform the installation. OK, almost everything. There were twenty little plastic clips for mounting the rope to the fence. There were twenty little screws for mounting the clips to the fence. As I attached the first clip, I discovered a fatal flaw in the directions. Each clip, it seems, required two screws to hold it up.

   Now, I don't claim to be a math wizard, but it's pretty plain that something here doesn't quite add up.

   There appeared, to me, to be three options. One, I could only use half of the clips, at double the spacing. Picturing saggy ropelighting, I dismissed option one immediately. Two, I could use only one screw per clip. However, that would allow the clips to rotate away from level, resulting in an uneven run of ropelight along the fence. Maybe good enough for me - heck, I would have just draped the stuff over the fence posts and been done with it - but not good enough to impress any guests we might be entertaining (I thought to myself in an attempt to channel my wife's opinion on the situation).
   Accepting with resignation the thrid option, I trudged out to my car, and drove down to Canadian Tire to buy more screws. Arriving back home a half an hour later, I discovered that the screws I had bought were too large, and would not fit through the holes in the clips. Hanging my head, I plodded back down the driveway to the car again.
   Back home, this time with the right sized screws, I was optimistic, and prepared to bang out some pretty damn awesome looking ropelight. Until I discovered that I did not have a screw driver in my tool box that would fit the new screws. It seems they required the use of a Robertson screw driver, size zero. Size zero? What the hell is size zero?
   When Mr. Robertson invented his screwdriver and screws in 1908, he made them in three sizes, #1, #2, and #3, denoted by their green, red and black handles respectively. Virtually every toolbox in Canada has a set of those three tools in it. In fact, most people I know have several "red-handled robertsons" kicking around. But who the hell uses a size zero? I didn't even know what colour that was, until I reluctantly dragged my ass back to Crappy Tire to buy one.

   It's yellow.

   So, it's now almost five-thirty, and I'm trying to juggle getting the ropelight installation finished, preparing dinner, and cajoling Matthew into doing his homework, instead of wasting time watching videos on YouTube. Just as I tighten the last screw, and snap the last length of ropelight into the last little plastic clip, the first raindrops start to fall. This is getting to be an annoying trend.

Tags: day off, yard work, crappy tire

Here we are now, entertain us

2008-05-02T22:29:00.000-04:00

Matthew and a few of his friends have formed a band. They call themselves Tomorrow's Yesterday, and they played their first 'gig' last night at the annual school Arts Night. Considering they've only been rehearsing for a week, they did pretty well. Hell, they rocked the joint.

And now here's the Friday Random Ten:

1) The Mummers' Dance - Loreena McKennitt
2) A Journey In The Dark - Howard Shore
3) Journey - FM
4) Animal Zoo - Spirit
5) Sleepless (Intro) - Jacksoul
6) Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
7) Shake It Up And Go - B.B. King
8) Dreamer - Supertramp
9) Roadside - Rise Against
10) My Box In A Box - "Bunny"

Tags: Yesterday's Tommorrow, Smells Like Teen Spirit, memes, friday random ten

Monday photo shoot

2008-04-28T23:26:00.000-04:00

   It's been a while since I have participated in the Monday Photo Shoot. In fact, I haven't done one of these since John Scalzi was hosting it at By The Way. Not that I have any problem with the new host, Outpost Mavarin. On the contrary, Karen has been on my blogroll for quite some time.
   The photo shoot was always an occasional thing for me, and since my camera got broken participating has been, shall we say, a challenge. But when I saw this week's theme, I knew I had the perfect picture to offer. In fact, I have been looking for an excuse to use this picture here for some time.

   Last summer Matt and my wife visited England and Wales. They took hundreds of pictures. Along the way, Matthew made it a point of taking the occasional photograph "just for Dad." What he meant was he was taking an odd, or out of the ordinary picture; and 'artistic' picture, if you will. He was referring to my wife's complaint that when we were in Italy, I took dozens of pictures of holes in the wall of The Colosseum, or sign posts pointing to Mount Etna, or broken doorways in a mountain village in Sicily. But I didn't take very many pictures of my family at The Colosseum, or at Etna, or in Mandanici. Next time we go on vacation, I was informed, we are taking two cameras.
   So Matt took pictures of big rocks, and close-ups of iron scrollwork, and old signs. And my wife rolled her eyes every time he did. Along the way, he got a shot, entirely by accident, that has become one of my favourite pictures ever. It was a product of the failings of an automatic point and shoot camera in a difficult situation, but the result was...how would I say it...serendipitous, perhaps.

   The theme of this week's Monday Photo Shoot is "Unreal." The more I look at this picture, the more I think I see in it. Of course, there is a perfectly rational explanation for what happened to produce it, but that isn't any fun, is it?

What do you see in it?

(A larger version is available at my Flickr photostream. Click on the picture to get there. It makes a cool wallpaper.)

Tags: memes, monday photo shoot

Friday random ten

2008-04-25T23:12:00.000-04:00

Offered without comment, because, well...because I got nuthin'.

The One I Got - Johnny Lang
Soma - Smashing Pumpkins
Fly At Night - Chilliwack
Cascada - Jesse Cook
Ain't Gone 'n' Give Up On Love - Stevie Ray Vaughan
Let's Get High - Dr. Dre
Because They're Young - Duane Eddy
Ode - Creed
Fire In The Hole - The Tragically Hip
Blue Eden - Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Tags: memes, Friday random ten

Critical Thinking Thursday

2008-04-24T22:36:00.000-04:00

I haven't participated in some time, but I have a post included in the latest edition of The Skeptics' Circle at Andrea's Buzzing About: There's a lot of good stuff to read in the 85th edition of the circle, so buzz on over and check it out.

Tags: skepticism, skeptics circle

April is national poetry month and...

2008-04-22T15:53:00.000-04:00

Just a quick mention. We are, right this very moment, smack dab in the middle of the annual National Cowboy Poetry Week. This year CPW runs from April 20 to April 26. Saddlle up!

Tags: poetry, national poetry month, cowboy poetry, national cowboy poetry week

Oye como va

2008-04-18T13:54:00.000-04:00

Dear Carlos Santana,

   Hi, how are you today? I'm fine, too, thank you very much. I enjoy your music immensely. Oh, by the way, I illegally downloaded your album today. Not all of them. Just All That I Am.
   See, I already bought the CD at the record store. Paid full price, it wasn't even on sale. But, here's the thing: I can't copy it to iTunes. Seems your record company has employed some kind of copy protection technology that prevents iTunes from being able to properly read the CD.
   Which is a real shame, because, as I already mentioned, I like your music very much. I enjoy listening to it. But now I can't - at least not in the way that I want to. I want to be able to listen to it on my iPod through headphones while I'm riding the bus, or walking the dog. I want to be able to plug my iPod into my car stereo, and listen to your music while I drive to and from work. And the way your album was presented to me, I can't do that.
   Oh, sure, if I put the CD in my computer CD-ROM drive, it will install a proprietary media player on my computer, which will allow me to listen to your album there. But I have absolutely no desire to do that. I don't actually ever listen to music at my computer desk. And besides, if I did want to, the five hundred and seventy six other albums in my music collection are already on iTunes. Why would I want to open a new program just to listen to one other album. It's inconvenient. In fact, it's flat out stupid.
   So what happens? Well, what happens is, I don't listen to your album. I don't spend the time appreciating the fine music you spent all that time, blood, sweat and tears crafting for me. I listen to someone else's heartwrought audio art instead.

   At least, that's the way it was, until today. See, I got to thinking. I paid for this music. And make no mistake, I paid for the music, not the physical delivery system the CD represents. If you want to be all technical about it, I paid for licencing rights to personally, and privately listen to your music whenever and wherever, and as often as I like. And you have not provided me with what I paid for.
   So today, I did about thirty seconds of Googling, and found an uncorrupted, high quality copy of your album on this here Internet thingy, and I downloaded it. And I copied it to iTunes.And I loaded it on my iPod. So now I do have what I paid for, and I can enjoy your music all I want (thank you very much).

   It's kinda ironic ain't it? Your record company employed their little copy protection schemes in an effort to prevent illegal downloading of your music. Instead, they have encouraged it. You might wanna talk to them about that.

Regards,

Paul Little

   Oh, and here is your Friday Random Ten; the first ten songs randomly assigned to my iPod by iTunes on my latest sync.

1) Chokin' Kind - Joss Stone
2) Isn't It Midnight - Fleetwood Mac
3) Jeb Rand - Bedouin Soundclash
4) Xanadu - Rush
5) Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3) - Pink Floyd
6) If Not Now... - Tracy Chapman
7) Dazed And Confused - Led Zeppelin
8) I'm Sensitive - Jewel
9) Cum On Everybody - Eminem
10) Easier To Run - Linkin Park

edit Sunday 5:00PM: If I had actually read the Wikipedia article to which I linked above, I would have realised that All That I Am was one of the albums Sony/Arista originally tried to release on the sly with Digital Rights Management software hidden in it uncredited. They got busted by the tech crowd, and had to back down on it. They claimed the CDs were defective (nice try), and recalled and re-released them without the DRM. That's what I get for buying the album the first week after it came out.

Tags: iTunes, illegal downloads, Carlos Santana, memes, Friday Random Ten

Album cover meme

2008-04-17T10:40:00.005-04:00

This has been languishing in my test journal for months. Originally, because I was having difficulty with uploading new pictures to AOL's ftp space, and then more recently because I've been lazy. Here's what you're s'posed to do:

1) Go to Wikipedia. Click on the random article link. The title of whatever article you get will be your band name.

2) Go to Quotationspage.com. Click on the random quotes link. Scroll to the bottom of the page. The last four words of the last quotation on the page will be your album title.

3) Go to Flickr.com. Click on the interesting photos from the last seven days link. The third photograph on that page will be your album cover.

4) Employ your favourite image editing software.

5) Present to us your album cover.

So...

1) Wikipedia gave me the article, Naval Intelligence Handbooks.

2) Quotationpage.com gave me the quotation, "Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world." --Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)

3) Flickr.com gave me this photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thinklab/2199921086/

4) ::edit edit edit edit::

5) Here is my album cover:

Many thanks to Thinklab for the excellent photograph. I hope he doesn't mind my appropriation of it for this meme. Stop by his photostream, why don't you, and check out his other impressive work.

via Accordion Guy

Tags: memes, album cover meme

Some skeptical items for your consideration

2008-04-15T22:49:00.001-04:00

I haven't been doing much writing of any substance lately. I've mostly been posting little quickies than don't require any thought. Yes, I haven't forgotten that I owe you one more installment of the 100 movies series. That's coming. Honest!
But here are a few little things that I've been thinking about lately.

Expelled Exposed
You may have heard of the soon to be released movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Or, you may not have. Ben Stein (Bueller...Bueller...Bueller...) stars in what the producers are calling a documentary about the suppression of new ideas by the scientific establishment (whatever that is). According to the film's website:

“Expelled” calls attention to the plight of highly credentialed scholars who have been forced out of prestigious academic positions because they proposed Intelligent Design as a possible alternative to Charles Darwin’s 150-year-old theories about the origins of life. Instead of entertaining a debate on the merits of competing theories, the scientific establishment has moved to suppress the ID movement in a “systematic and ruthless” way at odds with America’s founding principles, the film asserts.

That would be quite an interesting movie to watch, I suspect, if the statement above were actually, you know, true. Unfortunately, like many other things that have come to light about this film, the statement above is a lie. The scientific establishment is quite prepared to debate the merits of the science behind the "theory" of Intelligent Design...if only its proponents would present some. To date they have failed to do so.
Make no mistake, Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory. It is religious propaganda, and its primary proponent, the Discovery Institute, is not a scientific research facility. It is a political lobbying organisation. Lucky for us, the "scientificestablishment" is quite prepared to back up their position with cold, hard, observable fact. To this end, the website Expelled: Exposed reveals the facts behind the veil of lies being spread by the producers of this film.

A Case Of Curse Transference?
   One of the areas of our lives that is absolutely permeated by superstition is sports. Ball players take great care not to step on the chalklines as they run off the field. Hockey players will grow a "playoff beard." Basketball players will refuse to wash their socks during a winning streak. And we completely accept these silly things, as if they could possibly have any effect whatsoever on the outcome of a game.
   For the most part, these things are harmless, but the fact that so many people believe in them can lead to problems. Last week, constuction on the new Yankee Stadium in New York was delayed for five hours, at a cost of over $30,000, so workers could jackhammer through two feet of concrete to remove a Boston Red Sox jersey placed there by a former worker. Gino Castignoli, a construction worker and Red Sox fan hid the jersey just before concrete was poured for one of the luxury boxes during his one day of work on the stadium. Representatives of the New York Yankees Baseball Club called it "a very bad, dastardly act." A very bad, dastardly act. Dastardly, like tying Derek Jeter to a set of railroad tracks.
   OK, so you think you've heard everything now, don't you? You're wrong. The Yankees organisation is considering legal action. I swear, I'm not making that up. These guys truly believe that the action of burying a Red Sox jersey under the stadium could have materially harmed their ball club. I'm sorry, but that's just plain kooky.

Making a Choice
Recently, here in Toronto, a devout Sikh man challenged the Ontario law requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets. He could not wear a helmet, he said, because his religion required him to wear a turban, and prohibited him from covering it in any way. The Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled in favour of Balinder Badesha's challenge to the law, but a Superior court Justice over-ruled that decision on March 6th of this year. Mr. Badesha plans to appeal the decision.
I have two questions for Mr. Badesha:

1) Does your religion require you to wear an uncovered turban at all times outside of your home?

2) Does your religion require you to ride a motorcycle?

The answers to these questions are, of course, "yes," and, "no." I don't see a conflict here.
You see, Mr. Badesha, observing your religion is a choice you have made. Like all choices, once you have made it, you find it impacts upon other choices facing you in your life. Riding a motorcycle is also a choice. There are many alternate forms of transportation of which you may avail yourself. You could drive a car, you could ride a bicycle, you could take a bus, you could walk. If riding said motorcyle conflicts with your religion, well then, you are going to have to choose between them. But choose wisely. As far as I'm concerned, they're both dangerous practices.

But She Was On Oprah, So She Has To Be Right
Also back in March, former model Jenny McCarthy was in Toronto for the Holistic World Expo, and spouting her load of nonsense about Autism and Vaccines to anyone who would listen. Toronto Sun columnist Michele Mandel wrote what started out to be quite a rational and skeptical article on the subject, saying:

According to McCarthy, the recent alarming rise in autism -- as high as one in 150 children -- is directly tied to the increasingly heavy childhood vaccination schedule that began in the 1990s...

The scary thing is that no one in this town's goo-goo-eyed media bothered to challenge her controversial stand...

The scientific evidence, though, is pretty conclusive. The oft-touted link between autism and vaccination has been examined to death and endless studies have concluded there is no connection.

Somewhere along the way, however, Mandel lost the script.

So I was all prepared to completely discount the 35-year-old crusader and her Internet science. But it turns out that part of her message may actually have something to it. McCarthy credits a complete change in diet for helping to "cure" her son of his autism. After removing wheat and casein (found in milk) and adding vitamins and supplements, she noticed a dramatic change in just six months. "I do know I undid the damage that was done by vaccines," she told one local morning show, "and healed the body. You heal the body and you heal the mind and then he was able to function in society."

Mandel appears to accept McCarthy's statement at face value, leaving all semblance of skepticism behind. There are several things Mandel had overlooked in credulously reporting McCarthy's claims on this matter.

   First - and you've heard me say this before - correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Just because two things happen at the same time (or one follows the other) does not necessarily mean they are related. They might be, be it can be hard to know for sure.
   Autism is a condition marked by developmental delay. Note that is delayed development, not arrested development. It can seem like an autistic child is stuck at one level of development forever, then they can suddenly progress dramatically, seemingly overnight. It isentirely possible, indeed likely, that had McCarthy not changed her son's diet, he would still have experienced the same rapid improvement at the same time. Of course, Jenny would have just found something else to credit for the change.
   There are all kinds of alternative autism therapies out there - modified diet, heavy metal chelation, what have you - that people claim are effective. Scientific investigation has, to date, shown that they are not.

   Second, by allowing McCarthy's statement to go unchallenged, Mandel undermines a fact she presented earlier in the piece - that there is no scientific support for the 'vaccine causes autism' claim. She has allowed McCarthy to throw in her contention that she has undone "the damage done by vaccines." Even if there is something to the claim that a modified diet can have an effect on autism, that in no way points to vaccines as a cause. But Mandel allows that idea to slip back into her readers' minds by not applying critical thinking to the whole story.

   The third thing that Mandel completely overlooks is that McCarthy claims to have healed her son. She conveniently leaves out the fact that Evan McCarthy still has autism. It hasn't gone away. He just showed some developmental progress. The fact is, everything McCarthy says is complete, and utter hogwash. Mandel needed to stick to her skeptical guns all the way to the end of her article. By failing to do so, she has failed her readers. She doesn't think so. She ends by saying, "at least this prescription of hers won't cause harm." Michele, I beg to differ. If just one of your readers abandons traditional treatements and therapies in favour of the woo presented by Jenny McCarthy, then there is harm. I've said this before, too. Alternative therapies that are ineffective, are not harmless.

There! I feel much better having got all that off my chest. Sorry to harsh your mellow.

Tags: skepticism, superstition, religion, autism, expelled, skeptics circle

Kewl!

2008-04-11T13:29:00.000-04:00

Check out my winning caption at Magic Smoke. Also, play along this week.

Now here's your Friday Random Ten:

1) Dog New Tricks - Garbage
2) It Could Happen To You - Robert Palmer
3) Konifale - Kadja Tangara
4) White, Clean and Neat - Robert Plant
5) Teenage Jail - The Eagles
6) El Fuego - Santana
7) Wicked World - Black Sabbath
8) Vajra - Shadowfax
9) Angie - The Rolling Stones
10) Till - The Angels

Tags: memes, what's the caption wednesday, friday random ten

A musical interlude

2008-04-04T13:04:00.000-04:00

Cin was curious about a couple of the musical acts I mentioned in the last Friday Random Ten (and its follow-up post). She'd never heard of Ashley MacIsaac - "who's she?" she asked - or Bedouin Soundclash, and wondered if they were Canadian. I believe she was using the common American definition of the word 'Canadian': quaint, but obscure.
And so I present for your viewing pleasure, and listening enjoyment...

Mr. Ashley MacIsaac

Of course, Ashley is probably much better known for his duet with Mary Jane Lamond, Sleepy Maggie.

I hope that last video didn't scare you away, because this is the one I really want you to see. Bedouin Soundclash are local Toronto musicians of various backgrounds who have created an enticing fusion of sounds. When The Night Feels My Song was their first single.

I hope you enjoyed. Also Canadian on those previous two lists are Bruce Cockburn and Nickelback, but I expect you already knew that.

And now, I present to you your Friday Random Ten from my weekly iPod update. My pool of songs now sits at slightly over 5100. From among those, iTunes randomly selected 112 to populate my iPod for the next week. The first ten of those are:

1) Three Sheets to the Wind - Colin James
2) Black Clouds - Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts
3) Dreaming - Blondie
4) Black Black Heart 2.0 - David Usher
5) Come Together - The Beatles
6) Juke Box Hero - Foreigner
7) Don't - Jewel
8) Still Wonder - Johnny Lang
9) Smoke on the Water (live) - Deep Purple
10) Session - Linkin Park

Can you spot the Canadians?

Tags: music, Canadian, You Tube, memes, Friday Random Ten

100 movies - the penultimate list

2008-04-04T00:05:00.000-04:00

   Penultimate. Isn't that a great word? It almost carries its own dramatic echo. Or maybe that's just inside my head. Sure, I could have just said, "the next to last list," but I think one should use a word like penultimate whenever the opportunity presents itself.
   So, here are the penultimate ten films from the list of 100 movies I really like. If you need to do things in order, here's where I started.

Armageddon - A lot of people didn't like this movie. Or, at least, they claim not to have liked it. For all that they seem to talk about it a lot. There's a Shakespearian quotation about that. (I'm sorry, did I just invoke Shakespeare in a sentence about a Bruce Willis movie? What was I thinking!)
   Yeah, this turned into a bit of a flag waver, but come on! It wasn't as bad as Independence Day, and I liked that movie, too. I'm not ashamed to stand up, tall and proud, and announce that I liked Armageddon.

Agent Cody Banks - Frankie Muniz plays Cody Banks, a High School student who has been recruited by the CIA (or some such secret agent organisation). His latest assignment requires him to get close to ::gasp:: a girl! Hilarity ensues.
   His agency contact is played by Angie Harmon...or at least by the many skin tight outfits she sports throughout the film. Two thumbs waayyy up.

Underworld - Vampires. Werewolves. Vampire-werewolf hybrids. Kate Beckinsale. Need I say more?

True Lies - This is one of my favourite of Ahnold's movies. It pokes fun at secret-agent-living-a-double-life cliche so common in spy-thriller films. Tom Arnold is hilarious as the sidekick. Also, Jamie Lee Curtis - Rowr! (Hmm, I seem to be falling into a predictable pattern here.)

The Matrix - Trinity rocks! So does her rubber wardrobe. Hawt! (Pattern continues). This is one of those films that has become so entwined in the pop-culture collective unconscious that virtually every piece of media released in the first five years of this decade made some kind of reference to it. Even the dogs' breakfast of the next two films cannot dim the brilliance of the original. I watch this movie over and over again.

Benny and Joon - Mary Stuart Masterson is, you know, kinda cute I guess. This is a Johnny Depp movie, but not so much a Johhny Depp movie, know what I mean? No? Well just look at the cast. It's pretty awesome, right down to the bit players. Aidan Quinn was great as Benny. And then there's Julianne Moore, Oliver Platt, Dan Hedaya, William H. Macy. Pretty Awesome, if you don't mind the repetition. Also, Johnny Depp, cause, you know...

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Tim Burton is something of an odd duck, isn't he? Brilliant, but odd. I have heard it said that he made The Nightmare Before Christmas because the studio wouldn't let him make The Corpse Bride at the time. I like the former better than the latter. And the sound in this DVD is top notch. If you have a surround sound system with a good subwoofer, this is the film to give it a bit of a workout.

Chicken Run - A fun animated romp from back when Mel Gibson was still cool. It also cashed in on the incredible popularity, at the time, of Nick Park, of Wallace and Grommit fame. What can I say? Virtually every character in this thing is a hot chick.

Payback - Mel again, in perhaps my favourite of his movies. His character, Porter, is enormously amusing in his insistence that all he wants is the seventy thousand dollars he claims is owed to him, even in the face of even higher offers. "We went for breakfast... in Canada. We made a deal; if she'd stop hookin', I'd stop shooting people." [pause] "Maybe we were aiming high."

Casablanca - In an earlier edition of this list I mentioned The Maltese Falcon. This is the other of what are arguably the two best known Bogart movies. I think this one is the better of the two. I like the pacing better, and I think the tangled web weaved by Rick Blaine in this film is far more clever than the one woven by Sam Spade in the other. I am willing to bet that there are many out there who would disagree with me.
   That's OK. I'll get over it.

<< previous ten                     next ten >>

Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

The next ten...

2008-03-28T23:58:00.000-04:00

...were actually far more interesting:

11) Nico On The Night Train - Bedouin Soundclash
12) Stolen Land - Bruce Cockburn
13) Faithfully - Journey
14) Sunshine Of Your Love - Cream
15) Hummingbird - B. B. King
16) Let's Make It - AC/DC
17) Big Ego's - Dr. Dre
18) Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn
19) What's On My Mind - Kansas
20) Yibo Labo (These Are The Guys) - Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Tags: memes, Friday random ten redux

Friday random ten

2008-03-28T13:11:00.000-04:00

   Here's a meme that's been around the blogosphere so long it has pretty much petered out. So it's fitting that I'm doing it now. The idea is you are supposed to put your iTunes on random, and list the first ten songs it plays. Of course, that requires one to sit and listen to (or skip past) ten songs. Instead, what I'm going to do is update and refill my iPod on Fridays, and list the first ten songs iTunes randomly loads onto it.
   Here is today's list.

1) Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam - Nirvana
2) What Do You Do - The Proclaimers
3) Sieze The Day - Avenged Sevenfold
4) God Save The Queen - Queen
5) The Voice And The Snake - Enigma
6) Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) - Nickelback
7) To America We Go - Ashley MacIsaac
8) Caroline - Fleetwood Mac
9) What wW're All About - Sum 41
10) Soledad - Jesse Cook

   There you have it: the first ten songs on the list of 125 that will be playing in my car for the next week. Take from it what you will. I guess the idea is that the reader might glean some little insight into the personality of the blogger through an examination of their musical tastes. That, or it's another form of cat vacuuming.

   Nevertheless...

Tags: memes, Friday random ten

A meme from Dawn

2008-03-26T13:35:00.000-04:00

Here's another meme I found at Dawn's journal.

edited 5:50PM - Oops! I have been informed that I missed two answers. I intended to come back to those later, and publish this entry after dinner, but accidentally published it immediately. That's what happens when you rush through something on your lunch hour.

Your best friend tells you she is pregnant. What is your reaction? "I thought you had your tubes tied, Honey."

When is the last time you wanted to punch someone in their face? So long ago I can't remember.

What is the last thing you spent money on? Coffee and a muffin.

Do you think you gained or lost weight this past month? No idea. I never weigh myself. Probably gained, though. That seems to be the general trend these years.

Crunchy or Puffy Cheetos? No Cheetos. I'm more of a chips guy.

Congratulations! You just had a son. What's his name? Beowulf! No, maybe not. Our child having days are long over, so I haven't thought about new baby names for years. I'm all out of practice. I'll have to give this one a pass.

Congratulations! You just had a daughter. What's her name? Well, we had a girl's name all picked out for if we had a daughter, but never had to use it, so I'll give you Branwyn Marie. (My Mother-in-law has never been able to pronounce that, so it's probably for the best that there wasn't a girl.) We never did decide on whether to spell it Branwyn, or Branwen, or Bronwen.

What are you craving right now? Heh. Nevermind. Next question?

What was the last thing you cried about? Probably the last time I watched ET, or readThe Fionaver Tapestry. A while ago, I guess.

When you buy something and your change is 2 cents, do you keep it or tell the cashier to keep it? Sometimes I keep it, and sometimes I leave it. I don't think there's any conscious criteria for my decision.

What color is your tissue box? My tissue box? Well, the nearest tissue box to me is kind light bluey, with purple flower petals on it, but I wouldn't really call it my tissue box.

Do you have a ceiling fan in your room, and if so, is there dust on that fan? There's a ceiling fan in our dining room. It gets dusted at least once a week, so I'm gonna say no.

Scariest thing you've experienced in the last year? Yeah, all of you are right. I was pretty confident that things would go well with the wife's surgery, but deep down inside, that fear was there.

Do you wear a name tag at work? Yes. Mr. Ho, the manager of the Kwik-E-Mart keeps telling me he's going to get me one with my name imprinted on it, but it hasn't happened yet. Until it does, I'll keep wearing the one I found in the back room that has the name Raoul on it.

Have you ever had a garage sale? No. The previous owners of the house must have sold the garage before we moved in. We've had yard sales, though.

What color is your iPod? They come in colours?

What is the last alcoholic beverage you had? Ryan Coke.

Are you happy right now? Sure.

Who came over last? Who came over last? What are you, twelve? Nevermind, you probably are. (No, not you, gentlereader. The person who wrote this quiz.) So, uh, I guess it was my parents, and my Brother-in-law and his family. We celebrated Easter, and Matthew's fourteenth birthday Saturday night.

Do you drink beer? Yes.

Have your brothers or sisters ever told you that you were adopted? No. Sounds like something I might have said to my sister when I was being petty and spiteful, but I can't remember if I ever did.

What is your favorite key on your key chain? People have favourite keys on their keychains? Doesn't that seem a little...odd to you?

What was the last movie you watched at home? We're currently watching the new Battlestar Galactica TV series on DVD, but that's not what you asked, is it? The last movie we watched would have been Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring when Matthew was home sick a couple of weeks ago.

What is in your pocket? A toonie.

Where do you hurt? Oh, the knees are a little sore right now.

Has someone ever made you a Build-A-Bear? Um, no.

What's something fun you did today? Well, I got up, had a shower, and went to work. Now I'm home. I guess the funnest thing I did so far was listening to my new iPod in my car during the drive. Woo hoo!

What is your favorite aisle at Wal-Mart? People have favourite aisles at Wal-Mart? Doesn't that seem a little...pathetic to you? I don't even go to Wal-Mart. If I did, that would have been the scariest thing.

When is your birthday? Last month. You missed it!

Is there anything hanging from your rear view mirror? No.

What kind of milk do you drink? Cow.

What is something you need to go shopping for? Stuff.

Tags: memes

Irony of ironies; all is irony...

2008-03-25T09:39:00.000-04:00

   I've never been an iPod person. Heck, I've been around long enough to remember when 'Walkmans' were new and cool. I've never been a Walkman person either. I don't really like listening to music on headphones to start with, and when you make them those crappy little headphones that come with personal music players of whatever description, well, count me out. I'll just go downstairs and fire up the stereo, OK? Let me know if it's too loud.
   Still, I'm not one to reject something out of hand, either. So, when Matthew got his new super-giga-iPod-nano-electro-fantabulism-player last year, and generously gave me his old one to use, I didn't scoff. I just put it on the shelf of my armoire, and let it sit until it spoke to me.
   We have iTunes on our computer, because Matthew has had iPods for a couple of years. I haven't felt any need to put any of my CDs on it. I wasn't using an iPod, and I don't listen to music on the computer, so what was the use? Matthew had copied several of my albums for him to listen to, but beyond AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, the computer was pretty much an exclusive Three Days Grace - Rise Against - Billy Tallent zone.

   And then I got a new car stereo.

   My old one had become just a radio, after the CD player stopped working. I lived with it for a long time, but an opportunity came up to grab a new CD player a an absolute steal, so I took advantage. I got one that had a jack on the front that would allow an iPod to be plugged in. And whaddaya know, but I had an iPod sitting, unused, in my bedroom armoire. Cool!
   I took it out, hooked it up to the computer, clicked on 'random autofill' and loaded it up. It held about 120 songs, or so. I took it out to my car, plugged it in, and enjoyed. I could drive for hours and hours, and never hear the same song twice. And no talking, or commercials. I was a convert. I came home and started loading CDs onto my version of iTunes. I also copied Matthew's music library for my use as well. There were a few CDs I skipped, but not many. Over two or three days, I went through my record collection from A up to E. The last CD in the "E" category was Europe - The Final Countdown (shut up), and when I had finished uploading that one, i had exactly...

...on iTunes. And that only represented about one third of my Cds. I had a long way to go, but I had made a good start.

   Excited, I brought the iPod in from the car in order to reload it from my new, expanded selection of music, but when I plugged it in, I got an error message saying it was corrupted, and that I should reformat it by clicking on the 'restore' button.

   So I clicked on the restore button.

   It fitzed and fiddled around for several minutes, and then said this:

I broke my iPod. :(

Update: A little bit of Google-Fu led me to this: iPod reset utility for Windows. Fixed it up in a snap. I'm rockin' again.

Tags: iPod, iTunes, iRony, Google-fu

100 movies - "The Eighth Day"

2008-03-16T23:48:00.000-04:00

   Well, you know... I've been avoiding continuing this series since discovering that I have to come up with one more movie to replace The Fugitive (which has appeared twice owing to an administrative oversight). It was far easier to just put off the whole thing, than to think about what movie to add back onto the list. Finally, I decided, "hey, I don't have to make a decision yet. This is just the third to last entry in the series. I have two more to go after this one before I actually have to make up my mind." So, here I am again, recounting for you another ten movies that I really, really like. Enjoy.

A Knight's Tale - The recent passing of Heath Ledger makes beginning this entry with this film rather more poignant than it might otherwise have been. Ledger was a fine actor with a brilliant future ahead of him, and his loss was a tragic one.
   So, too, recent events might serve to make Heath alone the focus of what made this movie so much fun, but please allow me to take a step back, and also give credit to the many other talents without whom A Knight's Tale would have been a lesser film.
   Credit to Brian Helgeland, the Writer and Director, and his friend, and co-writer, actor Paul Bettany, who together came up with the concept of paralleling the historic jousting tournaments with modern, professional sports. Credit, also, to Bettany for his excellent interpretation of how Geoffrey Chaucer just might have come up with some of his stories.
   Credit to Mark Addy and Alan Tudyk, for their portrayals of squires Roland, and Wat, whom the audience come to love even more than the main characters.
   And credit to the many horses, horsemen, and stuntmen who gave us such a realistic experience of the joust. This is a straight-up fun movie to watch, and I do so on a regular basis.

Serenity - Did I say Alan Tudyk? If you were to do a poll asking who was the respondant's favourite Firefly character, Wash would be right up there at the top. Maybe even number one. Coincidence? I think not.
   Serenity was a highly anticipated continuation of the much loved, but short lived television series, Firefly. Part of what made the TV series so attractive, to me at least, were the tight scripts. Not a moment was wasted, and no line of dialogue had only one layer of meaning. Some of that was lost in the transition to the big screen, I thought. Meh, given a special effects budget, and two hours to fill, that'll tend to happen to a production, I guess. Still, though I didn't think it quite lived up to the promise of the series, Serenity was a good movie, and a satisfying conclusion (sort of) to the narrative.
   Also, Summer Glau can kick your ass!

Hard Core Logo - It has been said that if you liked This Is Spinal Tap (which I mentioned earlier in this series), you'll like Hard Core Logo, the mock-doc story of the last Hurrah of a Canadian Punk Band. That said, Logo goes farther than Tap, taking the story of Joe Dick and Billy Tallent's last grasp for the gold ring to its somewhat unexpected, but in hindsight inevitable conclusion. Hard Core Logo surprised me, and it made me think. I recommend it to you most highly.

Die Hard - What can I say? "Yipee-ki-yay, moth..." No, I can't say that.

Scrooged - Bill Murray again. None of you are surprised, are you? My favourite Christmas movie, bar none. A great turn by Bobcat Goldthwait as the put-upon Elliott Loudermilk.

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - While I still think The Fellowship of the Ring was the strongest of the three films, The Return of the King picks up after a somewhat disappointing middle chapter, and sweeps us, carries us, drags us, pushes us, and lifts us to an ending worthy of the material. Well done, Peter Jackson.

Aliens - Very different in tone from the first Alien film, but hey, that's OK. Sometimes you just wanna watch highly trained military professionals torn to shreds by a brainless, instinct-driven monster from outer space, don't you? Well, I do.

Shakespeare In Love - Three words. Clever, clever, clever. In the finest tradition of British bawdy theater.

Gattaca - Whatever happened to Ethan Hawke? This is another odd one out on this list, because I can only say that I want, very much, to like this movie. I can't say outright that I do like it, because I've never actually seen it. At least not all in one sitting. I've seen this bit, and that bit, and another little bit over there...all at different times, and all out of order. Still, the parts I've seen seem well done, and the idea of the story appeals to me. One day I will remember to rent this, and watch it all at once, and in order. And then we'll really see.

Spiderman - Some comic book hero movies are done well, and some...not so much. Spiderman falls firmly into the first category. Tobey Maguire absolutely nails Peter Parker. I was worried about Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane, but that sweater-in-the-rain scene erased all doubts. Pretty much all coherent thought, actually. Was that my spider-sense tingling?

   And with that, there are only twenty remaining films to come in this series. Twenty, that is, plus one. One yet-to-be-determined movie that I really like is to be added, at some point in the hopefully not too distant future, to replace the double mention of The Fugitive. Hey, do you think I could get away with saying that I listed The Fugitive twice because I really, really, really like it? No, I didn't think so.
   Stay tuned.

P.S. The Eighth Day was the original working title for the film that was eventually renamed Gattaca. Just so's you know.

<< previous ten                    next ten >>

Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

Arrrr, matey!

2008-03-06T07:35:00.000-05:00

It has just been leaked to the media. There is a secret propaganda video for an upstart religion that displays exactly what it's all about. If you want to know just what being 'touched by his noodly appendage' entails, click here to see it.

Tags: skepticism, religion, flying spaghetti monster

I'll be right back. Just nipping out to steal my neighbour's ox.

2008-02-28T23:17:00.000-05:00

Dropped by Technorati today to see who might be linking to me out there, and discovered this: a whole, brand spanking new blog dedicated to asking me a question. But the blog owner never told me he had this question to ask, so it's just luck, really, that I found it at all.
I tried to answer his question in a comment there, but ran up against the 2000 character limit (hey, it's a complicated question), so I decided to transpose the comment here. Click the link above to read Guy's question first.

****************************************************************************************

Hi Guy,
You should have left a comment on my journal telling me you had this question. I only found your entry here by accident. (OK, so ego surfing can't really be called an accident, but I don't do it that often, so coincidence, perhaps, is a better word. It might otherwise have been months before I knew you had written this.) I shall endeavour to answer your question to the best of my ability.

   First of all, I do not believe in absolutes. I don't believe anything is 'inherently right' or 'inherently wrong.' No man's actions are either right or wrong in and of themselves. They can only be judged to be right or wrong in relation to how they affect one's fellow men. As Donne said, "no man is an island." Man is not a solitary creature. We are a social animal by nature. We desire the company of a group or a tribe. In fact, the entire Old Testament of The Bible is about the creation of a tribe. But a tribe cannot survive without rules of conduct. If, as you say, we were to kill and steal from each other without regard, no tribe or society could survive. Clearly rules are necessary. But whence come those rules?

   You attribute them to some God. I do not.

   Who is right? Difficult to say. I see no evidence anywhere that such a person as your God exists, however. Lots of hearsay, but no solid evidence. Like our court system, I will not allow myself to be swayed by hearsay. I can only accept actual evidence. I see none.
   So, I hold no belief in a God of any kind. Yet I cannot deny that morals exist. You have them. I have them. As I said in my original journal entry, mine and yours are probably virtually identical. You say that without God, there is no reason to abide by any moral laws. I disagree. If I transgress a 'moral law,' I cause hurt to a fellow human being. Because empathy is a characteristic humans posess, I am able to imagine how I might be hurt by the actions of another, and so I am able to understand how my actions might hurt someone else. This is how morals are born. Because we do not wish to be hurt by the actions of others, we agree not to hurt them in return.
   What I am talking about, of course, is the so-called 'golden rule': "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." (Luke 6:31). Of course, Jesus was only rephrasing Judaic teaching - good Jewish Rabbi that he was: "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary." (Talmud, Shabbat 31a).
   Also: "Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do." -The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, circa 1900BCE, ancient Egypt, long predates the Judaic reference. The sentiment has been expressed in virtually every religion, and culture around the world, and is as close to a universal truth as exists. It is, however, an obvious one, and needs no Supreme Being to point it out. All other morals derive from this basic premise. The laws are many, but as the Talmud said, all but commentary on the first.

And here I am. I do not kill, lie, cheat or steal. I am faithful to my wife and family. I honour my parents. I do not covet my neighbour's ox...or other belongings. I believe I am a moral person, but it is not out of any fear of a God. By your reasoning, as an atheist, I should be lying, and cheating, and stealing, yet I am not. Is there a fault in your reasoning, or can you explain?

Regards,

-Paul

Tags: skepticism, atheism, morals

How far will a blog roll?

2008-02-16T23:07:00.000-05:00

I have just spent an inordinate amount of time editing and updating my blogroll. If anyone out there has any interest in what I'm checking out on a daily basis, look over there in the right hand sidebar, where it says 'Other Blogs,' and click on "my complete blogroll." You may be presented with a collapsed view first, and have to click on the little plus signs in order to expand the list that comes up.

Go.

Explore.

Tags: blogroll

100 movies - part SE7EN

2008-02-12T23:31:00.000-05:00

   So, here we are again. How you all been doing? Good, good. Glad to hear it.

   Well, I intimated that I might take a while to get the next ten of my list of 100 movies I really like posted here. I was wrong. Here they are. The previous entry is here, and it contains links to all that came before. Enjoy. And tell me what you think of these films, OK?
   Oh, about the title. I wanted to make it a movie reference of some kind, and settled on that. The movie Seven starring Brad Pitt, however, does not appear on this list. At all. Because I didn't like the way it ended.

Blood Diamond - This film is full of great performances, but Leo DiCaprio stands out above them all. His gritty character pulls us through a movie filled with disturbingly realistic portrayals of the violence that occurs every day in various places across the African continent. Matthew watched this with us, and afterwards we spent a few moments discussing it with him, as it obviously affected him strongly. I recommend you see this if you have not already. It will affect you, too.

Ocean's Eleven(2001) - The chemistry between George Clooney and Brad Pitt in this movie is top notch, and can best be summed up, in my opinion, by a couple of throw-away lines at the end of the film:

Rusty (Brad Pitt), who is waiting to pick up a tuxedo clad Danny Ocean on his way out of prison - "I hope you were the groom."
Danny (George Clooney), looking at what Rusty is wearing - "Ted Nugent called, he wants his shirt back."

This is a straight up fun movie.

Pink Floyd: The Wall - Several friends and I used to go see this movie in the theater on a regular basis. It played in a downtown Toronto theater every second weekend for years (alternate weekends they showed The Song Remains The Same). Watching this on DVD, it is impossible to duplicate the sensations of seeing it on the giant screen, with the massive sound. Also, there are certain substances that may or may not have been involved in ::ahem:: modifying the experience...

The Fugutive(1993)- The whole 'home theater' revolution was in its infancy in the early nineties, and this film was one of my first experiences being truly rocked by excellent movie sound at home. The train wreck, early in the film, is a serious test of any home theater sound system to this day. Plus, Tommy Lee Jones is teh awesome.

Oops. I just realised that The Fugitive appeared on the fourth edition of this list. I'm not sure how that happened, but now I'm going to have to figure out what one other movie I should add in this spot in place of this one. Damn, that's gonna be hard!

Saving Private Ryan - The wife and I watched the first twenty minutes or so of this movie (the taking of the beach), then had to pause it to catch our (literal and emotional) breath. It has to be one of the most intense pieces of film-making ever produced. The rest of the movie was OK, too.

Moulin Rouge - Let me quote from my review of this movie on themanroom.com:

I had no idea what this movie was about. When I realised it was a musical, I was concerned...

In fact, about ten minutes in, I actually apologised to my wife for renting it. We almost turned it off.

...Then a funny thing happened. I started to get interested. By the time they hit the tango version of Sting's Roxanne, I was hooked. Not only is this not a bad movie, it may be one of the best movies I've ever seen. The picture quality is excellent, with a palette of vibrant colours taken from Tolouse Lautrec posters of the time. The sound quality is also good, although there is not much in the way of surround action here. An interesting note: both Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidmann sang their own songs in this movie. One other piece of oddment: the voice of the green fairy is credited as being Ozzy Osbourne.

   It is interesting to note that this film has not held up to repeated viewings for me. I bought the DVD because I was so knocked out the first time I watched it, but subsequent viewings have left me underwhelmed, with a been there-done that kinda feeling. Still, if you haven't seen it, I do recommend it highly, at least once.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - I hear a lot of people complaining about the "unrealistic" fight scenes in this film (and in Chinese cinema in general). Those same complainers, however, will happily spend hours in line to see the latest Superman, or Spiderman, or (insert your favourite comic book hero here) movie. In order to enjoy Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and other similar Chinese films from which it draws its inspiration, it is necessary to understand that it is, in essence, a superhero movie. It is not supposed to be any more realistic than Ghost Rider. OK, maybe a bit more than that.
   In the end, what this movie really is, is a touching love story.

They Live - Here's one of those 'bad' movies I alluded to in the first installment of this series. It stars (Rowdy) Roddy Piper, for Pete's sake. Still, every once in a while it appears on late night TV, and I almost always stay up to watch. It's so delightfully tongue-in-cheek that I can completely overlook the fact that it's bad. Signature line: "I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick butt, and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Apollo Thirteen - "Houston, we have a problem." Hmm, Tom Hanks again. I think I'm detecting another trend.

Braveheart - This film has been lambasted by some for its alleged historical inaccuracy. To them I say, "grow up, it's just a frickin' movie!" If someone is stupid enough to try and point to the film as an historical reference, then fine, go to town on them. But to expect a work of fiction to attempt to be 100% historically correct is just silly. Unless, of course, you like really boring movies. Yes, it's bad history, but it's a damn fine film.

<< previous ten                    next ten >>

Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

Before I forget...

2008-02-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Darwin Day.

Tags: Darwin day

Hello, Hooray

2008-02-08T13:27:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why, but I find this to be the coolest thing ever: Coop's Party.

Tags: James Randi, Alice Cooper, coolest thing ever

100 movies - part six

2008-02-07T23:34:00.000-05:00

If you are only just joining us, I have been following Jaquandor's lead by posting a list of 100 movies I really like, ten movies at a time. To bring you up to speed, these are not necessarily what I consider to be the best 100 movies ever, or anything like that. They're just films I like, for one reason or another. Also, I am not presenting them in any kind of order. In fact, I have taken pains to randomise the order in which they appear. I have no idea why. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
If you want see the first five parts of this list, they can be found at the following locations:

100 movies
100 movies: part the second
100 movies: part the third
100 movies: the fourth episode
A fifth of 100 movies

   Here follows the sixth installment of the AWV list of 100 movies I really, really like. If I understand this fandangled new math, that leaves 40 movies to come, in four installments. Think I can get to them all before the end of this year?

Twelve Monkeys - As bizzare a movie as you are like to ever see. I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. A real departure for Bruce Willis, but Brad Pitt just seems so natural as a psychopath. This will leave you wondering what was real, and what was delusion, and just whose delusion was it, anyway?

The Green Mile - Here's one of those movies (or books) that Rebecca would have questioned me about. The subject matter is fantastic, but the story is excellent, and Tom Hanks sold me the whole thing with his performance. Remember willing suspension of disbelief?

Raiders of the Lost Ark - Spielberg shows Lucas how it should be done. Why, oh why could Spielberg not have directed the Star Wars prequel trilogy? It would have been soooo shiny. Oops, sorry, I'm mixing SciFi metaphors again. Harrison Ford attempts to portray the quintessential golden-age-of-cinema action hero, and in the process redefines the cliche.

Stripes - Yeah, Bill Murray. We've seen his name on this list already, haven't we? Will we again? I wouldn't bet against it.

Jurassic Park - Another subwoofer workout, and a way cool movie. Also, Sam Neill rocks.

High Plains Drifter - See how bad my memory is. I thought I needed to squeeze this one in by cheating, back when I mentioned Soylent Green, but here it is with a spot all it's own. One day I will see the ending. This I swear.

Men In Black - "I'm going for my gun." Classic. This is one of those movies I can watch over and over again. Well, not until I replace my VHS tape with a DVD, I guess.

The African Queen - OK, really this is more the classic, isn't it? An example of truly great film making. Two great bombasts go head to head, and the winner is the film fan.

The Wizard of Oz - I own this movie on video. On VHS - that's how long I've had it. I haven't watched it. Never miss it when it comes on TV, though. This is just a TV type of movie, kinda like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. See, I've done it again.

ET: The Extra-Terrestrial - I think I have mentioned before that I cannot watch this movie without crying. And I've seen it multiple dozens of times. Stupid movie.

   And that's ten! Stay tuned for ten more coming soon (employing a rather liberal definition of the word 'soon').

<< previous ten                    next ten >>

Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

Without Annette

2008-02-06T21:47:00.000-05:00

   I totally ripped off that title. Check out this web page for more details. The reference is to the fact that I am winging it tonight. No test journal entry to use for editing and spell-checking. This is me, live, without a net.

In fact, why don't I just do that - go live. I'll be adding to this entry over the course of the evening, as the muse strikes me, live and uncensored. Check back often for the latest incoherent rantings from my fevered imagination.

9:35PM

   I haven't been here much, lately. I mean, I've been here, you know, I just haven't been here. What I mean to say is, I've been here on these Intartube thingies. I just haven't been here on my blog. By the time I've caught up on email, read a couple dozen blogs entries, commented here and there, and checked in at a couple of message boards I keep my toe dipped into, I just seem to be out of steam, you know.
   I've got six or eight entries under construction in my test journal. There's a new group of ten of the one hundred movies I really like. I'm way behind on that. There's a new skeptical post about snow tires that I'm halfway finished. I've only got two or three more weeks before that one stops being topical. There's the album cover meme, and a post about favourite song lyrics. There's even an idea for a regular series of posts on skeptical topics that I'd like to develop. But I open the page, stare at it for a few minutes, and close it again. I can't be bothered to rouse myself enough to actually think about any of them.
   Renewed resolve to post here, where are you?

Stay tuned, I'll be back...

10:03PM

   Oh yeah. I also have an email saved in my inbox from several weeks ago I wanted to talk about. It's from some Christian who dropped by and made a comment on one of my entries, thinking he could show me the error of my ways... Heh.

   I know many of you are hungry for news of my wife, post surgery. To those of you who have emailed privately asking after her, and her brother, my most sincere thanks for your care and consideration. There's really not much to tell, They are both doing quite well. Frank's recovery has been remarkable. One of the ironic things (and we were warned about this in advance) is that Frank feels better than Pat does. At least, he thinks he does.
   See, he went into the surgery following months of feeling like absolute crap. He was weak and fatigued - sleeping as much as twelve to fourteen hours a day - anemic and gout ridden. Luckily the vomiting had not yet started for him, but he could not have been far off. In contrast, Pat was in excellent health. The truth of the matter is, they are probably in fairly similar condition, but Pat feels much worse than she did, and Frank feels much better. Everything is relative.

   I've got laundry to fold. Check in later for more amusing musings...or dreck, I can't tell.

11:42PM

   It's snowing like all get out here. ("All get out." What does that mean, anyway?) I took a picture, but in order to show it to you, I'd have to upload it to somewhere, and I'm not quite ready to fight that battle yet. This winter has been one of the most interesting ones on record, I'd have to say. We seem to go from above freezing temps, with rain and melting snow, to blizzard conditions, and back to thaw again all in one week. And then start the cycle all over again the next. If all the snow that has fallen here since November was still on the ground, it would easily be eight feet deep.

   I love those kinds of hyperbolic statements, because really, how are you gonna check?

   This whole 'without a net' thing was a lot less tiresome before I had a glass of scotch. It seems to take forever to catch all the typos now. Oh, well, it was good scotch.

   Somehow I envisioned more parts to this post tonight. But they seem to take an awful long time to write considering the heaping helping of nothing they are saying.

   Clearly, that one scotch has affected me, if the rather scatterbrained condition of this portion of tonight's entry is any indication. It was about 112 proof, after all. Anyway - I hate people who say things like, "anyway," in their blogs, don't you? These things really shouldn't be too conversational, know what I mean? Anyway, it's getting rather late, and the longer I stay up, the more things I remember to add to my 'to-do' list for tomorrow, so I'm gonna hit the sack. Y'all have a good night, now, hear?

12:18AM

   Oh, yeah. Happy Birthday to me! Good night.

Tags: live blogging my evening

Pumpkin's Meme - Who are you?

2008-01-20T14:27:00.000-05:00

   Pumpkin is Dawn'sdaughter. She has really taken to this meme thing, and enjoys creatingher own memes and reading other people's responses to them. Can it bevery long before she gets her very own, real life blog?

   Here is Pumpkin's 'who are you?' meme:

1.   What is your name? Mr. Crankypants.

2.   How old are you?Old enough to know better than to answer that question honestly. OK,for the next two and a half weeks I remain 'the answer.' After that, Iwill no longer be 'the answer.' That's all I'm sayin'.

3.   Where are you from? According to the current literature, Mars. More locally, I grew up in the little town of Maple, Ontario, which has now been absorbed by the City of Vaughan.

4.   Do you smoke? No, but from time to time I have been know to be "smokin'!"

5.   Do you drink? Yes, moderately and responsibly.

6.   Do you have a family? Please explain, if yes. Gots me a partial wife, and big ol' son.

7.   What are your hobbies? Writing in my blog, annoying people, curling, and listening to music. OK, so those first two are really the same.

8.   What is your favorite ice cream?I am an equal opportunity ice cream consumer. I do not discriminateagainst any particular flavour of ice cream...except strawberry. Also,many of the somewhat more bland flavours can easily be improved by theaddition of syrup. Chocolate, caramel, or my favourite, Pure MapleSyrup. You'll never eat vanilla naked again. Well, maybe you willbut...never mind.

9.   What is your favorite animal? Shadow. Wait, didn't I answer some of these questions before? Hmmm, in perusing that link, I see that I answered some of these questions before differently. Oh well, I guess there's a lesson in that to be had.

10. Do you wear glasses? Yes.

11. What nationality are your ancestors from?My ancestors were from the UK; specifically England and Scotland. Whichreally means that I'm probably part French, part Danish, part German,part Italian, and part woad smeared pagan. Or something.

12. What color is your hair? Brown. Mostly.

13.  What are you wearing now? Jeans and at-shirt. Yeah, well, there's some socks and undies in there, too.

14. What is your favorite color?Again, I must profess to the great Canadian trait of inclusionism. Ilike colours. We have painted rooms in our house green, light blue,dark blue, terra cotta, brown, butter yellow, pink. No, those are alldifferent rooms, not the same one at the same time. Whaddaya think Iam, nutso, or something?

15.  What teacher do you remember most from your childhood?I remember many of my teachers fondly. I was lucky to attend anexcellent elementary school. I guess I would have to say that myfavourite was my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Thomas.

16. What are your pets and their names?We have a dog named Shadow, a cat named Lady, a part time cat namedPixie, and an aquarium containing a variety of nameless fish.

17. What is your favorite food?Boy, oh boy, you like to come up with tough ones, don't you Pumpkin? Ilike food. lots and lots of food. I love to prepare and cook it as muchas I like to eat it. When I was your age, the meal I always lookedforward to was spaghetti and meatballs. Today, I enjoy trying as manydifferent foods as I can. I am currently enjoying Thai style dishes,and we go out for sushi quite often.

18. What is your job? Right this instant my job is taking care of my wife as she recuperates from surgery. But I am usually a stockboy at the local Kwik-E-Mart.

   There you have it, Pumpkin. Do you know more about me now?

Tags: memes, pumpkin

And then there was one...

2008-01-16T00:11:00.000-05:00

Thank you everyone for your comments and well wishes. Here is the e-mail I sent out to Pat's contact list this evening:

Pat has asked that I communicate to you that she is fine, and resting comforta-, well, maybe not comfortably yet, but she is resting. The surgery went well. Both surgeries went well. There were no complications or unexpected surprises. Pat's kidney was described by the surgical team as a "good" kidney. Based upon their tone and demeanour, I took this to be high praise. It was apparently hale and hearty, and started working almost immediately upon being implanted in her brother.
While the long road still stretches before Frank, Pat's part of the journey has reached a rest stop. She will be home by the weekend, and you will no doubt be hearing from her personally very shortly afterwards. Thank you all very much for your concern and well wishes over the past several weeks.

Regards,

Paul

An excellent ending to a long and nerve-wracking day, I must say. I was delighted to come home tonight and see so many comments offering positive thoughts in response to my last entry. And while I do not subscribe to the efficacy of prayers, I do appreciate those that were extended to us. If they mean something to you, then it means something to me that you offered them.

Oh, and I found my bucket.

Tags: bucket

...where's the confounded [bucket]?

2008-01-15T10:16:00.000-05:00

   I can't find my bucket, and I'm frustrated. OK, truth be told, I'm mostly frustrated by the helplessness I feel as my wife lays on the operating table, and I sit here at home waiting.

   Yeah, I kind sprang that on you of a sudden, didn't I? I first alluded to it way back here, but haven't really talked about it at all since. See, my wife is donating a kidney to her brother. You know, because his don't work anymore. And today's the day. And she left the house at five o'clock this morning, and I stayed home to get Matthew off to school, and take care of other mundane tasks while she lies under the knife for almost five hours. And I'm trying to keep myself busy, and I can't find my freaking bucket.

   Also, I have a picture to attach to this entry, and I can't upload it to my ftp space. It's one of those oh-so-cute LOLcat things, except this one has a walrus. But you'll just have to imagine it, because my 30 day free trial of WS_ftp has expired, and I uninstalled SmartFTP, and AOL's web based file manager doesn't work any more. Yeah, extra frustration I don't need, OK?
   Oh, yeah...and I never did anything about moving to an alternate image hosting service, did I? So it's mostly my fault.

(edited 2/18/08: Luk, I uploaded a pikcher)

Really, it'd all be much better if I could just find my bucket.

   I have this water softener. It's really old. I got it second hand, for free, so it doesn't owe me anything. I just can't afford to replace it right now. It works fine except for one thing. It refuses to backfill the salt resevoir. I've taken the head in to be serviced several times, and they keep telling me there's nothing wrong with it. And yet...it refuses to backfill the salt resevoir. It softens the water quite effectively as long as I remember to dump a bucket of water into it once a day.

You see my problem.

   It was there yesterday. I used it yesterday. And the day before. Today I can't findit. It's probably right there, under my nose, but I just can't see it due to my...uh...distracted state. I'll probably trip over it tomorrow.

   As you can surmise, it has been rather hectic around here lately, what with Christmas, and lots of working, and a sudden, dangerous decline in kidney function. They called us just before Christmas and said, "January third is the date of the surgery." Then they proceeded to send the wife in for all sorts of new tests, many of which they were completely unable to get results for in the time available. So it was postponed until today.
   I'm going to head down to the hospital later today, after the surgery is done, and she's in recovery. I'd ask you to keep your fingers crossed for Pat and her brother, but that would every bit as superstitious as praying, so don't worry about it. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Stupid bucket!

Tags: bucket

A morning recipe

2007-12-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

One of my favourite morning treats to make for my wife is the onion, bacon, beemster and lime omelette:

Startwith some shallots (any kind of onion will do, but I like shallots).Slice them finely, and saute them lightly until they become soft andtranslucent. Put them aside for later.

Cook several strips of bacon over low-medium heat until crisp. Break into bits. Put aside until later.

Grate some beemster cheese (any firm, sharp cheese will do, but I like beemster).

Zest one small lime.

Cook the omelette using the onion, bacon (bits), beemster and lime (zest) as filling.

Serve with cinnamon and nutmeg spiced coffee for breakfast Christmas morning.

Mmm.

Tags:recipe, onion, bacon, beemster, lime, omelette

I can't think of a title for this one. A little help?

2007-12-15T01:15:00.000-05:00

Here is my little addition to the obscure Venn Diagram internet culture:

Yellow = Christians
Orange = Fundamentalist Christians
Blue = Raving Lunatics
Purple = Kent Hovinid, Ken Hamm, and Mike Huckabee

Tags: Venn diagram, Christians, Fundamentalist Christians, Raving Lunatics, Kent Hovind, Ken Hamm, Mike Huckabee

Worse than Detroit

2007-12-06T11:46:00.000-05:00

   I have several new blog posts in my test journal that are just not quite ready for publication. Instead I'll offer you this quick little anecdote about daily life at Casa Little.

   The other day I returned from walking Shadow and he was still pretty rambunctious, so I went into the back yard with him to play a little. We started with him racing around the yard at top speed while I stood there doing nothing but saying, "boo!" whenver he came near, which would send him off on another mad dash around the dog house, through the garden, and back to me. Eventually, he got tired of my minimal participation. He rooted around in the snow until he found one of his favourite toys, and brought it over for a session of tug of war.
   At one point, he dropped the object of his devotion, and looked at me expectantly. Thinking he wanted me to throw it, I bent down to pick it up. Turns out he was only taunting me. As soon as I moved, he scooped it up, and swung it up into the air, striking me in the face with it.
   Yes, my dog busted me full in the mouth with the hammer-like, knotted end of an old, frozen sweat sock.

Two last things:

1) A semi-private message from my wife to Smarty. "Mmmm, mose are mery mood!"

2) Thirty-seven and a half bonus points to anyone who can tell me in what way the title of this entry is in any way related to the content.

Tags: apropos of nothing

A new angel

2007-12-02T16:47:00.002-05:00

We put up the Christmas tree today. As the wife was trimming it, she mentioned that we needed to get a new angel to put on top. As I recall, the conversation went something like this...

Paul: Can we get one that shoots lasers out of her eyes?

Paul's wife: Lasers? That wouldn't be very angelic.

Paul: Can we get one riding a shark?

Paul's wife: Get serious!

Paul: I am serious. I think an angel riding a shark with lasers shooting out of her eyes would be all kinds of awesome.

Tags: Christmas, angel, lasers, shark, all kinds of awesome

The difference between atheists and theists

2007-11-25T07:59:00.000-05:00

   Remember a couple of years ago, when the movie The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was coming out? Remember all the atheists trying to organize a boycott of the film in cinemas? Remember all the atheist parents sending letters to their school principals asking for the Narnia books to be pulled from the library shelves? No, you don't remember that?

Oh...

Well...

Maybe that's because it never happened.

   You see, atheists are not afraid of being exposed to ideas contrary to their own. Atheists do not try to shelter their children from media that might suggest points of view that differ from the one they hold. Atheists arrive at their opinions through the use of reason and logic, and are perfectly willing to allow their own children to arrive at their own conclusions the same way..even if those conclusions are different from their own. In fact, atheists actively encourage their children to explore many points of view in order to help them see the world as it is, not as we would have it be.

   That's the difference.

Tags: skepticism, religion, books, can burnings be far off?

A fifth of 100 movies

2007-11-21T00:07:00.000-05:00

   Here is the fifth set of ten of the 100 movies I really like, which, in case you're bad at math, brings us to the halfway point. Unlike Jaquandor, from whom I stole this meme, I have made no attempt to order or rank these in any way. In fact, I applied a random number generator to my initial list in order to ensure the movies appeared in no specific order. Yeah, I know, kinda geeky.
   Anyway, here are the first four segments of this list, in case anyone is interested:
      Part the first
      Part the second
      Part the third
      Part the fourth

The Sixth Sense - I watched this movie with my wife. I had heard the big spoiler about it. She had not. It was like we watched two different movies. It ceratinly made for an interesting discussion afterwards. Of course, then we had to watch it all over again, so she could see all the 'clues' I had picked up on, because I knew to look for them.

Shanghai Noon - Sure it's silly, but it's silly in a good way. Wilson and Chan play off each other quite well. Funny line: Chan's character is named Chon Wang. Wilson's character mishears it as "John Wayne," and tells him that's a terrible cowboy name, and he should change it... I guess you had to be there.

Memento - You can read about this movie all you want, but you won't really understand what people are saying about it unless you watch it. It is filmed in a non-linear fashion, with one storyline progressing forward and one progressing backward until they meet in an unexpected fashion. I really, really enjoyed this one, and highly recommend it.

The Iron Giant - "I Superman!" We saw this in the theater when it first came out. I think it was one of the first movies we took Matthew to see. He was quite young. We had no idea it was going to end the way it did. He cried for hours.

Ruthless People - Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater pretty much do the best they can here, but they are outshone by Danny Devito like the sun outshines the moon. The man was inspired in this film. I'm giggling here just thinking about it.

Monsters Inc. - Pixar again. 'Nuff said.

Ice Age - Pretty much my favourite thing about this movie was the short featuring the prehistoric squirrell going after the acorns. Follows the Pixar formula: well known comic actors voicing the characters, and top notch animation bring an excellent story to life.

Titan: AE - Holy cow! This is the animation edition of this list, I think. Titan:AE is notable because it is well done conventional animation in a CGI world. Excellent sound on this if you have a surround system.

Back to the Future - "One point twenty-one jigawatts? ONE POINT TWENTY-ONE JIGAWATTS!!??" Michael J. Fox was the big star at the time, but Christopher Lloyd carries this movie with his slightly loopy antics. Kramer owes just about every gag he ever did to Lloyd.

Bull Durham - I love the Crash Davis character portrayed by Kevin Costner in this film. He seems so real, so grounded, so at ease with himself. If I were Susan Sarandon, I'd have said, "oh, my!" as well.

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Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

Let's try this again, shall we?

2007-11-14T13:01:00.000-05:00

   So, I was casting about at the grocery store for vegetable ideas yesterday afternoon. I'm not much of a fan of vegetables, so I try to find new and different ways to prepare them that might actually, you know, have some flavour. I decided to try a carrot dish.
   Now, I didn't actually buy any carrots, or any other ingredients for the vegetable dish for that matter. I figured I had everything I needed at home. I picked up some Italian sausages and some portobello mushrooms to grill, though.
   When I got home, I realized that the carrots I had in the fridge were rather old and grungy, so I had to do something else. Luckily there were a couple of fresh zucchinis in there from the weekend. I had originally intended to just saute up some slivered carrots in lots of butter, onions and garlic, but when the recipe morphed over to courgettes, it kind of grew in the process. Here's what I did:

Spicy Thai (sort of) stir fried zucchini

Ingredients:
Zucchini (Duh!)
Shallots (or your choice of onion)
Garlic
Lime
Asian chili sauce or paste
maple syrup (if you don't have any maple syrup, any kind of sugar will probably do - I just like to substitute maple syrup everywhere sugar is called for because it tastes so damn good)
sesame oil
peanut oil

   I cut the zucchini in to sections about two inches long, cut those in half lengthwise, and then sliced them to get pieces that were rectangular (about 1x2 inches) instead of round. Just my own little ideosyncrasies about cooking; I dislike round slices. Never mind.

   Thinly slice shallots and garlic. In a pan, put a drizzle of sesame oil and a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil (if you're alergic, substitute your own light oil of choice). Heat the oil on medium-high until a drop of water sizzles then add the garlic and shallots. Stir fry for a few moments. Before the garlic and onions start to brown, add the zucchini. Stir fry until zucchini just starts to soften then reduce heat to medium-low. Stir together juice of half a lime, a little bit of chili sauce (to taste), and about a teaspoon of maple syrup. Pour over vegetables in pan and allow to simmer for a couple more minutes.
   Done! Plate and serve. Pat and I found it very yummy. Your milage may vary. Let me know.

   While you're eating, here's the Wikipedia article on zucchini. I found it fascinating.

Tags: food, recipes, spicy, Thai, zucchini

You lose

2007-11-13T23:03:00.000-05:00

Grrr! I was writing a post about a delicious dish I created for dinner tonight, and, through an inadvertant mouse click, I navigated away from my edit entry page. When I clicked 'back' I returned to an empty text box, and no amount of cajoling (read swearing) would bring my words back. Now I'm just too damn mad to rewrite what I had, so you all miss out on my yummy stir fried zucchini recipe. Unless I cool down enough, and the muse retakes my soul (gak).

:p

Tech support

2007-11-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

An actual telephone conversation I had today...

Paul: I'm having difficulty setting up my new wireless router.

Tech Support Person: May I have your e-mail address please.

Paul: My email address is plittle@aol.com.

TSP: And how do you have the router connected?

Paul: I have the computer connected to the router and the router connected to the Comtrend AOL DSL modem.

TSP: And what kind of modem is it?

Paul: Uh, it's a Comtrend AOL DSL modem.

TSP: And who is your ISP?

Paul: ...

Tags: tech support, incomprehensible, pulling my hair out

If I had a million dollars...

2007-11-01T09:11:00.000-04:00

The Wired blog, and Gizmodo have been watching a bit of drama unfold between the James Randi Educational Foundation, a high end audio cable company, and an audiophile magazine editor. For the JREF, it's business as usual. Hotshot shoots his mouth off. JREF accepts his application for the $1,000,000 dollar challenge. Hotshot discovers exactly what "proper observing conditions" means. Hotshot starts backpedalling, and trying to needlessly complicate his application. Hotshot withdraws from the challenge.
James Randi has seen this drama played out a thousand times, or more. But for many, it's all new. After watching the current "hotshot" play his hand, the Wired blog posted this article:

10 Tips For Dealing With James Randi: Claim Your Million Today!

A couple of pertinent excerpts:

• Don't lose your temper. Don't get into preliminary cockfighting. Randi is a master at delivering insults and responding to communications in such a way as to make you look foolish. Before test protocol negotiations have even begun, anything you say will already have been used against you. The Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge is as public a spectacle as there is, and the chances are that between you and him, only one of you has a half-century's experience as a professional showman.

• Don't forget what you're getting yourself into: boring, exhaustive testing by people who think you're full of shit. If you go into it thinking it's going to be a cute studio one-shot in front of Johnny Carson, imagine what happened to Uri Geller happening to you twenty times. If you can't pull off your trick/power/feat with statistically significant results outside of Randi's lair,going inside of it is simply idiotic.

My personal favourite, though, is the last point:

• Do have paranormal powers. In fact, fulfilling this one suggestion lets you ignore all the others, and all but guarantees the cash will be yours. What are you waiting for?

That last one underlines the holes in all the arguments Randi's detractors use. The simple truth is, if these people could actually do what they claimed, no more, just exactly what they claimed, then the one million dollar prize would have been won long ago.

Tags: skepticism, JREF, James Randi, one million dollar challenge

Break the silence!

2007-10-31T23:34:00.000-04:00

   Jaquandor did a Halloween Quiz Thing, so I will, too.

1. What is your favorite work of horror fiction?

   Not so much into Horror fiction. I've read most of Poe, and a little bit of Lovecraft, but none of it ever really did anything for me.

2. Who is your favorite monster?

   Gojira!

3. What horror movie gives you the most chills?

   See answer to number one. No real interest. Don't watch 'em.

4. Freddy versus Jason?

   And...?

5. Ghosts or goblins?

   Well, both, of course.

6. What is your scariest encounter with the paranormal?

   It frightens me every day thinking about how many people are so seriously deluded that they believe in all that stuff.

7. Do you believe in ghosts?

   Dontcha think it would have been smarter to ask me this question before that last one?

8. Favorite Halloween costume?

   Naughty French Maid...wait, did you mean for me to wear? Never mind.

9. If you had an unlimited budget, what would your fantasy costume be for this Halloween?

   A Ferrari Testarossa driver.

10. When was the last time you went trick or treating?

   Tonight. I took the dog for a walk after the kids thinned out a bit. Stopped by my neighbour's place to say hello. He was just getting ready to wrap it up, and counting up how many trick-or-treaters had come to his door. "Hey," he said to me, "if you say, 'trick or treat,' you'll be my one-hundredth." So I did. I got a Kit Kat.

11. What's your favorite Halloween candy?

   Rockets. Y'all call them Smarties, but we call them Rockets, because we have the real Smarties up here.

12. Tell us about a scary nightmare you had.

   Britney Spears had a new album out. What? That's real? God help us all!

13. What is your supernatural fear?

   I'm afraid that hucksters and scam artists will take advantage of my elderly mother-in-law.

14. What is your creepy-crawlie fear?

   Spiders. Big time.

15. Would you ever stay in a real haunted house overnight?

   As no such thing actually exists, this question has no meaning as stated. If you mean a house that is allegedly haunted, gladly. If you mean a house that is really haunted, provide me with some compelling evidence that such a thing exists and we'll talk.

16. Are you a traditionalist (just a face) Jack O'Lantern carver, or do you get really creative with your pumpkins?

   Pretty much a traditionalist. Not an artist, so I just hack out a rudimentary face and leave it at that. Got a bit creative this year. Carved a pumpkin that looked like this...

17. How much do you decorate your home for Halloween?

   A bit. Matt and I carved two Jack-o-lanterns. Pat put out some skull shaped lights, a cutout of a pumpkin-headed scarecrow, and a couple of witches in the window. My above mentioned neighbour had a half dozen jack-o-lanterns, ghosts and skeletons everywhere, and spooky music playing really loud from a concealed speaker.

18. Do you think Halloween is too commercial these days?

   Isn't everything?

Tags: memes, halloween

100 movies: the fourth episode

2007-10-18T23:00:00.000-04:00

Ten more from the list of 100 movies I really like.

The Untouchables - Sean Connery kicks butt and takes names. Dies in the end, as all good heroes should.

Predator - The Ahnold kicks alien butt. Never gets a name.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - About twenty minutes into this film during its initial theater run, Pat turned to me and said, "we are so getting this on DVD!" We watch it regularly. The second and third editions weren't quite up to the same level, but enjoyable none-the-less.

The Incredibles - Just another one of those hugely amusing Disney/Pixar movies. Disney knows which side its bread is buttered on. When Pixar announced it was going its own way, and no longer wanted any affiliation with Disney, Disney bought them. Take that, little upstart animation company!

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - The best of the Star Trek feature films. Yes, I know that's not saying much. Still..."Khaannnn!!!!"

The Fugitive - Most coolest action sequence in the movies. If you have any kind of sound system, you'll believe the train is really crashing through your living room. We were watching this movie when Pat went into labour. Plus, Tommy Lee Jones=cool.

Casino Royale - Not the original (which I have never seen), but the most recent episode in the James Bond saga...which is also the first story in the arc...but takes place entirely in the present day. No, don't think too hard about that one. Just rent it. Best.Bond.Evar!

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - Yeah, another guilty pleasure. Not really all that great a movie, but hits a chord with just about anyone who's ever been a repressed teen. We all wish we had Ferris' joie de vivre, and devil may care attitude. Too bad this film type-cast Matthew Broderick for the rest of his career.

Hang 'em High - Another one of Clint's old spaghetti western inspired films. This one contains one of my favourite all-time movie lines: "when you hang a man, you'd better look at him."

True Grit - What better way to let John Wayne go on at length than to give him a protege to instruct? Because, honestly, we all can't get enough of The Duke's western drawl.

<< previous ten next ten >>

Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

Homeopathic bullying exposed

2007-10-18T09:54:00.000-04:00

   In my recent traipsing through the skeptical blogosphere, I find that a blogger has recently been censored by his ISP after a legal threat. According to Skeptico (who got it from Orac), the blog The Quackometer, which monitors and reports on dubious, harmful and fraudulent medical practices, has had a post on Homeopathic medicine deleted after his ISP was threatened with legal action by the British organisation, The Society of Homeopaths.
   I''m jealous. My most recent post on Homeopathic "medicine" was taken down by AOL (with no warning, and no explanation I might add) after a complaint by one homeopath. The Quackometer was bullied by an entire society of homeopaths. I guess I still have a long way to go to reach the big time...

   If you'd like to see what all the fuss is about (and evidence that bullying really doesn't work all that well), you can find the offending blog post reproduced in full at Skeptico and several other skeptical blogs around the blogosphere.

Tags: skepticism, homeopathy, bullying, censorship

Advice?

2007-10-18T07:44:00.000-04:00

   I'm getting a little bit tired of AOL Hometown these days. For the last couple of months I've been getting bandwidth restriction messages, and little 'red x' icons on all of the images in my journal. I have no idea why, as the (what 25 or so?) readers of my journal can't possibly be pulling down enough bandwidth to pass any limit AOL might have set. Still, (former) Journals Editor Joe (we'll miss ye, laddie) warned me last month that I might not want to depend on AOL Hometown for very much longer. He wouldn't say why, but I got the impression there was some kind of change in the wind. I suspect AOL Hometown storage might go the way of the dodo in the foreseeable future. Joe suggested I move all my pictures to AOL Pictures, but I'm thinking I might go to another storage place altogether.
   So, to that end, I have downloaded every file in my AOL Hometown ftp space (just under 40 Megabytes worth) to a folder on my computer, and am currently looking for suggestion on where to put them. OK, so maybe that wasn't phrased very well. I'm looking for advice on what file storage service to use for the pictures I display on my journal. I'm open to any and all suggestions. What have you got for me?

   Speaking of (former) Journals Editor Joe (we'll miss ye, laddie), it occurs to me that one of the holes he leaves behind is an easy one to fill. For the last several months, Joe has been posting a regular Friday rundown of journal posts tagged with the Technorati tag 'blogplugs'. I've tagged a few entries that way, and have received a few new visitors from it, so there seems to be some value to it. I am willing to pick up that small portion of Joe's regular presence in J-Land on behalf of the community.
   Each week (barring a more official participant, like John Scalzi for instance), I will search out those AOL journal posts tagged with the Technorati tag 'blogplugs', and feature a representative listing on Fridays. Joe, your legacy shall live on!

(Edited Thursday, 10:17PM - The AOL Journals team has picked up the ball over at the Magic Smoke blog, and will be featuring Friday blogplugs there, as per usual, so my efforts in that arena are not needed. Continue to check out the Magic Smoke blog for AOL Journals updates.)

Tags: AOL Hometown, ftp storage, photos, blogplugs

A book meme from Dawn

2007-10-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

The common form of these lists seems to be italicise those that X, bold those that Y, and strike through those that Z. Dawn changed that for an italicised comment after each title, and I will follow that format because...well, no reason.

The books listed below are the top 105 books most often tagged as being unread by LibraryThing users (as of October 3rd). I have no idea what LibraryThing is. "Yes," means I've read it. "No," means I have not. Any other comments will, I hope, be self explanatory.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell (read and enjoyed)

Anna Karenina (no)
Crime and Punishment (no)
Catch-22 (no)
One hundred years of solitude (no)
Wuthering Heights (read)
The Silmarillion (read - honest, all the way through)
Life of Pi (no)
The Name of the Rose (yes)
Don Quixote (yes)

Moby Dick (no)
Ulysses (no)
Madame Bovary (no)
The Odyssey (parts)
Pride and Prejudice (no)
Jane Eyre (yes)
A Tale of Two Cities (first paragraph, then quit)
The Brothers Karamazov (no)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates ofhuman societies (no)
War and Peace (no)
Vanity Fair (no)
The Time Traveller’s Wife (no, but has been recommended)
The Iliad (pretty much)
The Blind Assassin (no)
The Kite Runner (no, but my wife raved over it)
Mrs. Dalloway (no)
Great Expectations (no)
American Gods (quite enjoyed it)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (never heard of it)
Atlas Shrugged (no - not really all that interested)
Reading Lolita in Tehran (no)
Memoirs of a Geisha (saw the movie - was unmoved)
Middlesex (no)
Quicksilver (not yet, but can't imagine going much longer without reading it)
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (no)
The Canterbury Tales (no, but I'm sure Pat has a copy of it around here somewhere - I probably should give it a shot)
The Historian (no)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man <FONTSIZE=2>(no)
Love in the Time of Cholera (no)
Brave New World (yes)
The Fountainhead (see above [Atlas Shrugged])
Foucault’s Pendulum (not yet - if I ever manage to finish The Island of the Day Before, this will be my next choice by Eco)
Middlemarch (no)
Frankenstein (no - was supposed to read it for a university course once - never did)

The Count of Monte Cristo (no)
Dracula (no)
A Clockwork Orange (no)
Anansi Boys (liked American Gods better, but yes)
The Once and Future King (yes, but not sure I ever finished it 100%)
The Grapes of Wrath (no)
The Poisonwood Bible (no)
1984 (yes)
Angels & Demons (yes, but regret it)
The Inferno (yes, both Dante's and Niven's version)
The Satanic Verses (no, but I'd like to)
Sense and Sensibility (no)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (no - can you believe it?)
Mansfield Park (no)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (no)
To the Lighthouse (no)
Tess of the Ubervilles (no)
Oliver Twist (no - bad, bad Paul)
Gulliver’s Travels (yes - the complete, unexpurgated version - very good)
Les Miserables (no)
The Corrections (no)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (no)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (no)
Dune (over and over and over again)
The Prince (no)
The Sound and the Fury (no)
Angela’s Ashes (no)
The God of Small Things (no)
Cryptonomicon (not yet, but almost certainly will one day)
Neverwhere (no)
A Confederacy of Dunces (no)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (no)
Dubliners (no)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (no)
Beloved (no)
Slaughterhouse-five (fabulous book - made a huge impression on me)
The Scarlet Letter (no)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Ah, yes, the disgruntled woman's book of cokmplaints about her man...)
The Mists of Avalon (yes, but not all that special - chick fantasy lit)
Oryx and Crake:a novel (no - maybe one day - just 'cause I feel obligated)
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed (recommended by a friend, but based on some of the other things he's recommended (homeopathy), probably not)
Cloud Atlas (no)
The Confusion (no)
Lolita (no)
Persuasion (no)
Northanger Abbey (no)
The Catcher in the Rye (yeah, back in high school - never really though it was all that)
On the Road (can't see it)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (no, but I should be reading these old classics, shouldn't I?)
Freakonomics (no)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance(I'd like to give this one a shot one day - just for fun)
The Aeneid (Again, pretty sure Pat has a copy here somewhere. But probably not ever)
Watership Down (no)
Gravity’s Rainbow (why does this sound so familiar? Google, google, google...ah, Pynchon - nope, not even remotely interested)
The Hobbit (many times - once out loud to my son)
In Cold Blood (no)
White Teeth (no)
Treasure Island (no)
David Copperfield (no)
The Three Musketeers (no)

Tags: memes, books

When the Mondegreens are better than the real thing...

2007-10-13T22:02:00.000-04:00

   I was going to write an entry about really cool album titles. The main one I was going to mention was Acts As Bold As Love, by Jimi Hendrix. That's a really cool album title, don't you agree? Unfortunately, that's not actually the title of the second album released by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
   A little bit of Googling for background information on the album revealed that the real title of Hendrix's sophmore release was Axis: Bold As Love. Not only is that nowhere near as cool as what I thought it was called, it doesn't even seem to speak to me at all. What the hell does 'Axis: Bold As Love' mean, anyway?

   So, I'm left with Paper at the Gates of Dawn, by Pink Floyd, and The Twelve Drums of Doctor Sardonicus, by Spirit. What's your pick for coolest album title ever?

Tags: cool album titles, mondegreens, oops

100 movies: part the third

2007-10-10T16:53:00.000-04:00

   Here you will find ten more from the list of one hundred movies I really like. This brings the total so far to thirty, with previous installments here, and here. Remember that these are listed in entirely random order, and are not ranked in any way.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Kind of a hokey premise, and I found the ending to be somewhat confusing, and lacking catharsis, but a very well made film. Richard Dreyfus was brilliantly cast as a man just trying to figure out what the hell is going on in his life.

Soylent Green - "Soylent Green is people!" This film enjoys an odd position in my movie liking mindset. I was going to say unique until I realized that it shares its place with another film. Both this movie, and the Clint Eastwood film, High Plains Drifter, are examples of films that I have seen multiple times - at least four or five times each - and really enjoyed, and yet to which I have never seen the ending. Sure, I quoted the climax of Soylent Green above, but I have never actually heard Charleton Heston utter the line. And I have never seen the town of Lago painted red. Something always comes up to pull me away from the TV before the close of each of these movies. Creepy, huh?

Little Miss Sunshine - I think we saw this because the movie we went to the theater to see was sold out. Way better than whatever the hell it was we missed. I laughed harder at this movie than at any other I can remember.

Highlander - "There can be only one!" Yeah, if only that had been true. You know how some sequels are better than their progenitors? Not in this case. And it's not like the bar had been set all that high. Highlander is one of those movies on this list I must refer to as a "guilty pleasure." Poorly conceived and executed at almost every level, it still managed to draw enough of a cult following to spawn three sequels (and, I understand, a fourth currently in production), two live action, and an animated TV series. And the only commentary I can make on that is, "why?" Still, despite it's hokey premise, silly acting, and piss poor production values, the Highlander DVD gets as much play as just about any other on my shelf.

Toy Story - Disney and Pixar hit a home run with this, the first of a series of animated films that have together grossed over four billion dollars at the box office. Yes, I know. I am a sad, strange, little man.

The Lion King - Classic Disney formula here. Young animal must come of age after the death of his or her parent. Always wins, always will.

Mrs. Doubtfire - I originally had Tootsie on this list, but removed it in favour of Mrs. Doubtfire. Tootsie was undoubtably the better film, but Mrs. Doubtfire was funnier. Robin Williams beats Dustin Hoffman in drag any day of the week. I bet you didn't think you'd ever read that sentence.

Gladiator - Ridley Scott will appear on this list several times. Russell Crowe? Not so much. This is a great movie that I haven't watched in far too long. Must get the DVD out again soon.

Blade Runner - See? Ridley Scott again. This film was widely panned when it came out, and did very poorly at the box office. Somewhere, it developed a bit of a cult status, and has now been rereleased to theaters a couple of times, and had the "Director's Cut" treatment DVD release. And now we hear that Scott has done a "Final Cut" of the film that will be released this year in celebration of the movie's 25th anniversary.
   And I still can't get that stupid Sam Spade narration out of my head when I watch the thing.

School of Rock - Total rocking fun. 'Nuff said.

<< previous ten                    next ten >>

Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

Biting my tongue

2007-10-09T21:15:00.000-04:00

   The other day I overheard Mr. Ho talking about Reiki. He is, according to himself, a Reiki practitioner. He was telling someone about how he had performed Reiki on an accquaintance of his, for some ailment or another, and that person had reported an improvement. But here's the thing: he did it over the phone.
   I swear I'm not making this up. He claims that he performed a therapeutic technique on someone over the phone. And that person reported improvement in their condition. That's just funny on so many levels.
   I could have pointed out that there is no scientific evidence that Reiki has any effect whatsoever, but I didn't. I could have pointed out that the claims made by practitioners of Reiki, and Therapeutic Touch Therapy, were effectively debunked recently by a nine year old girl in her elementary school science fair project, but I didn't. I bit my tongue. I said nothing. I walked away.

   And then, today, I overheard another conversation between Mr. Ho, and a co-worker. Seems he had performed Reiki again last night, on another friend. That friend, allegedly, had been suffering from back problems. According to Mr. Ho, after one half hour of Reiki (in person this time), the friend said her back felt much better.
   I could have pointed out that any person with a sore back, given a half an hour to lie down and do nothing but relax, would almost certainly report improvement in their back pain, but I didn't. I could have pointed out that heat is an effective treatment of back pain, and the laying on of hands transmits heat directly to the affected area, but I didn't. I bit my tongue. I said nothing. I walked away.

   What? He's my boss.

Tags: skepticism, reiki, therapeutic touch, bunk

Overheard at the barbershop

2007-09-30T21:23:00.000-04:00

Customer #1: (Quoting from a newspaper headline) "Why hockey is better than golf..."

Customer #2: "Why is hockey better than golf?"

Customer #3: "Isn't everything?"

(psst, I was customer number 3)

Tags: humour

100 movies: part the second

2007-09-25T23:08:00.000-04:00

   Here are numbers eleven through twenty in my list of 100 movies I really like. Remember these are not ranked in any way. In fact the order they appear has been determined by a random number generator. Here are the first ten, if you missed them.

Aladdin - In the resurgence of Disney animation that probably began with The Great Mouse Detective in 1986, hit its stride in 1989 with The Little Mermaid, and broke into a full out charge on our hearts and minds with The Lion King in 1994, an important step was made in 1992, with the release of Aladdin. The addition of Robin Williams to the cast meant the addition of hundreds of little jokes and references that no child could possibly understand. Not since their golden age that peaked in the late fifties/early sixties had a Disney movie appealed as much to the parents as it did to the children. The success of Aladdin led directly to films such as Toy Story, and The Incredibles.

Rain Man - Tom Cruise has been much maligned recently, with good reason, I might add. However, we can't ignore his body of work. Just looking at the list leaves one amazed at the success he has had. Obviously he's doing something right. I mean, Risky Business, Top Gun, The Color of Money, Cocktail, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, Days of Thunder, A Few Good Men... A Few Good Men. Damn, there's one that should be on this list and isn't. How did I forget that one? "You can't handle the truth!" What a great movie. Damn!
   Anyway, Rain Man was more about Dustin Hoffman than Tom Cruise, and it was a great, great film. Totally deserving. (Did you catch what I did there?)

Victor/Victoria - Julie Andrews. Need I say more? OK, James Garner. Oh, yeah, Gay Paree (and I do mean gay). Andrews sings. Robert Prethton prantheth. It'th fabulouth.

The Fifth Element - This is an odd looking film, and it takes multiple viewings to really understand what's going on, but it's worth it. Bruce Willis reprises his usual role of the ordinary guy caught up in an extraordinary situation. Call it John McLane in space. Also, Milla Jovovich!

Frailty - You probably haven't seenthis film. You probably wouldn't like this film. This is probably the most disturbing movie I have ever watched. It certainly isn't my idea of a fun Saturday night movie rental. If I hadn't won this DVD in an online contest, I would never have watched it. It just isn't my thing.
   Still, I'm glad I did. This is a very well made film directed by Bill Paxton, and starring Paxton, and Matthew McConaughey, and disturbing as it is, almost right from the start, I was completely unable to look away.

The Maltese Falcon - I've never thought this film deserved its reputation. It's not really all that good. By today's story telling standards it's rushed. Every line sounds to me like it was delivered too fast. But what do I know? Several sources list this as being one of the 100 best movies ever made (which, if you recall, is not what this list is about at all). It's here because I like how it defined a genre for the rest of time.

Star Wars - Has to be on any list made by someone even close to me in age. I first saw this when I was twelve years old, and it rocked my world. Looking at it with fresh eyes in light of the disaster that was the prequel trilogy, I can see its many failings. Nevertheless, I can (and do) watch it over and over again.

Castaway - More than anything else, the sound design of this movie drew me in. Yes, Hanks' performance was excellent. Yes, the direction was top notch, but the sound in this movie is intriguing. I like to go back and watch it again, just to hear new things.

The Bourne Identity - When this first came out, I worried how they would translate one of my favourite books onto the big screen. I needn't have been concerned. The basic premise of the book lends itself to a wide range of successful treatments, and the fact that the movie didn't really follow the plot of the book ended up not bothering me at all. And the momentum! I think this film defines the term.

The Legend of Bagger Vance - This is an oddity on my list. No big explosions. No one beating up bad guys. No multi-million dollar special effects budget. Just three great actors, a great story, and a director who has proven over the years that he really knows how to tell one. Two words I commonly use to describe this film: finely crafted.

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Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

Interview game

2007-09-24T16:40:00.000-04:00

   I'm so over my head here. Dawn did an 'interview' meme, and I volunteered to be interviewed by her. That was three weeks ago.
   I used to average twenty to twenty-five blog entries a month. In the last six months, I have averaged just under nine, and only six each in August and September (well, seven in September now). This being employed stuff is time consuming!

   Anyway, here's the deal. I volunteered for this at Dawn's blog, so she e-mailed me five questions. I answer them below. If you would like to be interviewed by me, say so in the comments section, and I'll e-mail you five questions, made up special, just for you.

1.   What is one thing about being a dad that totally surprised you and would you say that being a parent has made you a better person?

   One thing about being a dad that surprised me? That I don't suck at it. Has it made me a better person? Absolutely. I can't imagine it wouldn't. Sure, there are huge numbers of "deadbeat dads" out there, but the question wasn't about having fathered a child, it was about actually being a dad. At least that's the way I chose to read it. I suspect that, for most men, fatherhood is the first time they are forced to come to the realisation that they are not the center of the universe. That's a good thing.

2. You are given the power to travel back in time and remove one invention from existence without altering the course of the world's history in any dramatic way, except for events directly relating to that one invention being non-existent. What invention would you remove, why, and what would expect to be different?

I think I would have to say The Popeil Pocket Fisherman. The Pocket Fisherman was one of the first hugely successful "as seen on TeeVee" products, and spawned a television culture in which virtually everything we currently watch on TV is an infomercial - even those shows we don't recognise as such, are hawking something. Hopefully, by bidding goodbye to Ron Popeil, we can avoid having late night TV littered with Anthony Robbins, Kevin Trudeau, and "Hot Talk" phone line ads. Who am I kidding?

3. Starting the day after you post this, you can only eat or drink the 10 specific items that you list here in your blog, what are they?

Peanut butter
Home made bread
Steak
Mushrooms
Tomatoes
Eggs
Potatoes
Vanilla ice cream
Maple syrup
Beer

4.   Pat gets a fabulous job offer in the US at triple her current salary. What state do you hope it is most and why? Least and why?

   This is the first question I'm tackling, because it's the easiest to write something flip and nonsensical about. The rest of them are gonna make me think! What state do I hope itis least? Texas. Really, I'd want to avoid anywhere the temperature goes above 100º in the summer, so pretty much the southern half of the country is right out. But specifically Texas. Let's be honest, the whole bible belt is gonna be a problem for me. But Texas, oh Texas, has historically been the ego of the United States. They tried to secede, fer chicken's sake.
   I did some googling for this, and found some interesting stuff. You know how states have official symbols? Most of them have state flowers, and state animals, and state birds. Some of them have state minerals, or gemstones. A few of them have state songs and state colours. Did you know that Texas has an official state gemstone cut? Not just the gemstone (blue topaz), but the actual cut must be the "Lone Star cut" in order to be an official Texas jewel. And a state animal isn't enough for them. They have an official state insect, and official state reptile, and an official state mammal. And an official state small mammal. And an officialstate flying mammal. I'm not kidding. In addition to their official state flower, they have an official state tree, and an official state plant. They have an official state pepper. Yeah. If it ain't a jalapeno, it ain't a Texas pepper. They have an official state grass. Grass! These people are just far too full of themseslves.
   So Texas, if you've got any high paying jobs for experienced bankers, keep them to yourselves, OK? Actually, I hear Austin is nice. They apparently have quite a reasonable, secular community in Austin. But, then again, there's the whole summer heat thing.

   Now, Oregon, on the other hand, is a nice place to live (so I hear). It's not too hot, or too pretentious, like California. Nor is it too cold,and wet, and entirely boring as Washington. It's right in the middle, both literally and figuratively. It's not in the bible belt, so people aren't insane there. It doesn't border on Utah, which is always good. It's on a similar latitude as I am right now, so the climate would be similar, but somewhat moderated by the Pacific ocean. Neither quite as hot in the summer, nor quite as cold in the winter.
   The official state beverage is milk. Milk, for the love of pretzels! I like milk. I'll bet they have cookies, too. Oh, and their official state nickname? The Beaver State. Yeah, Oregon I could get used to.

5. You die, and find out you were wrong there is a God. Not only is there God, but you were honking wrong, and there are angels, demons, Lucifer, fires of hell, and fluffy white cloud heaven, and every bible story you thought was bunk - true. There is before you the literal version of all that you denied.

St. Peter is standing in front of the Gates of Heaven (pearly and all), Pat is there already and you can see her waiting for you (hey, I had to give you a little incentive), but you have to get past St. Peter who is looking a bit cross with you. St. Peter asks you to defend your atheism to him, while convincing him to let you pass.

"Pete! Buddy, pal, how the heck are you? Man, those are some nice wings. How do you keep them so white? And those teeth! Man, they're like pearls. Get it, pearly? Heh, heh."

   "So, listen, Pete - can I call you Pete? Listen, Pete, are you the guy they call "The Rock? Good on ya, mate! A shining example to all. Hey, you know what? I've got a question for you. Judas. Yeah, Judas, man. He's up here, right? I mean he's not down in the "other place" is he? C'mon, it was all part of the plan, right? You can't hold him responsible, can you? And the Jews, man. Can you get the big guy to send the Pope a message? Tell him to tell all the Catholics to lay off the Jews, OK? I mean, it's not like they had any choice in the matter, right? Omnipotent...that means "all powerful," right?"
   "So, anyway..what? Defend my unbelief? Naw, man, I'm just wasting time. I figure if I'm experiencing this hallucination, then I'm not completely dead yet. I'm just trying to stretch it out as long as I can, to give the doctors as much time as possible to save my life. To perform a "medical miracle" as it were (heh, heh). What, it's not a hallucination? Prove it. Tell me something I couldn't possibly know. Then send me back to find out if what you told me is true, or not. If I find out that you imparted to me knowledge that I had know way of knowing in advance, I'll take that as a sign this is all real, and I'll come on over to your side. If I find out that whatever you tell me right now is nonsense, or something based on knowledge I already have, then I'll knowit really is an hallucination. Sound OK, Pete? Pete? Buddy...?"

   Oh well. He turned tail and ran just like every other person confonted with a real world test of their superstition. No surprise here. I mean, it was my hallucination, right?

   Listen. Did anyone else notice how three of those five were doubled questions? I think that's cheating, Dawn. Also, the last one wasn't even a question. Sure, I assumed a question mark, and answered it anyway, but rest assured, if I interview you, there won't be any low shenanigans like that, OK?

Tags: memes, interview game

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: a review

2007-09-24T00:14:00.000-04:00

   Went and saw the latest Harry Potter movie with the family last night. Probably caught it on the last chance weekend before it leaves the theaters for good. Not to worry. It'll be out soon enough on video, and we'll add it to the rest of the Harry Potter DVDs on our shelf.

   My review? I really liked this movie. I had goosebumps from the opening scene, and alternated between sadness and delight throughout. The film really got across to me the weight Harry is carrying by now, and how it causes him to pull back from those who care about him.
   The darkening of the films continues with Order of the Phoenix, and director David Yates had a lot of fun using fascist imagery in his 1984esque depiction of the Ministry of Magic. I wasn't as enamoured of the ending of the film as I was by what had led up to it, but part of that had to do with the necessary pruning required to reduce the behemoth of a book it was down to a useful movie length. I was able to accept it, anyway.
   It was a shame we waited so long to see it, as it was the kind of a movie that calls for applause at the end. That, however, would have seemed silly in a theater containing all of thirteen people.

Tags: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, movie, review

A. Rant

2007-09-19T23:10:00.000-04:00

   I hate email forwards. They are the biggest waste of time on the Internet (and there's a heaping helping of time wasting material on the Internet). First, most of them are stupid. "Send this to twelve people and the Taco Bell dog will run across your computer screen." Did anyone ever actually believe that? If you did, then you're stupid. Second, most of them are lies. "This virus will erase the crucial 'sector zero' of your hard drive, then burn out your motherboard, empty your bank account, and have an affair with your wife." Give me a break. Third, most of them come from people who I don't even know. Why am I on your mailing list? Seriously, why? We aren't on a first name basis. We aren't even on a last name basis. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike you. I just don't know you.
   Now, don't go trying to remedy that last. If you've put my email address on your bulk forwarding list without first asking my permission to do so, I don't want to get to know you, because I only hang out with considerate, polite people. If I have ever received an unsolicited email from you, even though we've never met, then you're a rude pain in the ass, and I don't want to get to know you. Well, unless you're as stubborn as Andi, but that's too long a story for here.

   There's another category of bulk e-mail forwards that steam me more than any other: the religio-political rants. Did you really think that I, a centrist Canadian atheist, wanted to read the intolerant, Republican, Christian extremist, bigoted, hate mail you received? Well there's the problem isn't it? You didn't think. You never think. You just mindlessly click 'fwd' and send to: 'entire address book' and never think about what you are doing. Stop it! Just stop it. I don't want to get any more pages of stupidity from you.
   Even my best friends stopped sending me every forward they get. Oh, sure, I get a few, but usually they're somehow on topic for me. My friends have thought about it, and decided I might be interested. And usually they're right. That's why they're my friends.

   Here's the latest moronic screed to grace my inbox, followed by the reply I sent to the mindless forwarder.

Subj: This woman should run for president

Written by a housewife from New Jersey and sounds like it! This is one ticked off lady.

'Are we fighting a war onterror or aren'twe? Wasit or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001?

Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania?

Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?

And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was 'desecrated' when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?...Well, I don't. I don't care at all.

I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia ..

I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.

I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.

I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.

When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been hum iliated in what amounts to a college-hazing incident, rest assured: I don't care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank: I don't care.

When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed 'special' food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts: I don't care.

And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.' Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and-you guessed it-I don't care !!

If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your E-mail friends. Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior!

If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radica l Muslims happen here in our great Country! And may I add:

'Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem.' -- Ronald Reagan

I have another quote that I would like to add AND.......I hope you forward all this.

'If we ever forget that we're One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.' Also by.. Ronald Reagan

One last thought for the day:

In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the Anti-American sentiment and negativity, we should remember England 's Prime Minister Tony Blair's words during a recent interview. When asked by one of his Parliament members why he believes so much in America, he said: 'A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in... And how many want out.'

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
1. Jesus Christ
2. The American G. I.

One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO PASS THIS ON, AS MANY SEEM TO FORGET BOTH OF THEM.
AMEN!

Yeah, uh, I read this until I got to the phrase, "Iraqi terrorist." Then I stopped, because the Iraqis who are being killed in, where? oh Iraq, are not terrorists, but civilian non-combatants, or members of armed militia standing against foreign incursion on their own soil, much like the men and women who fought another war against a foreign power between 1763 and 1775. I understand the British considered the American revolutionary army terrorists as well.

Please stop perpetuating the myth that the war in Iraq has anything at all to do with the events of September 11, 2001. It doesn't. The group that crashed four commercial airplanes on 9/11/01, two of them into the World Trade Center towers, had absolutely no ties to Iraq. This much we know as fact. This much we also know as fact: your president, Mr. George W. Bush knew - unequivocally knew - beyond the shadow of a doubt , before he gave the order to invade Iraq, that they had no connection - of any kind - to the WTC incident, and that they had no "weapons of mass destruction" or in fact any significant military strength at all.

George Bush invaded a small, weak country, killing tens of thousands of innocent people, without provocation, and without any good reason, other than the fact that its leader had embarrassed his daddy. Maybe the woman in your missive should care a little bit more. Maybe the people of the United States should all care a little bit more.

Regards,

Paul Little

Tags: rant, email forwards, iraq, fake war on terror, George W. Bush, stop sending me stupid emails!

Weekend assignment

2007-09-15T23:25:00.000-04:00

Weekend Assignment #183: Make up a poll for people to play with. The poll can be on any subject you want -- it can be serious or funny or silly or whatever (although funny's always, you know. Funny). If you're not on AOL Journals or for some reasons you don't want to use AOL's poll function, there are other poll options for your blog; here's one, for example.

Ah, polls. I love polls. They're so seemingly scientific, while in fact being virtually useless as a means of gathering meaningful information. I believe the poll has at last found its most suitable home: the Internet. Consider this a short tutorial in the creation of Internet polls of great political and philosophical import.
The poll answers you offer your readers need not all be obviously on topic. In fact, it is common practice to include at least one non-sequiter option, ostensibly for comedic effect, but as will be explained, there is a very good reason for doing so. The following pol makes use of the most popular version of this feature: the 'pie' option.

Yeah, so it would have been a little more topical a couple of days ago. How about this one?

   This one uses the alternate 'Planet X' option, which may be included if a 'pie' selection is not desirable. The 'pie' and 'Planet X' options are an important part of any poll. They allow the voters a selection that says, "your poll does not address my feelings on this issue. In fact, I think you are an idiot." Failing to include one of those two options usually indicates a frighteningly bad case of takingmyselftooseriousitis. Or, sometimes it reveals a case of tryingtoartificiallyskewtheresultsosis.
   The above poll uses a less common double-non-sequiter system, in which one option is usually an in joke that very few people will recognise. The use of an in-joke non-sequiter in no way frees the user from including a 'pie' or 'Planet X' option. However, if as a pollster, one can invent another, more universal nonsense selection, one may feel free to use it in place of the others. 'Kitten' might be usable...unless the poll is about cats...or pets...or busty actresses.
   Avoid creating, and participating in polls in which there are only two options. Most will make use of a false dichotomy to attempt to lend credence to a particular position. Especially avoid any poll that asks for a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. It is almost certainly a form of a "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" question. Take, for example, this poll:

Does it matter how you answer that one? Not to me it doesn't. Herewith ends your short, introductory tutorial on Internet polls. Go forth and pollify.

Oh, yeah...

Extra credit: Have you ever participated in a political poll?

No.

Tags: memes, weekend assignment, polls

100 movies

2007-09-15T22:08:00.000-04:00

   Jaquandor, at Byzantium's Shores, inspired by Tosy and Cosh, whom I have never read, has taken on a bit of a 'meme project.' He intends, as do I, else I would not be writing these words, to list one hundred movies that he likes (well, I'll probably stick to movies that I like). Note that these are not necessarily my opinion of what are the best 100 films ever. I could probably make a list of 100 movies that are generally considered to be great films, that I haven't ever seen. They may not necessarily even be the best 100 films I have ever seen. They are just 100 movies that I have seen and really liked. At least two or three of them are, I will readily admit, bad movies...

I know you are, but what am I?

   When I first decided to do this (about halfway through reading Jaq's first ten), I thought it might be hard to come up with 100 movies that qualify. Having spent twenty minutes on Google I am now faced with the unenviable task of paring about twenty titles off my preliminary list.
   Jaq, and Tosy before him, numbered their lists, in reverse order; starting at 100 and working their way down to 1. Because I am not going to even try to rank these movies in any way, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to present them, in blocks of ten, with a little bit of commentary. In fact, I am going to number my rough list, from one to one hundred, and then use a random number generator to select what order they are presented in. Just because.
   OK, here we go...

THE AWV LIST OF 100 MOVIES I REALLY, REALLY LIKED

The first 10...

The Rock - Sean Connery, Nick Cage, a bunch of really big guns, and a yellow Ferrari. What's not to like?

The Last Temptation of Christ - It's a shame so many Christians condemned this film without ever actually having seen it. It's nothing like they said it was. If any of you Christians out there had a problem with this movie, I'd be interested in hearing what it was.

Stargate - Kurt Russell rocks! Always has, always will. How many men do you know who are banging Goldie Hawn? Huh? Yeah, I thought so. Suck it, Chuck Norris!
   Several years ago at a home theater seminar, the presenter used a scene from the movie Just The Ticket, in which Andy Garcia uses a Stargate LaserDisc as demo material to sell a big screen TV and surround sound stereo set. Comedy gold! The rest of it pretty much sucked, I understand. Still, I enjoyed the metaness of the demo within a demo.

The Transporter - Jason Statham kicks everybody's ass. Over and over again. About now you'll be beginning to detect something of a pattern in my selections, I think.

The Road Warrior - Pattern confirmed! Besides, there had to be at least one Mel movie on this list, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be Forever Young.

The Hunt For Red October - You might suspect you sense another pattern forming here... I will neither confirm nor deny the allegations. Have you seen this movie? They make a submarine jump out of the water fer chrissakes!

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Here lies proof of the random nature of this list. Had I been ranking these in any way, this would most likely have been number one, and the last movie I listed. The random number generator says I put it here. Not much to say here but the fact that Peter Jackson did a remarkable job with these films. The entire trilogy really belongs together as one movie, but being forced to break them up, this one is my favourite of the three.

This is Spinal Tap - Any old, dyed-in-the-wool rock 'n' roll fan has to love this movie. I'm a fan of all of Christopher Guest's oeuvre, but this one is the funniest to me, because I recognise myself in the absurdity of the rock 'n' roll posturing they lampoon. As mock documentaries go, this one goes to eleven.

Ghostbusters - Who you gonna call? Um...this'll come up again, as well. The only thing funnier than Murray, Ackroyd, and Ramis fighting the 'Stay Puft Marshmallow Man' is the fact the Ackroyd actually believes ghosts are real. "Nice thinking, Ray."

Beverly Hills Cop - Eddie at the top of his game...before his game got old. Nowadays, the best he can do is talk like an ass - I meandonkey.

   There you have it, the first ten films on the list of movies I really like. What are your thoughts?

                    next ten >>

Tags: memes, 100 movies, blogplugs

Check, 1, 2, 3... Check, check!

2007-09-05T21:52:00.000-04:00

This is an experimental post for the purposes of testing the poll feature of AOL Journals R13 install. Please vote if you are able.

Tags: AOL Journals, R13 install, polls, test, booyah!

"Bigger than Jesus"

2007-09-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

Much has been made over the revelation recently of Mother Teresa's private papers and correspondences that show her to have suffered a crisis of faith for most of the last fifty years of her life. The first commentary I read on the matter was on Friday, at Atheist Revolution, in a blog entry rather hyperbolically titled, "Mother Teresa an Atheist?"
It was a comment on that entry that first brought to my attention the phrase, "dark night of the soul," described by the commenter as "a time in the lives of saints where they don't "feel" the consolations of the faith. It is considered a trial and not an actual lack of faith. It forces the soul to rely upon the rational basis of the faith and not mere feelings and emotions which are fleeting and often deceptive." (We'll just leave aside the irony inherent in the use of the word 'rational' in that sentence for today.) In the next day's National Post newspaper, religious columnist Father Raymond J. DeSouza expanded on the idea in his article, "Mother Teresa's darkness."

It is a form of agonizing spiritual purification, in which the soul draws very close to God. Yet God is infinite, and infinitely beyond our finite senses, so He appears as nothingness -- hence the nada, nada, nada refrain of St. John of the Cross. It is not that God is nothing, but rather that infinity appears that way to the souls who see deepest. It is something like a powerful telescope; the greater its range, the more empty the heavens appear to be. It is only to those stuck on Earth that the skies seemed crowded with stars.

   This is, of course, spin doctoring of the highest order. It is the "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" mantra of the woo-woo community pushed to its most extreme. The fact that one cannot feel the presence of God, the theologians would have us believe, is proof that one has approached him more closely than the average person. Absence of evidence, they tell us, is, in fact, evidence of presence. And they say it with a straight face.
   I am in awe of their fortitude in the face of such silly rhetoric. Reading Father DeSouza's column, I find myself giggling upon discovering such statements as, "To be sure, she knew [the absence of God] as only those closest to God know it," and flat out guffawing over, "[n]ow we have discovered that her realism was borne of daily contact with God as He really is..." Um, absent?

   I wish to point out to Reverend DeSouza the point at which his argument completely fell apart for me. It was his use of the analogy of a large telescope looking at the sky. That analogy reveals that Father DeSouza, like so many of his colleagues, has willfully kept himself blind to the realities of our universe, and the science that reveals them, in order to protect his God Delusion.
   Ray (can I call you Ray?), when you train a powerful telescope on a small section of sky that, to the naked eye, appears devoid of stars, do you know what you see? You see more stars. And if you choose a small section of that small section, and zoom in again, do you know what you see?Uh huh, more stars. And you can perform the same exercise over and over again with the same result. Eventually, what you begin seeing are not individual stars, but crowded fields of galaxies, composed of billions of stars each. And when you zoom in on those, even more galaxies are revealed beyond them.
   This, Ray...Raymond...Father DeSouza, is the true nature of infinity. And it's far, far larger than any God you can imagine.

Tags: skepticism, religion, national post, mother teresa, hubble deep field

Last minute Weekend Assignment

2007-08-27T01:42:00.000-04:00

I'm sneaking this one in last minute. John's Weekend Assignment hasn't really spoken to me for a while, but I forced myself this week because it was an opportunity to be obnoxious, and I haven't done that for a week or so.

Weekend Assignment #180: Go to this bumper sticker generator, and create a bumper sticker. Then post it in your journal. The generator page gives you a number of options to play with, so you should be able to have fun with it. Naturally, keep it reasonably clean; I have to link to it, after all.

Extra Credit: How many bumper stickers does your car have in real life?

OK, so here's an obnoxious bumper sticker I'd like to see out there:

This one isn't obnoxious, but I'd love to have one:

And obnoxious again, maybe, but on a more traditional bumper stickerish topic:

Extra Credit: There are no bumper stickers on my car. There have never been any bumper stickers on any car I have ever owned. Even if I owned one of the above stickers, I wouldn't put it on my car.

Tags: memes, weekend assignment, bumper stickers

What though on hamely fare we dine...

2007-08-27T00:41:00.000-04:00

   It's one of those odd things you remember about someone without knowing why. Inconsequential in the bigger picture, and completely irrelevant to one's opinion of the person, just a funny little detail. In the case of my Grandmother, it's mushy peas.*
   She would take a can of peas that had already been sitting, sealed in their own juices, on the grocery store shelf for about a year and a half, and boil them for two to three hours until you weren't sure if they were really peas, or maybe a plate of left-over mashed potatoes she had forgotten to throw out three weeks ago. I always thought it was because she didn't know how to cook them properly. I mean, in our house we just took the bag of Green Giant peas out of the freezer, and put some into boiling water for exactly the time listed on the side of the package.** Was she not reading the directions?
   Today I read something that suggests her peas were coming out exactly the way she intended all those years ago. Apparently, she was just being English. Which is somewhat odd, because I always thought she was Scottish. Should I cancel the kilt I have on order?

* To be fair, I'm not sure if this is an authentic memory of my grandmother, or one I have appropriated from my mother after listening to her talk about her mother-in-law.

** Today, I'm more likely to eat peas raw, standing in the garden having just picked and shucked them. But that's about my other Grandparents...

Tags: family, memory, English, Scottish, mushy peas

Patrick's Saturday Six

2007-08-26T10:49:00.000-04:00

I participate in Patrick's Saturday Six meme only very occasionally. This week's set of questions piqued my interest, so here are my answers...

1. Considering all possible factors about a person that make us different, like age, appearance, religion, race, origin, sexual preference, etc., with 10 being the most prejudiced and 1 being the least, how do you think you would rate yourself?
2. You’re having a problem with a product or service and you call customer service. You are finally connected with someone who has a thick accent that sounds difficult to understand. What is the first thing that goes through your mind?
3. A co-worker you like tells you that his or her church is holding an “open house” and is encouraging people of other faiths to visit. You and your co-worker are of different faiths. How likely would you be to attend?
4. Take the quiz: Are you prejudiced?
5. You lose a big promotion to someone who you considered to be less qualified than you are, despite the fact that you are only going by instinct in making that determination. If your boss later pulls you aside and explains that because of a growing effort to promote diversity, the other person was selected over you. What would your first reaction likely be?
6. Your car breaks down in a neighborhood in which everyone is of a different race than you: are you more likely to be uncomfortable?

OK, those were the questions. Here are my answers:

1) I'm not sure I completely understand the wording of this question. I assume it is asking how prejudiced I think I am on a scale of one to ten, with one being the least prejudiced and ten being the most.
I'm not naive enough to think I'm not prejudiced at all. I don't want to be prejudiced, but I know I am to some extent. We all are. My first reaction to this question was to estimate my own level of prejudism at a two or a three. Then, recognising that we all have prejudices built into us by our upbringing that we may be blind to ourselves, I upgraded that to a three or a four.

2) "Why do they call it customer service when their employee is unable to communicate effectively with their customer?"

3) This question is different for me than for many. In my case, the co-worker and I would not be of different faiths. The co-worker is of a faith, and I am of no faith. I would absolutely not attend, but I don't consider that to be a prejudiced reaction. If he offered me free kidney dialysis, would you expect me to accept, just to be respectful?

4)

You Are Not Prejudiced

Not only are you color blind, but you're also ethnicity blind, gender blind, and sexual orientation blind.
You don't judge someone until you truly know them. And even then, you're probably reluctant to judge.
You try to treat everyone equally. Everyone has a fair chance with you.
Good job - there's not a prejudiced bone in your body.

Are You Prejudiced?

Look, the quiz has a higher opinion of me than I do.

5) I tell my boss that I feel sorry that the company will be less competetive in its marketplace because it has less capable people in key positions. Hiring a less qualified person based upon some kind of affirmative action plan may look good on the surface, but it isn't good business practice.

6) It depends on the neighbourhood. Now, that may well be a prejudiced statement. Unfortunately, it is also a realistic one.

Tags: memes, Saturday Six, prejudism

Ouch!

2007-08-20T00:17:00.000-04:00

   I have been cited for failure to exercise care and control in the operation of a folding utility knife. Mr. Ho says I'll have to take a corporate refresher course in safe handling and usage of pointy and sharp objects. He's joking. I think.

   That's seven stiches, if anyone's counting. Not including the internal ones you can't see. Here's the culprit.

   It happened so fast I didn't even get any blood on the blade. The doctor compared it to those scenes in the Samurai movies where people don't even know they're dead until the two halves of their body start sliding apart. I thought that was kind of a silly analogy, but I didn't say so. It's one of my little life rules. Don't make fun of your emergency room physician.
   So I'm on light duty at the Kwik-E-Mart. No heavy lifting for one full week. At least with my left hand.

Tags: injury, blogplugs

'Nuff said

2007-08-15T22:10:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when you find yourself without anything to say, the solution is to post an entry that doesn't require additional commentary. For example, tonight I was grocery shopping. At the checkout counter, nestled amongst the National Enquirers, and Women's Weeklys, and Celebrity Gossip rags, was this:

They say the most important factor in successful marketing is to know your market...

Tags: skepticism, humour, hyperbole

Pumpkin's meme

2007-08-12T01:30:00.000-04:00

   Pumpkin is Dawn's daughter. She made up her own meme. It's the current rage in J-land. Far be it from me to ignore a bandwagon. Herewith, find my responses to Pumpkin's meme.

1   What's your favorite movie???

   Definitely not 300. That freaking sucked. I'm serious, if you're standing in the video store, and you can't think of anything to rent, and your significant other comes up to you with 300 in his or her hand, and says, "what about this?" Take my advice. Just gouge your eyes out right there in the store. Use your fingernails, your car keys, whatever is to hand. It's a far, far better thing than watching that pitiful excuse for a movie.
   So, my favourite? Gotta be The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I know, that's three movies. So the first one, The Fellowship of the Ring. Yep, that's my fave.

2    What's your favorite color???

   Blue. I guess.

3    What's your favorite ice cream flavor???

   Rolo. Mmm, Rolo!

4    Where do you want to go on vacation??

   Australia.

5    What's your favorite animal???

   Black panther.

6    What's your favorite T.V. show???

   Hmmm, of all time, or currently on? Current, I'm guessing Pumpkin meant. So, Battlestar Galactica, followed closely by Heroes. Neither of which I get a chance to watch on a regular basis. ::pout::

7    What's your fav. drink???

   Right now it's a mixture of mango punch and cranberry cocktail. But I might get sick of that soon and go back to hard scotch on cold rocks.

8    What's your favorite flower???

   Marigolds. They keep the ants away from the tomatoes.

9    What's your favorite pet???

   Shadow. Duh!

10   What's your favorite book???

   It'snot a Harry Potter book. Sorry to disappoint you, Pumpkin. I usually answer this question with Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. Maybe you can read it when you get a few years older.

Tags: memes, pumpkin's meme

Now you're gettin' nasty

2007-07-31T23:53:00.000-04:00

   You've done it. You've gone and scared off Dan. And I was looking forward to reading his answers to these questions. So it's time to put an end to it.

Raven,
You and I have had this discussion before. This time, however, you made me laugh out loud. Why is it always the engineers? I don't understand why you think that just because you took a couple of mechanical engineering courses, you're suddenly able to converse intelligently on cutting edge theoretical astrophysics, or evolutionary developmental biology. You're not. Engineering isn't science. It's math. The two might momentarily brush each other's elbow in the fluid dynamics area, but other than that, they are not related.
Raven, your knowledge of science is about as extensive as my knowledge of motorcycle maintenance; and there's nothing Zen about either one of those. And girl, you do know how to wield an argument from personal incredulity! I've never seen so many, it must be this way because I cannot conceive of it being otherwise's stuffed into one argument before. Bad news: your conceptions of what the universe is like are just that; your conceptions. Nothing else. The more you speak, the more it becomes apparent that the two (your conceptions and the real world) bear little resemblance to each other. You should stop, because even Jennyp51 is embarrassed for you.

Jennyp51,
Of all those who have disagreed with me here, I have the most respect for you. You have attempted to engage in discussion without being preachy (for the most part). You also seem to want to have a somewhat intellectual interaction with your religion, and have attempted to do some research into some of the things we have discussed. It's not your fault that your primary sources are knowingly lying to you. This is one of my biggest pet peeves on this topic. The best-known Christian apologists out there, people like Dr. Dino, Kent Hovind, and Answers In Genesis' Ken Ham are liars. They are knowingly and wilfully spreading lies and half-truths about the science of The Bible. Last I checked they hadn't reduced the number of commandments to nine.
   When it comes to many of the old testament bible stories, like Noah's Ark, there are only two ways of dealing with them. Either one accepts that they are just stories (moral teachers have been using parables, fables, tales and stories to educate their tribes for thousands of years; why should The Bible be any different. One prominently featured character did it all the time, in fact), or one must believe that "with God, all things are possible" and that He has done impossible things and covered his tracks on many occasions, because it is impossible to reconcile the science to the book. Either the world really is 4.6 billion years old, or else God has deliberately attempted to fool us into thinking the world is 4.6 billion years old. There is no other option available to believe. Oh, wait. You could take Raven's position that all science and secular human understanding of the world is DEAD WRONG, and we are just typing to each other via this wondrous electronic medium because God arranged it, because we certainly couldn't have invented this stuff all by ourselves.

   So, I'm moving on to other things for a while. Y'all can keep chattin' it up in the comments, but I probably won't be paying much attention. I do thank you all for the impressive blip on my statcounter.

Raindogs howl for the century
A million dollars a stake
As you search for your demi-god
And you fake with a saint
There's no sex in your violence
There's no sex in your violence
Try to see it once my way
Everything zen
Everything zen

I don't think so
-Bush(x)

Tags: skepticism, atheism, religion, I don't believe that Elvis is dead

More on the same subject (is the horse dead yet?)

2007-07-29T00:17:00.000-04:00

   Wow! Eighty comments so far on the last three entries. I can't keep up. I'd love to respond to everybody, but I'd be typing for a week solid, and somehow I can't see Mr. and Mrs. Ho letting me take a week off to blog. I do want to cherry pick some comments to address, though.

Krissy,
   Thank you for the comment. The questions you ask are ones that I have never really addressed in detail, but should have. You are correct in stating that it is impossible for either of us to know for sure if God truly exists or not. The skeptical viewpoint is one of asking for evidence to support what seem like extraordinary or highly unlikely claims.
   Consider this example: You are walking along the street and come across a twenty dollar gold coin lying on the sidewalk outside a bank. "I wonder how that got here?" you ask out loud. Two people offer you possible explanations. The first says, "I work in the bank, and I know we recently received some of those coins that a customer had specially ordered in. I don't know if that customer has been here today, but it is possible that they were, and accidentally dropped one of the coins on their way out."
   The second person says, "well, it's common knowledge that leprechauns carry around gold coins, that they get from the pots they hide at the end of the rainbow. Obviously, a leprechaun has passed this way, and dropped the coin. If I were you, I'd put it back down, before he comes back looking for it. He might be mad."
   Now, without doing any further investigation, it is impossible to say for sure which one of those scenarios is true. Personally, I don't believe in leprechauns, but I don't *know* for sure that they do not exist. However, I can examine the available evidence. I have a credible source telling me that the coin resembles those made by the US mint, and that several of those coins are know to have been in the bank. On the other hand, no one, anywhere in the world has ever presented any compelling evidence suggesting that leprechauns really exist. No, I can't know that the second person is wrong, but unless that person can produce some actual evidence, does it make sense for me to believe option number one, or number two?
   In the eyes of an atheist, the likelihood that God exists is about the same as the likelihood that a leprechaun exists. I cannot discount the possiblity, but absent any actual evidence, I have to stand on the "nay" side. I am willing to examine any evidence presented, but to date, no one has been able to do so.

(Simon,
   That answer to Krissy also touches on a comment of yours. My position is one of skepticism. That position has me defaulting to a naturalistic world view, and requiring evidence from anyone who claims to espouse a supernatural world view. I gotta say, though, that whichever early religious thinker came up with the whole 'faith is required, God will not be tested' schtick, he was a genius. He gave the perfect out to every single believer in God to follow. Evidence will not be forthcoming. That's just not the way God rolls.)

   I always get a chuckle when someone asks how human bodies could be so perfectly formed without a God. Because they really aren't very well formed at all. There are several things about the human body that work poorly, or could easily be improved upon. The human knee, for example, is suprisingly poorly designed for the task it has to do. Engineers could improve on it easily. And the appendix. What's up with that? Let me ask you a question. If you were God, designing your ultimate creation, would you put in an organ that doesn't actually do anything, that your creation could live without and never miss, and that is likely to explode and kill him completely at random? Does that sound like good design to you?
   These things do, however, make perfect sense in the light of evolutionary theory. Our knees are exactly what one would expect to see in a biped who had only recently evolved above quadropedal locomotion. And our appendix strongly resembles an organ in the gastro-intestinal tract of ruminants, that helps them digest all the grass they eat. As humans no longer eat a diet of primarily cellulose, we no longer need to use that organ, and so it has atrophied and become vestigal.
   Can all this just be chance occurence? Well, no. It can't. But evolution is not a random process. It is directed by the pressure of "natural selection." It is, in fact, very strongly non-random.

   I kind of lost you when you started your second comment, Krissy. I don't consider Jesus to have been a BIG LIAR. In fact, it was always my understanding of scripture that he never actually came out and called himself the son of God.He alwayscalled himself "the son of Man." As for how he could have affected so many lives, and how his impact could still be felt so many years later, one might ask the same questions about many historical figures. How about Hitler? How about Mohammed? Surely, as a Catholic, you do not believe Mohammed was a true prophet of God, yet he took an established religion (Islaam) and competely overhauled it to the point that it no longer even remotely resembles what it began as. Jesus did no more or less.
   Why would twelve men - indeed thousands more since - be willing to be tortured and killed for one man? I don't know.Why would 19 men be willing to kill themselves and thousands of others for one man on September 11, 2001? I still don't know. But it happens.

   After that, you just got preachy. All that stuff about a God shaped hole in my heart? Sorry, Krissy, but there isn't anything like that there. My heart is full, of my son and my wife, of my family and my friends. It is the perfect shape for that. I feel no emptiness or need for a God. You must have been talking about yourself.

~~**~~ ~~**~~ ~~**~~ ~~**~~ ~~**~~ ~~**~~ ~~**~~

Jenny,
You’ve picked up on the Noah's Ark debate with Alec and Brent. Yes, there have been some people who have done some work that they claim shows a feasible ark design. The best known of these is John Woodmorappe (A.K.A. Jan Peczkis, an Illinois high school teacher). Woodmorappe claimed that the ark, as described in The Bible, could have held the animals it was claimed to. There are, however, some problems with his work.
   First of all, his interpretation of the biblical description of the animals as being "two of every kind" is questionable. You may know that animals are classified by science in a ladder format, the last three (or most specific) rungs being 'family,' 'genus,' and 'species.' Most people, when they think of the biblical ark story naturally assume that the "kinds" of animals that were housed in pairs onboard were all the different species of animals on Earth. Not so, says Woodmorappe. There are too many species, and a boat big enough to hold them all could not physically be built. It would not float. However, he reasoned, if one were to count only the different genera of animals, it might work. So the "kinds" were not species but genera, and the calculations show that the ark, once packed with all the animals, and all the food they'd need, would be about 90% full. Which is all well and good, providing nobody moves, or has to go to the bathroom.
   Oh, wait. When questioned further, Woodmorappe admitted that his calculations depended on most of the larger animals (bigger than say, twenty pounds) being juvenile species. OK. Sure. But what about this "kind" thing? I mean, there are four or five different species of Ibex. I can see that maybe Noah took just one example. How about the Markhor, or the Caucasian Tur? The common goat? Well, all the above named animals are of the genera capra, so only one pair from among them all would be on the ark.
   Certainly, the ark contained a horse. And a donkey. Probably a zebra, too. But wait. All three of those belong to the same group. Pick one to go on the ark. The others two weren't there. There was a pair of foxes, a pair of coyotes, a pair of wolves. Did Noah have a dog? But those four are all of the genus canis, so three of them have to be left off according to Woodmorappe. Does that make any sense to you?
   So what we have is Noah, with a boatload of baby animals representing about one third of all the animal species in the world. That's not how I remember the story. And there's more. Woodmorappe completely ignored the invertebrate kingdom of animals. A group that includes over 97% of all the world's animal species. If Woodmorappe were right, there wouldn't be any insects of any kind today. They'd have all died in the flood, for there was not room for them on the ark.

   Now, as if all that wasn't bad enough...the guy got his math wrong. He made a fundamental error in his calculations of the volume of the ark taken up by animals. Even with his tight restrictions, it would have been completely impossible to fit the animals on the ark, if it was the size that was described in The Bible.

   I have included the above arguments because you were already discussing them. However, they are not the most compelling arguments against the flood story being literally true. Not even close. The biggest problem facing ark supporters is thefact that science can demonstrate, pretty darn conclusively, that there was never a universal flood. There has never been a time - at least in the last several million years - when the entire surface of the Earth was covered with water. It never happened. It's just a story.
   It's a good story. A rip-roaring tale. But a story none the less.

Tags: skepticism, religion, atheism, holy debate forum Batman!

Answers, expansions, and clarifications

2007-07-27T00:19:00.000-04:00

   There have been some really great comments made on the last entry I posted, wherein I answered some common questions posed by the religious to the irreligious. I wanted to reply to some of them, and to expand on some of my answers in response to requests by a few people.

Dan,
   Thanks for the compliment re: the "is sobriety an addiction" line. When I wrote my first draft of those answers I had the old "if atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby" adage penciled in, but I have never really liked that statement's use of the word 'not.' I preferred to make a more actively positive statement, and after a little thought I hit upon that. I'm glad you like it. Use it unattributed and your ass is grass.
   Regarding my answer about the world being better off (or not) without religion, I have to point out that there have been dark periods in the history of the western world. There have been times when the church has acted as a guardian of knowledge against a rising tide of barbarism. I believe it was called 'the dark ages.' During the long crawl out of that pit of chaos that peaked in the rennaissance, the church acted as a driving force in both education and scientific inquiry. There have been periods in our relatively recent history when the only people who knew how to read and write were the priests and monks of the Christian church. People who wanted their children to get an education, sent them to the seminary, or to live in an abbey somewhere.
   At some point that all changed. I suspect the tipping point was the increasing politicisation of the Catholic church during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. The whole inerrancy of The Bible idea was set in stone at about that time, and we all know what happens to things set in stone. They stay put. For centuries.

Simon,
   Ours is a corporeal existence. "Ugly bags of mostly water," we are little else. I touched upon this in two different answers yesterday, but only in passing, and not explicitly. When we die, that thing which we percieve as "us" ceases to exist. We have no non-corporeal segment of ourselves. No part of our consciousness survives our bodily death. This I believe. When I die, "I" will be completely gone, except in the hearts and minds of those who remember me. So it goes. (I was going to tap your chestwith a glowing finger and whisper, "I'll be right here," but I thought that would be over dramatic.)

Jenny,
   Did you have no exposure to religion in your childhood? Did you never attend church with your parents, or grandparents, or the Girl Scouts? Were you completely absent any kind of belief in God before you "met the living Jesus?" Somehow I doubt it. (By the way, what's this Jesus guy like? Tall, short? What colour are his eyes? Is he clean shaven or does he sport a little soul patch? What colour is his hair? What was he wearing? What does his voice sound like? I know you think these questions are flippant, but I ask them in all seriousness.)
   I have to say I found your resources interesting. I also found your angle of approach fascinating. When you talked about evidence supporting The Bible, I naturally assumed you meant evidence supporting what The Bible is about - the existence of God. I didn't think you meant evidence supporting the accuracy of what is essentially background information.
   I have never questioned the historical accurracy of The Bible. I'm sure some of the personages and events described therein are highly fictionalized. I also accept that a great many of the people and places mentioned actually existed. But this is all beside the point. The fact that archeological evidence supports much of the historical background of The Bible in no way supports its prime claim - that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being directing our lives. Where is your evidence supporting that?
   Your comments also bring to the fore one of my biggest pet peeves: the intellectual dishonesty of religious apologetics. Those websites to which you provided links are lying to you. Sure, every single piece of information they provided is factual. Their falshood is one of ommission. By presenting a list of things in The Bible that can be shown to be accurate, or 'true' if you like, they are, without ever saying so, implying that the rest of The Bible is true as well. Even though they know this is not the case, when they are called on it, they can feign innocence by saying, "we never said everything was true." They are lying just as surely as those who claim there is strong evidence to suggest humans and dinosaurs coexisted.
   Regarding myth. Many mythologies have factual elements. In fact, adding factual elements to a story to lend it an air of "verisimilitude" is an age-old literary technique. For example...
fact: A fellow named Yeshua (Jesus) was executed by the Romans by means of crucifixion during the early first century.
myth: He rose from the dead three days later and walked around showing people the holes in his hands, feet, and side, then bodily ascended into the sky.
fact: The Israelites conquered, sacked and demolished the city of Jericho with a mighty military force.
myth: They blew their horns and the walls all came spotaneously tumbling down.

Tags: more, skepticism, religion, atheism, answers, and stuff