In a World... In a City... In a Cliche...

The reason for that cliche is voice over artist Don LaFontaine, who died on Monday after a blood clot in his lungs developed complications. You probably don't know him by name or face, but you've almost certainly heard his work:



LaFontaine had a pretty good sense of humor about himself like in this awards show opener:

Sarah Palin

McCain done good. Palin is, by all accounts, an excellent governor. She took on a corrupt Alaskan Republican party and won. This is exactly what needs to happen at the national level. Everybody is reacting to it, but Geek seems to sum it up well:

The smart Lefties just shat a brick. (And those who aren't think they've just won.)

I didn't think McCain had the balls to pick her, the closest thing to a libertarian candidate you're going to see in mainstream politics...and he did.

That was a brilliant move, in more dimensions than I have time to enumerate. The Lefties aren't going to know or understand what hit them in November.

Exactly. Palin might woo some identity voters from Hillary's old camp. But that's a side benefit, compared to the shot in the arm she just gave Conservative Republicans. As for her daughter, John the Methodist is addressing it via an extended quote from atheist Steven Den Beste:

Christians know that people make mistakes, and that people sin. From their point of view, the only man who never sinned was Jesus. They don't cast out sinners, because they believe that everyone is a sinner. What they look for is people trying to do right as well as they can, to live as good a life as they can, and to try to make up for their mistakes and sins. And from their point of view both McCain and the Palin family are doing so. And as long as they continue doing so, Christian voters won't turn away from them.

Other than some moralizing Christian malcontents, that right. Neither will I condemn you, go and sin no longer. My church has dealt with several pregnancies in our youth and singles ministries. There is some friction about it within our church, but what Steven describes is what happens.

Just as important to the theology and philosophy is this: look at who is running with the story. The lefties and the media (somewhat redundant) are running with it. The Christian social activists and press are giving it a pass. Given Palin's Christian street cred, this will become an us-vs-them issue. As such, the media is already switching to educating independent voters about Palin's "dangerous" sex education beliefs.

UPDATE: Let it not be said that I can't join the Palin bashing bandwagon. I mean come on Sarah, you call that a cheek weld?

I know, I know, judging from the pictures of Palin moose and elk hunting, she wouldn't even call that AR-15 a rifle (even if it wasn't a shooting simulator).

Expect Inflation

Instapundit reports that the economy grew faster than was expected in the second quarter:

Not to say things are hunky-dory -- I'm worried about inflation -- but this doesn't look like a recession.

I think inflation is a big concern and I'm expecting to see more of it than we have really considered "normal" for quite a while. Why? Because of the housing market.

Declining home value is bad for just about everybody. Negative equity means property owners are locked into their current holdings or walk away leaving the mortgage companies taking a loss. Not being able to sell is bad for most families. You can't trade up when you have kids. Worse, you can't follow work if you get laid off. Walking away ruins your credit and in large quantities will destroy the financial sector. Either way, bad stuff.

How to fix this? I'm betting home prices are going to hold steady while most other commodities will inflate at rates higher than we'd consider normal. Eventually real estate values come back into something approaching proper perspective. This hurts the real estate investors a lot and everyone else a little, but avoids most of the big negatives of declining home prices.

That's my call for the future.

Nancy Drew

We netflixed the 2007 movie and watched it on Monday. It's not bad. Not amazing, but perfectly ok especially for a rental.

It's a kids movie (or perhaps a tweens movie) and you need to keep that mind when you're watching it. There is action, but nobody really gets hurt. Everything and everyone is clean. The villains are of the frequently bumbling sort. The plot is unfortunately quite predictable. Over all it's cute and fun.

If you're a big Nancy Drew fan, I'd expect to be disappointed. I don't think the film is based on any of the books and I gather that the movie isn't really like them. Nancy is 16 and in high school, not 18 and mostly emancipated as in the books. After the film establishes her in River Heights with her canonical friends and neighbors, she is quickly whisked away to LA. Her boyfriend Ned and her blue convertible show up again, but no one else does. I really didn't care, but I've read IMDB reviews written by girls who grew up on Nancy Drew who were pissed.

Imagine a Disney channel original movie with a bigger budget and better casting (but unfortunately not better writing) and you've basically got this movie. If that sounds like hell to you, then skip it.

UPDATE: One thing, the funniest line for me was Ned telling Nancy to "release the lightning" while she's tailing some goons in her convertible. Nancy drives a Nash Metropolitan. There isn't any lightning to release when the car has 42 horsepower and a 0 to 60 time of over 20 seconds.

Turning a War on It's Head

Michael Totten's piece on the Russian-Georgian war in South Ossetia is a must read. Wow. Read it.

Like a Yakov Smirnoff Joke

Chris Byrne's recent mention of his family's large book collection reminds me of similar traps I've seen in my own family and friends. At first you simply own lots of stuff, but as it piles up the stuff owns you.

I've seen this happen with lots of people. Sometimes it's clothes or shoes. Other times it's books. You got to a store, see something you like and buy it. You do this consistently and soon you have a closet full of shoes you'll never get around to wearing or an ever-growing pile of books you'll never get around to reading. The key is to stop buying. After that you just have to nibble things down bit by bit until everything is manageable. As I'm doing the nibbling, I try to put some sort of organization in place so that I know when things have piled up too high.

Over the weekend I went through a lot of old bills (which I habitually file away) and got rid of everything I didn't need to keep. Then I went through the clothes in my closet, especially my dress pants. Everything I can't or don't wear is now in a bag for Goodwill. I've come to the realization that my books, especially my paperbacks, are going to be next. I have a ton of books that I've picked up one place or another and that I'll probably never read again. Might was well sell them off or donate them to someone who will.

So True

more animals

Financial Training

A friend tipped me off about the Delaware Financial Literacy Institute and it's related programs like the Delaware Money School and Purses to Portfolios.

Financial training is one of those things people need, but rarely get. One of the big reasons the working poor stay poor is that they don't know how to spend and save their money. They also have few role models to show what wise financial stewardship looks like. Honestly, I think Home Economics would be far more useful if it taught people more about bank accounts and less about sewing or cooking.

Jack Markell, our State Treasurer and current Democratic gubernatorial candidate, founded these programs. I don't know that I love his party platform, but making free financial training was and is a great idea.

UPDATE: My coworker pointed out that financial training has a big problem. A lot of the people who need the training aren't fiscally responsible enough to realize it. I'm sure that's true. I'm also sure that there are a lot of people who want to be fiscally responsible, but just don't have the math skills to understand what that means in a practical sense.

Joe Who?

A phrase destined to be uttered by non-Delawareans everywhere. Every blog has analysis of Obama's choice for running mate, but I like Miss Anonymous's the best:

Obama must be in pretty bad straits to think he needs Biden. He needs Biden (if you'll excuse the hackneyed phrase) like a fish needs a bicycle. (Maybe he just needed a little GRAVITAS.)

How can you have a ticket of change and pick the guy who's like the wallpaper of the senate?

I agree with her here though:

Least it wasn't Hillary, he needs her like his back needs a knife. Which may be yet to come, if she decides to hijack the convention the way it's been whispered.

On the good side, I haven't seen this many people happy about Delaware getting mentioned since Wayne's World.

Me Too

Miss Anonymous is lamenting that she won't qualify for some sort of sweet bailout deal the FDIC because she isn't an idiot with bad credit. Ditto. When we were looking at houses our loan officer told us I had one of the best credit ratings he'd ever seen. Then he looked at Amy's. It is even better. Did we qualify for an amazing rate? Not really. We wound up with a 6+% 30 year fixed.

As an outsider, it looks like the mortgage companies are hoping that buy giving high risk borrowers low rates in hopes that they won't default and hedging their bets with mediocre rates for low risk consumers. This doesn't seem like a good idea to me. High risk borrowers aren't just high risk because they don't have any money, they're also high risk because they don't know how to manage the money they have. More importantly, a small startup could steal the low risk borrowers out from under them by simply offering them the rates they deserve, not the rates they're currently getting.

But then again I'm an engineer not some sort of actuary so what do I know?

MP3 Madness

Amy and I are thinking about picking up a new mp3 player. Amybear has a 512 megs of memory in her satellite radio. It's not enough and the radios interface stinks. She's going to upgrade to my 1G Mobiblu cube. It's a nice unit. 1 gig is enough music that you can't play it all on a single battery charge. Unfortunately it isn't enough to haul around your entire music collection and listen to whatever you want. You need to plan ahead. You also put files on there with Windows Explorer, which kind of sucks as an interface. If I were smart or bored, I'd write a decent Tcl GUI to do my file management for me.

But that aside, we're both thinking about getting a new mp3 player in the multi-zulti-gig portable music archive category. The two leading contenders are the iPod Classic and the Zune 80. Most of the comparisons indicate that the Zune is the iPod's equal. So we're leaning towards the Zune because we don't use Mac (the Zune's kryptonite), we don't particularly like Apple, but we do like the FM radio feature and the bigger screen on the Zune. Unlike most third party players, the Zune also seems to have a some third party vendor support which was the Mobiblu's Achilles heel.

UPDATE: Amy and I hit several places to look at mp3 players on display. We played with Zunes, Sansas, iPods, etc. The Sandisk products felt kind of cheap and the Archos products were either huge or unavailable. After getting a chance to play, we still like the Zune but its PC software makes us nervous. We're not in a hurry to buy, so maybe we'll wait and see if the market changes.

Self-Interested Activism

100 college presidents have banded together to call for a reduction in the drinking age from 21 to 18. They believe that this will curb binge drinking. Instapundit agrees. McQ dissents. Duffy thinks it will at least make them real popular with their students. McQ makes a great point:

Of course they're college and university presidents. Their only concern is their little world, and they're taking heat for not doing more about binge drinking by underage college students. Make 18 the law and they can wash their hands of the problem.

What effect it has in high-schools, of course, concerns them not at all.

Everyone I know who recalls when the drinking age was 18 thanked God for raising it. My bible-study leader in high school worked his way through college as a bar bouncer. He went from throwing people out once or twice a night to once or twice a week once the drinking age went up. I have yet to hear someone who was there say "yeah raising the age didn't change anything."

The reasons the college presidents are bringing this up is because if the drinking age drops to 18, they won't have to deal with the problem anymore. The number of collegians under 18 is negligible. The drinking problem will still exist, but it will be legal and therefore not the school's (and it's president's) problem. This lets them wash their hands of the whole situation.

What goes unsaid is that the drinking problem is going to get worse in high schools. Now you're going to have high school seniors running side businesses buying alcohol for underclassmen. And high school drinking is already a serious problem as it is.

Biden for Veep

Steve Lamp has this to say about Joe Biden possibly becoming the next VP:

I still find myself a bit confounded by the speculation that Barrack Obama would choose Joe Biden as his running mate because of his foreign policy credentials. Just because you have done something for a very long time doesn't necessarily mean that you are good at it. The bright side that I see to this though is that it gets Biden out of Delaware, and we can finally get a new Senator.

I've never been impressed with Biden's foreign policy performance, either. Considering Delaware's position as a powerhouse in the electoral college, I really think Biden would be a mis-step. The really unfortunately thing is that Biden will probably run for Senate and VP in 2008. We'll likely only lose Senator Biden if he and Obama won. I guess every cloud has a silver lining, but that's one dark cloud.

Technical Recidivism

I've noticed that my computer abilities have shifted since going to work for the Army. I'm probably a better programmer now than I was is college. I've learned new tricks and have access to better programming environments that make the chore easier. But my actual ability to fix hum-drum computer glitches is significantly worse. I suppose this is because I can't fix most major problems on my workplace PC without administrator access (which they won't give me).

My biggest embarrassment came when I reported a problem with one of our printers. The answering question was the obvious "have you turned it off and turned it on again?" Doh! Of course that fixed it. I would have saved the IT group minutes, but more importantly I would have saved me hours.

Athletic Drug Testing

Hube is reporting that the iPod Michael Phelps wears to the blocks while mentally preparing for a race may be giving him an unfair advantage over other competitors. Therefore he should be stripped of his medals. Says Hube:

...what's next? Checking into Phelps' diet? I heard yesterday that Phelps eats about 12,000 calories a day. Do we examine all the ingredients of his diet to make sure there are no artificial substances in it? What about breathing deeply before a race? Wouldn't this type of breathing be "artificial," since it is far from "normal" breathing?

A good friend in college ran track and cross country. She said that one of the main ways the NCAA looks for drugs to ban is by examining what commonly shows up in runners drug tests. If they see a lot of something, they move to ban it. One of the common substances detected this way was C₈H₁₀N₄O₂ which is in athletes' blood in huge quantities. That's caffeine by the way. The NCAA also considers energy drinks to be unfair performance enhancers and regulated athletes intake of substances like the herb guarana in 2002. They finally regulated caffeine intake in 2006. I'm sure regulating diet won't be far off now.

Can't Get It Out of My Head

You might have heard Katy Perry's single "I Kissed a Girl" on Top 40 airplay. It's catchy and somewhat naughty. I picked up her first album "One of the Boys" over the weekend. Its a solid piece of work that is mostly relationship-inspired dance rock. Perry has an interesting smokey voice and the songs flow well without being too similar to each other. Various songs make fun of emo boys and metrosexuals. What's not to like?

I'm not looking forward to her next single Hot N' Cold coming out in September, though. I already can't get it out of my head and I'm not hearing it on the radio 24-7.

UPDATE: Some coworkers listened to it going to lunch. They both consider it chick rock and therefore fit only for their sisters or Miata drivers.

Forfeiting Real Debate

Duffy asked the left side of Delaware's blogosphere a serious question:

Please explain how you will tax corporations and not have them pass that cost on to consumers.

The answers he received were the standard "they're rich so they can afford it" and the always popular "you're stupid!" This explains why I never bother to read anything the left side of the Delaware blogosphere puts out.

There is a good reason why they won't pass all of the costs of their tax increases on to the consumer, but it involves actual economics so you won't hear it from the lefties. It and the rest of the discussion are taking place over in Duffy's comments.

Testing 1, 2, 3...

Well I can get to my email at work, so I'm experimenting with posting
via email. If you're seeing this chances are that I'll be making a
few posts tomorrow.

UPDATE: Well it isn't exactly perfect. The conversion from email to blog post seems to be adding line breaks which screw up the formatting. I also can't figure out how to put in proper labels. But something is better than nothing.

UPDATE2: Figures. Just as I get this setup, somebody has monkeyed with the permissions somewhere up the intertube from me. Now I can use the standard Blogger interface again.

The Missing Blogger

Why haven't I posted in over a week? Well partly because work has me in training that is both interesting and challenging. If it was just one or the other, I'd probably have mental faculties left over to blog. Unfortunately with both my brain is shot and all I'm good for is light reading like Star Wars books or Burroughs' Barsoom series.

The other reason is that I generally post at work while on breaks. Unfortunately my workplace has put in place a new filtering scheme that prevents me from accessing the inner workings of my own blog. I should be thankful since I can at least access my front page. I can't even get to Livejournal any more. All this means sparse blogging during business hours until further notice.

About the Barsoom books, Frazetta may go for a weird saber look on his book covers, I really think the martian longsword is probably more of a cut and thrust. And of course I want one now. I'm so impressionable.

Hard Contact

I finished Karen Traviss's first Republic Commando novel last night. Way, way too late last night. Amy says I should self-impose a reading curfew and that sounds like a good idea right about now.

The book itself is quite good. Unlike most things Star Wars, Hard Contact focuses on the adventures of a squad of commandos thrown together after their original squads are destroyed in the Battle of Geonosis at the end of Episode II. These four men are sent behind enemy lines by the Republic on a new mission to destroy a Separatist bioweapons facility. While doing so they run across some Jedi and a Mandalorian, There are no named characters from the films in this novel. This is a book about the troopers and Padawans that make the Republic war effort run.

It does a very good job. The book delves into the culture of the clone soldiers and their inherent humanity. While they are of identical genetic stock, each commando has their own personality derived from their personal experiences as individuals. They become more than just faceless "wet droids." These are tragic figures. Men born to die, either in battle or because of the side-effects of the rapid aging used to bring them to an early adulthood.

The military terminology of the book didn't quite work for me though. It is too derivative to really fit in Star Wars. Couldn't she have found a better acronym than GPS for am SW GPS system for instance? I also found it funny that acronyms were throw around a lot even though Star Wars uses Aurek-Besh instead of the Modern Latin alphabet. Not that this kept the movies from having characters named R2-D2 or C-3PO.

Dark Knight

I saw the new Batman movie on Sunday with my brother and wife. Wonderful. Best Joker ever. The only problem? It was long enough to require uncomfortable bladder moments for a significant number of the audience members. Myself included. Otherwise it's excellent. See it.

Terminology Problems

While I think this thing is a pretty cool idea, it is not a "jetpack" or "rocketpack." Perhaps you could call it a ducted-fan pack. But jetpack... wouldn't that require jets engines of some sort?

Snarking the Obamessiah

Nobody does biblically inspired snark like the British. Via LawDog.

Wiicked

Amy picked up WiiFit yesterday. For those budding eBay entrepreneurs out there, she did this by calling the local GameStop every morning for three days straight to see if they had received any with their most recent shipment. No, try back tomorrow. No, try back tomorrow. Yes, we have a few. Hurry, hurry. Get in line with other people buying WiiFits. Whoopie!

I have mixed feeling about the game itself though.

The balance board (or whatever you call it) is really a digital scale with built in wireless connectivity. Most of the minigames revolve around shifting your weight about while standing atop it. This lets you simulate everything from hula-hooping to downhill skiing. It is also integrated with strength training, cardio, and yoga exercises. Unfortunately for some games it's too large (like when Amy is doing the step aerobics class) and for others it's too small (like when I try to do pushups). I suppose that's just the way it goes.

The structure of WiiFit is derived from of Brain Age. It even has the calender stamps. You create an account for yourself and give the game important information like height and birthdate. Then it tracks your weight, derives your BMI, and asks that you set health goals for yourself. You play minigames and do exercises in order to accumulate points to unlock other games and exercises.

Theoretically these games help you lose weight and maintain fitness and posture, but I have my doubts. While a few of the games do give you a little burn and can potentially raise a sweat, at around 3 minutes, they're all very short. 3 minutes is a warm up, not a proper cardio workout. This makes me wonder whether WiiFit will actually move you towards accomplishing your stated health goals.

The big problem is that WiiFit seems to have the faults of Brain Age as well. It keeps track of when you play, but has no idea if you workout outside of the program. I hate getting guilt tripped about how often I play. Being called a health slacker right after I finish a 30 minute cardio workout on real exercise equipment just pisses me off.

Right now, it's a mixed bag for me. But hey if we wind up annoyed by it, there's always a market on eBay.

High Stakes Gambling

Steve Lamp has some thoughts on stocks:

So earlier this week, I think it was Tuesday night, I couldn't sleep, and I was thinking about all of the dour economic news that kept pouring across CNBC at work that day. Stocks were getting pummeled and people were in a near panic. I thought to myself, this is the perfect buying opportunity. I jotted down a list of five stocks and people were morbidly selling that I thought were being driven more by fear rather than by reasonable forecasting.

I remember having a conversation with Steve like that at Small Group during the downturn after 9-11. Steve recognized that a crappy stock market is a perfect time to buy.

But what to buy? I impulsively suggested investing in airlines. They were all under-performing after the air travel hit of 9/11, but there is no way they would all go under. We were right. The hard part is figuring out which airline stock to buy. The correct answer turned out to be Southwest, but unfortunately I was still a grad student with no money to invest in that sort of thing.

Right now the hit is in mortgage brokers and the trick is to find a smaller broker that isn't heavily involved in the sub-prime problems. They'll be in the best position to expand as other brokerages either go out of business or have to charge higher interest rates to cover their losses. The problem is finding that firm.

Free Stuff

TOR booms is giving away free e-ditions of various sci-fi and fantasy authors books along with electronic copies of cover art. They're available at the TOR blog.

Vulcan?

The Belt-fed "Vulcan" Nerf Machinegun, for those of you who thought the Nerf sniper rifle was just too wussy.

BTW, what is vulcan about this gun? Typically that denotes multiple barrels that this Nerf uber-blaster doesn't seem to have.

Range Wear

This video from Pretty Pistolera shows why I generally email out a dress code when I take people shooting for the first time (includes mild profanity):


Via Kim Du Toit.

Shopping Yesterday

Amy and I bought a Wii on Saturday. Miss Anon ran across a store that had them in stock and offered us the first crack at it before she auctioned it off for her own benefit. After church, we took a shopping trip to look for games that don't have the word "mini" attached to them. I had this experience several times:



Well, it wasn't actually that experience per se. People mistook me for a sales associate at both Best Buy and Fye. Unlike Sheldon, my reaction involved far more glaring and indignation. This is the last time I go shopping in khakis and a polo shirt.

Big Bang Theory clip from a Melody Byrne post.

Why You Get Fat

I have come to some conclusions about why people tend to get fat in their twenties. Their metabolism kicks off. They move from and active collegiate lifestyle to a sedentary office one. Lastly, they realize that they're cooking for themselves and can make whatever they want whenever they want it.

This last one leads to thirty year old engineers making breakfasts like this:Amy and I realized we could make pancakes for ourselves a couple weeks ago. A quick trip to the store for milk, eggbeaters, and Bisquick and we are now just slightly fatter than we used to be. We had kept this to a special weekend breakfast or two, but it turns out I didn't have any of my normal breakfast materials this morning. Not that I'm really complaining about the results.

Shapeshifting

I've been really sore all week. I tried doing the first day of the hundred push-ups schedule on Tuesday. My initial test put me in the "more than 10" category and I went through the recommended exercises. The first set of ten was pretty easy. The last set was considerably more difficult.

Wednesday I woke up with tired arms (a good sign) and that progressed to Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) by bedtime. I was really sore Thursday morning too. After a google, it turns out that this is pretty normal if you're just getting into a workout routine. Most places also suggest you not put serious stress on those sore muscles because they're rebuilding. This is especially true if you experience residual muscle weakness like I was. My recommended Thursday workout was therefore postponed. Oh well.

I'll try to do my Thursday push-ups tonight along with my usual cardio. Hopefully it won't take me an extra day to recover again. I'm thinking the "weekly" schedule of 100 push-ups may become more of a suggestion if it does.

Dreaded Phone Calls

I was polled over the telephone at dinner time yesterday. Normally I hang up on pollsters as if they were telemarketers, but it occurred to me that someone (possibly someone I even like) would be using this data to make important decisions. They asked me whether I love or despise President Bush (neither). Who various Delaware candidates for office were and what I thought of them. In the end, they focused more on the Democrats than the Republicans, so I can't help but wonder if I haven't aided the dreaded enemies of the Republic. Oh well it was a risk worth taking none-the-less.

Hellboy II: the Golden Movie?

I dragged Amy to see Hellboy II last night with a bunch of friends. I liked it.

The plot is that thousands of years ago, Mankind made war against the creatures of magic. In the end they were defeated when the Elves and Goblins forged an invincible mechanical fighting force called the Golden Army. But the war was ended when the creatures of magic recoiled at the horror of what they had wrought and created a truce. Now an Elven prince seeks to break the truce, gain control of the Golden Army, and use it to destroy mankind.

Along the way Hellboy runs across fairytale creatures that are quite Grimm. Think of the dark fantasy world in Del Toro's prior work Pan's Labyrinth. The fae and folklore behind H2 have a similar edgy and sinister feel. The BPRD gang also gets some character development (unfortunately except for Jeffrey Tambor). The action scenes are solid. Although the story isn't based directly on a comic like the first movie, it still has the Hellboy comic feel that makes the movie fun.

If you liked the first Hellboy movie, you'll enjoy the second. It's a good ride and definitely worth a few bucks.

UPDATE: Chris Byrne has this to say:

What bugs me the most though, is that the quality was there, what they really needed was more time to explore; and they could have had it. The movie was only 110 minutes with credits; and audiences in this genre are fully prepared to sit for 150 plus credits. If they had taken the 150 minutes, this movie would have been spectacular.

I disagree. I like unplumbed depths in my films, especially when good pacing means not plumbing them. Hellboy II is a fun action film, but would make a horrible epic. We need more 110 minute movies made today, because making them generally leaves about 40 minutes of crap on a cutting room floor somewhere.

Tony Snow Dies of Cancer

The former White House Press Secretary and Fox News anchor lost his battle with colon cancer, the same disease that took his mother when Snow was 17. Snow was 53 and left behind his wife of 20 years, 2 daughters, and one son.

Working Out

100 Push Ups seems like something I want to try. I like the exercises that largely deal with body weight and my current work out routine (as paltry as it is) includes pushups and crunches. I'm currently doing the exercise bike MWF so this will get slated in on my TRS slot. Via Incoherent Ramblings.

Reaping What You Sow

The ACLU Blog's entry clarifying their stance on the Second Amendment (they're against it) is racking up quite a lot of comments. Few favor the ACLU. Good stuff.

UPDATE: It appears that the Nevada chapter of the ACLU has broken with the national ACLU on the 2nd amendment.

The Nevada ACLU has declared its support for an individual’s right to bear arms, apparently making it the first state affiliate in the nation to buck the national organization’s position on the Second Amendment.

Good. I hope other states follow suit.

Spending Money Stupidly

I'm in pretty decent financial shape at the moment. Sure my retirement savings is taking a nosedive with the stock market, but in terms of current weekly input and output I'm doing well. So what should I spent that money on? Swords, knives, kilts?

How should Jeff waste his money?
	Ronin Swords Deshi Katana
	Kukri House No 1 Kukri
	Windlass Gurhka Kukri
	Stillwater Gordon Standard Kilt
	Stillwater Solid Green Heavyweight Kilt
	Other (Use Comments)
pollcode.com free polls

UPDATE: Doh! I figured out why I have a few hundred extra dollars in my bank account. I haven't got the bill for the exercise bike that Amy and I bought yet. I may still have extra dough after this, but not nearly as much as I had thought. The good news is that I've been using the bike every other day for two weeks so it hasn't been a stupid purchase. In fact, if I wind up losing a few pounds it'll be a pretty smart buy.

The Lost is Found

A film museum in Buenos Aires has discovered an intact copy of Metropolis in their film archives. Holy Crap! Did someone ask to see their copy of the Magnificent Ambersons while they were at it?

Every Morning at My House

I also like this one.

Denied!

After hitting a few places on the way, I ended up at Ommelanden to finally celebrate Heller properly. Only to find the range is already closed for the holiday. This is what I get for not checking ahead over the internets.

Programming Perplexion

In college I learned to program in FORTRAN. Why? Because I'm an engineer and that's what we program in goldurnit. FORTRAN is very good at doing math and difficult to screw up. Most of the stuff that people screw up in C, you simply can't do in FORTRAN. This has the disadvantage that unless you're doing lots of math, FORTRAN is essentially worthless. It's sort of the idiot savant of programming languages in that way.

Right now I'm writing a few tools for work in Tcl/Tk. Tcl/Tk is sort of the anti-FORTRAN. It sucks at math, it's easy to screw up, and it's syntax is labyrinthine. But you can crank out a GUI in Tcl in no time flat. Tcl is also a higher level language that has been assimilating parts of other languages like crazy. If you want it, Tcl probably has it. If you can find it and figure out how to use it.

Unfortunately as a FORTRAN programmer, I'm just not used to this kitchen sink programming paradigm. If I need something, I have generally build it myself. With FORTRAN you basically had to. I just discovered that several of my Tcl routine could be replaced with a simple line of code. Doh. Oh well, at least mine work.

The Invincible Oba-chan

77 year-old Japanese grandmother Keiko Wakabayshi is regularly kicking the crap out of Italian soldiers twice her size. Wakabayshi is in charge of their martial arts training and is skilled in a wide array of disciplines.

Thankfully they picked a woman. As we all know from anime like Ranma and Dragonball, all male Japanese martial-arts masters will spend all their time chasing tail when they should be teaching.

When Fake Women Are Real Characters

Amybear mentioned that we watched Lars and the Real Girl over the weekend. To my surprise it turned out to be a fun and even heartwarming film.

Lars and the Real Girl is about Lars, an incredibly shy office worker, and his odd attempt to emerge from his self-imposed exile into society at large. It's odd because Lars method of doing this was purchase a Real Doll and then delude himself into thinking it was his Brazilian internet girlfriend Bianca.

Bianca becomes Lars' social crutch. On orders from the local doctor/psychologist, Lars friends and family play along to facilitate this self-treatment. It all results in scenes which are both funny and heartwarming. Bianca grows on the community and is treated like a real girl (complete with volunteer work and girls nights out). In the end, although inanimate, she essentially becomes a character in the story that the characters and the audience can identify with. It's a mind trip.

About the only bad thing I can say about the movie is that suspension of disbelief is required. You have to believe that everyone in this small town will treat an obvious nutcase like Lars with kindness instead of mockery. For that matter you have to believe that lots of people will care about someone who is essentially the town recluse. That's a pretty big pill to swallow.

After seeing both films, I'm sorry that Lars lost to Juno so often during this past awards season. Lars is frankly the better film with the better script. Juno has needlessly indie scenes and jerky plot development. Ellen Page's portrayal of a scared pregnant girl who is putting on a brave face is brilliant, but none of the characters in Juno really develop. In contrast, Lars is brilliantly paced with characters who grow as the plot unfolds. Juno is less than a hundred minutes and it could be more in retrospect. Lars is less than a hundred minutes and you really can't change a thing.

A Reminder

This is why the ACLU doesn't get any of my money:

In Heller, the Court reinterpreted the Second Amendment as a source of individual rights. Washington D.C.'s gun control law, which bans the private possession of handguns and was widely considered the most restrictive such law in the country, became a victim of that reinterpretation.

The Court was careful to note that the right to bear arms is not absolute and can be subject to reasonable regulation. Yet, by concluding that D.C.'s gun control law was unreasonable and thus invalid, the Court placed a constitutional limit on gun control legislation that had not existed prior to its decision in Heller. It is too early to know how much of a constitutional straitjacket the new rule will create.

Yes, God forbid we apply the Constitution to reduce the power of the State or even the states. The collective rights interpretation the ACLU supports is bankrupt. It allows the State to uphold the right of "the people" while effectively preventing the exercise of that right from all individual persons. Except those who actively support the State of course.

The Scripture Mangler

From Paul Smith, Obama uses the Sermon on the Mount to advance the idea that Jesus would have supported Gay Marriage. I guess he missed some major parts of the Sermon like:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

So Barack Obama - the least of these?

You Might Not Know Anything about the Gun Industry If...

From Charles Austin via Instapundit:

What if Colt made a big show of offering Senator Obama a custom engraved 1911 to celebrate Heller? If he accepts it, his base is up in arms, no pun intended. If he declines it, well, let's just say that 5-4 vote will look a little more frightening to everyone not in his base. Seem like a win-win to me.

Why won't Colt do this? The answer is that they're on Obama's side politically. Colt's ownership is murky but has included groups like the UAW and the State of Connecticut. Not example pro-gun groups. The current chairman is Donald Zilkha, a New York financier who generally support Democrats like Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer! If you want someone to give Obama a fancy 1911, try Kimber or a Springfield Armory Custom instead.

Gun Cams, Not Just For WWII Pilots Anymore

My lovely wife sent me a link to the PistolCam. It's a small camera that fits on pistol accessory rails and works like to a tactical light, taking pictures of whatever the gun is pointed at once it leaves the holster.

Frankly, I'd really like to see this sort of technology applied more widely to police work. I cannot think of any reason why SWAT teams can't have a small video camera on their helmets and microphones mounted to their gear. The equipment could be put together cheaply (<$1000), could be lightweight, and would provide invaluable evidence if anything goes wrong in a raid. It would exonerate the good cops and condemn the bad ones. Just what citizens want.

Heller Wins!

In a 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court struck down the D.C. gun ban and affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms. Scotusblog is hosting a copy of the decision pdf. I'm sure the legal blogs will have a lot to take about soon, although they seem to be groaning under the weight of their traffic at the moment.

The 5-4 opinion is disappointing, but depending on the specifics, I suppose it is understandable.

UPDATE: This is a narrow decision in that the SC did not address incorporation to the states because DC is a federal district so they had no standing to do so. The NRA is already moving to test incorporation to the states with challenges of the handgun bans in NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco. I may have to renew my membership soon.

Man-Floss

This is an interesting (if a bit disgusting) idea: bacon flavored dental floss. I guess if you hate the mint flavored ones.

With my luck, I'd come home to find the cat amid of slobbery pile of bacon floss on the living room floor. Via Amybear.

And Perhaps a Cat Owner

George Carlin died unexpectedly. I was never a huge fan. Sure he had that screw the establishment attitude and some interesting ideas about wordplay, but neither of those really float my boat. This Youtube video (some profanity of course) makes me wonder if he had pets though:


All very true. Cats are cute when they kill (especially since most cat games are kill training). They have some absurd sort of dignity. And yes they stick their fuzzy butts in your face in the early AM.

Lol Humor

Not Just for Deep Crows

Trogdor created via Spore. Gabe and Tycho also like it.

The Prayer Grunt

I haven't linked to Stuff Christians Like lately and his recent post on the Prayer Grunt of Affirmation reminded me of long ago small group days:

It's probably not good that I measure the quality of my group prayers by the number of grunts of affirmation I get. What are those? A grunt of affirmation is when you pray in a group and someone near you says, "Mhm" or "Unh" or some other grunt like statement that means, "I'm down with that."

While not everyone uses the prayer grunt, I remember the leader of my bible study during my senior year had that habit and I often found myself looking to make a good prayer at the end of a study in order to get that "warm manly." I think I may have subconsciously adopted it myself for a while when I was a small group leader.

Is it a little idolatrous? I don't know, but I suggest you avoid memorizing his prayer grunt score sheet just in case.

Getting in Shape

Amy and I picked up recumbent exercise bike yesterday. Both Amy and I fit on it, it was solid, and it had a heart rate monitor. That hit all the boxes on our check list.

We actually picked it up ourselves. Literally as a fair bit of carrying was involved. The store we purchased it from is within walking distance of our house. It seemed kind of stupid to pay a $100 install fee to move a piece of equipment less than a mile, especially when it broke down into fairly light weight parts. They took it apart, we got the pieces in our cars, drove home, moved it in, and put it back together. Seems to work great so far and we have a heft warranty if it doesn't.

Now we just need to rearrange our basement so we can watch the TV, use the bike and the treadmill, and still be able to put her parents down there on the hide-a-bed when they visit. That should provide a pretty decent workout when I'm off on Friday.

Nerds!

Amy and I had a lot of trouble coming up with wedding/reception themes. We thought about doing an around the world theme, with each table being a different country. This isn't because we're well traveled, but because we could use it as an excuse to have a wide variety of ethnic appetizers, dishes, and deserts. We quickly gave up on it and went generic. It was just too much effort.

These people went with a video game theme and it seems to work for them in a very nerdy way. I wonder if you can tell the age of the guest by the table they're seated at. If the parents are at Pac-man, do the grandparents wind up at Pong?

Too Much USB?

Via my lovely bride, the USB greenhouse. Yeah, someone ought to tell people that USB is not a substitute for actual power sources. Or for that matter that if you're growing plants inside your climate controlled house, you probably don't need a greenhouse pod in the first place.

Now Where Did I Put My Time Machine...

111 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

UPDATE: I'd imagine Amybear would fill mine out a little differently, but I really didn't pad my old school husband resume very much. Amybear doesn't make for a very good 1930s wife according to the test, but she thinks that's because she does unconscionable things like work outside the home and manage her own finances. She even deigns to give me advice without my prior solicitation. I agree. While the role of husband and father hasn't changed much in the last 70 or 80 years, the wife's role has changed a lot.

Let the Gloating Commence

From the Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke:

We've lost the battle on what the Second Amendment means. Seventy-five percent of the public thinks it's an individual right. Why are we arguing a theory anymore? We are concerned about what we can do practically."

This doesn't mean they've actually learned their lesson though (or even think they were wrong in the first place), from Brady Campaign Attorney Dennis Henigan:

Universal background checks don't affect the right of self-defense in the home. Banning a super dangerous class of weapons, like assault weapons, also would not adversely affect the right of self-defense in the home. Curbing large volume sales doesn't affect self-defense in the home.

With strategies like that, I look forward to future legal battles with the Brady Campaign and other Joyce Foundation funded programs. They do have a few points:

But given that McCain stood by his support for closing "the gun-show loophole" during a recent speech to the N.R.A., the Brady Campaign president hopes that new gun restrictions can make headway regardless of who wins in November.

McCain is not a stalwart conservative with regards to gun control. He never has been. On the other hand, Barack Obama was one the Board of the Joyce Foundation for 8 years. The Joyce Foundation is the answer to the question "Where do all these gun control groups get their funding from?" When you look at the vast left-wing gun control "conspiracy," Barack Obama was one of the people holding its purse strings. Almost anyone else would be better in comparison.

For further gloating see Armed and Safe, Say Uncle, Days of Our Trailers, Snowflakes in Hell.

Things George Bush Will Never Get Credit For

The obsolescence of the embryonic stem cell controversy continues unabated. This time it's an Australian researchers who have used adult stem cells develop a potential treatment for Parkinson's Disease. Trying this with embryonic cells results in brain tumors. Keep in mind this was in Australia so anything George Bush did or didn't do had no effect on this new treatment.

Via The Anchoress and the Thinklings.

Microsoft Miscorrections

At work we use and refer to a collection of software called JWES. A coworker told me that his copy of Word autocorrects this acronym to "JEWS." I'd imagine that could be a problem if you're highly critical of JWES and sloppy about proofreading your documentation.

Open Carry in the News

Instapundit brought up a Chicago Tribune piece about open carry and related activism in Utah. For those interested in the legalities of open carry in Delaware, there's now a dedicated forum for that along with one operated by Opencarry.com.

"Imagine" Obama's Presidency

I'm not a fan of John Lennon's Imagine, but NRAhab's rewording of this hymn to secular humanism to fit the Leftwing Messiah's campaign message is hilarious. Frank J.'s chope-hange piece also bursts the whole hopey-changey balloon.

Via View from the Porch

Politics and Economic Planning

Steve Lamp has this to say about Barack Obama:

I like Barrack Obama. The problem is I disagree with his position on a wide range of issues. One of the biggest is Social Security. Like most Democrats, Obama is against privatization. In fact, he adamantly opposes it.

Steve goes on to briefly discuss the state of Social Security (as assessed by the Social Security Administration) and how Obama's solution to it amounts to sticking his finger in his ears and humming loudly.

What is most sad about the coming election is that we really need a candidate that wants to put the Federal Government's finances in order. Bush started doing this early in his first term by reducing the rate of government growth, but completely failed to follow up after 9/11. Neither Obama nor McCain have any record of slowing government growth or solving problems outside of massive government spending. Both of these are practically mandatory at this point.

The US government really needs to have our finances together by 2017. After that the SSA is going to start cashing in it's treasury securities. Which means money essentially comes out of the general fund to pay for social security instead of coming in from surplus SS taxes. That's a big deal.

Left Wing Hypocrisy

I can smell it rolling in. From Bruce Prescott's blog post opposing illegal immigration reforms which crack down on employers:

"It drives up the wages of this particular group. As these wages go up, it essentially makes Oklahoma production less competitive relative to our neighbors and suppresses Oklahoma production. So as Oklahoma firms produce less, as they slow the rate of expansion, not only do they require fewer workers, they require fewer high-skill workers."

Funny how he completely rejected this argument two years ago when he was crusading for a hike in the minimum wage. Now the effects of that policy are coming home with sudden unemployment spikes caused by cheap student labor that is unemployable.

Thinks I Should Have Known By Now

Max Brooks, of Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z fame, is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. He's also done voice work on Batman Beyond and the Justice League TV shows. If I get home and this is written on the author blurb on the back of those books, I'll be annoyed.

The Death of Free Speech

The results (pdf) of the Alberta Human Rights Commission trial of a Canadian Pastor has the blogosphere in a buzz. Samizdata has comments and QandO has commentary. Novelist John C. Wright chimes in.

The lesson for us is twofold. Firstly, speech must be protected broadly and any exceptions must be defined narrowly. Secondly, we cannot allow entities like the Alberta HRC to come into being. The AHRC takes cases at it's discretion in which it acts as judge, jury, and prosecutor and it's decisions act with the full force of law. Disgusting.

Story of My Life

Amy and I are looking at health equipment. We have a treadmill which works well for walking, but not for much else. It really isn't up to the load a 185 lbs. jogger like myself puts on it. Seriously, the lights in the basement dim in time with my stride and the load I put on its motor.

I started looking at ellipticals because of this. Unfortunately I've since discovered by doing the department store rounds that cheap ellipticals are garbage. Getting a good one means putting out over a grand. Not the price range I want. This has me looking at exercise bikes. The recumbent ones, because the standard bicycle layout gets darned uncomfortable during a workout of any significant duration. Decent ones seem to be available at around $300.

The problem? Amy hated ellipticals and didn't care what I bought. Amy wants to use the exercise bike though. This means we need one with a pretty wide range of seat adjustment because I'm almost a foot taller than my wife. So far no luck with that. Ah well the search goes on.

Facial Expressions

Something about the look on this Dog's face is hilarious. Although I am hoping he's yawning and not about to eat the little girl's head.

Free Books that Don't Suck

SFSignal is offering up a free electronic version of John C. Wright's Orphan's of Chaos. It is an excellent book and a limited time offer.

Deaths in the Family

Melody Byrne's mother just died at the age of 61. I'm sure Melody is devastated, but after posts like this, I'm pretty sure that her father is going to have a harder time of it. They were married for 41 years and it is pretty clear that he depended on his wife for a lot.

Candy From the Old Country

While the Brits have crunchy frog the Scots have this.

UPDATE: Amybear (who originally sent me that link) has more fun links over at her blog. She even found someone who sells gargantuan lego bricks.

Where Will They Get the Guns?

Hube found this gem on Newsbusters:

I think we need to take right-wing nut jobs outside line them up on a wall and shoot them. It will make everyone happy and the world a better place.

Tell me Johnny Gungrabber, where are you going to get the heaters you need to do that? I have mine, but where will you get yours? More importantly, who is the nutjob, me with my politics or you with your suggestions of mass murder "for the greater good."

Housing Codes

Kim du Toit deals with someone who uses the oft-repeated logic of "it's my land isn't it?"

The answer to this is that it is, but it won't always be. Building codes protect no just the current owner from huckster contractors, but also the future owner and his neighbors. You can't replace them with home inspections, because home inspections don't include looking inside the walls at plumbing, wiring, structure, and weather stripping. Which means the state takes over and does these things for us. That doesn't mean they do it well, lots of inspectors are incompetent or, worse, petty bureaucrats. But they do it and they need to do it.

It isn't a coincidence that earliest written codes like Ur-Nammu or Hammurabi involve laws about land drainage. For that matter Deuteronomy has a law about safety railings. This is basic and important stuff.

How Considerate of Her

It appears that Hillary Clinton will concede based on the results of the final primaries that show Barack Obama clinching the nomination. Some stories are spinning this as a magnanimous gesture on her part, which is laughable. Conceding when you are losing so that you go out with grace is noble. Conceding when you have lost, after this conclusion was obvious months ago, is not.

Interdicting Iran

The Iraqis are moving against Iranian smuggling points in southern Iraq near Basrah. This is a good thing.

For those not in the know, who are listening to all the leftward listing pundits talk about how the US is going to go to war with Iran, we already are. Iran has been running guns, explosives, money, and members of their military into Iraq with the expressed purpose of killing members of the US military. They have done this for years. The quest is not whether we at war with Iran. By any reasonable measure, we are. The question is whether we turn this Cold War with Iran into a Hot War.

The answer to that is preferably not. The Iranian government isn't free, it is a theocratic oligarchy. About half the political positions in the national government report not to the people of Iran through elections, but to the Supreme Leader who is appointed by the Assembly of Experts (86 Islamic scholars and priests). This includes half of the Guardian Council which decides who can run for nationwide offices. The national media, the army, etc. also report to the Supreme Leader. This is causing some friction in Iran, especially with the numerous young Iranians. Best to sit back and watch things fester and, hopefully, fall apart when the young Iranians and young Iraqis compare notes in a few years.

Jokes that Aren't Funny

My wife turned me on to a Salon humor piece about how Rock Band allowed a woman to relate to her husband's gaming obsession, thereby saving her marriage. It has it's moments, but one of them struck me as profoundly unfunny:

"If you don't stop playing that game right now, I'm filing for divorce!" I holler. He can't hear me. You know, the headphones.

This isn't funny. Not even in the slightest. Amybear and I had a talk about lasting marriages and we both came to the conclusion that divorce is not an option for us. We're in it for the long haul with all the mutual sacrifices and issues that may entail. We're not going to "grow apart" because we're committed to growing together.

Divorce is a cancer eating away that the American family. It consumes people and things and delivers very little except fees to courts and lawyers. It is a serious problem. It's like joking that you have AIDS or an inoperable brain tumor. Not funny.

If you make a threat like "I want a divorce" you should already know which lawyer you're going to use to draw up the necessary papers.

The Blind Leading the Blind

The troubles of Congresswoman Laura Richardson have been making the rounds in the blogosphere lately. My favorite quote from the first termer from Long Beach was this:

"I am not financially wealthy," she said. "I am not a millionaire. - Based upon what I was going through, changing four jobs in less than one year, I think any American would understand what that does in terms of a person's financial stability."

If you aren't financially wealthy, why does she have a million dollars in real estate debt? We know she defaulted on a $535,000 loan on her Sacramento home and has an outstanding balance of $367,000 on her house in San Pedro that is going up for auction. Since she also extracted $100,000 in equity from her Long Beach home during her last run for office, that comes to $1,002,000 in debt that we know of. She probably has additional debt on her Long Beach home. She ought to have been a millionaire to run those kind of numbers!

Mere Christianity

Paul Smith reviews the C.S. Lewis book over at his place.

Given the clarity and logic of this book, I'd be interested to see what disagreements atheists have with it. It's hard to disagree with. If you're interested in Christianity, this book will help you understand why it's the true faith, and if you're already Christian it will reaffirm your faith.

I think if Mere Christianity has a flaw, it is that the book is very modern and rational in its outlook. Lewis builds his argument largely on transcendent moral principles. If you're one of those post-modern people who thinks relative morality is just peachy, then some of the fundamental concepts may not get any purchase.

I also don't understand Paul's comments about the Eucharist. I've never seen a Christian group that didn't have some sort of doctrine concerning it (or Communion or the Lord's Supper). They might not match up with Catholic doctrine, but...

The Honest "Vice"

Slate TV's Vice Capades segment went to the only shooting range in Manhattan. How going shooting is a vice, I'll never know...



Eugene Volokh had this advice to go with it:

Oh, and a piece of advice for one of the women in a video: When you go target-shooting, and at least some of the weapons are semi-automatics, don't wear a low-cut shirt. The ejected casings from the fired rounds are hot, they often get ejected backwards and to the side, and there are places you don't want them to get stuck, even for the second or two it takes to remove them. No threat to life, but unpleasant. I know from personal observation.

I've given the same advice myself. For men, collared shirts are also bad because you can have brass bounce in between the collar and your neck. I generally wear a t-shirt or a close-fitting turtleneck to the range for these reasons.

Sandals and shorts are also a bad idea. Gravity is a harsh mistress. You will have hot cartridge casings bouncing around your feet and legs while shooting any semi-automatic. You might have some even if you aren't because brass from other lanes may bounce into yours. If you're wearing pants and shoes, this isn't a big deal. Go without and you'll be doing the hot brass two-step.

Oh and that story about a woman coming to the range to commit suicide? Not uncommon. It doesn't happen every week or even once a year, but it happens. I've heard of people renting a handgun, turning sideways (so that the bullet goes safely down range afterwards), then shooting themselves.

Note to Self

No matter how interesting your radio morning show makes various spiders and insects sound, do not research them at work while eating your breakfast.

Treadmill Cats

This behavior seems to be quite common, but Milo has never shown any interest in getting on the treadmill with me. I don't think he understands the idea of walking without going somewhere. He sits to one side of the treadmill and stares at it as if to say "you know your not actually moving, don't you Bellyscratcher?"

Happenings in Iraq

Good stuff is happening and because it is good, you won't hear about it on the Evening News. National Review reflects on what this means for the US and that Democratic presidential candidates like Barrack Obama are missing:

Obama must not have been paying attention when General Petraeus testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 8, when the general explained why winning in Iraq matters to the greater war on terror..

Maybe he thought he was in church and just tuned Petraeus out.

He Did Make Howard the Duck

From George Lucas via Blue Sky Disney:

"I haven’t even told Steven or Harrison this," he said. "But I have an idea to make Shia [LeBeouf] the lead character next time and have Harrison come back like Sean Connery did in the last movie. I can see it working out."

Better Than the Book?

NRO's Frederica Mathewes-Green discussed film adaptations in light of the recent Narnia film:

Movies that are better than the book they are based on:

1. Gone With the Wind.
2. The Godfather.
3. The Wizard of Oz.
4. The Princess Bride.
5. Jaws.
6. Forrest Gump.
7. Blade Runner.
8. The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
9. The Harry Potter series.
10. Adaptation.

Of the books I have read, yes to 4 and 7. A big no to 8 and 9. I've heard 6 is also inferior to the film and I can believe it.

The Princess Bride isn't that great of a book, it lacks the great style and atmosphere of the movie. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is good book, and in some ways it develops its themes better than the film, but it also lacks the depth and style of Blade Runners techno-noir.

But Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings? No. The Potter movies lack the books depth of setting, pacing, and characterization. Each Harry Potter novel unfolds over an entire school year's time. The movies are badly rushed in comparison. The Lord of the Rings movies completely destroy most of the books' characterizations. Frodo is little more than an emo hobbit tossed by the winds of fate. Aragorn is the reluctant hero. The books are about hobbits braving horrors and the movies are about the great battles of men and elves. Not the same and not as good.

I haven't seen Prince Caspian yet, but it seems like the movie makes the same mistakes as the LotR films. The Pevensie's personalities are wrong. In the LWW movie, the kids are the reluctant heroes. In this latest film, Peter seems to be some sort of domineering bully. Contrast that with the books where the Pevensies are the children of prophecy. They don't become the kings and queens just because they're the first four kids to stumble along. They are also suited for those roles in a mythic sense. I love Prince Caspian the book, because these kids return as the heroes of legend and then they act like it. Even most of the Telmarines don't want to screw with them.

So sure, clean up some of the narrative ugliness by getting rid of the long flashback chapters, but at least get the characters right.

Iron Man

Amy and I went to see it yesterday for a diversion from real life. It was good and I liked it. They just get Tony Stark's personality right. Brilliant inventor, good businessman, arrogant playboy. Good stuff. They really could have done more with the Jim Rhodes character though, he just spends the whole movie scolding Tony for being rash. But when Tony loses himself in the bottle in future films, I expect Rhodey to have a more prominent role.

The Regal at People's Plaza was empty when we went to see it yesterday. I'm guessing the theater might have had twenty people in it. A group of people was front of us and one of them talked through far too much of the movie. Amy was ticked. I considered tapping on the back of his seat with my foot just to express my displeasure. I didn't thankfully. Turns out one of the members of the group was a member of a bible study I led in college. Small world.

LOL War Heroze?

Ok so I've been expose to lolcats and loldogs. The former being much funnier than the latter because cats seem to have dignity. But then there are lolpols, like this one:



Now that's funny I don't care who you are!

Gamer Politics

Dork Tower does a pretty good job explaining the presidential primaries for the politically challenged.

Unclean Unclean

Amybear and I have had a game of stomach flu tag going for about a week now. Last Monday we bought some dubious Chinese food which we (and her doctor) thought gave her food poisoning. Well Saturday morning showed us how wrong we were when I got it. On Saturday, I was only lucid for the short bursts required to get me to and from the bathroom. Things have improved every day since, though I'm still not up to digestive snuff. Hopefully I'll be in good shape to enjoy the tasty pastries at the Scottish Games this weekend.

I spent this morning watching the talk shows, as sick people do. Turns out Regis's producer Michael Gelman has just finished some sort of two week intestinal cleansing regime. All I could think was that a good bout of stomach flu would have cleaned him out in a lot less.

Man's Inhumanity to Man

Someone posted the Star Wars Life Day Holiday Special on YouTube. All of it. Lumpy, Itchy, Maude and Norton, the whole bit.

Obama the Fighter

I intend to stay focused on fighting for the American people because what they don't need is 20 more years of performance art on television. And that's what James Carville and a lot of those folks are expert at ... a lot of talk and not getting things done for the American people.

That was Barack Obama's response to James Carville slurring him for a lack of Hillary's "cojones." My response would have been to question Carville's knowledge of Spanish and anatomy.

But seriously, who does Obama think he is? He's been in the Senate for three years during which time he hasn't done anything other than vote party line. And it isn't like Congress has a huge list of stirring Democratic successes. Yet he's the fighter for the American People? Obama is the all-talk candidate who hasn't gotten anything done. If it weren't for identity politics and Obama's skills as an orator, no one would know who he is.

GTA4: A Kindler, Gentler Crime Drama

There is also a Part 2 and a Part 3. Free cone day at Baskin Robbins! Woo Hoo!

Frisbee

From Stuff Christians Like:

I can't prove this, but I think Christians might be better at frisbee than non-Christians. I know that doesn't sound very scientific, but it feels right. Roughly 94% of the Christians I know can really throw the Frisbee well. They're good at ultimate frisbee, can play disc golf, and can even throw a pretty accurate flick or sidearm if you will. The Christians that can't throw the frisbee? Probably backsliding.

His speculation about Jesus playing pickup Ultimate with the Disciples is hilarious.

I had a similar realization in college. Frisbee seems to be the sport of the counter-culture. Real Jocks play games like basketball or baseball. Nerd Jocks play Ultimate. After IV Gatherings on Friday, people either watched a movie in a dorm lounge or got a game going on Harrington Beach.

This sank in after I threw around a disc with some guys from from my classes. They were as close to jocks as Engineers get. The sort of engineering student who joins a frat, talks about cars a lot, and hits a bar to celebrate finishing the night's problem set. Not the guys I normally hung out with. When I joined the circle, the guy with the frisbee decided to have some fun with the beanpole and rocketed it to me. I caught the disc one handed, flipped it around, and shot it off to the next guy in kind. After a brief game of how far and how fast, they realized that I'd thrown a frisbee before.

My experience with after-work Ultimate has shown me what a backslider I am though. I blame my lack of quiet times with the elliptical trainer rather than any spiritual deficiencies.

Vegas is Sin City

Stuff Christians Like explains this idea. Let's see, network TV series devoted to its violent crime? Check. Advertising campaign promoting bad behavior? Check. Town built on bilking stupid people out of their money through gambling? Triple Check.

Yeah, that's all true. But what bothered me most during my business trip to Vegas last September was how sleazy it was. For instance, there will be a topless show within easy walking distance of where you are staying. It may be in your casino. A walk down The Strip will have you passing by countless card-flippers* doing street advertising for erotic phone or escort services. Trucks carrying billboards advertising erotic shows, clubs, services, etc. drive down The Strip at all hours day and night. Many casinos have outdoor shows featuring dancers wearing less than most Victoria's secret models. It's just nasty.

*If you haven't been to Vegas, the flippers either aren't allowed to speak or don't speak English (almost all are Hispanic). Instead they flip playing-card sized advertisements in their hands to make noise and draw attention to themselves. Then they try to hand them to any passerby who will take them. Once the sun starts to set, they are on every street corner, footbridge, and major pedestrian thoroughfare. The cards (which are censored just like the rolling billboards) get stuck in chain-link fences and are thrown on the floor of every casino.

Tough Times

Please say a prayer for John the Methodist. Recent events in his candidacy have really hit him hard and he could use any prayer support you can give him. If you read his blog regularly, don't be surprised if he takes a few weeks off to regroup.

SASSy

CBS Evening News did a report on the Single Action Shooting Society on Friday. While there are a few digs on the sport (and lets face it SASS shooters do look kinda goofy) the reporter really seemed to like it.

McCain Eligible to Run for President

Even though he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, the Senate has unanimously resolved that he is a natural born citizen. Now if they could do something about all the hassle similarly born citizens get at DMVs across the country.

Amybear's dad is an Air Force vet and she was born on an airbase in Italy. Delaware somehow equates "not born in the US" to "foreign national" and made her jump through all kinds of hoops to transfer her residency and get a Delaware drivers license. Not fun for her at all.

Free Comic Book Day

It's tomorrow. Captain Blue Hen will be hosting their usual festivities.

UPDATE: I picked up several free comics thanks to library cards and food donations. The Hellboy comic was actually pretty good, the Marvel movie superheros comic was entirely mediocre, the Dresden Files Del Ray book was a tease, and the last book was for Amy and I didn't read it. I also finally picked up Invincible Ultimate Collection 2 which was awesome.

Wright Wing Conspiracy?

Moviemaker Spike Lee suggests something interesting about why Jeremiah Wright won't shut up:

“Jeremiah Wight needs to be quiet,” Lee said yesterday. “If he loves Obama he needs to shut up right now. It makes me question his motives for talking. I’m starting to wonder whether somebody has been contributing to the building funds of his church. Seriously.”

This is a very interesting idea, not because I think someone is bribing Wright to destroy Obama, but because I think that Wright probably is reaping rewards from this whole situation. Think about this:

1. Trinity UCC is "paid" by filling pews and collecting offerings.
2. Church growth is often interpreted as a successful ministry doing God's Work.
3. Wright has received massive amounts of national exposure because of his comments and relationship with the Obamas.
4. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

Much like Ford Bronco sales after the OJ chase, Wright's church attendance and giving may be going up. His spiritual empire is growing and Wright may very well interpret this as God's blessing on him for being outspoken under fire. Why should he stop, other than consideration to a congregant?

It isn't a conspiracy. Wright is probably just experiencing a self-reinforcing loop common to many forms of outlandish activism.

Via Instapundit.

Twisted Verses

Mark Hemingway notes Jeremiah Wright using the first part of John 10:16 to justify ecumenicism with Islamists.

MODERATOR: Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the father but through me. Do you believe this? And do you think Islam is a way to salvation?

WRIGHT: Jesus also said, Other sheep have I who are not of this fold.

The entire verse is: "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." How exactly does this verse say what Wright thinks it does? It doesn't.

It often annoys me when people twist a passage into saying what it doesn't. A common one is Matthew 7:1. You know, "judge not lest ye."

People like to set this verse up as if it were saying that Christians should never ever judge anyone. Rubbish. The end of that passage in Matthew 7:5-6 contradicts this view. 7:5 (remove the plank from your own eye...) says that you should fix your own problems so that you can better make judgments. Likewise 7:6 (pearls before swine) is all about judging others.

The point of that passage is not "don't ever judge anyone". The point is to judge wisely because you will be held eternally accountable for those judgments. It's a big difference.

Any other favorites out there?

You Like Me...

I guess I can't say I've never won anything.