Category: General

Everything

Nature has it’s place

and that place is outside. Seriously, anything with more than three legs had better be pretty damn cute before it thinks about crawling in here.

Why should that matter? I was driving Grace down to Grandma Albertson’s, and that last stretch of MOPAC between 290 and William Cannon is almost complete. It used to be trees, as recently as six months ago. Trees and presumably small furry woodland creatures. And spiders. And snakes, and scorpions, and iguanas, and geckos, and gnats, and mosquitos, and leeches, and ticks, and who knows what else.

Oh, yes. I did claim to have a point, didn’t I?

My point is that all that crap was outside. Where it belonged. Where do you think all those things went to live now?

I’m damn glad I don’t live within a mile radius of that area. I’d have our exterminator on speed-dial.

Oh, and at least the fsck-heads that were appointed changed their minds for the fifth time and decided not to make that little stretch a toll road, ten years after the bonds to pay for it were approved and sold. But wait! There’s time for them to change their minds five or six more times before it opens, and countless times after it opens.

Let’s just rename that little bit of road to “Whimsi-toll Road”, and watch everyone veer around it (unless they’re from out of town, on their first trip to Austin).

It’s not easy to get good debate about the evolution/creation debate

Except perhaps in the interesting people mailing list.

From John S. Quarterman

This isn’t something that many of us particularly want to do; science isn’t about attacking religion; it is about science. However, this isn’t science; it is politics. What creationists believe and teach in their own homes and churches is their affair. But when they interject their dogma into public school systems as fact, they expose it for critical examination, not to mention ridicule.

I love being a daddy

It sounds trite, but it holds true.

In my previous life, I was pretty much a stickler — oh, OK. I was an asshole. If you didn’t do things right by the tenth try or so, you were written off as a lost cause.

I even had an evil twin. He’s the guy who would always say what he thought, no matter how offensive. By most accounts, he’s been in remission since the first sonogram. Then, there is Austin traffic… Especially through westlake. Ewww.

What is the difference, really?

The Lemon helps us understand the true difference between Democrat and Republican.

I’ve also always been partial to Dave Barry’s take on it (I’m paraphrasing here):

Imagine you get a flat tire one night. The Republican won’t stop, because they don’t want to be late for ugly pants night down at the club. The Democrat will stop, but will accidentally set your car on fire.

Busy day…

and hardly any paying work is getting done…

So far, I’ve

  1. Fixed some DNS issues
  2. Fixed some firewall/proxy server issues
  3. Got a new catalog site configured and running
  4. Fixed some issues with the old catalog site
  5. Created two ssl certificates to resolve the two items above
  6. Dealt with one expired domain under my opensrs account
  7. Scheduled photos for Grace and her cousins (and me)
  8. Picked out clothes for the photo shoot
  9. Labeled and carried two boxes of christmas crap out to the garage
  10. Removed about half the staples from stuff I have to scan
  11. Started scanning ~1000 pages, front and back (at least there’s an ADF)
  12. Vacumned the upstairs (at least there’s Roomba)

And it’s not even noon…

Update 8pm — Grace came home, and I got nothing else done, except for baking cookies, 2 loaves of bread, fixing dinner, cleaning up, getting her washed and into bed. Nothing!

Why Tarrantino dialog is considered “good”

Specifically, I’m talking here of “Kill Bill Vol 2“:

There’s a section where Bill is talking about comics — making the point that Superman’s alter-ego is human while every other superhero is the alter ego of a human. The quote, from imdb:

An essential characteristic of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero, and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When he wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic that Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses, the business suit, that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak, he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race. Sort of like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plympton.

Nobody else puts that kind of diaglog in “action” films. Few others could get it through the studio system, and most of those that could, wouldn’t.

Think about that; a serious critique of all humanity, embedded in conversation in what is by all standards an action film.

In many ways, it goes back to what made “Titanic” such a formula film; a guy flick is one where lots of people die quickly (think ID4), while a chick flick is one where a single person dies very, very slowly (think Terms of Endearment). Titanic — the Cameron one — tried pathetically to surf both these descriptions. It succeeded, but looking back I’m pretty sure most people will agree that it only succeeded on those terms. All in all, that film was much too clinical where it was factual, and too hammy where it was fictional. The makers of that film had no — zero — expectations of their audience. “Feel sad here. Here’s a touching moment of humanity. Don’t forget minor moments of humor! And in the name of all that is holy, don’t forget to include some simulated teenaged sex before the audience notices the plot holes or bad dialog or starts to think!”

Then, of course, there are films where nobody dies, and 80’s music plays while people try on clothes.

Fun at the ice bats

So, we took Grace to her first hockey game. She wanted popcorn and cotton candy — some of which she even shared with Cy. By the time she had had enough, her fingers were more than modestly sticky.

But she wanted some more popcorn. One bite, and the look on her face demonstrated that she realized the cross-contamination problem.

Then, she got that sly look on her face, and I knew she had thought of a silly solution: to simply dip her mouth directly into the popcorn (as I was holding it), thereby bypassing the sugary fingers.

Also, when the game first began, she said “Miss Jody says that we don’t play with sticks.”

I’ve said it before, but I can’t repeat it too often: of all the things I never expected of being a daddy, her sense of humor is the most pleasantly surprising element.

There was also some confusion at the end of the “Rudy’s Barberque Sauce Drinking Contest” when the buzzer went off, but it was quickly cleared up when we realized that none of the contestants were miked.

Oh. Like J needs a blog to run on at the mouth…

Or the keyboard, for that matter.

But here it comes. Lock the doors and hide the children…

(Actually, the real reason I’m doing this is so that I can record and grep things I figure out, or find funny, or want to remember)

My best moment of parenting ever.

So we took G to the coast for the first time.

We packed up all we needed from the condo to go to the beach itself, and headed on down en masse.

Once we got over the boardwalk over the dunes, Grace went racing ahead of us. Way ahead of us.

Once I realized what was happening, I dropped (carefully) what I was carrying, and ran to catch up with her.

Before I caught up, a wave took her and knocked her down. Right behind it, another wave rolled her over and over. Right then, I caught up with her. She was scared, and getting ready to cry — not cry, wail. No, not wail, squall.
But I had an instant in which to recover the entire day, and the entire trip, and all coastal trips thereafter. What did I come up with? Inspiration struck:

Ocean! You’re getting a time-out!

At that instant, the undertow from both waves pulled back, going out to sea.

I was rewarded many times, first with giggles, then ongoing with her sticking nearby and behaving the rest of the day, and by her ongoing love of swimming and the ocean.

Some of my best memories with Grace are at the coast, and this is merely the first of many!