Be patient, it doesn’t happen until about a minute and a half in. Just enjoy is adorable face in the meantime :-).

Now, I don’t question what this show accomplishes, to be sure, as of the date of last nights program they had caught over 160 online predators. And obviously the way in which they lure the predators is perfectly legal. What got me thinking is the legal system in general, and this concept of luring criminals into illegal behavior. I’m not terribly familiar with the legal system in this respect, so I’m really just considering this as a mental exercise. To me it’s a question of intent versus action. If I walk into a convenience store with a concealed gun with the intent of robbing it, but I don’t, have I done anything illegal? Other than carrying a concealed weapon, that is. Shouldn’t I have the opportunity to rethink my actions before being arrested?

It’s things like this that sorta make me rethink wanting to have a girl. I mean, it’s bad enough trying to teach a boy not to be a creep, but having to worry about all those out there that never got taught?

I’ve applied for several more positions in the upstate/east coast area. Unfortunately, there aren’t many in youth services. I think the market is a little swamped now given that it’s graduation time everywhere.

The Machiavelli personality test has a range of 0-100
Your Machiavelli score is: 63
You are a high Mach, you endorse Machiavelli’s opinions.

Most people fall somewhere in the middle, but there’s a significant minority at either extreme.

The best part about using these two hard-hitting cleaning products is the zero impact on the environment - vinegar is a natural substance, and baking soda is pretty much just a salt. There is much less smell also, so that my house smells clean without burning my nostrils, and, if I need to pick up Liam while I’m cleaning, I don’t have to worry about him accidentally sucking on my hands and swallowing a harmful chemical.

She also discusses vermicomposting - using earthworms to compost your household waste. It’s pretty neat sounding - if a bit messy, but it’s something I’d really like to get into. You see, the worms eat through all your kitchen waste and organic material much faster than your standard compost pile. It sounds a bit more work intensive, as you have to seperate out the worms and drain the soil occasionally (which does provide an excellent liquid fertilizer for trees, shrubs or flowers).

All in all, I highly recommend the book to anyone, even those who couldn’t care less about the environment, using vinegar and baking soda to clean your house will at least save you money - and who doesn’t want to do that?

I took Liam out in his stroller to the post office yesterday laden with packages to New York. We got in line and were only there a few minutes when Liam decides it’s a good time to start crying. I will say, in his defense, that I had the stroller completely covered with packages so that it was pitch black inside so that couldn’t have been to fun. So I got out of line, went over to Carl and Siri’s, dropped Liam off and went back to the Post Office. Met a lady there who only wanted to buy stamps, but she discovered she was a dime short. I offered her my dollar, but when she tried to use it, the screem flashed, “Use Coins Only”. She started into this sort of hysterical laughter that was either, “I’m laughing like this so that no one gets killed” or, “I give up, bring on the hard liquor”. I felt for her. She had to stand in line, at the post office, on the busiest shipping day of the year, to get change - one stinking dime.

I guess this is the time of year I’m supposed to reflect - upon the previous year, and what I learned. I’m a forward-thinking man, however, always look ahead, the future’s bright, all that jazz. That and I’ve forgotten much of everything. I remember Liam, obviously. And I seem to remember being poked and prodded by doctors more that I would have liked - plus a bonus trip to the emergency room, but all in all, it’s pretty much blank. Things I’m looking forward to in 2007:

• Lots of Liam firsts
• Moving! Somewhere else!
• Starting Massage Therapy school
• Frank Miller’s “300″
• Flying Cars and Robots!

Ok so that last one is made up.

Jason is a coworker of mine whom I often butt heads with. My relationship with Jason is a complex one, and is an entire post on its own, but to simplify the matter just realize that if there is room for disagreement about something, we usually do. We have similar hobbies/interests we just usually like opposite things within those interests. We both like Horror movies; I like slasher flicks and creature features, he likes Asian horror. We both like Gaming; I like gritty, “low-fantasy” games, where he likes High Fantasy, Anime-style games.

This all started when I pointed out to Jason, several months back, a form I was running that used the word “overage”. Never having heard this word before, and thinking that “surplus” is a fine-and-dandy word, I brought “overage” to his attention. He firmly told me that overage IS a word. I continued to disagree with him for weeks, until finally conceeding the point that overage IS in fact a word (though a goofy, unnecessary one). Well, the other night he brought up overage again and I told him, “If you keep bringing up ‘overage’, I’m going to have to bring up your pronunciation”. You see, Jason has a rather unique way of saying various words - some to the point that I cannot understand what word he’s using. The major word in dispute last night was the word “piton”. A piton is a spike that is hammered into rock and used to tie rope to in rock climbing. He pronounced it pi’ ton with an “i” like in “is”. The overall pronunciation sounded like the word “pittance”. I have always heard it pronounced “pee’ ton” - he used the word several times before I realize which word he was using. Like I said, I don’t generally correct peoples grammar, but his arguement was that I’m not factoring in for regional variances and that some places in the country say words different. To which I reply (though in the actual arguement I had given up by this time…) of course, people in different parts of the country say things different - there’s always going to be regional dialects that can’t be helped, that’s how we get “see-ment” vs. “cement”. But just because most of the South says “see-ment” doesn’t make it the proper way to pronounce the word. That’s what the arguement was about, the proper way to pronounce a word, not “the way some people say it.”

This is the difficult and frustrating part of arguing with Jason - he’s an excellent obfuscater. He rarely stays on topic in an arguement - bringing in tangenital “facts” and non-sequitur into the arguement - that make him more or less right, but right about something that wasn’t even the focus of the arguement.

But I digress…

…actually, I started writing this post so long ago I really don’t know where I was going with it. So what does the general public think? Should a countries language be preserved as best as possible? In what form? Language is a constantly changing being, new words being created and others falling out of use - should we strive to maintain the original integrity of languages or let them go the way of Latin - morphing into something wholly alien from the original? And what about the case of American-English vs. British-English? Two completely seperate languages, or are they both tied into the same rules and should both follow the same ruleset? Do we need to start adding a “u” to color?

You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.”

“You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

Yeah, that fits, I guess.