This may be old news to some of you, but I just heard about it this morning: apparently, Cookie Monster is cutting down on his cookie intake.
Sure, the chunk factor of kids in this country have been well-documented. But he's a piece of felt who likes cookies - no harm there, right? Maybe parents need to be a bit smarter if they believe that their kid is being unduly influenced by Cookie Monster's cravings for sugar and saturated fat (although with all the role models kids could choose these days, one would think that Cookie Monster would be the least of parents' worries). Buy lowfat cookies for your rotund child! Sure, they taste like sawdust, but they're still technically cookies. Kids are smart, smart enough to know better when their parent tries to pass celery off as a crunchy green cookie, but not smart enough to make sure there's real sugar and high fat content in that package of low-fat Oreos.
I appreciate what Sesame Street is trying to do, but let's hope they don't go too far. Oscar should still be a Grouch, not "Oscar the Occasionally Moody". Big Bird is still a BIG YELLOW BIRD! He's not "Bird, who is tall for his age". And Elmo is simply hyper and obnoxious, not overly enthusiastic.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Clarification, and...Happy Birthday Matt!
A few loyal readers have asked, based on the last entry, if I played gold in SC recently. No, based on my "skill" level I would certainly not be allowed to defile the beautiful South Carolina courses. My dad Barry is a contributor to this blog though, and it is he who is responsible for the last item. What can I say - he found out about my blog, and since he wants to be just like me, he asked to become a contributor. He spends too much time online already looking at photos of old tractors and trying to find tractor parts (aaah, middle-age hobbies!), leaving no time for his own blog.
Meanwhile, it's the 21st of April 2005, and that means that my brother Matt (picture approximately reflects current appearance) turns 26 today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT!!!
Meanwhile, it's the 21st of April 2005, and that means that my brother Matt (picture approximately reflects current appearance) turns 26 today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT!!!
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Brand New Pope
Benedictus XVI (doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like John Paul II did) is now pope. And it looks like his election will likely lead to a even more fractious relationship between Rome and the Church in North America and Europe, and continued harm to the health crisis in Africa.
This guy is old-old school. Believes homosexuality is bad. Ditto contraception. He can probably point to the Bible, and cite passages that support these claims. The Bible though, was a book written by men. I listened to a sermon by a priest once that reminded the congregation of that fact. It's not like God reached down from the puffy white clouds with an enormous hand, a la some Terry Gilliam - Monthy Python animation, and scribbled all this stuff down.
Those views aren't going to help keep gays in the Church, it's just going to push them out, all because of who they are. Anyone see the bizarre analogy between this and the U.S. military's don't ask don't tell policy? The church is shrinking in the 'first world', so let's alienate a segment of the congregation and make it even smaller! ~ The armed forces can't recruit, so let's tell this group of people that they're not allowed to join up and die for their country in its bullshit wars!
A ban of contraception won't help much in Africa, where the church is growing like nowhere else but where millions are dying of AIDS. Shouldn't a sense of responsibility towards humanity as a whole come before any religious doctrine? If the Church hierarchy stepped back and asked itself that age-old question, "What would Jesus Do?", I'm wondering if the answer would really be to let millions in Africa die instead of supporting....condom distribution.
How far does the Church have to go before rational people of faith decide that enough is enough and look elsewhere for their spiritual needs? Unfortunately, the reign of Benedictus XVI may provide an answer to that question.
This guy is old-old school. Believes homosexuality is bad. Ditto contraception. He can probably point to the Bible, and cite passages that support these claims. The Bible though, was a book written by men. I listened to a sermon by a priest once that reminded the congregation of that fact. It's not like God reached down from the puffy white clouds with an enormous hand, a la some Terry Gilliam - Monthy Python animation, and scribbled all this stuff down.
Those views aren't going to help keep gays in the Church, it's just going to push them out, all because of who they are. Anyone see the bizarre analogy between this and the U.S. military's don't ask don't tell policy? The church is shrinking in the 'first world', so let's alienate a segment of the congregation and make it even smaller! ~ The armed forces can't recruit, so let's tell this group of people that they're not allowed to join up and die for their country in its bullshit wars!
A ban of contraception won't help much in Africa, where the church is growing like nowhere else but where millions are dying of AIDS. Shouldn't a sense of responsibility towards humanity as a whole come before any religious doctrine? If the Church hierarchy stepped back and asked itself that age-old question, "What would Jesus Do?", I'm wondering if the answer would really be to let millions in Africa die instead of supporting....condom distribution.
How far does the Church have to go before rational people of faith decide that enough is enough and look elsewhere for their spiritual needs? Unfortunately, the reign of Benedictus XVI may provide an answer to that question.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
FE Exam
I attempted the Fundamentals of Engineering exam yesterday up in Timonium. This is the exam that engineers usually take during their senior years or immediately after graduation, but that I - due in part to poor academic advising and laziness/complacency on my part, never got around to taking. But it's a prerequisite for the Professional Engineers exam/certification, a good thing to have, in my field.
Ugh. Not pretty. I honestly don't think that I passed. There's a reason that most people take the exam while still in school - the material is still fresh, and they're used to taking exams. Six years out of school, I have no fresh material, and I haven't taken an exam over that whole time period.
Bottom line - I didn't study enough. I really needed more review of several topics, plus more practice working problems in a timed environment. I can look to my recent travels (3 weekends away in the 5 weeks leading up to the test) as part of the problem, not that that's anyone's fault but my own. I don't find out the news until July, but I can't say that I'm optimistic at this point. This test won't defeat me though, I'll almost certainly be taking it again in October, if necessary.
Last time I was up at the fairgrounds in Timonium, it was for a beer festival. Let me tell you, that was much more fun than an eight-hour engineering exam. If you have to choose, go with the beer every time.
In other news, both local baseball clubs, my hometown O's and the Nationals, are doing well. Baltimore is doing what it couldn't do last year, beat the NYY. As long as they keeping winning 4 out of every 5 games versus New York, that's a good season - if only because it shuts up all the local Yankees fans - you know, the ones who have never lived in any proximity to NYC - who invade Camden Yards each series. Now I don't begrudge real NY fans for rooting for their home team, I even know a few NYY fans who are decent human beings, believe it or not, but these people that show up in Baltimore grew up in Maryland and started rooting for the Yankees during the Joe Torre era. How convenient - they were also big Bulls, then Lakers fans, and these days they just love their New England Patriots. Maybe eventually those 'loyalists' will stop showing up and go root for somebody else. I know, probably too much to hope for.
Ugh. Not pretty. I honestly don't think that I passed. There's a reason that most people take the exam while still in school - the material is still fresh, and they're used to taking exams. Six years out of school, I have no fresh material, and I haven't taken an exam over that whole time period.
Bottom line - I didn't study enough. I really needed more review of several topics, plus more practice working problems in a timed environment. I can look to my recent travels (3 weekends away in the 5 weeks leading up to the test) as part of the problem, not that that's anyone's fault but my own. I don't find out the news until July, but I can't say that I'm optimistic at this point. This test won't defeat me though, I'll almost certainly be taking it again in October, if necessary.
Last time I was up at the fairgrounds in Timonium, it was for a beer festival. Let me tell you, that was much more fun than an eight-hour engineering exam. If you have to choose, go with the beer every time.
In other news, both local baseball clubs, my hometown O's and the Nationals, are doing well. Baltimore is doing what it couldn't do last year, beat the NYY. As long as they keeping winning 4 out of every 5 games versus New York, that's a good season - if only because it shuts up all the local Yankees fans - you know, the ones who have never lived in any proximity to NYC - who invade Camden Yards each series. Now I don't begrudge real NY fans for rooting for their home team, I even know a few NYY fans who are decent human beings, believe it or not, but these people that show up in Baltimore grew up in Maryland and started rooting for the Yankees during the Joe Torre era. How convenient - they were also big Bulls, then Lakers fans, and these days they just love their New England Patriots. Maybe eventually those 'loyalists' will stop showing up and go root for somebody else. I know, probably too much to hope for.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Walking on the Moon
No, not literally. But that is what I felt like I was doing on occasion during our recent trip out to Utah for Jenny's brother's wedding. That feeling stemmed not only from the wedding, which had facets that were unfamiliar in a bizarre way, but also from our subsequent trip to Moab and Arches National Park, a landscape that was unfamiliar in a spectacular, otherworldly way.
Utah is...different than the East Coast, there's no mistaking that. I had been out there three (?) times previously, so I thought I was getting used to the culture. Then we went to this wedding. Foremost, it was a Thursday affair, which is unheard of in the East. I can only assume that the Thursday date was necessary so that Chris and Jen (the newlyweds) could have use of the Salt Lake City temple for the ceremony. It probably saved them a few bucks too, something that I can appreciate since we're still paying off our own wedding that took place last November.
I had never attended a wedding in which I was barred from viewing the actual ceremony, until last week. The Mormons have a closed-door policy for their weddings, evidently. Actually, my understanding is that the closed-door policy is for the temple, but since the wedding takes place within said temple - in nerd-speak, according to the distributive property - it applies to weddings as well. So Catholic heathens like myself waited outside the temple, along with the non-temple-worthy Mormons in attendance, children from Mormon families, and everyone else. That worked out OK; the weather was nice and we played with - and, when necessary, chased down - niece and nephews. The reception was fun, with live band and food, although the absence of a bar or any adult beverages of any kind was striking. I was warned beforehand, but it's still weird to be drinking lemonade (w/o whiskey) at a wedding reception. At least the reception was uneventful, unlike the previous evening's rehearsal dinner. During which the bride's parents both chose to mention that they wished that the bride's previous fiancee (boyfriend?), who was in attendance with his wife, had been the one to join their family. Never mind that Chris is a fabulous guy who's a lot of fun to be around, and that one would be hard-pressed to meet a nicer person, and that he was sitting right next to them hearing this crap! - the parents of the bride should really know better than to be so rude and disrespectful of their daughter and future son-in-law, right?!? I'm not sure I would have believed that it happened, were I not there to hear it myself.
I don't think words can do Arches National Park justice. The hiking was amazing - challenging and beautiful. Sometimes we would stop, not for a rest, but simply to look around for a sec. The weather was pleasant enough too, aside from the wind on the first day. It was what I would imagine the surface of Mars to be like, except with more cacti, shrubbery, and butterflies. Truly an alien landscape, but maybe all too appropriate that it's located in Utah? Don't get me wrong, I like visiting, and Jenny's family is wonderful. But it's still good to be home.
Utah is...different than the East Coast, there's no mistaking that. I had been out there three (?) times previously, so I thought I was getting used to the culture. Then we went to this wedding. Foremost, it was a Thursday affair, which is unheard of in the East. I can only assume that the Thursday date was necessary so that Chris and Jen (the newlyweds) could have use of the Salt Lake City temple for the ceremony. It probably saved them a few bucks too, something that I can appreciate since we're still paying off our own wedding that took place last November.
I had never attended a wedding in which I was barred from viewing the actual ceremony, until last week. The Mormons have a closed-door policy for their weddings, evidently. Actually, my understanding is that the closed-door policy is for the temple, but since the wedding takes place within said temple - in nerd-speak, according to the distributive property - it applies to weddings as well. So Catholic heathens like myself waited outside the temple, along with the non-temple-worthy Mormons in attendance, children from Mormon families, and everyone else. That worked out OK; the weather was nice and we played with - and, when necessary, chased down - niece and nephews. The reception was fun, with live band and food, although the absence of a bar or any adult beverages of any kind was striking. I was warned beforehand, but it's still weird to be drinking lemonade (w/o whiskey) at a wedding reception. At least the reception was uneventful, unlike the previous evening's rehearsal dinner. During which the bride's parents both chose to mention that they wished that the bride's previous fiancee (boyfriend?), who was in attendance with his wife, had been the one to join their family. Never mind that Chris is a fabulous guy who's a lot of fun to be around, and that one would be hard-pressed to meet a nicer person, and that he was sitting right next to them hearing this crap! - the parents of the bride should really know better than to be so rude and disrespectful of their daughter and future son-in-law, right?!? I'm not sure I would have believed that it happened, were I not there to hear it myself.
I don't think words can do Arches National Park justice. The hiking was amazing - challenging and beautiful. Sometimes we would stop, not for a rest, but simply to look around for a sec. The weather was pleasant enough too, aside from the wind on the first day. It was what I would imagine the surface of Mars to be like, except with more cacti, shrubbery, and butterflies. Truly an alien landscape, but maybe all too appropriate that it's located in Utah? Don't get me wrong, I like visiting, and Jenny's family is wonderful. But it's still good to be home.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Sin City Review, ipod mini battery: Unstoppable!
Jenny and I took in Sin City at the cinema last night. Wow, talk about loving and hating a movie. The film is gorgeous, the cast is fantastic, the noir style felt way more immersive than I thought it would be here in 2005. But it's a brutally violent, gory movie - afterwards I felt like I should go home and take a shower, like some of the blood and guts (yes, lots of both in this film) had stained me in some way. I've read the Sin City comics so I know what Miller & Rodriguez were trying to do, and they succeeded. You were in Sin City, and that meant that you had to get slapped around some too, if only mentally and emotionally. Would I recommend this film? Without hesitation. Should you bring a date? I'd lean towards, um...."NO!". Will I see it again? Perhaps someday. I'm not masochistic enough to sit through it again anytime soon though.
The ipod mini battery? Lasted longer than I did yesterday. Started at 6:15 AM, battery indicator went to zero around 7:15 PM, when I went to bed around 1:15 AM (19 hours later), it was still going. And this with a battery that probably hasn't been fully conditioned, and with some of the mp3s encoded at a higher-than-average bit rate! So if Apple ever made a car, I suppose it would go another 200 miles or so once the fuel tank hit 'E'? Sign me up! Wait, that car would only come in white or 3 different pastel colors. Never mind.
The ipod mini battery? Lasted longer than I did yesterday. Started at 6:15 AM, battery indicator went to zero around 7:15 PM, when I went to bed around 1:15 AM (19 hours later), it was still going. And this with a battery that probably hasn't been fully conditioned, and with some of the mp3s encoded at a higher-than-average bit rate! So if Apple ever made a car, I suppose it would go another 200 miles or so once the fuel tank hit 'E'? Sign me up! Wait, that car would only come in white or 3 different pastel colors. Never mind.
Friday, April 01, 2005
New Blog Link! plus, an ipod mini Battery Test
Slow Friday at work, so I have time between the simulations I'm running for additional posts. No need to thank me, loyal readers!
I finally added a link to Jenny's long-running blog! I'm sure she'll be thrilled. But she's been doing this blogging stuff for years, so it's no big deal to her. I only recently discovered this facet of the Internets, so it's still new and exciting for me.
I think the plan is for us to see Sin City tonight or maybe tomorrow night. Naturally, a review with follow. This evening at 6:30 I have a live fantasy baseball draft for a league I just joined a few hours ago. I've never been as unprepared for fantasy baseball, I've done no research whatsoever! It should be fun, but I'm not expecting that this casual approach to the draft will extend my 2-year league winning streak. Ah well, all good things must come to an end. And I'm sure I'll still draft better than my hometown Orioles!
Right now I have my ipod mini sitting in my desk drawer running through its songs. Or rather, I'm seeing how long it will run through said songs - I'm doing an un-scientific battery-life test, for what it's worth. There are a number of potential problems with this test, the first being that the battery has only been 100% charged once. I'm not sure if it's true, but I've read that the battery needs 3-4 charges to be 'broken-in'. The second issue is that the mp3s that are loaded onto it were encoded using a number of different settings and bit rates, few of which are what I'm currently using to rip-and-encode my CDs. I'm using the LAME mp3 encoder at alt-preset-standard settings, which produces a VBR (variable bit rate) file with an average bit rate of around 200kbps. It's certainly more quality than I need when listening to songs through headphones, so I suspect I'm being a bit of a audiophile snob. But I swear I can hear the difference on certain CDs, especially jazz recordings and electronic music. Who knows, maybe there's a placebo effect at work there. But when every yuppified home has a media receiver that will wirelessly access all mp3s, video files, and photos from home computers, I figure it will be nice to be able to pump high-quality mp3s from my home stereo (which has great-sounding speakers). The downside is that bigger mp3 files - and VBR files to boot - will drain mp3 player batteries quicker than smaller, lower-quality files encoded at constant bit rates.
So time will tell (literally!) whether my current test will yield battery life close to Apple's 18 hour claim. Then for part II of testing I'll see what kind of a hit the battery takes playing my newly-encoded audiophile-snob files. Currently, the battery indicator looks to be at about 60% and I'm at 5 hours of play time. I will provide updates on the test later in the day. Hopefully, much later.
I finally added a link to Jenny's long-running blog! I'm sure she'll be thrilled. But she's been doing this blogging stuff for years, so it's no big deal to her. I only recently discovered this facet of the Internets, so it's still new and exciting for me.
I think the plan is for us to see Sin City tonight or maybe tomorrow night. Naturally, a review with follow. This evening at 6:30 I have a live fantasy baseball draft for a league I just joined a few hours ago. I've never been as unprepared for fantasy baseball, I've done no research whatsoever! It should be fun, but I'm not expecting that this casual approach to the draft will extend my 2-year league winning streak. Ah well, all good things must come to an end. And I'm sure I'll still draft better than my hometown Orioles!
Right now I have my ipod mini sitting in my desk drawer running through its songs. Or rather, I'm seeing how long it will run through said songs - I'm doing an un-scientific battery-life test, for what it's worth. There are a number of potential problems with this test, the first being that the battery has only been 100% charged once. I'm not sure if it's true, but I've read that the battery needs 3-4 charges to be 'broken-in'. The second issue is that the mp3s that are loaded onto it were encoded using a number of different settings and bit rates, few of which are what I'm currently using to rip-and-encode my CDs. I'm using the LAME mp3 encoder at alt-preset-standard settings, which produces a VBR (variable bit rate) file with an average bit rate of around 200kbps. It's certainly more quality than I need when listening to songs through headphones, so I suspect I'm being a bit of a audiophile snob. But I swear I can hear the difference on certain CDs, especially jazz recordings and electronic music. Who knows, maybe there's a placebo effect at work there. But when every yuppified home has a media receiver that will wirelessly access all mp3s, video files, and photos from home computers, I figure it will be nice to be able to pump high-quality mp3s from my home stereo (which has great-sounding speakers). The downside is that bigger mp3 files - and VBR files to boot - will drain mp3 player batteries quicker than smaller, lower-quality files encoded at constant bit rates.
So time will tell (literally!) whether my current test will yield battery life close to Apple's 18 hour claim. Then for part II of testing I'll see what kind of a hit the battery takes playing my newly-encoded audiophile-snob files. Currently, the battery indicator looks to be at about 60% and I'm at 5 hours of play time. I will provide updates on the test later in the day. Hopefully, much later.
The Pope & Mitch Hedberg
There's a juxtaposition I never thought I'd read, let alone type.
It's not looking good for John Paul II. He has been given last rites, and today might be his last day on Earth. Once he's passed, the mourning and celebration of his life will begin, and all the superlatives may not do justice to what he meant to the Church, and to the entire world, in the 20th century. From his worldwide travels to his role in rolling back the iron curtain, he will be remembered as a political, cultural, and spiritual force. I was 17 when I met him - It never occured to me then - was I meeting a future saint? I wouldn't be surprised if there was a movement to canonize him. What did occur to me on that evening in Denver, was that this was a man who was at peace with his tremendous responsibility, of being the spiritual leader to a billion people. He's done the job about as well as any human could, and now he gets to go home.
Mitch Hedberg is, or should I say was, one of my brother Matt's favorite comics. We saw him live at the DC Improv a few years ago, and it was a great show. He has a...unique style, and some fantastic material (scroll down for quotes). That being said, c'mon people, get it together. Maybe some philanthrophic-minded person in the comedy industry needs to make like the the Gideons and their hotel room Bibles, buy a million copies of Bob Woodward's John Belushi Biography, Wired, and hand it out at the stage door to every up-and-coming comedian. I know these overdoses (I'm speculating in Mitch's case, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't) don't happen as often as they seem to. But these are the people that make us laugh. They're an integral part of a fucked-up world that's easy to laugh at - bitterly, mind you - but hard to laugh in. If you can make people laugh consistently, they will love you. Why throw that away?
It's not looking good for John Paul II. He has been given last rites, and today might be his last day on Earth. Once he's passed, the mourning and celebration of his life will begin, and all the superlatives may not do justice to what he meant to the Church, and to the entire world, in the 20th century. From his worldwide travels to his role in rolling back the iron curtain, he will be remembered as a political, cultural, and spiritual force. I was 17 when I met him - It never occured to me then - was I meeting a future saint? I wouldn't be surprised if there was a movement to canonize him. What did occur to me on that evening in Denver, was that this was a man who was at peace with his tremendous responsibility, of being the spiritual leader to a billion people. He's done the job about as well as any human could, and now he gets to go home.
Mitch Hedberg is, or should I say was, one of my brother Matt's favorite comics. We saw him live at the DC Improv a few years ago, and it was a great show. He has a...unique style, and some fantastic material (scroll down for quotes). That being said, c'mon people, get it together. Maybe some philanthrophic-minded person in the comedy industry needs to make like the the Gideons and their hotel room Bibles, buy a million copies of Bob Woodward's John Belushi Biography, Wired, and hand it out at the stage door to every up-and-coming comedian. I know these overdoses (I'm speculating in Mitch's case, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't) don't happen as often as they seem to. But these are the people that make us laugh. They're an integral part of a fucked-up world that's easy to laugh at - bitterly, mind you - but hard to laugh in. If you can make people laugh consistently, they will love you. Why throw that away?
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