December 2004

A blog has been set up to help provide information for people interested in becoming involved in relief efforts for the survivors of the tsunami that hit the coast of south Asia this past weekend. The death toll has risen to 40,000 and over 250,000 have been left homeless.

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

Thanks to Mitch for the link.

Just snapped this shot of Turbo sitting in the sun staring out the window. I got this shot due to two things: luck and reflexivly thinking “Get the camera!”. I like this shot.

Spider-Goat

Scroll down to the middle of the page to read about the crazy genetic mutations being performed on goats.

Do you remember those commercials that BASF (is this company still around ?) used to do? The tagline was always something to the effect of “We don’t make the products you use, we make the products you use better.” This is starting to apply to American Cinema. “We don’t make the movies you watch, we make the movies you watch better.” The “better” being subject to opinion of course. I”m talking about this rash of remakes flooding the movie theatres recently. Especially centering around the horror genre. At first I was excited, I mean, there’s horror movies in the theatres, that’s all I need - remakes or no. But it’s gotten way out of hand at this point.

First, many have probably heard about the Spielberg/Cruise “modern re-telling” of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds”. What many may not know is that at the same time, another director is making a lower budget version of the movie which he says stays truer to the original work. So we get two versions of the same movie in theatres on or about the same time. You can read more about this here

Second is the, atrocity that is the “Evil Dead” remake. Evil Dead is the movie I cut my horror teeth on. It represents my transcendence from someone who likes horror, to a true horror fan. A lotta love goes out to this movie from the entire horror community and no true horror fan would list this movie any lower than 3 on his or her list of Top Horror Movies Ever Made. But now it has been tainted by the remake. No one seems to care about all this except the horror fans. I wonder if it’s because it is horror and the genre has never truly been taken seriously. I wonder what would happen if a remake of, say, Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Wizard of OZ? Would people get fed up? I thought the remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory would be enough to make people sick of remakes.

Mike and I have been getting some very strange responses from people when we tell them we are dedicating our Christmas weekend to spending time with our family. It’s like they think we’re nerdy or something. Jeeze, people, this is what Christmas is supposed to be for. I have a brother coming into town that I hardly see but once year, twice if I’m lucky. Maybe I’m being to sensitive about this or maybe I am getting old and nerdy but, damn-it, this is Christmas weekend and the rest of the world is just going to have to wait!

We recently went out to dinner with some friends of ours, and during the course of the evening they used the term “Intellectual Snobbery”. I don’t know why but I like this phrase and i can’t wait to use it.

I just got back from a “Job Fair” for the new Wal-Mart Disribution Center which is opening soon a short drive from Bartlesville. I had planned on applying today in hopes of getting a job in the warehouse and starting out at $11 an hour. But alas, Wal-Mart is not for me. Their shifts work very funny. In their words “you leave when the work is done”. So you could go in and work for 6 hours or you could go in and work for 16 hours. Ouch. No, I like schedules. I like to know when i start and when i finish a job. I’m disappointed though. I was looking forward to a new job.

On the other hand, I don’t mind the fact that I won’t be working for Wal-Mart. To work for Wal-Mart would clash a bit too much with my morals. and I couldn’t live with that.

Well I was going to wait till we were ALL finished, but I guess I can post these pictures now, they’re photo’s of our before (the purple) and after (the green) paint jobs on the bathroom.

The green is much more yellow than in this picture, but I’ll post more photos once we are truly finished, we plan on pulling down all the tile and installing a new bathtub and shower enclosure (ambitious for a home improvement newbie like myself, don’t you think?), and also putting in a new floor with more wainscot on the walls. I’ll be an expert at bathrooms my the time I’m done.

This was cute.

Second in the Digital Future series on CSPAN. I watched the other one online and it came through pretty good.

“Monday, December 13 at 6:30pm ET
Brewster Kahle, Digital Librarian, Director and Co-founder of the Internet Archive. Kahle is the person who first developed the idea and tools to archive the Web. He will explain how he did that, and why it’s important to our everday use of the internet. The title of his talk is “Universal Access to Knowledge.”‘

Here’s another one I’m hoping to getting around to watching.
Internet Society Conference, Harvard University

Ever since its conception Dungeon’s & Dragons has taken a lot of heat from the religious community for being “evil”, teaching children voodoo and magic, it has even been blamed for several murders and suicides. I recently read an article on ChristianityToday.com which throws some more fuel on the fire. For those of you who don’t want to read the article (it’s ridiculous anyway) I’ll sum up:

Basically this Christian woman who got hooked on D&D (as Dungeons & Dragons is called) and got really depressed when one of her characters died. She “realized” then that D&D was a negative force in her life and was sapping energy from “healthy, normal” relationships with real people. Blah Blah Blah, you get the picture.

Basically this woman was blaming D&D for her social awkwardness. I have been DM’ing (D&D term for the person who writes the adventures- the Dungeon Master) a group of 5 players including my wife for several months now. Before doing this I had played with some friends who taught us the game, for several months. It is very easy to get caught up in D&D - it’s an escape from reality, which is something many people needs, especially with things being as they are in this world. I feel a person needs to be at a certain intellectual maturity before delving into the world of D&D. It is just a game. It is not to be taken too seriously.

What the religious community is missing out on is the extremely powerful positive forces that are inherent in D&D. First, it involves more than one person, so it is interaction with other human beings - something todays video games cannot offer. I am by nature a quiet, shy person, who does not like to be the center of attention. By DM’ing our D&D sessions I am slowly becoming more and more comfortable talking in front of a group of my peers. D&D also offers a completly maliable world. You can construct the world to be whatever you want it to be. I have lost the site by now, but I once read of a pastor who used D&D to involve teens in the church. he constructed a world in which there was only one God and all powers came from this single God. Rockin! D&D is usually polytheistic, but by making it monotheistic, he is teaching his faith and making it fun for young kids. He had a great site too, completely dispelling all the doubts and fears the religious community had against D&D.

Ok, well that is my geeky rant, I read that article and it just really upset me.

My last final is due on Monday. I have three essays to write. I’ve been scribbling randomly for two days. Hopefully by Monday, I’ll have something possibly coherant, brilliantly ambiguous or surprisingly visionary. I can’t really think of anything else right now but homework. Oh, I made fudge the other night. It was my first time making fudge.

The remodeling of our house is continuing. We got the hardest part done - choosing colors. We have a great color chosen for our bathroom - it’s a bright yellowy green. For the kitchen we’ve chosen a real nice blue, sort of a powder blue, but slightly darker. Also for the kitchen we’re going to stain the wainscot a silvery color. We also chose a pine laminate flooring for the in the kitchen, once it’s all together, it’ll look great. We also plan on stripping the cabinets of thier finish - but we’re not sure what we want to do with them. I’m also toying with the idea of removiing the nasty tile in the bathroom and putting in a new tub, putting down new flooring and putting up wainscot on the walls. Just a thought, but if we do go ahead with it, it’ll probably have to wait a bit - that’s a hefty project.

Man, I’m really excited by all this stuff going on. Finally it’ll feel like our “home”. We can look at these rooms and say “We did this”. That just rocks.

Finally I figured out what we were doing wrong with the images. I’m such a dork.

friday: from the Norsk God, Freya, whose name meant “freedom” or “to be free”; the day of freedom; also a celebration to the above God, in which participants strip to their underpants, become heavily intoxicated and watch old “Simpson’s” episodes.

I’m posting this when I should be at work, which under normal circumstances would be a great thing. However this circumstance sucks, I had to come home because I was just too ill to deal with that place. I’ve had diahhrea for about 4 months now and that’s just not good. I told the doctor I was seeing for a semi-related problem about it and he told me to “keep taking Immodium” Huh?? I hate drugs, I can’t stand taking them for a period of any longer than a few days. So I’m making an appointment with another doctor to see if I can get this sorted out. At first I thought I had become Lactose Intolerant (a very bad condition seeing as how I’m a cereal fiend and the oatmeal I’ve been eating every morning just ain’t cutting it). Dairy definetly makes things worse, as tonight I had a very creamy potato soup and started feeling ill almost immediately, but going completly off dairy doesn’t seem to do much good either. I guess what I need to find out is, if “cooked” dairy still effects a lactose intolerant person. For example could I still eat cake that has milk in it? Is the lactose destroyed during baking? Hopefully I see an end to this soon.