Category Archives: The World at Large

Random thoughts on a sick day

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Roan and I are at home today, as the Pink Eyed Monster has struck. I may have it, not sure. I don’t see red, Stacey does.

But Ro is getting over it, so home we are.

He’s watching an old Micky Mouse cartoon, back from when they used actual ink. It’s an episode where Minnie Mouse is trying out first aid on Pluto and a cat.

The odd thing is, when she looks in her first aid book for reference on how to bandage an eye, the subject in the picture is a human being.

I hadn’t even realized there were human beings in this alternate Mickeyverse.

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Does anyone else’s handwriting vary wildly depending on mood? Seriously, my handwriting is all over the map. Any one of the various styles is recognizable as mine, usually, but there is a wide variety between the modes of writing… I think I have multiple handwriting personality disorder.

To write consistently, even on the same page, or through a single sentence, takes an enormous amount of concentration for me. Almost like I’m drawing the sentence instead of writing it.

Handwriting analysis is about the only far-out thing I believe in, sort of. I think handwriting tells you something about a person, I just haven’t a clue what. Whenever I see two similar samples of handwriting from two different people, I always wonder what it is that links those two together. Is it just the handwriting, or is there some fundamental aspect of their person that is similar? Dunno.

Even more bewildering are people who’s handwriting is bizarrely consistent, almost like they write in a font. I don’t know what it says about the person, but I find it humbling, like I’m in the presence of a great artist.

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Last night, I had some modest success duplicating a grilled scallion (cebollitas) recipe I’ve had in a mexican restaurant in New Orleans. My friend Josh, who is back in New Orleans, went to the restaurant for me and grilled them (no pun intended) on the recipe. It’s simple, deceptively simple: toss scallions in oil and salt, grill for 3-4 minutes each side, then toss with lime juice, serve.

I had thought there was vinegar involved, which led me down the wrong path for years. Plus, I was adding lime juice before grilling.

Live and learn.

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After lunch, we’re going to tackle a boatload of errands, so if you notice people at the Comcast payment center, Lowes, Krogers, and Best Buy looking like they recently got pink eye from a young child… well, I’m sure I don’t know how that happened.

Liberal Media, indeed

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Columnist Coulter in hot water over voting

Stuff like this annoys me. It’s what gives ammunition to folks that say the media is left-leaning. Not the article itself, which is valid, but randomly, at the bottom of the article, is this sentence:

The right-wing commentator also authored a book that said some September 11 widows were “enjoying their husbands’ deaths.”

Why on earth is this in the article? It’s as if to say “And here’s another reason you shouldn’t like Ann Coulter.”

Meritocracy

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I’ve never been a Boy Scout in the literal sense of the word (though I have been referred to as a Boy Scout in the derogative, goody-goody sense). But I clicked through to this article on Wikipedia about discontinued merit badges.

The most amusing, to my mind:

* Stalker 1910-1911 (replaced by Stalking)
* Stalking 1911-1952 (replaced Stalker)

I’m sure that means something else, but it looks funny. Plus, I’ve noticed that the quality of stalkers has fallen off since 1952. And this despite the technology has only gotten better!

And why are the following no longer badges, anyway?

* Blacksmithing 1911-1952
* Carpentry 1911-1952
* Civics 1911-1946
* Consumer Buying 1975-1995
* Interpreting 1911-1952
* Invention 1911-1917
* Masonry 1911-1995
* Master-At-Arms 1910-1911
* Pigeon Raising 1933-1980
* Printing/Communication 1982-1987
* Rabbit Raising 1943-1993
* Wood Turning 1930-1952

Pigeon and Rabbit raising was probably discontinued because they learned the animals got on quite well by themselves, thank you very much.

And they cancelled the Consumer Buying in 1995? No wonder the stock market ran out of steam just a few years later.

It seems 1952 was a dark year for merit badges.

Photogenic

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Back when we lived in the loft, we had great natural lighting, and I could
easily take pictures like this:

But in the new house, there simply isn’t a lot of natural light coming in,
and I take pictures like this:

So, I’m idly looking for inexpensive photography lighting options. I’ve
seen some 100 watts/second monolight kits from B&H Photo Video online for
around $150. Of course, one can quickly drift up into the thousands of
dollars to burn like the sun.

Do any photography buffs out there know how much oomf one needs in strobe
flashes to be able to take nicely lit hobby “portrait” shots?

Happy Newtonmas! and De-evolution

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I’m really terribly excited about Newtonmas or Gravmas. I had never heard of it until I looked up Christmas on Wikipedia.

Newton’s birthday is December 25 (though if you adjust the calendar to the current Gregorian, it’s actually January 4… but hey, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25 either…).

The Newtonmas tree is an apple tree (because of the apple that led him to gravitational theory), and presents are supposed to be gifts of Knowledge, like books or DVDs, as long as it contributes to intellectual development.

Everybody sing! Iiiiiiisaac Newton’s coming to town! Iiiiiisaac Newton’s coming to town!…

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The De-evolution of The Answer to “What Happened To Your Hand?”

Telling 1: “I was pulling a water glass off the shelf when it slipped and fell. Instinctively, I reached to catch it right as it hit the countertop, but instead rammed my hand into a huge glass shard. Put a big gash in my hand from between the index finger and thumb all the way around my thumb. Blood everywhere. Pretty nasty.”

Telling 23: “I dropped a glass and cut my hand trying to catch it.”

Telling 43: “Nothing.”

OCD moments

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So I’m driving to pick up ‘s laptop, which just had a fan so clogged with dust that it wouldn’t spin.

I’m sitting at a red light behind a big SUV which has dried mud-dust on it. But on the rear hatch, amidst the caked mud, there is a clean spot in the perfect shape of a heart. It looks like there was a heart shaped bumper sticker or something on the car, it got dirty, and then someone pulled off the sticker.

And my question is… why?

Why did someone choose to remove this heart shaped sticker?
Why was it there in the first place, if they didn’t want it?
If they were trying to make the car look nicer, why didn’t they clean off the mud?
Or are they driving to a car wash to get the mud off?
Did the kids stick it on, against the parents’ wishes?
Did some anti-SUVer stick a “love mother earth” sticker on the SUV?
Perhaps the mud was there before the sticker, and the mud prevented the sticker from staying on, but pulled the mud off when it fell?

It bothered me all the way to CompUSA.

This morning as I was taking a shower I tried to sort out a jumble of scenes in my head and attribute them to either Scout’s Honor or On The Right Track, both Gary Coleman movies from the early 80s, both about a plucky orphaned black kid who turns some white people’s worlds on their ears.

Back to reality…

Torontoin’

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So I’m in Toronto.

I’m in a meeting room at our Toronto office. There are 12 guys, some from Atlanta, USA, some from Toronto, Canada, some from Reynosa, Mexico. Very NAFTA. We’re training each other on the various aspects of the product we’ll be releasing over the next few months.

For the first time, I had trouble going through customs. I used to carry my passport in my back pocket, but one time last year I left it in my jeans when I got home and it went through the wash. It wasn’t too bad, to my mind. The cover was gone and the pages were a bit wrinkled, but nothing was smudged. The picture is as bad as ever.

So when I showed it at the ticket counter, the agent held it up between two pinched fingers like it was a dead fish and said “was this… a passport at one time?” I said, yup, it’s been washed. He shook his head and gave me my ticket.

When I showed it to the person who checks your ID before the metal screeners, she held it up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “this is your ID?” I said, yup, it’s been washed. She shook her head and let me through.

When I got to Toronto, the customs agent held it up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “is this a passport?” I said yup, it’s been washed. He shook his head and directed me to immigrations.

Going to immigrations is the worst punishment they can dole out. Because it takes a long time. I was in line about a half an hour. And when I got to the agent, she held the passport up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “this… is not a passport.” I said, “Yup, it is. It’s been washed.” She looked me in the eye and said “This is an insult to the government that issued it. This is unacceptable.”

What I didn’t say was “my government is an insult to me, so we’re even.”

What I also didn’t say was “hey, at least it’s clean.”

The third thing I didn’t say is “bite me.”

Apparently, it WAS acceptable, because she let me into the country, after handing me a “tell us how we’re doing!” comment card.

I’m going to send the card in saying “Your agents let me in even though I was using a dead fish as ID.”

A Modest Proposal

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I was thinking about what and commented about why the government withholds our earnings to pay taxes for us.

said
“I think the IRS started withholding because people would not be able to pay their taxes if they just got a bill at the end of the year.”

said
“It’s something about our “gotta-have-it-now” American consumer mentality. If we don’t have our taxes systematically deducted from our paychecks, we’d blow all of that money on frivolous things during the year (NOT living Foolishly!) Also, we like the idea of getting a big check back at the end of the year because it’s like Christmas in April. I know it’s wrong, but that’s just the way we’re programed in this society.”

I agree with both of them, of course.

But what if there were a middle ground?

What if we set up the equivalent of a mandatory 401(k) or IRA for taxes? Every paycheck, the amount they usually withhold for taxes would be put into a tax-deferred account that we couldn’t withdraw from, but we could earn interest on, or perhaps even invest in stocks, bonds, etc? The stocks and bonds would probably be a bad idea since the time horizon is so short (1 year at most). But at least money market or CD interest could be garnered.

At tax time, the money gets transferred to the IRS, and then it works like normal. If you’ve got too much, you get some back. Too little, write a check.

Bingo. No shopping sprees that leave you hanging around tax time, but no zero-interest loans to the gov’t.

I’m giving Kerry a call right now.