Introversion

Joan is a self-confessed introvert:

I like to be by myself most of the time. I like sitting in a quiet room and writing. I don't mind going to the movies or a concert alone. I never have.

The problem is that when she does these activities she often attracts nutjobs.

I'm an introvert as well. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone. I like sitting in a room and watching TV or reading a book. Recently Amybear has been around a little more and we've had a surprisingly good time as well. She's an introvert too and we can generally do introverted things together without any kind of pretense towards having to entertain each other. We can just be. I like that.

Still, I don't really enjoy going out and doing group things by myself. I don't particularly like going to movies alone, although I will do it. I hate going to concerts and eating out alone. It just makes me feel pathetic. Plus concerts, theatre, etc are supposed to be group experiences. Going alone makes me feel cut off from the rest of the audience. It's psychological, but heh everyone has to have a quirk.

Fortunately I don't have her problems with nuts because despite my teddy bear interior I don't tend to look very friendly to others.

Words to Live By

One of my esteemed co-workers was just roasted into his retirement. To mark this occasion, I give you Jack's words of wisdom as you grow older:

1. Never pass up a urinal.
2. Never trust a fart.
3. Never waste an erection.

Laptop Car Cradle

My mothers side of the family lives in Connecticut and we go up there fairly frequently. This usually entails piling my parents, brother, and I into a car after everyone gets home from work and making the substantial drive up there in the dark.

The problem with this is that generally my brother and I read on trips to keep us busy. Its hard to read in the dark without giving your eyes serious issues. So instead we have taken to folding down one of the middle seats in the minivan, strapping my laptop to it via a circuitous use of the seat belt, and watching DVDs.

Something like this might be a better alternative. It lets you hang a laptop from the front seats of the car for just this purpose. Seems like a good idea to me.

All God Bloggers are Baptists

So says Joe Carter. Well obviously I am, but from whence does this statement spring?

There is no synod, presbytery, diocese, or other ecclesiastical council that oversees Godblogs. Essentially, we are all Baptists. We set up our blogs, either individually or as a group, and begin to express our theological opinions, all without oversight from a higher level polity. We may choose to congregate together (what is the GodBlogCon but the blogging equivalent of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention?) but our little para-churches are answerable to no higher human authority.

He is right to a certain extent. I think the reason for this is that blogs are inherently personal forms of expression. Mine is no more a ministry than a discussion over the water cooler at work is a ministry. Blogs may be an extension of the Church as the body of all believers, but they aren't generally an extension of a church who meets in a building downtown.

Boxed out of the Box Office

Michael Medved, who I loved on Sneak Previews, has a reason why Hollywood is having a rough year: the morals of your movies suck. McQ at QandO doesn't dispute this, but comes to a simpler more free-market conclusion: your movies just suck. He notes that about half the A-list movies coming out this summer are remakes of Movies or TV shows.

Medved has a point. I am royally sick of both the power/money-hungry industrialist and the neo-fascist right-wing politico as villians. Just for once I'd like to see a villian that isn't a white male for a change. This is especially the case with children's films. Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold movie was basically about the neighborhood kids banding together to prevent urban renewal. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron didn't have a single good white guy.

But more importantly, movies in general are crap. I wonder how much the decline of talent in the publishing industry is affecting things. When paper prices skyrocketed in the late 1980s, publishers often neglected the development of new talent in order to milk the big names that they knew would still make money at the higher prices. Now the old talent is petering out and they have nowhere to turn. I can't help but wonder if the internet might be a solution to their problems via a digital distribution medium.

But I've digressed. Remakes are fine and dandy, especially if they fix problems in the original, but there used to be an old saying in Hollywood: you don't remake the good films. While War of the Worlds was great, just slapping new effects and faces on old stories generally doesn't do much for me. And many of the "original" films are just Michael Bey style retreads of the same action genre. At the end the hero beats the villian in a climactic battle in the Old Abandoned Flame Factory, roll credits.

I also can't help but wonder if DVDs and the increase in home theatre ownership isn't contributing to the downward trend as well. Taking Amybear to a movie costs $16 when I could wait and buy most of these movies for $10 in a year. If I invest in a decent sound system I might be saving money in under a year, especially considering I can rent for slightly less than I can buy.

Of course none of this whining on my part is going to keep me from seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Amy this weekend.

Over There: Iraq's ER

Over There is a new war drama on FX based on what is on in Iraq. I've been skeptical about this show for quite a while. Partly this is because I think it is too soon for a fair treatment of the subject. Emotional and political objectivity about the war will require time. Mostly it is because the people who are heralding the series are Newsweek and the New York Times. In short they are the people who I trust the least to get the story right.

Most Iraqi war vets think it is a bad combination of overly-sensational and poorly-researched. Many of the early shows are non-stop combat, a scenario that Iraqi Veterans call unrealistic. What is a soldier's life? Hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. Most of their time is spent waiting for orders, training, and performing humanitarian missions which are conspicuously absent from the show. They also get the tactics wrong in ways that the vets consider stupid. For instance the pilot has soldiers driving over a marked landmine.

Now these problems may not be entirely deliberate. ER suffers from similar problems. For those who have never worked an ER rotation, they generally involve sitting around and trying to find things to do. To make a single season of ER, you would have to compile the equivalent of every worst day in the ER ever from a staff member's entire career. I expect Over There to be much the same. I am very concerned about this show turning Iraq into Vietnam II because, for one reason, many of the creative staff members are from the Vietnam era and may project their own experiences onto this new war.

UPDATE: For a collation of reviews from actual military blogger who have been there, check out this post at Arghhhh!

Evangelical Fads

Joe Carter has a list of seven which the evangelical community should just decide not to do anymore. I agree.

Awful Alarm Clock

I woke up early this morning. It was because I was stung three times by a wasp who had decided to crawl around on my pillow. I am not happy about this. The good news is that I don't seem to be allergic, since you can't tell where on my arms I was stung.

I occasionally get wasps in my apartment. I believe they get in through my fireplace. This was the first time I have been stung though. They rarely make it into my bedroom, but unfortunately because Amy is visiting I wasn't sleeping in my bedroom.

Calvin and Hobbes

Thinklings is reporting that it will be back in papers for a limited run in September. I'm pretty sure that these will not be new strips but I'm looking into it. I miss Calvin and Hobbes.

UPDATE: It appears that there will be a Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection coming out in October. It will be 3 volumes, cost $150 total, and include every C&H strip that was ever published. It is possible that the new release in the papers will just be an advertisement for the book.

Earthshattering Inventions

Someone has reinvisioned the spork. If anything it may be even less useful than before.

Ask Dr John

John's "Ask Dr. John" segment is a hoot. Mark in Delaware's question really strikes home.

I'm a successful engineer and am engaged to a beautiful Jewish girl. There's one little snag in my plan: a couple of years ago, I got drunk in Vegas and woke up married to a girl that I met in a bar. And there's my mail order bride from the Ukraine. And my three other wives in Utah. I'm thinking that the reception line at my wedding would be a good time to break the news to my beloved new bride. What do you think?

Fortunately while I am also a successful engineer living in Delaware marrying a nice Jewish girl, I have no former wives I am aware of. Amy has indicated that despite some examples of polygamy in the Old Testament, I was a one woman man or else.

Why would I want multiple wives anyway? I would just have more women banding together to keep me from buying guns and a motorcycles...

UPDATE: And in other news, this post is sheer genius. They have it correct, the proper answer to the perennial question "Does this make me look fat?" is "I love you and your beauty is unsurpassed in the entirety of the cosmos. Nothing you wear will change that." Should you respond this way enough, she may actually start asking that question only for fashion advice, not for emotional validation.

Necessary Evils

It is interesting to here free market advocates like Dale Franks discuss recent AFL-CIO goings on from a pro-union perspective.

Unionized labor can serve as a very useful counterbalance to the power of corporations. That might just be worth something, even something intangible, that we shouldn't want to give up, because corporations are not our kind benefactors, no matter how warm and fuzzy their TV commercials try to make them seem.

The trouble is, we're kind of limited in out ability to watchdog corporations. We can either do it through private organizations, like unions, or we can do it publicly, through government.

My feelings about unions are similarly mixed. Once upon a time unions existed to provide not only for collective bargaining over labor prices, but also to ensure a safe and healthy workplace environment. Now many of the roles formerly provided by unions have been assumed by the government under the mantle of OSHA and other regulatory bodies.

Because of this unions have gotten fat and lazy. Well ok, fatter and lazier. Several years ago, a Motiva refinery in Delaware City had a catastrophic failure of its sulfuric acid containment. It was a union plant. Many workers were injured and at least one was dissolved away into his constituent carbon-based molecules. This could have been prevented by either the plant owners being responsible or any union member or foreman dailing up the state to report the internally know safety problems. Neither happened.

Increasingly their role of unions has been to argue for more and more benefits for their members which would be fine if they took into account what their corporations could afford to pay. But they don't. Take this account of where unions would like to expand for example. They want to unionize Fedex, despite their knowledge that "many union shipping companies have gone under." They want to unionize the Japanese assembly plants in the US, because the union automotive plants are in decline. They want to unionize computer manufacturing after HP and IBM had to restructure in the face of revenue losses.

Air America: Protectors of the Little Guy?

Michelle Malkin and LaShawn Barber are both covering a finance scandal surrounding Air America and several New York charities for children and the elderly.

To make a long story short, Air America isn't really making money. Their ratings, even in liberal areas, are still well below rival conservative media outlets. The answer to this funding problem has been to rely on rich donors like George Soros and, of course, fraud.

You see liberals, especially rich ones, spend a lot of time on the boards of various charities. It is seen as giving back to the community and is considered a good thing. Generally it is a good thing by the way. In this case there is some overlap between the executives at charities like the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club and Air America. So when Air America needed money, individuals at Gloria Wise "invested" government charitable grants earmarked for helping children into the talk radio network. Sound illegal? Well it almost certainly is.

Now Air America is supposed to pay the money back of course, but now that the city has found out and terminated the grants to Gloria Wise. Not only is Air America going down, but it seems to be taking a bunch of children and senior citizens with it.

Blogger Hacking

Is anyone out there really annoyed with the Blogger navigation bar at the top of the screen? I'm not especially, but that's just me. If you are then Evangelical Outpost has a link to this Blogspot Blog which gives you several methods of removing or hiding the bar and fixing the trouble that will give your template.

Civil Service Politics

Michelle Malkin is noting that Joe Huffman was fired from his job at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Huffman is a computer research analyst, a blogger, and one of the founders of Boomershoot.

Why was Huffman fired? Well no answers are forthcoming, but Huffman contends it is because of his pro-second amendment political views. Huffman has the connection logs from his blog to back this contention up. Huffman was careful to keep his politics and work life separate. He is suing for wrongful termination and will probably win.

I don't know who this guys bosses thought they were, but they're idiots. You can't easily terminate a member of the civil service. You especially can't easily terminate one of us for political work completely unrelated to our jobs. There are laws against that sort of thing which have been on the books for over a century. There are strong protections in place for just such an occasion.

One of my coworkers got his picture in the paper, painted with the American flag, after demonstrating with thousands of others at an anti-globalization rally in Washington, DC. My boss wasn't happy, but there wasn't anythying he could do about it either. My coworker didn't mention that he was a government employee and kept his politics and job separate.

So hopefully Joe will have his job back or a big check or both. Hopefully those responsible for his dismissal will be held responsible and legitimately sacked for the misuse of their office. Good luck to Joe in the meantime.

Fellow Bloggers and the Bible

John, proprietor of Locusts and Honey and occasional commenter on this blog, was profiled by Gavin Richardson recently. So if you are interested in knowing what some of your fellow readers are like, follow the link. One of many noteworthy quotes:

What are you reading at the moment?

The Bible. That's not a flippant reply. I read the whole Bible, cover to cover, every year, out loud. It takes about 15 minutes a day. I read little other than the Bible, although I have recently finished Fool's Gold by John McArthur.

Amen to that. I often wonder what Christianity would be like if we read the bible more and, say, I Kissed Dating Goodbye or the Prayer of Jabez less.

When I first started graduate school I didn't have the money for a TV or even books unrelated to my education. Between food, rent, and car repairs I had committed all my funds. So I started reading my bible voraciously because it was what I had and could afford. You would be surprised how quickly you can cover the entire book. Later, when I started my long commute to work, I bought an NIV audio bible. Going through the bible that way took a few months.

However, I have found that casual reading of the bible is only good for a big picture overview. If you really want to get some good depth you have to punctuate this by slowing down. Take verses apart and put them back together again with the help of good reference materials like a Strong's Concordance and some commentaries. Some of these resources are now available for free on the web.

Delaware Humor

IMAO has some completely untrue trivia about my home state.

Someone over at IMAO stated that Delaware roads are over-taxed/tolled. This is ridiculous. Delaware roads are taxed/tolled if you are coming in from out of state. There are essentially 3 main tolls in Delaware:

1. On I295 South coming in from New Jersey
2. On I95 North and South at the Maryland state line
3. On Route 1 which is the main tourist highway to the Delaware beaches

It should be mentioned that Delawareans only pay toll 1. Even we will pay to leave New Jersey. Toll 2 is easily routed around using local roads in Newark and Elkton. It may even be faster to do this because you avoid the awful toll traffic at the state line. Toll 3 is avoided using Route 13 to get to the beach and avoid the Route 1 traffic.

Delaware set this up deliberately. You see we don't have a sales tax, so people from Maryland and New Jersey come here to shop. They do it a lot and we ensure that the state still makes revenue from them when they do via highway tolls.

Pennsylvania is the only neighboring state Delawareans commute to for work (at least in large numbers). There are no tolls on that route.

Politician's Vows

Michelle Malkin is covering the dilution of wedding vows. Instead of "until death do us part" more and more people are being married using other durations like "for as long as love lasts." Quoth the Anchoress:

“For as long as our love shall last?” That could be three weeks! Why not say “’til the inevitable divorce does us part?”

These types of vows are being put forward by people who want, as the Democrats would say, an exit strategy. That way when it fails they're can say "Hey, this marriage thing is tough. It's just not fun anymore. So long baby, enjoy half my stuff."

Amy and I haven't got our vows nailed down yet. Ours will by necessity be an unconventional ceremony, but there will be none of this "for as long as love lasts" crap. We want to be together forever and when death should part us, I can only pray it will be only a brief time until the other's work is done and we are reunited on the other side.

MP3 Players

Is the iPod too big for you? Well Walmart is retailing a new mp3 player that is about one inch on a side. They come in half and full gig versions, in six colors, for about $130. It even has a small display. Not bad really.

Fun Mocking Others

Michael Dean sent me this Alanis Morrisette lyrics generator. I can't remember if she is famous anymore. I mean Jagged Little Pill was a great album, but I can't remember anything she did after it other than Kevin Smith movies. Now he brought out the acoustic version of Jagged Little Pill for the tenth anniversary. That just screams retread to me.

Oh and if you are so apathetic you can't come up with a post to write, try the Apathetic Journal Entry Generator from the same site.