Intellectual Poison

There is an outstanding night of UFC action on tap this evening. Still not sure if I'm going to be able to watch the event but here are my predictions.

Georges St. Pierre vs. BJ Penn: St. Pierre via TKO in Round 3
Reason: Its much harder to step up in weight class and BJ's conditioning is always a question mark. The deeper this fight goes, the more likely St. Pierre wins it. Plus, St. Pierre has gotten better and better and better with each successive fight, his physical attributes combined with his confidence makes for a very daunting opponent. But then, BJ Penn is a very dangerous opponent with superb jui jitsu and better striking than I think many give him credit for. It should be an excellent fight either way.

Lyoto Machida vs. Thiago Silva: Machida by TKO in Round 2
Reason: Thiago Silva is a rabid pitbull in the ring, he comes at his opponents and usually can overwhelm them. But Machida's style runs perpendicular to most others. He is elusive and patient and has no problems waiting to pick his shots. Machida's technical skills are nearly perfect.

Stephan Bonnar vs. Jon Jones: Jones by TKO in Round 2
Reason: I like Stephan Bonnar but he's coming off a long layoff from injury, he's going to be a little rusty while Jones is hot to make a name for himself.

Nate Diaz vs. Clay Guida: Diaz by submission in Round 2
Reason: This has greatness written all over it. Guida is fun to watch, win or lose. He brings high intensity and relentless attack. Diaz is a tough son of a bitch who fights smart and has outstanding jui jitsu.

Karo Parisyan vs. Dong Hyun “Stun Gun” Kim: Stun Gun via TKO in Round 2
Reason: Unless Karo refound his heart, he's going to get his ass handed to him. There's no question about Kim's heart, he wants to kick ass. Parisyan has the skills to win but those panic attacks he's spoken of make his heart questionable. We'll see if he's worked out the mental kinks.

Jon Fitch vs. Akihiro Gono: Fitch by KO in Round 2
Reason: Jon Fitch is aching to wipe away the memory of Georges St. Pierre schooling him. Gono is a very good fighter but Fitch is a cut above and is going to bring his A game into the Octagon. Still, this could go to Gono if Fitch is over-aggressive.

Manny Gamburyan vs. Thiago Tavares: Gamburyan by TKO in Round 1
Reason: Tavares is no joke and he could easily win this fight but Gamburyan is a very, very strong and very, very driven fighter with outstanding striking and a big heart. This could also be fight of the night style battle.

Chris Wilson vs. John Howard: Don't know either fighter well enough to make a call.

Jake O’Brien vs. Christian Wellisch: O'Brien by TKO in Round 1
Reason: I don't know much about Wellisch but I've seen O'Brien fight several times and he brings it. I'm not really strong on this prediction without more info on Wellisch but I'm taking Jake here.

Matt “No Regard” Arroyo vs. Daniel Cramer: Arroyo by TKO strikes in Round 3
Reason: Cramer's a real fighter despite his pretty face. He takes the game seriously and comes ready to kick some ass. But I tend to think Arroyo has the edge in skill and the ability to finish. I could be wrong though, we'll just have to wait and see.

Labels: mma, prediction, UFC

A tweet by my friend, Helen, got me to thinking about the new mother of octuplets in addition to the six kids she already had. She separated from her husband last January and is now facing the insanely daunting task of raising 14 children on her own.

Overlooking the scary possibility raised in this article that Nadya Doud may be addicted to having children, there are some pretty scary realities she's going to be facing.

Dressing 14 kids will probably take a couple of hours, feeding them all will take a couple of hours, bathing 14 kids will probably take a couple of hours. Heck, getting them all loaded up into the car, or bus, and secured into their seats will probably take a couple of hours. And I wouldn't even want to think about trying to put 14 children down for bed. One starts crying and you've got a pack of screaming, crying and unhappy kids at once.

I just don't honestly see how it is possible to care for 14 children without substantial assistance.

The fact that all of her kids were conceived via in-vitro fertilization tells me that there are some pretty unscrupulous doctors "caring" for her without regard to the state of her life and already existing kids.

While some are calling the octuplets a miracle, there's a pretty fine line between miracle and 18 year nightmare of screaming and crying.

And then there's also the question of her ability to actually mother each of them. How do you effectively nurture 14 children at once? How do you address and resolve each of their personal issues and problems? The simple answer is that you cannot unless you literally do nothing else and even then you're probably going to miss alot of their problems.

I am often overwhelmed by just my two children, it is beyond my capacity to comprehend having SEVEN TIMES the kids under one roof.

Labels: family, kids

Attempting to make this a regular feature of Intellectual Poison, here is the second Week in Weak and Strong.

Weak governance - Dear Rod Blagojevich, Selling Senates is bad, getting all blustery and full of hyperbole in front of the commission to impeach just makes you look like an idiot. Good luck with your post politics career. And by good luck, I mean, I hope you saved alot of money because you're going to be out of work for a long, long time. You aren't Gandhi, you aren't Nelson Mandela, you are a crooked jackass.

Weak Greed - The Wall St. greedheads need to be reminded that bonuses are supposed to be compensation for doing a good job, not a birthright. The $18 billion in bonuses scheduled for the jackasses presiding over the worst year on Wall St. since the 30's is beyond ridiculous, it should be criminal. That's our damned money they are giving away for cratering the economy and sending the nation into a recession.

Weak enforcement - the more we learn about the cops that patrol BART, the more we learn that they are just about a half step up from the thugs they bust or shoot in the back.

Weak money - Budgets that underfund education are shortsighted and create much deeper social issues down the road. I'll grant that the current recession and budget crisis means we all must tighten our belts but repeatedly cutting funding for education is penny wise and pound foolish.

Weak people - Joaquin Phoenix serious about rap career, says rep. 'Nuff said. Actually, click the link and see him in his "glory". Jackass.

Weak traffic - We come across them everyday. The dinkus who thinks stop signs are for other people, the asshat who cuts you off on the on-ramp only to top out at 65 mph on the highway, the wankers who think turn signals are for losers and the jerks who drive like it is their pride on the line at every moment.

Strong karma - The donors to the anti-gay Prop 8 have been trying to hide their names from public disclosure in the wake of massive protests. A judge just recently refused to throw out the law or shield donors' names. Nothing like trying to hide your bigoted and hurtful hate behind the law and getting smacked in the face with it. Haters.

Well now, that was actually more satisfying than it felt like it was going to be when I started.

Labels: weak in week, wtf

Felonocity - the speed at which crime increases as the economy worsens. Compounded from felon and velocity.

As always, all the words I create are stored in my Fictionarium.

Labels: nwotd

The Five Six Stages Of Twitter Acceptance. Where are YOU?

Mr.Tweet offers up the Five Six Stages of Twitter with my comments. There were originally five stages but collaboration was added as a sixth stage after numerous commenters suggested it.

I am currently at stage 4 and 5 and am not sure I want to go to stage 6. Most of my new followers these days are, pardon my language, butthole marketers with zero interest in actually reading or interacting with me, they just want to increase their "reach" by getting me to follow them.

The most annoying stage is #3 Dumping where people use Twitter for nothing but posting links to their blog posts or, worse, links to their blog. Again and again and again.

And I have no interest to be another channel for someone to broadcast their marketing BS.

And there are people that join Twitter and just add every single person they see to amass these huge groups of people they supposedly "follow" but really they just want to get reciprocal follows to spread their marketing message or as an advertisement for their services.

What do I like about Twitter? It is immediate, it can be poignant (the terror attacks in Mumbai were a stark example of how immediate the information can be, Twitter was hours ahead of the big news agencies in disseminating information), it can be goofy, it can be helpful, it can be all these things all at once. Its a fun way to keep tabs on friends, to keep an eye on interesting personalities (I follow Adam Savage from Mythbusters among others because he's, ohmygosh, a geek). Plus, the ability to post a pic adds a fun element. The open API has allowed people to create an amazing assortment of add-on functionality for the service too. And the integration with my iPhone makes it very easy to keep up and to also tweet on the go.

Labels: twitter

Rideiculous - a stupid ride (and not in a good way), i.e. the dumbshit with the ape hanger handlebars that made him hold his arms above his head to ride his Harley and he nearly dropped it in the parking lot because it was so ungainly.

All new words can be found on the Fictionarium.

Labels: nwotd

I've been doing a pretty standard circuit training workout on my Bowflex for much of the last year or two. It consists of a warm up row, weighted crunches, seated bench press, lat pull down, tricep press, standing curls and shoulder presses. Lather, rinse, repeat. It does a pretty good job of keeping me at a decent strength level and helps stave off the dreaded and nasty spare tire. Combined with some cardio and I stay in pretty good shape.

Sometimes I'll invert the workout to try and keep it fresh or scramble the order some but its just alright.

Jay sent me a direct message within Twitter about a site and program called One Hundred Pushups that purports to help create a program that will take you from whatever current fitness level you have now and propel you to the ability to do one hundred pushups (hence the name, eh?).

I did my initial test yesterday in between classes in the computer lab and was able to do 35 pushups before I had to stop. Which means I'm supposed to start at Week 3.

I just finished making my Google Docs spreadsheet (and added the Docs gadget to my iGoogle home page) so I'll be able to track my progress. There is an iPhone app to do the same thing but it costs $2 and Google Docs are free so.....

Anyway, if you're going to give it a run then let me know and we can compare notes. Once this class clears out of the computer lab, I'm going to bang out today's reps (14, 18, 18, 14, max).

And maybe after this little program is done I'll give a try to their other program, Two Hundred Situps though I hope they aren't really situps and are crunches because situps can easily put too much pressure and stress on one's neck.

Update: Going to have to pass on the pushups today, my lats are just a bit too sore for now.

Labels: exercise, pushups

I know that The Daily Show isn't supposed to be serious and I'm not supposed to take things I hear on the show seriously. But.....in interviewing Gwen Ifill, Jon Stewart laid out what I actually really and truly think is a better bailout plan.

Instead of giving the banks $800 billion why not give that money to the American people to be used to pay off mortgages and credit debt?

I'm sure someone with a firmer grasp of economics could poke big man-sized holes in this idea but, on the face of it, it sounds pretty damned good to me. It would kickstart the economy like nobody's business, the banks would get a huge influx of money, Americans would pay off their debts, the economy would slam from idle to fourth gear almost overnight.

Can someone explain why this wouldn't work?

And if it would work then can someone pitch the idea to Obama? Unlike the last guy, Obama seems to actually give a damn about ideas that other people come up with.

Labels: bailout, credit, economy

No comments, just a pretty picture I wanted to share.

Labels: beach, life with a dog, photograph

Burglars strike three schools and don't really steal too much, they just broke some windows, sprayed fire extinquishers and drank a bunch of soda. They did steal a computer from a reading resource room though so it wasn't all fun and games.

The thing of it is, these schools are already way underwater in terms of budget and they really don't have a spare chunk of cash to repair the damage and buy a replacement computer.

I would guess this was perpetrated by some teenagers just looking to cause some trouble but I don't really care, you break into a school and vandalize it or steal from it and you might as well get "LOSER" tattooed on your forehead. You're a walking turd and the sooner you get caught for some crime and sentenced to a long stay in the pokey, the better. They probably won't get busted for this annoying and lame crime but its a pretty good bet that they commit other limp crimes in addition to these.

The upside is that some of the employees in the district are looking into ways to get them a replacement computer from some of the other schools, mine included. I've requested permission to send over one of our spares that has been in the lab awaiting re-imaging and am hopeful that they will get more than just the one or two from my school.

Labels: crime, local, stupid

Study: Hummers get the most tickets

The San Francisco company Quality Planning studied moving violations issued to drivers of various models in the United States and found that drivers of the Hummer H2 and H3 were 4.63 times more likely than the average driver to be ticketed.

The two hypotheses suggested in the article:
Hypothesis #1: Hummers make people drive like jerks because their height, gun-slit windows, and tailgate-mounted spare tire making for large blind spots.
Hypothesis #2: Jerks are more likely to drive Hummers.

And my hypothesis:
Hypothesis #3: Studies have shown that, the more elevated a driving position is from the road, the less of a sense of speed one has and so a Hummer driver will tend to go faster and get more tickets. That and its pretty clear that someone who would buy a Hummer is kind of a jerk to begin with.
Here's the relevant part from that link above (emphasis mine): CONCLUSIONS: The two studies demonstrate that, when they are not able to reference a speedometer, drivers choose to drive faster when they view the road from an eye height that is representative of a large SUV compared to that of a small sports car.

Either way, I have no problem with self-absorbed people in Hummers getting more speeding tickets. A speeding Hummer represents a much higher risk to other drivers because of the amount of rolling mass and the higher center of gravity that makes them more likely to ride up on another vehicle in the event of a collision and to crush the passenger area. A sports car that is much lighter and smaller and lower to the road making it less likely to cause catastrophic damage.

Labels: accident, safety, speed

From the site,

I made a panoramic image showing the nearly two million people who watched President Obama’s inaugural address. To do so, I clamped a Gigapan Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from my photo position. The Gigapan is a robotic camera mount that allows me to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file.

My final photo is made up of 220 Canon G10 images and the file is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to put together all of the images on my Macbook Pro and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.

How I Made a 1,474-Megapixel Photo During President Obama’s Inaugural Address

It is amazing, awesome and fantastic. And huge beyond huge. Its also the biggest Where's Waldo? ever. Via.

Labels: inauguration, photograph, photography

Riffed off of Rude Cactus, here's my weekly take on the weakest news of the week. And a little uplift to round it out.

Weak words - Dick Cheney shredding his old "boss" for failing to pardon Scooter Libby for outing Valerie Plame, you know, the CIA agent who's cover was blown for the weakest of weak reasons, political payback. And oh by the way, nice wheelchair, Darth, I mean, Dick.

Weak case - a man with a prior conviction for DUI was unable to start his car because he'd just eaten some ice cream which made him blow a false positive on the device connected to his ignition. He even proved it in court to get the device removed.

Weak asshattery - John Thain, the now-resigned boss of Bank of America, who saw fit to drop $1.2 million of bailout money to redecorate his office in ridiculous style (a $1400 trash can? come on!). Way to spend money that isn't yours on crap you didn't need.

Weak quote - Rush Limbaugh for his "I hope he fails" quote in regards to new President Barack Obama. Rush Limbaugh is a boil on the ass of the nation, he adds nothing but ugly and empty rhetoric.

Weak number - 9.3%, the latest unemployment rate in California.

The Strong - This is an easy one, Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Obama as the country's first African-American president and the much, much anticipated end of the Bush era.

Labels: meme, weak

My job is, quite literally, on the line again. Along with a whole host of support staff in the school district. Something about a nearly $20 million shortfall over the next 18 months to two years.

We are looking at some serious cutbacks including the removal of all sports programs, half of the custodial staff, closing of all libraries and a freeze on any computer lab installations (and likely the loss of computer room teachers). Which, of course, bodes horribly for the education of our children but it seems that turning out a well-rounded and capable student is the least of Governor Meathead's priorities. He seems to favor prisons over schools, primarily because it offsets the costs for a dozen years or so.

Anyway, people are struggling to keep their jobs. Or, most people are struggling to keep their jobs. Some people I work with tangentally do the absolute minimum they can do to keep from being sanctioned and, eventually, fired. And sometimes they don't even do that.

It kind of blows my mind to know that there are people who's job it is to collect trash and vacuum rooms and they just don't do it. They skip rooms entirely for days and weeks at a time. Or they collect the trash only to deposit it in the trashcan just outside the door.

The school system already has an enormous number of stupidities in it that keep it from running efficiently and adding into it disgruntled or just plain unmotivated workers adds even more drag to the whole system. And, in the end, it does an even greater disservice to the children in the system.

Labels: bureaucracy, education, work

Here's enough to make you get up and go get on a treadmill or go ride a bike.

* Worst Beverage of 2009: Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake, 2,600 calories, 135 g fat ... "more than a day's worth of calories and three days worth of saturated fat, and, worst of all, usually takes less than 10 minutes to sip through a straw."
* Worst Sandwich of 2009: Quizno’s Tuna Melt (large), 2,090 calories, 175 g fat ... "Puts tuna’s healthy reputation on the line. A large homemade sandwich would likely provide one-fourth of the calories."
* Worst Salad of 2009: T.G.I. Fridays Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad, 1,360 calories, Fat: unknown ... "Six out of the seven (TGIF salads) we analyzed topped out with more than 900 calories, which means that lunchtime can be the start of something big—namely, your belly."
* Worst Burger of 2009: Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing, 2,040 calories, 150 g fat ... " ... Two-and-a-half day’s worth of fat—a full third of which is saturated. To do that much damage with roasted sirloin, you’d have to eat about eight 6-ounce steaks."

And 16 more worst foods in America in 2009 at Men's Health (along with a rather annoying instant pop-up exhortation to subscribe to the magazine).

Got an iPhone and want to know what you're about to order while sitting in the line at the drive-thru? Check out Fat Burgr for a pretty comprehensive and easy to access list of basic nutritional info.

Contrast this list of what not to eat with the list of The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating.

Labels: food, health

Anybody that has kids will know where I am coming from today. My boys like to sleep in our bed and I usually don't have any issue with it, they fall asleep in our bed, I put them in their bed before I go to bed myself. Sometimes they rejoin us in the big bed and sometimes they do not.

Last night, or more accurately butt-ass early this morning, they both got into our bed and then proceeded to annoy each other which proceeded to wake and annoy both my wife and I.

Once I was awake, my allergies took over and I was pretty well awake and more than a little bit aggravated because I generally don't get enough sleep under the best circumstances. I tend to stay up a little too late because the house is so quiet and I can actually get stuff done without distraction.

After a little while of the boys being annoying to each other and then complaining when the other retaliated, we split them up. I took Sully back to his bed and laid down with him there. And ended up spending the rest of the night in his bed with him rather than try to move back to my bed.

The end result is that I'm a bit weary this morning and the full-on allergy assault isn't helping much at all.

The one good thing about last night is that I had myself a good workout. I'm starting to string them together in bunches again and that bodes well for my overall health. Now I just need to get some more saddle time and I'll be golden.

Labels: family, sleep

Foolush - a stupid drunk, comes from foolish lush, obviously.

All new words start here and then head on over to the Fictionarium to chill with all the other new words.

Labels: nwotd

Dear President Obama,

As other bloggers have already done, I thought I would take a moment to welcome you to the White House and the nearly unimaginable burden you have willingly taken on.

The mantle of leadership is thankless, weighty and will age you more rapidly than you would think possible.

But, in taking on the role of chief executive of this great nation of ours, you have inspired so many, you have made believers out of cynics, you have made hope a national movement. Your victory has opened doors and eyes and hearts to change, to working together towards our common goals.

You have, to date, batted nearly 1.000 in your short time as leader of this nation. With the exception of Pastor Rick Warren, who espouses hate in the name of God, I honestly have no issue with any of your proclamations, appointments or actions. You have shown great wisdom, thought, insight and vision, something that this land of ours has lacked for so long.

But, as you are well aware, the honeymoon will be a short one. The people are hungry for the change you have promised, they are ready, they want to work with you to rebuild America, they want to work with you to restore our country to its standing as a shining beacon of freedom, freedom from tyranny, freedom from ignorance, freedom from ethical tip-toeing.

We are ready, Mr. Obama. I am ready.

Thank you, thank you for standing up and for encouraging the nation to stand up with you.

Warmest regards,
Erik

Dear Mr. Bush,

You led our nation down a wicked and dark path these last eight years. Your ignorant kneejerk reactionism was only matched by your chauvinistic idiocy and inability to heed the advice of men hired to know more and impart their knowledge to you. You have mired us in an war without end, you have given up pursuit of the most hated man in America, you have condoned torture and thus been our enemy's greatest recruiting tool.

You have been a miserable and abject failure no matter how rosily your revisionists paint you. You have presided over the most despicable and morally corrupt administration of all-time. You have been a pox upon this country and it is my fervent hope that you are made to pay for your damage to this nation.

In other words, Go fuck yourself because you have surely fucked the rest of us.

And, oh yes, thank you ever so much for inflicting the permanently angry and hateful Cheney on us. I used to think movie villains were hyperbolic but Cheney shows us all how deeply hatred and dark venality can run. He is possibly the most miserable excuse for a human being in America.

The best thing you can do at this point would be to just shut up and let America start getting back on track.

Most sincerely,
Erik

Labels: letter

I'm still working through everything I heard and saw the other night at the Positive Discipline seminar in Santa Cruz.

Not necessarily in order of importance, here are some additional thoughts.

Parents talk at their kids too much rather than engage in a conversation with their children. And the kids learn to tune it out very quickly and just wait for the yapping to stop. It is unproductive to just talk at a child, especially a young child (under the age of 3 or so). For one, they don't have the capacity to "get it" and for two, you are training them to pretend to pay attention when they are not. And for three, put yourself in their shoes, would you take the lecture to heart or would you tune it out?

The use of the "Naughty Chair" is detrimental to the development of self-esteem and should be thrown on the trash heap of failed child raising concepts. What do you think a child forced to sit on the naughty chair is thinking about? What got them there? Or whether they are a bad child?

Finger wagging has never been effective.

One important thing to do is to mean what you say and follow through. If you tell your warring children in the car that you're going to pull over and wait for them to stop and you do not do it then you are teaching them that you are either a liar or weak, neither of which will help them.

The basic tenets of the concepts are Don't Tell, Ask and Be Kind and Firm. Also add no rewards, no punishments and that every instance of acting out is an opportunity for you both to learn how to effectively address, deal with and resolve the problem.

The same concepts of Positive Discipline for children can be applied to other social interactions in your life. Such as, oh I don't know, your husband or wife, your boss, your sales team and your neighbors. The concepts do not, however, work on animals.

Labels: positive discipline, raising children

Today is the dawn of a New America. Today is the inauguration and swearing in Barack Obama, the first African-American president in the history of this nation. It is also the end of the Bush Administration.

It is the dawn of new leadership, it is the end of state sanctioned torture, it is the beginning of the end of Gitmo, it is the beginning of climb back out of the deep, deep hole that the Bush/Cheney tag team of anger and ignorance put us in.

Today is the transfer of power from an unpopular yokel to a man with great vision who is smart enough to surround himself with smarter people than himself.

Today is one of great hope for better tomorrows for us all. But today also signals the need for all of us to throw our energy into making tomorrow better. Today is a call to duty.

Today is a day of celebration for the entire planet.

Today is a day that many people thought would never happen, ever. Today is Obama Day!

Labels: inauguration, obama, politics

We took advantage of the phenomenal weather today and split up for some fun. I took Grady for a walk in the slough with my new zoom lens to see if I could capture some of the falcons and hawks I've seen around on my bike rides. My wife took Sully and Nande out to the beach for some play in the sun and surf.

Grady and I had a good time talking and taking pictures. He has such a funny sense of humor and is such a sweet kid, sometimes I don't ever want him to grow up. About an hour or so into our walk, my wife called and said the weather really was exceptional and that we should maybe come to the beach.

She wasn't lying by any stretch. It was really perfect out at the beach. Warm sun, almost nobody around save walkers cruising by. We had plenty of space to play and Nande had already gotten one good round of play. She had plenty left in the tank though and I did my best to wear her out by throwing a stick into the surf again and again.

The only downer to the day is just how brutally icy the water is. It literally hurts to walk in because it is so cold. But Sully was having none of that running away stuff. He dragged me out in the breaking surf more times than I might have wanted to. But its hard to say no to the little guy when he's got such a huge grin and is obviously having a truly fantastic time.

The waves were massive and pounding the sand and there was a really severe rip tide a little ways out but we weren't going too far.

By the time it was time to head up, pretty much all of us were beat, ready for a late lunch and then, hopefully, some naps. Sully and I fell asleep for a little bit while my wife and Grady hung out downstairs.

It was a wonderful way to spend this, the last day of the Bush administration and the last day before Barack Obama gets sworn in as the President of the United States of America. A pretty heady concept and one that seems almost like a dream that has finally, finally come to fruition.

Labels: beach, family

My Sunday consisted of a raucous and fun football party this late morning into the afternoon followed by a quick trip home for some naps while I enjoyed the Ravens/Steelers game (and snoozed a bit). And then, this evening, we loaded up the dryer fire and had us a little suburban campfire in the backyard. The pic to the right is me holding Brogan and was taken by Grady (who's developing a pretty good eye for photos) the pic below of Mike is also one of Grady's.

The party was the culmination of our local and long running football pool. It is usually held at someone's house and includes lots of meat on bbq's, much drinking, much gambling and more hooting and hollering than you can shake a stick at. This year was a little different because the party was held at a restaurant owned by a friend of the guy who ran the pool this season. It ended up being a great location with lots of space, some sunny, some close to the tv and a couch to relax on as well.

The Cardinals and Eagles game was all that it was cracked up to be. The first half belonged to the Cards and most of the second was the Eagles with the Cards pulling out the win to send Kurt Warner, Larry "Hat-Trick" Fitzgerald and the Cards to the Super Bowl.

Besides my two boys, there were two other kids, one a little older than Sully and the other a wee toddler just finding his way up to two feet. They mostly played well but, as the afternoon got longer, the meltdowns and battling became more and more frequent. But, by that time, the game was just about over and it was time to roll out.

On the drive home, the boys were out cold asleep by the time we merged from 17 to Highway 1. I'll admit that I was having a hard time keeping my own eyes open but I had a job to do and I was going to get it done.

We pulled off the highway into Watsonville and stopped at the light and some idiot lady in her Honda Accord bashed into us from behind. Neither of the boys got woken up and there was no damage to our car but it still rattled me a bit. I hope my trailer hitch mangled her front end a bit.

After enjoying most of the Steelers and Ravens game, including some moments when it looked like the Ravens were going to close the lead and maybe even win, and then Palomalu made that interception and ran it back in for a touchdown and the game (and spread) were done. I headed into the backyard with my cool new LED headlight to put together a speedy dryer fire as per Grady's many repeated request from the last two days.

I don't know where he saw it but he's been asking for a campfire for a few days now and was getting rather annoyingly persistent. Not that I was against doing one, I just wanted to watch the end of the game in peace, ya know?

The dryer fire, for thems that aren't already knowing, is the steel barrel from a washing machine that's had the center post removed. It makes a fantastic contained and portable fire pit.

I set it on a pair of bricks, loaded it up with some cardboard and sticks, then layered it up to larger sticks. It took about five minutes to get ready for action and then it was lighting time. I had extended a bit of torn cardboard down into the hole left by the center post and lit it from underneath. But that was taking too long and the smoke freaked out Grady so I lit it in several other places and, within about five minutes, we had us a roaring fire.

Once it had flamed up and then started to die down, we made some s'mores and gnoshed happily for a little while. I even made myself a marshmallow torch by allowing one to catch fire and held it aloft (but not over me as the dripping marshmallow bits are sticky and very, very hot).

After the thrill of the fire and s'mores had worn off and everyone else went inside, I grabbed a hot dog and cooked it over the fire. There is nothing better than food cooked over an open fire. It was the best tasting hot dog I've had in a very long time.

A good fun day, some good fun pictures (Grady borrowed my camera at the football party and took some outstanding photos of people in addition to a whole bunch of WTF photos but that's the beauty of digital, just erase the ones that we don't want).

Oh yeah, I also had fun putting the fire out at the end of the night. It threw off massive clouds of smoke and steam as I hit it with the hose. That was cool!

Labels: campfire, fire, football

Swervitude - swerving with attitude. Meant to indicate the people who treat the highway like their own personal race course and swerve in and out of traffic and across multiple lanes regardless of the danger they present to everyone around them.

More words in the Fictionarium.

Labels: nwotd

To the woman who crapped her pants in my car....

Thanks, Amy. The awesome is super-strong!

Copied here in case it goes missing:
We met on Craigslist so I am hoping that this post finds you. I know that it could quite possibly be the most humiliating first date that you have ever been on, but I am willing to look past that.

I thought we had chemistry sitting at 6 rivers sharing that basket of hot wings while drinking the chili beer. I really felt like there was a connection there. I found you to be intelligent and witty and looked forward to further conversation with you.

At some point in life, everyone has gambled on a fart and lost. It just happened to be on a first date in the passenger seat of my car. Please don’t feel bad. The package I sent you with Pepto the next day and the note that said “First dates are always a crap shoot. Call me” was meant to be funny, not offensive.

I have gambled on a fart and lost on multiple occasions. The first time I did it was very memorable. It happened when I was five and sitting on my uncle's lap. I am lactose intolerant, but love cheese. I probably win 95% of the time, but I don't think anyone wins 100% of the time. That's why they call it "gambling". I'm the last person to judge you for crapping your pants. In fact, I am impressed by your boldness. The timing on the other hand, could have been a tad bit better...like when you're not sitting on a heated leather seat...

What I am trying to say is that if you want to go out again, I would be more than happy to take you someplace where we can get a meal that is high in fiber and less taxing on the digestive tract.

I await your call,
Tad

P.S. - If you shat yourself on purpose to end the evening early…Touché…

Labels: craigslist, funny, poop

We just got home from a couple of hours of Positive Discipline taught by Jane Nelsen. I went in tired and cranky but ended up enjoying myself and learning quite alot about how to make positive changes in how I approach interactions with my children to help them build up self-esteem, a sense of their capabilities and to foster happier, healthier and more complete little human beings.

If I had to sum up the evening in just a single short sentence it would be: Don't Tell, Ask. Meaning that we, as parents, spend far, far, far too much time telling our kids what to do, what they've done wrong, what's going to happen to them and why they need to eat, sleep, sit-up, don't touch, don't hit, don't this, don't that.

Positive interaction with a child can be easily achieved by empowering them, by asking them questions and making them think for themselves. Little Johnny got sent to the principal's office? Ask him what he could do to not have it happen again.

The guiding principle isn't lack of discipline, its a lack of punishment and rewards. The reasoning is that, while punishments and rewards do work in the short term they teach a child to avoid punishment and seek greater and greater rewards. It is short term win but long term fail.

There was some role playing to demonstrate how and why some methods of interaction push the child away and how to convert those interactions into opportunities to build up self-esteem.

I am still processing an awful lot of the information and we bought a book to read about it. But the overall gist of the program resonated quite well with me and the rest of the sold out crowd.

As a parent, we are faced with heading down a road without a roadmap, without signs and without AAA. Positive Discipline offers some quality guidance in helping to raise strong, smart and empowered people. And the world really needs more empowered people.

I will be writing more about the seminar and about the implementation of the practices as we move forward. The first up will be the creation of a Bedtime Routine board that will give us a visual roadmap of the steps we (the boys) need to do to get ready for bed.

I would highly recommend any parent having trouble or just wanting some extra help to look into Positive Discipline (yes, Lujza, this means you!).

Labels: positive discipline, raising children

Twurfing - astroturfing (Wiki - neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising which seek to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf) via Twitter but includes the marketing wonks/SEO "experts" who use Twitter to expand their network of contacts.

Archived at the Fictionarium.

Labels: nwotd

Here is a rundown of 2008 through photos taking during each month. Pics are linked to larger versions on Flickr. It was a good year and I'm looking forward to more photophun in 2009.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Today is, according to Rude Cactus, De-Lurking Day. The day of the year when readers who read but don't comment de-lurk momentarily to leave a comment and then can go back to lurking (and probably smirking at my low-brow attempts at humor).

So, if there are any lurkers out there reading me, why not de-lurk for a few minutes and say hi? Yes, that does include family members.

Labels: blog, de-lurk

What's on my mind this morning? Let's see...

I'm a bit annoyed that my wife used the last of my creamer so I got one measly and insufficient cup of coffee before bolting to work, late.

I'm more than tired of my eyes being so damned itchy all the time because of the high allergy alert going on right now.

There's an epidemic of kids at the daycare saying "Fuck you" to their parents. Well, epidemic in this case means one child spending the entire weekend saying it to her mom.

I'm back in my meat locker computer lab today. Its cold and the pile of surplus computers is still all over the floor. Oh, and the district energy nazi unplugged every single one of my computers.

I was under the impression that my new camera lens was supposed to be delivered today but that was wrong and it is now supposed to be here on Thursday.

The McDonald's Steak, Egg and Cheese Bagel may be a horrible greasy gut bomb but it tastes pretty frickin' awesome.

Today is an SBC training day for the school which means no students and all the teachers are in meetings most of the day. Which is cool by me. Maybe I'll start a movie from Netflix and project it on the big screen.

Crucial.com has asked for me to review my recent purchase from them before I've even gotten the RAM. That seems rather stupid.

And the computers are all really dusty and nasty. Plus, my workstation won't boot up properly if it has the aluminum keyboard and mouse plugged in. Odd and kind of irritating.

Mostly though I'm just cheesed about not having my usual cup of delicious hot coffee to get the day rolling properly. But perhaps it'll be warm enough for me to trade my car for the bicycle at lunch today and get some more saddle time as per my resolution.

Labels: wrap-up

Phlotation - making ends meet by selling photographs is phlotation.

More new words at the Fictionarium.

Labels: nwotd

More juvenility! Herein are some of the euphemisms I've grown up with or invented myself. If they are attributable to a coiner than that person or other is in parentheses.

Masturbation (male):
Rubbing one out
Choking the trouser snake
Going fishing for trouser trout
Beating the one-eyed gopher
Milking the monkey

Masturbation (female):
Flipping the switch
Sinking the man in the boat

Sex:
Washing her dishes
Shining her shoes
The horizontal mambo
Trouser snake boogie
The bang tango

Going to the bathroom:
Dropping a tail
Dropping the kids off at the pool (Jessica Simpson)
Making bricks
Laying the foundation (an offshoot from the previous one and the classic song "Brickhouse")
Making brownies (South Park)

I'm sure I am forgetting some old favorites and may add them later. What are your favorite euphemisms? If they are worthy, I'll add them to the post with an attribution.

Labels: euphemisms, potty humor, sex

Revisionisticalism - the effort to rewrite history in order to paint yourself in a better light by the use of talking points dispersed throughout your organization. See Cheney, Dick and Bush, George for current examples of revisionisticalism.

As always, more new and rateable words here.

Labels: nwotd

I got a chance to go up to MacWorld for the day and enjoyed several hours of walking the floor, watching demos and listening to pitches and seeing slick Apple products. I was keeping my eye out for a simple leather flip case for my wife's iPhone and came tantalizingly close but didn't secure the exactly specified unit despite my best efforts.

Not everything was specific to Apple products but, obviously, the vast majority of things were. Which meant that I was a pretty happy little geek. There were some pretty neat booths but the overall feel of the show was muted compared to last year. Maybe that's because I went earlier in the week last year but things were less frenzied and the crowd was definitely smaller. Both of which were good things.

My favorite demo of the day was the last one I saw just before I headed off the show floor. It was at the Zagg booth, makers of a protection screen called invisibleShield. The guy pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and pulled his keys out of another pocket and proceeded to rake the keys across the back of the phone. No marks were made. He turned it over and proceeded to rake the keys across the screen. No marks were made. Very, very cool. The 50% off coupon certainly didn't hurt in the least. And yes, I am putting in an order for not one but two so that both my and my wife's iPhones will be protected without the extra bulk that my iGriffin clear case has.

I watched some neat photo magic at a couple of booths, Topaz Labs and a company showing off a product called Instant Photo Studio (I thought that was the company's name but was wrong). Both had some pretty slick software. Topaz Labs was taking basically worthless photos and magically pulling information out of them to create viewable and decent photos. I.e. if a picture was too dark then it could be lightened up so that features could be seen. Instant Photo Studio had, you guessed, a portable studio set up to take product photos on site with a white box, two lights and a nice stabilized mono-pod for the camera. But the software package was even cooler. It was able to quickly and simply extract a portion of an image out, even from a many colored background. And the "grab" process was simple, just draw a line on the part of the image you want and the software does its own magic lasso act.

The BusyCal booth was another interesting stop for me as I spent yesterday trying to export a Palm calendar into Entourage 2008 and had to do create my own little workaround to get it to work correctly. I didn't get a demo but I did get some literature and will likely get more info down the road.

LightSpeed's XSilva had an interesting set up and I stopped by to see what they were about. They are an integrated retail POS system including inventory control, accounting and some nice iPhone reporting integration as well as online store management for virtual shops. It might be just the thing to take the heavy lifting out of running my wife's shop. We'll have to see.

I did not win the slick data transfer cable at the Targus raffle but the gent at the Dermis booth was good enough to give me a set of nice ear buds.

I stopped in Los Gatos on the way home to get a bite to eat at the Pizza My Heart just up the street from the Apple Store. The pizza was abso-freakin'-lutely awesome and not just because I was really hungry. And the stop at the Apple Store is always good too. The accessories are expensive but, in speaking with an Apple salesman, I got recommended to check out Monoprice.com for some good deals on things.

It was a good day overall and I'm glad I was able to take the time to get up to San Francisco and take it all in. But my feet are tired from all the walking and its late now so I'm packing it in and calling it a night.

Labels: Apple, macworld, review

I've been having a really good time playing a game called Scramboni on my iPhone (you can also play on a regular computer but you won't be as cool). The easiest way to describe it is multi-player timed jumble, you know, the game where letters are mashed up and you have to rearrange them into a regular word.

Scramboni combines several game elements that really appeal to me (I'm actually playing it right now). Among them, competition, word play, letter play and speed. I've long been a fan of Text Twist on my Clie and still play it pretty regularly. I have a version on my iPhone but they use a foreign dictionary so some of the words are totally bogus to me. I like the game but it annoys the hell out of me when pretty standard English words are discarded as not being found.

Anyway, back to Scramboni. It has a bunch of really good things going for it but it also has a few annoying issues that keep it from being all that it really could be.

Here are a few of them.
1. No option to join a round at the beginning. You can sometimes join a round 18 or 19 puzzles in. It would be nice to be able to wait for the start of a new round before playing.
2. Some puzzle words can be solved in different ways. For example, the letters ARGLE can spell lager, legal, large, regal and glare. Any of which could be the right answer. The use of the red letter to note the first or last letter helps some but not in all or even most cases. And then the game isn't about skill or speed, it is about luck and that's just annoying.
3. No way to see the entire scoreboard, just where you place on it (granted I'm usually in the top 5 and that's all that really matters but still).
4. Some puzzle words are total and utter bullshit. I had one last night where the "correct" word was Retd. Retd, according to Merriam Webster, is an abbreviation for retired or returned. Its an abbreviation. Total BS.
5. Forcing players (well not forcing but severely handicapping) to play at the highest level they've achieved which is basically just a function of playing the game. Accumulate enough points and you graduate to the next level, no matter what. I can play a lower level but I would get half the points other players would get.

All in all the game is excellent and fun and worthwhile but it has some annoying shortcomings that could be dealt with pretty easily to take it from a four star game to a 5 star champion.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to wander the floor at MacWorld to see what is what and why.

Update: I got this cool comment on my FriendFeed from, well, here's the comment. Hey Eric, my name is Peter, I'm one of the authors of Scramboni. Your points about rounds and the non-word 'retd' are well taken. We thought red letters add a bit of a fun twist to the game, plus for some people they make easier to deal with longer words. Thanks for your feedback! Peter Bakhyryev

This is one of the reasons I love the internet. Not only can you post your thoughts about a product, you can sometimes get a direct response from the author or developer. Too cool!

Labels: app review, game, iphone, review

The problem in attempting to engage an entrenched conservative (or extreme liberal, for that matter) in a discussion is that there is no compromise, there is no open-minded approach to the discussion. There are merely forgone conclusions that you haven't accepted as gospel yet.

Which, as anyone who knows me, doesn't play well at all.

A foregone conclusion supported by foregone premises isn't a discussion, its an attempt at a conversational dictatorship.

There are conservative thinkers I've known for years and I respect them and their opinions. Not because I agree with them but because they have a willingness to open up and discuss issues on equal terms. They may have a strong belief in their stance, just as I normally do, but evidence can be presented for either side and either side is just as likely to cede the point.

In arguing with people with entrenched beliefs, there's no chance of a meeting in the middle, there's no chance of any sort of mutual understanding because they are unwilling or incapable of cracking the seal on their belief system lest it be cracked wide open and they realize that nothing they believe is sacred and perfect.

I stopped discussing religion with people long ago because of this. Faith is not something I can access. I was raised by a scientist, my grandfather was a scientist, my other grandfather was a engineer. Empirical proof is hard-wired into me. I cannot and will not accept a belief that requires me to ignore everything I have come to know and learn about the universe. The leap is the failure and, logically, requiring a leap of faith is a demonstrable flaw in that belief system.

And when the entrenched is faced with proof of the flaw, they dismiss it or ignore it. There is no discussion, there is the citadel within which they dwell with their cherished beliefs and there is the rest of the universe in which discussions can and often do change strongly held beliefs.

The entrenched believer squirms out of the way of evidence, they try to reframe the discussion, they try to use your own words against you, they throw mud at the wall in the hopes that it obfuscates the discussion so their false premises leading to their foregone conclusions won't be examined. They are intractable and not worth the time it takes to discuss the issue with.

I hold no belief so strongly as to be unchangeable save the fundamental understanding of cause and effect, of empirical evidence, scientific method and other baseline understandings with which I can and do judge the world around me. Other people do not come to the table with the same set of tools, others come to the table with faith-based fundamentals that are outside the realm of accessibility.

The counter argument to all of this is that we are flawed creatures, incapable of accessing the knowledge that would inform us of the existence of a creature or creatures outside of this universe. That the leap isn't a failure but a calculated gap bridging mind trick that brings one into an acceptance of these "facts". And I'm probably not doing a very good job of breaking it down.

What it all comes down to is the leap of faith. The required shoving aside of every mechanism of discovery to accept, without proof, the existence of a god. To me, the leap is the failure. If I'm allowed to push aside every bit of belief and understanding of the world for the leap of faith then what is to stop me from doing so for any other "truth" I wish to hold? It is a slippery slope that leads to intellectual damnation.

Also, it certainly doesn't help the religious argument that some of the most vocally intolerant buttwads in the world are also religious leaders. Christians preaching hate and divisiveness when Jesus Christ counseled tolerance and acceptance. The Mormon church throwing millions of dollars at the Prop 8 haters when they have a long and much joked about history of polygamy, denying one kind of marriage while having participated in having multiple wives is hypocrisy. And don't even get me started on the pedophilic preacher stereotype. Or the publicly vocal politician who thumps the Bible with regularity and then seeks gay sex in airport bathrooms.

Life is too short to enter into confrontational monologues with ideologically entrenched people. Just say no.

Labels: dogma, entrenched, ideology

I'm a combination of confused and seriously pissed off right now. Which is a bummer because I was very excited when I got home for lunch to see that Fed-Ex had dropped off a box for me. The box contained a new (to me, it is used) telephoto zoom lens for my Rebel XTi. I was really happy that it came so quickly especially since there are some upcoming cyclocross races that I wanted to try and take some photos at.

Only my elation turned to disappointment and outright rage when I unwrapped the lens. One, no lens cover which is just stupid.
Two, no clear lens protecting filter on the end. Cheap insurance.
Three, a rather large abrasion scratch on the outer lens next to a decent sized scratch. Not dead center but pretty impossible to not have known it was there when the seller sold it.

Which means he knew that he was selling pretty obviously damaged goods to me. Why? Why would you sell someone they were going to be pissed off about and demand compensation? Did he somehow think I wouldn't notice it? Did he presume that I would be cool with it and just let him off for selling me a lens that is, presently, useless?

It is fixable and I'm going to a local camera shop after work to see about getting it fixed up. But I shouldn't have to, I shouldn't have to waste my time getting the lens into a usable state. I know I'm for damned sure not going to be paying for it out of my pocket. The sale was through Amazon so I fully expect that I'll get some cash back to cover my work to get it repaired.

I just can't access the mentality that allowed him to knowingly pack up and ship obviously defective merchandise.

I've already emailed him and put the ball in his court to give him the opportunity to make this right. I'm not overly hopeful of an easy resolution but I have to give him the chance. And, when he disappoints some more, I will escalate the claim through Amazon's channels to recoup the cost it will take to fix the lens.

Update 1/7/09: The seller has been in touch with me, has been genuinely (or does a great job faking it) apologetic and already refunded my money before I even got the package in the mail on the way back to him. I have also ordered a brand new lens and got a $30 discount on it by opening up an Amazon credit card account. The credit card has a ridiculously high interest rate but it won't matter because the lens will be fully paid off before any interest is applied and then I don't plan on ever using the card again. All's well that ends well, now I just have to wait for the brand new lens to show up.

I did take the lens into a repair shop to get an idea of how much it would cost to repair and the lady was said "Don't bother, just get your money back," which is never a good sign. Anyway, I'm not thrilled but I am satisfied.

Labels: broken, defective, stupid

Roland Burriss is not, despite his and his team of lawyers bleated and repeated insistence, the junior senator from Illinois. He was appointed to replace Barack Obama by Rod Blago.....whatever the hell his name is, I think I'll just call him Governor Helmethead, after Helmethead has been accused of trying to sell the Senate seat to the highest bidder. Which, oddly enough, is a felony.

Burriss has not been certified for a very good and valid reason. That being that his appointer, Governor Helmethead, is under investigation for committing a felony with that very seat he's laid his claim to.

It would be prudent and much more above board and honest to let due process run its course. He wouldn't be stirring up a shitstorm of controversy by demanding that it is his without any reservations or recognizing that the appointment was made under extremely suspect circumstances.

Roland Burriss gives politicians an even worse name than they already have and is representative of what is wrong with politics in America. He and his team of mouthpieces spew rhetoric and hyperbole but their argument is, basically, Roland Burriss is the junior Senator from Illinois because Roland Burriss is the junior Senator from Illinois.

All of this combined with the rather creepy and hyper-inflated ego fact that the dude's already bought a mausoleum and listed out his life's accomplishments on it but left plenty of space for his accomplishments in the Senate. That's just creepy and smacks of a completely self-serving mentality.

Labels: crooked, politics

Aside from a rather chilly working environment, my lab was a decidedly not toasty 50 degrees when I left this afternoon, today was a good and productive first day back to work.

I succeeded in cloning the lab computer to do some repairs on the other machines in the lab. I also surplussed a whole crapload of obsolete equipment. By surplus, that means I filled out a bunch of paperwork, copied down serial numbers and used my knife to peel up the district ID tags which were then collected on a sheet of paper and turned into my department so the numbers could be returned to use. And, by a whole crapload, I mean nearly 70 machines! Not all computers but all had to be processed by hand, in an arctic chill. I ended up not sending an old Apple Stylewriter II to surplus because I just couldn't bear to let it get recycled yet. Its such a nice little printer and still works well.

I also fixed an annoying and stupid problem with one of my big laserjet printers that had, until today, refused to print from its internal paper tray.

There were a few other things that got crossed off as well before it was time to bust out early because the later shift janitor wasn't coming in and the alarm system had to get turned on early. So I had to bug out a little earlier than expected which is never a bad thing, ya know?

All in all it was a pretty good first day back. Tomorrow should be more of the same and then, on Wednesday, I'll finish up imaging the lab at one of my other schools so that they are ready to rock and roll when the students come back next week. And Thursday means a trip up to San Francisco to go to MacWorld! The only bummer is that no Steve Jobs but the keynote's tomorrow anyway so I'd have missed either way.

Labels: old technology, productivity, work

Herein are some personal, professional and family resolutions.

Personal:
Continue to battle the middle-aged spread.
Less time on the computer, more time with my family
Try to keep in mind that the internet isn't nearly as important as I think it is
Stop being too sexy for shirt because it hurts
Ride my bike more, drive my car less

Family:
Less tv time, more play time together
More bicycle riding together
More Lego time
Less "don't" and more "do"
Recognize that "me" time is just as important for my wife as for me

Professional:
Expand revenue streams beyond straight work.
Monetize my other blogs to generate some added income.
Keep adding to my tech support repertoire including the unholy hell that is Windows.

This is a good start. I reserve the right to add to these resolutions as they occur to me or life demands it.

Labels: family, personal, resolutions, work

Because I am a silly and juvenile boy at heart, here are some Dr. Suess books re-imagined as porn stories.

Horton Hears a Who becomes Horton Hires a Ho
Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You becomes Mr. Brown Can Spew, Can You?
Are You My Mother? becomes Who's Your Daddy?
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish becomes One Squish, Two Squish, Red Squish, Spew Squish
Green Eggs and Ham becomes Green Legs and Slam
Horton Hatches the Egg becomes Horton Humps a Leg
If I Ran the Zoo becomes If I Ran in Poo
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! becomes How the Grinch Poled Christmas
The Cat in the Hat becomes The Cat in the Scat
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back becomes The Cat in the Scat Cums Back
Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories becomes Yertle the Squirtle
Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book becomes Dr. Seuss's Sleeping Around Book
Dr. Seuss's ABC becomes Dr. Seuss's SEX
Hop on Pop becomes Hop on Pop's Cock
Fox in Socks becomes Fox on Cocks
The Foot Book becomes The Foot Book and Other Fetishes
I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! and Other Stories becomes I Can Lick 30 Johns Today!
My Book about ME becomes My Book about Pee
I Can Draw It Myself becomes I Can Jack It Myself
The Lorax becomes The Sore Ass
Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! becomes Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Blow Now!
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? becomes Did I Ever Tell You How Fucky You Are?
The Shape of Me and Other Stuff becomes The Shape of My Wang and Other Stuff
There's a Wocket in My Pocket! becomes (duh!) There's a Rocket in My Pocket
Great Day for Up! becomes Great Day for a Schtup!
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! becomes Oh, the Skanks You Can Skink!
The Cat's Quizzer becomes The Cat's Whizzer
I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! becomes I Can Fuck with My Eyes Shut!
Oh Say Can You Say? becomes Oh, Say Can You Lay
Hunches in Bunches becomes Hump-es in Bunches
The Butter Battle Book becomes The Butterface Battle Book
You're Only Old Once! : A Book for Obsolete Children becomes You're Only Rolled Once! : A Book of Sex for Obese People
I Am NOT Going to Get Up Today! becomes I Am Not Going to Get IT Up Today!
Oh, the Places You'll Go! becomes Oh, the Places You'll Get Blown!
My Many Colored Days becomes My Many Colored Lays
Ten Apples Up on Top! becomes Ten Slapples on my Cock!
I Wish That I Had Duck Feet becomes I Wish That I Had Fucked Pete
Come over to My House becomes Come Over in My House
Wacky Wednesday become Whack Off Wednesday
Hooper Humperdink...? Not Him! becomes Hooker Humperdick...?

Some good ones, one cringeworthy ones. And yes, I did edit out the truly awful ones. My favorite is Horton Hires a Ho.

Labels: funny, porn

One of the reasons I really love reading Popular Science is because they highlight awesome technology like the Clean Cookstoves from Envirofit.org.

These new cooking systems maximize resources and minimize pollution by intelligent design that creates a practical and stable cooking surface in rural areas. The stoves acombust more efficiently, reducing fuel use and expense while speeding up cooking times and reducing toxic emissions.

The stoves were developed at Colorado State University’s Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory.

They are inexpensive, durable, efficient and much safer than cooking over an open fire. If they were available for sale in the US, I'd probably have one on order right now.

Labels: cooking, science

Slopportunity - when someone takes advantage of a drunk person for sex or other actions then you are being slopportunistic. Or, another definition, a slopportunity is an opportunity to make a buck off of a sloppy situation, i.e. how a tow truck driver loves freezing rain because more cars slide off the road and mean more money in his pocket.

More new words at the Fictionarium.

Labels: nwotd

Until we started to see the snow on the side of the road, some four plus hours after leaving home, I wasn't convinced we were going to actually get to the snow before we reached the closed off mountain pass at Sonora. But it started with chunks of dirty piled up snow on the side of the road and progressed until the entire hillsides were covered in the beautiful white stuff.

With some trepidation, we decided that the outing would be an all-family outing. That means including Nande, who's not known for being an especially calm or pleasant traveling dog. She has a tendency to breathe heavily, whuffle and whine and occasionally bark for no apparent reason. She can be quite trying on the nerves.

But she'd never been to the snow, nor had Sullivan. And we decided to give it a try. We also decided not to try and subject the cat to the journey and let her have a day at home alone. We hadn't counted on Nande's rather obnoxious flatulence but we dealt with it as best we could. She was surprisingly pretty good in the car aside from when we were on surface streets and she could find things to bark at.

We chose to head up to Sonora because it would give us a chance to stop by my wife's parents to say goodbye to the boys' cousins who were heading back to Colorado shortly.

From Pleasanton we headed east on 580 for several hours making one quick and awesomely delicious stop at an In 'n' Out Burger along the way. Why there is no In 'n' Out in Santa Cruz is a complete mystery to me. They have the best fast food burgers anywhere.

Once we got to the hills, I changed my GPS over to altitude to keep track of our climb. We started out just a few hundred feet above sea level and quickly climbed to about 2000 feet and then kept going up and up and up. We saw snow along the side of the road at around 4500 feet and then the hills were good and covered by about 5000.

Once we'd gotten into the snow country, the next step was finding a good spot to get off the road and into the snow. The first good candidate was a huge open sledding hill but it was also pretty full of people and, we later learned, bottomed out into a creek that got a bunch of sledders soaked. We kept going until we came upon a small turnout with a monster snow removal machine and a couple of cars. It turned out to be the perfect spot for us.

There were some paths already stomped into the snow which made life alot easier for Nande as she got used to this new world. She didn't much care for going off trail for a little while when her first foray ended up with her chest deep in the snow. After she got used to it, she had no problems with going anywhere and really had a ball.

Sully needed a little acclimatization as well to get his snow legs under him but he got used to it as well and had lots of fun sliding face first down small hills, climbing up slippery slopes and, as Grady loved to do too, eating the snow.

Grady was very small when we were last in the snow but he had zero problems getting down with his wintery self. I think we were there for less than five minutes before he started chucking snowballs at me.

My wife only wished she'd had some boots but otherwise had a ball riding down the hill on our shiny new hippy sled (it looked like a plastic tie-dye) and playing with Sully.

I enjoyed the heck out of myself doing some sledding, tossing snowballs at Nande and the boys and taking lots of pictures.

We had prepared for some hard core winter action with extra layers, changes of clothes, waterproofed gear and the like but we really didn't need much of it at all. The spot where we'd stopped was sunny and, maybe not quite warm, but it wasn't cold at all. I found myself peeled down to just my long sleeved shirt in no time.

We literally could not have chosen a better spot with better weather. The snow had a crust on it which made it fun to walk on, sometimes you sank in, other times you didn't. Both Grady and Sully got stuck a couple of times but they took it in stride and really just had a ball. Nande must have run miles and miles in the snow, she had as much fun as anyone else even when she'd step off the trail and find herself deep in the snow. She figured out how to jump like a jack rabbit to get herself free and to continue her off-trail forays.

Major kudos to my wife for suggesting the trip and putting together much of the gear, food and clothes we would need. Kudos to me for driving up and back, thinking to fill up our big thermos with delicious coffee that was so, so, so awesome when we were packing back up to leave. Kudos to the boys for being patient on the drive there and back and major kudos to Nande for going many miles to dispel the myth that she's not a good traveling dog.

Here's a taste of what we saw at the top of the hill. The full sized version is freakin' huge and awesome!

Labels: dog, family, fun, snow