Baby # 2 (the Younger)

Monday contractions began...at 12:02am on Thursday the contractions were done (or at least, the baby-birthing contractions). In between was very little sleep, and increasing sense of impending arrival, me fainting in the delivery room, lots of drugs injected directly into the spine, and finally, a screaming child.

Since screaming, the child was moved to the neonatal intensive care unit, since he's about a month early, but he's doing pretty darned well.

A full accounting of the delivery (complete with my increasingly complicated explanation for my own collapse) is forthcoming, this is a brief update.

And some music (first time trying the NPR embedding function):

I love K'Naan

I also love Regina Spektor:

And finally, Modest Mouse continues to be totally awesome:

Let's have a talk.

Here's what is going on with me...

Grand projects spiraling out of control:

- The special issue I steamrolled forward has essentially burst into a million pieces. Why? Well, half of the contributors didn't come through (more than half actually) and at least two of the papers are not getting through (apparently). My paper is one of the ones that didn't get in on time...it still isn't in.

So what happened? Me doing two jobs for 4 months happened. I'm just not as good as I used to be.

- The online project review system. This is the big "light at the end of the tunnel" project for everyone at work. The three ecologists in my office all hate project reviews. They take time, they are tedious, and unfortunately, they are the reason we have jobs. So we got the bright idea of putting together an online system that would automate the majority of this process and simultaneously make the material we're being given more consistent.

And I volunteered to lead this.

Shit. Delays with our internal processes lead to the contractor going to other projects in the meantime, and now it doesn't look like things are going to get going until December. Which puts the critical time for this project right when child number 2 should be emerging screaming from the womb. This is going to be not fun.

- Dam removal is a pain in the ass. For some reason, things are just not moving forward.

Job Hunting:

- Yeah, I guess I'm looking for other positions. Except I feel like two years at my current employer have killed me. I'm tainted by my association with this place. Who's going to look at me, at what my employer does, and think 'This guy must be smart.'

Cooking:

-Hey! Fun stuff. Turns out I can cook pork really well. In two weeks we've had 3 'people over' meals, and I've done pork tenderloin with apricot stuffing, brined porkchops with apple ketchup, and pork 'kinda chili'. Those dishes were all amazing, and everyone thought so. I don't have nearly as much success with any other meat: I'm up and down w/ lamb...I try to do too much with chicken...and bison just isn't interesting. Pork, on the other hand, seems to always turn out great.

- So I've continued to play around with 5 minute a day bread. The first loaf was amazing. The 2nd and 3rd loaves were not great, although they made great stuffing and croutons. The dough can also be used for other stuff. We made calzones and pizzas with great success. I decided I'd give it one more try. So far, so good. The first loaf was slightly undercooked, but that was just my fault. I should have let it get a little more brown on the outside. It did make that wonderful crackle when we pulled it out of the oven.

- The salsa I made with the last of the fresh tomatoes is great. I made 8.5 pints, and I've gone through 1.5 so far. We have a problem in our house of not eating the food we freeze for later. We're always waiting for a 'special occasion'. We need to stop doing that. To start, I've been eating more of the canned foods we've made.

- I also brewed some quick apple cider. Turned out really good, and I might try brewing some other quick hard drinks (orange juice would probably be good).

- Watched another episode of Top Chef tonight (I'm in a hotel room) and a 'reunion' episode. The reunion episode was a stupid bit of nostalgic nonsense. The episode is the one where Mike got sent home, and the guy thought he was much better than he was. (the one with Natalie Portman) At first I was totally bored by the idea of Natalie Portman as a participant, but the twist of bringing them all to a steakhouse and then forcing them to cook vegetarian required a vegetarian to be involved. It seemed to me that everyone's dish was mediocre. I was surprised that Michael was so pissy about losing to Kevin. Kevin's freaking great...if he showed you up by making something simple that was better than your complicated stuff...well....I guess I can understand why you'd be irritated.

- Pull out a college ruled page of notebook paper. See how many lines there are? That's how many dishes I have in my repertoire that I feel I can pull off with success for most crowds (counting things like different types of pizza as 1 'category'). I think 5 years ago that list would have probably had half or a third that many items.

And what else:

- I'm bored with work, de-motivated to do anything new, and tired way more often than I ought to be. So I bought a playstation 3. Because I always said I hated Sony. Oh well, the online service is free. If anyone else plays Call of Duty 4, let me know, we can team up to collect some kills.

- There's absolutely no music better on earth than Matt and Kim. I have a hard time putting into words how awesome I think this music is:

Mousaka, mini meatloaf, and the weakerthans

The Mousaka saga is yet untold. It involves my culinary exploration, poor estimation of the carrying capacity of a baking dish, and the effect of smell on life in general.

And now I'm getting all crazy with mini meatloafs.

I should stay vegetarian.

Those of you wishing to subscribe to my musical tastes newsletter may. Just email me and I'll explain. Suffice to say, it involves Pandora, which isn't actually as good as you might think at bringing me new music.

Once again, the Weakerthans:



This song is pretty good as well.

As far as life in general goes: I am rapidly approaching the 'overload' portion of my stress carrying capacity. A nap this afternoon helped, but I'm not sure how long that energy can carry me.

I spent much of this week attending a 'range management' school. I attended to learn my plant identification (yes, I can now tell you the difference between fall witchgrass, little bluestem, windmill grass, and beadgrass; and I know why switchgrass is hilarious), but I learned more than that. Right now, I totally want to be a rancher. I'm interested in running the numbers, but I imagine grazing land ranching is the most environmentally sustainable agricultural practice out there.

I'm not even kidding.

Anymore the most productive ranchers are pouring a serious amount of ecological theory into their production methods. And when they are really cooking, they pretty much don't damage the native biotic community at all (assuming you can look past the widespread fencing and replacement of large mammalian grazers; bison and prairie dogs). The point is the birds and bugs and plants shouldn't be negatively affected.

Of course, I don't like or eat beef...

I guess the point is that I'm escaping from my job into a temporary imaginary world where I'm not exhausted by my job.

Saving the world one acre at a time is not easy.

What I did today...

For the first time in...oh, months probably...I have science to do. Not a little bit, but a lot. I have a grant to write. I have two papers to revise and submit. And I'm editing three other papers. And I'm working on a research idea.

So yes, I am finally getting back into that which I love.

And yet I'm sitting here with my brain completely fried and I'm unable to work on any of that. And I tried...judas I tried. Take the grant. I think I'm going to title it something like:

"Mapping the distribution and impacts of fish obstructions caused by road crossings in Kansas."

The grant only has to be 2-4 pages long. The granting agency tends to hurls money at projects like this. Oh, and there's also $50k sitting there from the state to provide a match.

So great! Right!?

I start to write, and it is gibberish. It isn't even comprehensible. I'd barely call it English.

Fine.

I'll work on Catchment Stoichiometry.

I just need to read through these papers to see what I'm missing in my citations.

Open paper. Stare at paper.

I might as well be staring into the abyss. I, seriously, have no idea what I just read. So are there good relationships between inorganic nutrients and catchment characteristics in this paper or what?

I re-read.

Stare.

This is the kind of exhaustion I have after a day like today. I spent 6 hours in a meeting on the topic of mitigation banks. Every single time I opened my mouth to speak, even when I said: "Fine, let's just forget it and move on", I managed to spark a 35 minute discussion that usually ended up so far from my original point that even I had to think hard to remember what I was asking about.

I swear, some people are trained to repeat the same things over and over again as if that mantra will answer a completely unrelated question.

All I want to do right now is go home and chase my son around the living room, hit the gym for an hour, and think about nothing at all.

Instead, the odds are good that I'm going to spend the rest of my 'per diem' on a ticket to Harry Potter (Wife and I already saw it once).

(I wrote a lengthy review/thoughts on the movie that somehow got deleted. To sum up: It was good if you'd read the book and I can't imagine what it would have been like without having read the book. I'm not really liking this director.)

Am I going to be able to get all this science done before my vacation?

I guess we'll see....

Oh, and here's some more awesome music:

White Stripes (Effect and Cause):

Johnathan Rice:

Mountain Goats (Yes yes yes!):

My Teenage Stride:

The Weakerthans:

Fun on the road?

As pointed out by my infrequent life-coach, I typically write the most amazingly depressing things in this space during my road trips. Let's count down some awesome then, just for a change:

22 and 4: That's the pounds I've lost so far, and the inches off my belt. Wow and wow.

3. The number of amazing songs I heard on the radio today...starting with:



2. Meals I had that involved the words chicken schwarma (sp?) or drunken noodles over the weekend. Denver was actually pretty awesome.



That song is great.

2. Funnel clouds (pre-tornados) we saw dropping down out of the unholy sky as we made our way out of Denver on Sunday. Fortunately, we were headed 80 mph in the opposite direction.

3. The number of wins that the Orlando Magic have laid on the Cavs so far. Tonight's game may have been a coming out party for Dwight Howard, who was on the receiving end of LeBron's "I'm taking over" moment, and responded by turning into early-Shaq for overtime.

4. The number of times my Uncle and I agreed the game was over for the Cavs before LeBron made a ridiculous shot that brought them back.

1. The number of birdies I had last week on the golf course. More than I'd had in the last three years combined.



Yeah, Franz Ferdinand! Not the 3rd great song I heard, but good still.

Pilot Speed isn't my favorite, but deserves more attention than they get...so...



I've done my part.

Goofy.

Where is that other song I heard????

Still not it, but yes awesome:



Was it the Raconteurs (you know, Kurt Cobain's new band)? It could have been, it has now been several hours since I heard the song, and I'm sorta forgetting what it sounded like:

Musik

I don't wish to alarm you...

...but this comic is hilarious.  However, I'm recommending that unless you're a big fan of ridiculous penis jokes, the rest of that comic's archive should be avoided.

Once again...

...I am sitting in a hotel room.  Quasi-drunk off of cognitive dissonance because, so far as I can tell, I have always made the right choices in life yet am never satisfied with the outcomes.  

I'm also a little weirded out because I'm reading "Discarded Science" by John Grant, which purports to discuss scientific theories that have been discarded, yet in actuality presents them with a borderline-serious delivery that is hard to distinguish from the tone used when describing actual reality.  

So yeah, the idea of Venus originating as a comet spewed forth from Jupiter's massive (and non-existant) supervolcanoes, only to bounce around the solar system and subsequently causing all of the otherwise inexplicable Biblical miracles (flood, parting of red sea, etc.) seems a lot more plausible when delivered in a calm and reassuring tone.

Chuck is dead.  Long live Chuck!

Today I stood on top of progress and economic development from 50 years ago.  Abandoned mine strip pits.  Sheer-sided sinkholes stuck betwixt slag-berms.  Fifty years of trees and honeysuckle working to reclaim it all for modern life, with ticks, birds, turtles, a dozen species of frogs, deer, and at least one very startled garter snake as the beneficiaries.  Yet all about to be undone so that we can dig a new pit and fill it in with broken concrete and metal.  

Yes, and I definitely feel the appropriate place to put our trash is in the holes we leave in the mountains from which we dragged the coal in the first place.  I'm just not sure why we're throwing away metal and concrete.  Which one of the three R's are we forgetting here?

It's all of them isn't it?  Why is this so hard?  Or, to put it more appropriately, why is this so easy to get wrong?

Because we give up.  You can't find a kid under 12 who will tell you he wants to kill the world when he grows up.  You can't find a person under 21 who thinks "I can't do it better!"  And I don't know anyone over the age of 30 who hasn't sold out at least some of what he/she believes and dreams.  The reality is that it is so easy to just put up the white picket fence that matches the neighbor's one.  And then, you know, not eating meat is such a hassle when you go visit your farming family...how many times do you want to explain why you're eating cheese ("It's like heroin, I can't stop") and not eating beef ("Environmentally stupid.").  

Giving up isn't hard to do, its easy, and once you do, you can really make some money.  Where am I supposed to put these ideals when I decide to cash in?  Will they fit in a shoebox at the back of the closet, hidden next to other forgotten items that no longer seem to serve as anything but a reminder of what isn't?  They certainly seem to have diminished in size and importance.  

Yadda yadda yadda.  I spent my evening meal sitting in a resturant called On the Route, the 'Route' being the Mother Road, Route 66.  There I consumed an entirely delicious and not as healthy as I'd hoped dinner that made me think of how surprisingly easy it is to make something fantastic:  Just stick it in oil.  Which is how I ended up eating fried potato salad.  If you think french fries and a 'mustard sauce' doesn't sound fantastic, well, join the club.  My story is that the waitress insisted on it since I asked "What do I have to try here?"  And I assure you, she was totally right.  But that meant I spent over an hour on the treadmill afterwards....in addition to the other hour I was going to spend on it anyway.

The reality is that today I got to observe a part of the world almost nobody has ever seen.  I got to watch a sunset unimpeded by monstrosities or trees.  I stopped at the side of the road, and was rewarded by seeing a wood chuck.  How lucky am I to get to discover new things all the time?  I stopped by the side of the road today to vent my frustration with being cooped up in a car, and saw through a cluster of trees two blue herons working their way upstream through a riffle catching fish.  

I'm exhausted a lot.  And more and more I just don't care.  

New Music Onslaught

Let's get this out there in the open, right now:

I'm burned out.  I'm not "burned out for a while" or "burned out right now" I'm burned out forever.  Imagine a fire that is no longer flaming.  Sure, there are coals there, with a lot of burn and a lot of heat still there, but this isn't a raging inferno anymore.  Ok, that's not entirely accurate, there's a lot of rage.  But there isn't a lot of fire...which is why I say I'm burned out.  

I'm much more likely to just say "Clearly we're not going to agree on this, so let's just stop here" than I am to say "Clearly you're not going to convince me to adopt your idiocy as my own belief, so why don't you just stop embarassing yourself."  Why is this?  Because I'm falling into the same damned pattern of every other human in western society "Give up the fight and just get by."  I can't tell you how infuriated it makes me to have all these choices and no idea which is correct and which is wrong and somehow I'm building myself a walled enclosure in middle america that superficially resembles the very same damned white-picket-fence, dream-world that I despise.  

Why am I turning into prototypical American Dream lifestyle?  Because it is so easy.  Look, that Wal-Mart over there?  That's the ONLY place within an hour that I can buy coconut milk or giram masala, or, for the love of judas, unseasoned pork loin.  And that's the only place with a pharmacy that doesn't mess it up and take 6 hours.  But it's Wal-Mart...bastion of all that is wrong with western society! I scream in my own head every time I go there, Why?

And go to the Dillons instead?  Are these better choices?  Are these really choices at all?  How did I end up here, in the middle of the country, working a dead-end job that is constantly documenting the destruction of another chunk of irreplaceable beauty, in a town 10 times too small, spending 2 hours a day talking and reading sports, and with no single decision along the way that appears wrong?  Who could look at my current lifestyle and think that I was ever anything but just another clone buying into the american ideal?  I'm just some guy with an over-inflated sense of his own individuality.  

 
But, you sat on the doorstep of your church youth director at 18 and read On the Road and discovered that you were a human...doesn't that count for anything?  You stayed up all night at a lock-in playing electric guitar!  You basically got a physics degree in two years!  You wrote and published your own poetry journal!  You have a Ph.D. from a fantastic university!  You can cook fantastic gyros!  How many people can say all that?

Probably not many, but as far as I can tell, that doesn't really mean anything.  

And so today I ended up calling my landscaping buddy and asking him what herbicides I need to use on my lawn to get rid of the non-grass and how to best get my yard looking good and having grass my kid can roll around on recklessly without fear of stickers.  Me...with a yard that's cleansed by herbicides and well-watered...That was the last log on the fire crumbling into coals.  My wife was incredulous, but this was pretty much the last bastion of my unusuality, and it hurts like hell to let it go.  

I don't know what this means...the straw and the camel's back isn't the right analogy.  This isn't a breaking, it's a change, and I think I'm going to have to figure out how to make it work in this new format.  Does that mean figuring out how to recycle all my grey water for watering the lawn?  I guess.

Yeah, this sounds all sad and depressing to me now that I re-read it, but it really isn't all that sad and depressing.  This isn't a padded cell, it's just a situation.  And I can't break out of the decisions I set up for myself...I just have to try to make something awesome out of it.  

Which leads, pretty much thought-for-thought, to me getting into gardening like crazy.  The wife and child and I planted 10 strawberry plants, 4 broccoli, 4 cabbage, and about 40 spinach plants.  Like everything we do outside and with the boy, that was some great fun.  

Anyway, long story short:  I have no interest in writing anymore.  Like a lot of my ridiculous dreams, I just can't sustain it right now.  I'll probably continue to post here, but my online life is dead everywhere else.  

But wasn't this supposed to be about cool music I was listening to?  Feast on the following:

Where have I been?

Our hero awakes in a white room with two rows of fluorescent bulbs hanging from wires in the ceiling. There is no floor or furniture, he is laying on the floor, which is painted white. He has forgotten...something...something important. There is no sound in the distance. There is nothing.

The baby:

Pneumonia. Yeah, not really that much fun. We've gone through a couple more rounds of sickness, with an ear infection and a round of antibiotics. But the boy is doing pretty well. He's sleeping through the night, by himself, pretty consistently. He's actually getting big enough that I'm starting to feel sad about the transitory nature of children. In less than two years we've passed a lot of milestones, and I honestly miss the crawling a little, and the laying there looking silly. Fortunately, he is now insane. When he and I play, we spend most of our time wrestling or chasing each other, I'm sure at some point we're going to hurt ourselves.

At this age, they are so much like a little puppy that it is impossible to be around him without thinking that.

We've been doing a lot of walks in the evening. To the lake, around a wetland, down by the river, around the block, through the grocery store, around dad's work. He's fascinated by birds and cats, and has no control when he sees one. He's gotten good, though, at the grocery store of staying close when you're checking out or doing something. Those places are the ones where I can barely imagine having a second child.


Work:

My wife pointed out that all I ever talk about is my next job. Clearly, I'm not entirely happy with what I'm doing. That isn't to say my job is terrible, and I'm not actually sure I could move. Not so much because of the job, but just because judas I do not really want to move again. We've purchased a house, added new furniture, settled in, and I am terrified by the prospect of moving again. But my job is dead-end, no possibility for advancement, with no window, no research, no possibility for something more. I don't really know how to work with some of the people I work with on 'research-light' kinds of projects, just because I'm not very good at not being in control.

I've spent quite a bit of time in the last week or so doing science. Writing papers, doing data analysis, learning R. I'm not sure if I'm actually any good at that stuff, but I feel like I am. I feel like I'm good at ideas, experimental design, and interpreting data. I haven't been writing much of anything lately, because I just having felt inspired, but what I have been writing is mostly science.

So I keep thinking about jobs where I can do more of that. But there aren't a lot of those out there that I could really get into without a major life change. It has been 2 years since I was in a lab environment...as my wife said "Could you go back?" That's a legit question...I like having a sense of smell again.


Music:

NPR is single-handily keeping my job interesting, if only because of the huge number of really interesting songs they have on their website. I recommend (you'll have to find videos/links yourself) Passion Pit "Sleepyhead", Lilly Allen "Not fair", "My 45" by someone I forgot, Blitzen Trapper's "Furr", "Skinny Love" by Bon Iver(?), and some others that I've forgotten.


Dam Removal:

This is supposed to be the kind of thing that should keep my job exciting and interesting. I'm working on getting some dams removed from the Neosho River. You might recall me getting some money from the fish and wildlife service to do this. Well....that's great and all, but I can't actually do any of the science to go along with it. Like, what the heck is going on in these low-head dams as far as nutrient cycling goes? How are we going to quantify the movement of fish before and after? What's going on with the sediments?

So yeah, I mean, this is more interesting than what I spend a lot of my time doing, but it isn't really all that interesting unless you can do the science as well. And I'm not going to be doing that. I'm just struggling to get permits in order, a good design, a plan everyone can live with, and a procedure for the next one. Great.


NCAA Tournament:

I'm so sick of the Big East talk. Look, these aren't that good of teams! This isn't the best conference ever, and it probably isn't even the best conference this year. There are three 'good' teams in the Big East, and UCONN isn't even one of them (did you see their non-conference schedule?). The Big East has three of the worst schools to play in a major conference this year (South Florida, DePaul, and Rutgers). This isn't the best conference ever.

The amazing thing I keep hearing is talk like the Big East is this always fantastic conference. Really? Hell, 90% of what the Big East accomplishes it does by just having more damn teams than everyone else. The conference has 16 teams! They keep putting 7-8 teams in the tournament. Big flippin' deal. From 1998-2008, the Big East has won 3 rings and has had 4 teams reach the Final Four. The ACC has 3 rings and 10 teams in the Final Four. The SEC has 3 rings and 5 Final Four teams. The odd balls are the Big 10 and Big 12, which have 1 ring a piece and 9 and 6 Final Four appearances respectively. The Big 12 even had the era of unrealized potential, when 4 teams made 5 Final Four appearances in 3 years (DAMN YOU SYRACUSE and MARYLAND!!).

And as for the ACC...good god. How many years are we going to keep giving Duke and North Carolina home games for the first two weeks of the tournament? Does this happen for anyone else? Duke isn't even a 1 seed this year! Arggh.


KU:

For the record, I predicted KU would win the Big 12. If KU hadn't won a championship last year, I would expect this team to make the Final Four. The bracket they are in is stacked with top coaches, but mediocre talent (yes, especially Louisville). KU is stacked with top tier talent, just really, really inexperienced. However, Sherron Collins has no ceiling in the college game (he is the best PG in the country, I won't even discuss this). As he goes, so will go the Jayhawks. So far in his career Collins has been ridiculously good during big games (he's the one who stole the inbounds pass from Memphis last year and hit a quick three to give us a bit of life). However, this is his first year as a starter, and when he plays bad (like he did against Baylor and Texas Tech), this KU team could lose to anyone. There is, literally, no one else on the KU roster who can propel them into a win at this stage in their career. I'm not sure they have a second player who can even run the offense at all.

As always I predict a championship. But that first round game scares the hell out of me.

Music

Apparently the absence of pop music from my life makes me like it a lot more.

This is more for my own memory than anything, but who knows, maybe some of these guys will entertain you as well.

Mika (who is awesome and "The Darkness")

Sara "Love Song" Baraleladsiaofdsaosss Yeah, I know this song will suck the 35th time I hear it....Actually, I don't like the end as is.

Jason Mraz? Is Jack Johnson getting younger and faster?

Apparently the Ting Tings are too good to embed video....but they're still awesome.

And I'll have to listen to this later.

Weekly Report # 8?

A cold breeze swept in off the ocean, carrying the smell of salt water and seaweed.  The funeral pyre burned defiantly in the darkness.  Silently, the Vikings rowed away from the shore.

Minnow Report:

She's on the farm.  She's staying there.  She's happy...what am I supposed to do?

The Kid Report:

Very mom-clingy.  Very desirous of green vegetables.  

College Football:

People take this way too seriously.

Cool Sciency Video:

Old Lady Drivers:

Pick a damned speed.  If I have to deal with one more white-haired lady driving a boat down the highway at 55 going up hill and 75 going down hill I may invest in car-mounted firearms.  Seriously, clean your funny shades and learn to use the cruise control.

Cooking Lamb:

We have the lamb, we have the bison.  This is all very confusing.  One half of the bison had ~95 or so pounds of ground, the other 55.  Wha-?  Anyway, we cooked some lamb chops last night.  Eh...tasted just like steak.  I don't really like steak.  Of course, i didn't really do anything with it.  I'll have to get a little more creative.  And damn, there's a lot of fat in lamb.  I can't shake the feeling that this whole 'purchase meat direct' thing was big mistake.

Musical Lemonade:

Lemonade is refreshing, like drinking spring.  Oddly enough, I think Colbie Callet's music is the same.

Weird:

I drove by a Wendy's sign today that said "Closed:  Remodeling."  The Wendy's in question had been completely destroyed, even the foundation had been ripped out.  Yes...remodeling.

Baseball is so dumb:

I was listening to sports radio on my drive today, and they were talking to someone who was drafted in the 31st round.  The 31st round.  They have, at least, 31 rounds in their annual draft.  And this guy got a $300,000 signing bonus.  REALLY??  In case you didn't know it, there are 50 rounds in the MLB draft and 1500 players taken.

Last of the Mohicans:

Heard the theme song today...forgot how cool it was.

Weekly Report #4

Ahh Veteran's day. I have Veteran's day off. Yay.


The Minnow Report:

I once had a cat,
Who sat in a hat,
And rolled around on her back.

Eventually she got up,
And ate some sup,
And fell asleep on the heating vent.


The Baby Report:

Son. I hope someday, you read this, and you ask me about it, and I explain it to you.

Learn some damn patience. You have never been so close to being put in your crib and left there to cry all damned day for all I care. And that would require me to put your crib back together first!

It has been a long couple of days, and I have seen that screaming baby face too often.


Veteran's Day:

Just like every other damned holiday, somebody's sick. This time its the wife and the baby is probably coming down with it. I'm drinking OJ like a madman.


Walking in the cold and dark:

For some reason, my job has evolved into one where I sit in the office all the danged time. How did this happen? Regardless, in order to get any outdoor time at all, I'm taking walks at night. In any weather. Last night was cold, drizzly with a strong north-western wind. I've never been so happy to have my face chilled.


NBA- OK City Edition:

So Russell Westbrook is an exciting player who pretty much singlehandily gave the thunder their only win of the year (he also rallied them back in their first game of the year). But he's a 6-3 shooting guard in a point guard's body with no play-making abiliity. Can anyone think of another player that has been at all successful in the NBA with that formula? Does Allen Iverson count? He might be the only one, and it isn't like AI's teams have been constant playoff contenders. I'm not sure if I have a point, but damn, there's a long list of guys who fit that description and never made their teams better.


Music:

Before NPR, would anyone in the US have ever heard Mongolian folk music? Seriously Hanggai is awesome. I like all three of the songs on that page.


The Election:

Have I not talked about this yet? How strongly can I put this:

I have never, in my entire adult life, been inspired by any politician. Not even a little. The most I could say is that some politicians have convinced me that they wouldn't be complete failures (Nader in '00; Gore in '06...yes I realize he ran in '00). I've also been convinced for some time that a third party would be beneficial, but I've come to realize this is impossible in a psuedo democracy like we have (it would only be appropriate in a parlimentary system).

On the other hand, Barack Obama inspires. I don't think it is too little to say that he's the most inspiring politician of the modern era, and only JFK would be in the conversation. The reason is that he is an intelligent, motivated, articulate, principled person. He treats people with respect, he is opposed to all the things America ought to be opposed to, and, like a lot of us, he is dismayed with the way America has been run into the ground over the last 8 years.

I'm with you Barack. All the way.


And in closing:

The Kansas Jayhawks are beginning their quest to repeat as NCAA college basketball champions. The road is long. The road will have ups and downs, but mark my words, this will be a good team.

Weekly Report #2

Ahh...life on the road. Too much crappy corporate food. Too little sleep. Random moments of feeling like I'm a bad parent for missing some cute moment from my son's life.

Moo.


The Minnow Report:

Uh...still on the farm. For some reason I'm wedded to this item.


The Baby Report:

Well, he was a little 'sensitive' today. I'm not sure how else to describe it. When the boy gets sensitive, then random little things can just cause him to lose it. Apparently at the day care today, another little baby (the 2nd youngest) took an oversized lego block from him (he wasn't playing with it or anything). And Alton just lost it. Tears, wailing, extended crying. I kinda think this is a lingering effect of his sleep schedule being all screwed up by the sickness. On the other hand, what the heck do I know?


Facebook Monster:

The monster swallowed me back in March or April or something. So far, I'm pretty much just using it to lose fun word games against my friends and family. Oh, and to annoy the hell out of everyone else by posting about politics.


Speaking of politics:

The more I read and hear Obama, the more I wonder: Is this too good to be true? I almost wonder if McCain conceded the race when he picked Palin. "Hey, I don't even think Obama would make a bad president," I envision McCain saying to himself, "But we gotta run some kinda candidate. Let's just appease the damn ultra-conservative nutjobs and kill the campaign."

I'm generally skeptical of all the talk that "this election is so important." Every election is like that. This election is actually a lot less important than 2000, given what we know now. Which brings us to another interesting point.


My abilities to predict the mid-term future are eerily accurate:

Let's just go over some of my fearless predictions from the last ten years:
- "Bush is as intelligent as a brain-dead monkey on crack" (published in my college newspaper)
- "Are you kidding? If Gore had been president, I wouldn't be worried that our President is going to start a war with a random country and get thousands of people killed" (spoken to my sister on 9/11/01; My sister's comment "Right now, I'm so glad Gore didn't become president")
- "John McCain is just supporting Bush because he knows there isn't anyone else in the Republican party that will be able to run in a general election in '08" (spoken to my wife after McCain started campaigning for Bush in '04)
- "Bush will delay any environmental progress to the point where it will cost us ridiculous amounts of money to fix the problems, and since the problems will already be occurring, we might not be able to." (paraphrased quote that I repeated ad naseum from 2000-2004)
- "Well, at least now it will be obvious whose policies turned the country into a disaster." (2 days after the 2004 election...I spent the first day drunk and depressed)
And these are just the big ones. When it comes to political policies and politicians, I have never been wrong. I know, I know. That sounds impressive doesn't it? It isn't. That was the most obvious common sense.


Music:

God...anything but politics please. I am too addicted. I can't stop...I really can't.




The Oxford Comma:

There's a long-overdue discussion that needs to be had about the Oxford comma. Let me first explain what the hell it is. The classic example is the following sentence:

To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.

The comma of relevance is the one after Ayn Rand. Oxford comma enthusiasts would ask you to consider the same sentence without the comma.

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

The problem is that this is ambiguous. Are the parents in question Ayn Rand and God? Or is the author thanking her parents, and Ayn Rand, and God. This kind of ambiguity lead Oxford (and some other significant style guides) to advocate using the oxford comma in all cases. As far as my major advisor was concerned, that's the end of the story. PUT THE DAMN COMMA IN THERE!

But hold on, no rule in english makes any sense, and here's why: The Oxford comma may additionally add ambiguity. Look at this sentence (I pulled this off Wiki):

To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God.

Is her mother Ayn Rand? Or is she thanking both her mother and Ayn Rand? Ah HA (Fuck you very much Council of Biological Editors)! This is where the controversy comes from.

If I could take a step off of my 'anti-oxford' podium here: The problem/blessing is that the English language is the most versatile, confusing, mis-mashed, unregulated, wishy-washy, dialogue-driven language on the planet. (by comparison, French has a single dedicated authority that governs grammar, L'Académie française, and as a result the language is damn idiotic: Further reading in Bryson and here [ug-that was a long parenthetical statement]). Where was I?

This English weirdness means that no rules exist in English with exceptions. Those exceptions are granted not by some authority, but by just being used and to hell with the authorities. The Grammer Nazi's [SEE!]in this country are fighting that battle for consistency for good reasons (how else are we going to understand each other), but they are constantly losing that battle for reasons related to common sense and necessity.

I think Lynne Truss in Eats, Shoots & Leaves said it best:
"There are people who embrace the Oxford comma, and people who don't, and I'll just say this, never get between these people when drink has been taken."

Needless to say my advisor was in the former category, I in the latter, and we were lucky that alcohol was rarely served in our Monday morning lab meetings.


Random comment I made to myself when watching cable in the hotel room:

“There’s a place called hidden valley where kids don’t only eat their vegetables, they love them.”

That’s a very hidden valley.

Final thought:

The older I get the more I don't care about pissing people off. Based on my experience with people older than me, this is just going to get worse.

And now for something completely identical to everything that has already happened.

Yes, I think that's funny.

On a more outstanding note:

- Canning. Yeah, canning. Or pickling, in my case, because i don't yet have a canner. But still, canning. I have now, on two occasions, produced food that I could theoretically eat in a year and still be fine. Wow. The concept boggles my mind.

- Spent the day at home with the little monster. He played, I cooked and cleaned. I like to cook. I like to stay home with the kid. I asked my wife's boss if she could get a 300% raise so I could just quit work and be a stay at home dad. I would probably get bored eventually.

- Remember people, we've gotta stay positive:

I don't want to sound fickle...

...but just a few weeks after telling you that the best song of 2008 was the Flobots "Handlebars" it turns out I was totally wrong.

Please take a moment to meet Vampire Weekend:



I'm going to have to be real careful about going close to any record stores for the next few days, or else I might just buy this album. Did I mention they have a song entitled "Oxford Comma" which includes the line "Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?" Those of you who sat through lab meetings with me know exactly how annoying that fucking comma can be.

Music, Basketball, Maddox, Top Chef, bleh

I'm in Kansas City, again, and I wandered hot and humid through the steamy jungle that is the Eastern edge of the Ozarks.

Yay.

Let's just say that

So let's cover this:

MUSIC: At this point, I'm sorta seeing everything blend together into two categories: The Hold Steady and Everybody Else. Kings of Leon? Jonathan Coulton? Avril Lavigne? Angels and Airwaves? All the same...blend it all together and what do you get: Not the Hold Steady, and therefore, not the ultimate music. The Raconteurs "Hands" kinda sounds like the Hold Steady might have played a role in its creation, though.

Basketball: Did I mention that KU won the NCAA basketball title this year? For the next five years, I don't fucking care, KU won it all. I might just cling to that for the next 10 years. I really want to write about 10,000 words about how weirdly improbable that was, but I won't, because nobody else I know is as big a fan as I am. And no, I would have still remembered this team if they had lost.

NBA: Well, actually, I'll save this for the end so you non-NBA people (basically everyone) can ignore it easier.

Maddox: The best page in the universe. I've been reading through it again lately...man that guy's funny.

Top Chef: So....I watched the last three episodes and the new one tonight, and I could probably write another ten thousand words about this. Let's try, really hard, to keep this brief:

Richard and Stephanie: Richard spent most of the season being very non-critical of his fellow competitors, probably because compared to them, he's high class. In fact, there's probably only a couple of hundred chefs in the US who have more experience than him, whereas the rest of the Top Chef competitors are basically children by comparison. But once down in Puerto Rico, and to some extent in the last episode in Chicago, he's sorta taken off the gloves. I would say he was borderline insulting to Lisa. However, my wife pointed out that the whole season they've been playing up this "Is this the year a woman wins Top Chef?" angle. And it may be that they're creatively editing Richard to push the male v. female thing.
At any rate, I have a hard time imagining this contest coming down to anyone but Stephanie or Richard, and really, Stephanie is a long-shot. And that's how it has been since day 1. I think of Stephanie's cooking as more comfort and basic, whereas Richard's cooking is just plain spectacular. The one time Richard nearly got canned on the show was when he left scales on the salmon, at this point that seems more and more like the kind of thing that could hurt him: Details that he usually has underlings watch.

Lisa and Dale: Wow...talk about burning bridges and creating drama. The restaurant wars episode was hilarious. That was like open warfare in the kitchen between Lisa and Dale and I think it was so obviously a universal disaster. You could tell that they knew it too. As soon as Bourdain walked in to guest judge it was like Dale gave up, he just seemed to lose it. Really, in the Puerto Rico episode I would have preferred Stephanie paired Dale and Lisa together, because it would have just been so obviously ridiculous. The big question would have been whether or not Dale would have openly sabotaged Lisa. I think yes, but I could be wrong.

Spike: You have to bring up Spike's amazingly masterful performance in the Restaurant Wars episode. First, he figured out that he wasn't going to be able to cook with those two egomaniacs in there ignoring him. So he focused on the decor and the presentation, and did well at it. Second, when the judges asked who decided on the decor, he knew that they liked it, and so he deflected the credit to all three of them, but Lisa and Dale were on-edge and defensive, and their reaction immediately said "that was all Spike." Which is what Spike wanted, because the judges then knew that it was he who made those decisions. Meanwhile, he ended up with no credit (or blame) for the disaster that was the meal. Now, if Spike had been clever enough to toss the scallops in the steakhouse, he might have moved on to the final.
Overall I had mixed feelings about Spike. He refused the stupid game of assigning blame to teammates when the judges asked him, with one noticeable exception (when Zoi got eliminated). I think that by the end, he seemed like the least experienced competitor, and therefore got sent home. He never seemed quite as sure about what he should do as, say, Richard or Stephanie, or even like Nikki and Jen were. And sometimes he was kind of an asshole.

Antonia: I was really bored by Antonia early on in the competition, and she totally threw her teammate under the bus in one of the early episodes (Remember Valerie?). However, she just hid out in the middle of the pack on several episodes, bombed totally on an episode where she had immunity, and eventually turned up the skill level in the last three episodes in Chicago. However, I still think she's kinda weird in her food sense, and I can't really complain on the cooking side about her being kicked out before Lisa. Al dente beans? Really? Seems gross to me.
Oh, and I thought it was kinda interesting that Padme had to compose herself before telling Antonia to pack her knives, and afterwards Tom immediately whispered something to her. Did Padme want to see Lisa gone? Was she about to cry?

Everybody else: I think a number of the eliminated chefs really proved themselves to be excellent cooks on this show: Jen, Spike, Dale, and Nikki spring to mind. But I don't think any of those guys had a chance in hell at winning this thing. The requirements are too varied. For instance, I would probably love, love, love to eat at Nikki's restaurant because I love that rustic Italian style, but that doesn't mean she knows what to do when the contest is 'Classic Elements'. Similarly, I don't know if I'd trust Dale to make me a pirogi, but I bet the food at his restaurant would be pretty amazing.

On the other hand, I feel really bad for the first two chefs eliminated (Nimma and Valerie), since we really didn't even get to know them as cooks. I mean, shrimp scampi (that eliminated Nimma)? Who the fuck cares?

This show would be more interesting if the first 2-3 episodes were non-elimination, but scored, and then the bottom 4 were eliminated all at once. Ok, maybe not more interesting, but at least we'd get to see all the contestants.

Of all the contestants, I would have a hard time picking a chef to cook for me. Richard is definitely my favorite, but I'm not 100% sure I would like his food that well, since I've got so many things I refuse to eat (like beef, food heated in plastic, etc.). Stephanie would probably be excellent, but I am such a sucker for really amazing Italian, that I'd be hard pressed to turn down Nikki.

Now some notes about those judges: So Bourdain is a 'personality' and certainly has a lot of experience with foods from everywhere, but in the pantheon of guest judges they brought out, they included mexican chefs, steak chefs, french chefs, asian chefs, pastry chefs, gastronomists, and BBQ experts. Where the hell was the Italian guest chef? Didn't all that fancy French cooking come over to France from frickin' Italy? Where's the Italian guest chef?

NBA: Man, I've been writing for a while here. Let me just write one sentence about each of the eliminated teams.

Nuggets: This team has the worst chemistry of any talented basketball team I've ever seen and they should trade everyone but Melo.

Suns: Shaq killed these guys and they have to pay him for two more years.

Mavs: Gee, let's ask Kobe Bryant how easy it is for an NBA team to do well when there is only 1 legitimate scoring option.

Rockets: Nobody believes T-Mac and Yao are ever going to figure it out.

Hawks: That was a cute playoff run but you still suck.

76ers: With just a little more cohesion, this team could turn into the Pistons.

Wizards: Nobody is going to take you seriously until you stop acting like idiots.

2 sentences for the 2nd rounders:

Jazz: I have no idea why this team isn't in the Finals. What are they looking for at this point?

Hornets: Great talent and a good coach, but they need a young perimeter player. And they need to get rid of Pargo.

Magic: I'm not sure Dwight Howard is good enough to build a team around. And this team is the worst in the league at managing assets.

Cavs: If LeBron James played for the Suns last year he'd have averaged 50 points a game. Cleveland's offense is a crime against basketball.

3 sentences for the 3rd rounders:

Spurs: Manu and TP have to get more consistent. The Duncan Era is over, unless they find a real draft pick. I hate this team.

Pistons: They've had a good run, no matter what anyone says. People forget that Flip turned them from a brutal offensive team into an efficient offensive machine. They need to upgrade Rasheed.

And the finalists:

The Celtics: I've felt all year that this is the only chance this team will have to win it all (guys are getting older). They've come together so quickly that the league didn't have time to react, and they used their intensity to jump all over teams. They've certainly got the pieces, but since the playoffs started they've all seemed pretty awful. I have no idea why. They've survived because of Paul Pierce and sheer will, but unless the four days off allows them to regain their intensity (a possibility), they are badly outmatched in the finals. If they can win the first 2, I think they can win the series, if they lose either of the first two, it's already over for this group. The only way that happens if it Paul Pierce raises his game (as he typically does against the Lakers).

The Lakers: I'm not sure why, but nobody really wanted to believe this team was this good 2 months ago. I read a lot of articles about how they still "needed Bynum to return" or how Lamar Odum was the weak link that would become their fatal flaw. The reason that was all crap is that Pau was a huge upgrade over Bynum in the present even when Bynum was playing great. The reason Bynum was more valuable is because of his moderate skill level today combined with his probably great skill level in the near future, whereas Pau isn't likely to get a lot better. The only teams that were going to have a chance against the Lakers were cohesive teams that could take advantage of their very minor weaknesses (poor defense and Kobe's ball-hogging). You can't take advantage of the Laker's without an extremely well-oiled machine of an offense and a defensive philosophy that bends but doesn't break. Exactly how many of the teams in the league had that kind of combination? The Jazz did, but even so they couldn't quite get it done. The Spurs might have, but apparently Manu was hurt or something. The Mavs, and especially, the Suns, had that kind of team, and I firmly believe that the Suns with Marion would have been capable of handling the Lakers (but maybe not the Spurs).
But it isn't like those are huge weaknesses. And I seriously doubt the Celtics are going to be prepared to disect them. I'll be shocked if we ever even get a "Kobe's pissed off" face going in these Finals, because he's probably just going to shred that Celtics team.

And that sucks, but you know what: At least this isn't like the 01-03 Lakers teams that featured Shaq. I don't know if you remember, but in those days Shaq was getting every stupid call, he couldn't dribble or shoot from further than 3 feet away, and basically he was annoying in every way. I hated those teams, because it seemed like the best play had less basketball skills than me, and was just getting by on being huge. This Lakers team is different. Guys like Lamar and Pau and Ariza are freaking players. Sasha and Farmer and Derek Fisher are all bringing something to the table, and guys who are sometimes amazing (like Luke Walton and Turiaf) are going to be coming off the bench. The only ball-hog is Kobe, and he's efficient enough when he needs to be that it isn't as bad as it used to be.

Which doesn't mean I'm in favor of the Lakers. I'll be rooting against them. Go Boston, city of idiots.

Step By Step Instructions for Flight Prep

I know there are lot of people for whom flying poses zero emotional or physical distress. I have, never, been one of those people. The best I've been able to do previously is forget I'm going to be flying until the moment arrives. One time, on a flight from Chicago to Anchorage, I actually tried drugs. The drugs were great, and I can't thank the person who suggested them enough, but I'm not sure it helped to have my hat turn into a turtle and feel like that was just fine (What? Let's just say that I'm saving the rest of those pills for a special occasion).

Anyway, this time I can't even remember why I would be worried about the flight. I mean, yeah, Rocky Mountains, crowded, borderline stupid airport in Denver...I'm searching here. I've given it a go, but I just can't work up the worry I've had in the past. I guess I really didn't have for my last flight (to Milwaukee).

Nevertheless, here are my step-by-step instructions for preparing to get on an airplane when you don't like to fly. These aren't really in any particular order, just the order I'm doing them.

1. Bring a good book. I usually go with something by Terry Pratchett: Light-hearted, funny, and overwhelming awesome. In fact, if you haven't ever read a Terry Pratchett book you haven't really lived. Pratchett's books take place in a flat world held up on the backs of four elephants, who are themselves riding on the back of a enormous turtle and are traditionally placed in the comedy-fantasy section. Yet, he has managed to create characters and situations that are such realistic portrayals of modern society that its hard to imagine them not being classified as "Theoretical Underpinnings of Western Philosophy".

2. Don't sleep the night before. I'm working on this one right now. In fact, I haven't well slept for a week, which doesn't have anything to do with flying, but a lot more to do with sleeping on the damned couch all the time and a series of storms. Did I mention that a 8-month old can take up a hell of a lot of space on a bed? I mean, judas freaking monkeys. This boy owes me. At least we have a moderately comfortable couch. Now if the tornadoes would stop.

3. Bring work along. I plan on this...in fact, the guy sitting next to me better be prepared, I plan on reciting my talk ten times on the flights out there.

4. Review the basic physics of flight. Seriously people, it has nothing to do with damned Bernoulli's principle. Or rather, it isn't caused by Bernoulli's principle.

5. Physical activity prior to flight. Seriously, go crazy. Run, walk, swim, situps, crunches, yoga, pilates, boxing, mosh pits, whatever it takes. Just go crazy. Combined with the lack of sleep, this should put you in a very, very, drowsy state when the plane starts. Hopefully, you'll fall right asleep (meaning, I won't practice my talk after all). Plus physical activity releases endomorphins in the ol' brain. Good times.

6. We'll see. I'm up to step 5 right now. I guess step 6 is listen to crazy music and write another blog entry.

I can ride my bike...

There's only 5 months down in 2008, and we already have a winner for the "Best Song of 2008" award. This one is, of course, in the running for All Time Greatest Song Ever award, which I will be handing out when people quit making music.

Meanwhile, here's the Flobots with Handlebars....actually you're going to have to type that into google, because I'm sending this post via email, and i can't embed video or links in the ole email...or can I? I also like this song, although I think the singer is trying to be weirder than she really is...how weird can you be with perfect studio editing? If you listen to the song without the video, it doesn't sound weird at all, but I still kinda like it. I think this is me admitting that I've been listening to too many absolutely hideous radio stations since I moved to the middle of the country. Pretty much anything sounds amazing when your options have been Metallica, ANOTHER spin of "Life is a Highway" or that stupid Alicia Keys song again (just shoot me). If there's one thing the main-stream music radio stations have got down, it is how to turn a perfectly fine song like this one into a reason for me to drive my truck into a ditch. Other good music? What, there's other good music out there? How about the fact that I still think Jack White has resurrected Kurt Cobain (girl....you got those hands...that heal!)?

I'm alone right now, in the center of the country, with wife and child slightly to the left on the map of USA, but I will soon be soaring over their heads and moving slightly N, to arrive at the home state of Mormon-ville. Aside from inland salt waters, that's about all I know about where I'm going, so I guess I don't know anything. Oh, and I still haven't practiced my talk...so lucky people in my audience. Fortunately, my talk isn't until the last day...so no one will be there anyway.

When I'm alone, I tend to play the music really loud, and I just started up another song...you know how volume is on youtube (variable from song-to-song)...wow. I almost got knocked out of my chair....that was a little too loud.

Other stuff

- What, I've been away from Webcomics for too long? I'm just going to point you at this bit of awesome (that everyone's probably already seen), this surprising poignant bit of observation, of course the cool three-parter from Penny Arcade, I'm kinda interested in trying this sometime, I think this is about the whooping cranes, and is probably pretty honest. And I know its the in thing right now, but here's another comic about the semi-hilarious war between hang-glider pilots and helicopter pilots.
Of course, nobody is more scornful of cliche than I, and this is why.

- The NBA. I'm torn, I really am. On the one hand, I've hated Kobe Bryant for so long I'm not even sure I remember why it began. Oh yeah, it was when he was such a whiny baby over the course of his entire career. On the other hand, I hate the Spurs tremendously. There's nothing I wanted to see more in their first round series against the Suns than Shaq accidentally breaking Tony Parker's hand in five places ala Bobby Jackson. But no...we couldn't have that happen, could we. And then we couldn't have the most exciting semi-finals imaginable with a Derron William/Chris Paul matchup. And we couldn't even get the Paul-Kobe supermatch. No...we have to watch the freaking Spurs and Lakers, again. And frankly, the Spurs are huge underdogs. I don't know how they managed to beat the Hornets, cuz I didn't get to watch those games, but they've got no shot at all against the Lakers.
Which sucks, because nobody else has any chance against the Lakers either, unless Tayshaun Prince suddenly turns back the clock 3 years.
So who am I rooting for now? The Spurs and Pistons? Excuse me? The worst Finals imaginable. A Finals that would remind everyone why every summer I decide: That's it, I'm done with the NBA. A Spurs are, in general, a crime against basketball, and the Pistons are borderline ridiculous. So I guess I'm rooting for the Lakers-Celtics matchup, which would bring out so much 80s nostalgia that I might have to ignore the Finals anyway.
Did this ramble get anywhere? No, probably not. I guess I'm rooting for the Lakers, because Pau and Lamar have always been awesome, and it would be cool if they ever got recognized for how good they are (not to mention Farmer).
But let's just keep this straight Spurs. There was a time when I was in your corner, when I rooted for your team against the dreaded Lakers, when I believed your triumph meant the chokehold of the NBA dark ages was over. But you spoiled that by turning Bruce Bowen from a solid defender to a cheap-shot artist, when the Duncan face became more important to your success than anything else, when you hired Robert f***ing Horry. While the Lakers are like some kind of damned vampire that can't be killed, only wounded, you are more like a zombie. You are hard to kill, but that doesn't mean you're alive.

Mind dump

Response to comments:

-  So apparently "Konrad" took issue with my statement: "And not one of the Republican candidates have the moral integrity or intelligence of a garden slug."  Specifically, he seemed to think that I should have more precisely defined what a garden slug is.  "Konrad" then went into a long and detailed explanati--- I'm going to spare you the details and just defend myself by saying A) a garden slug is a slug in a garden...duh, and B) Konrad, you're an idiot (If that's even your real name).  But thank you for commenting!

-  For those of you who wondered and commented (that Konrad character again), my friend is apparently going to get out of the hospital soon.  

Music coolness:

 I get bored an unproductive in hotel rooms, so here's the music I've been cramming down my ears, you might not have heard of all of it:

 -  Rilo Kiley  Silver Lining and Portions for Foxes.  I really dig Jenny Lewis, she did some solo stuff that was awesome too.  Both of these songs have good sounds, but I don't necessarily understand all the lyrics to Portions for Foxes.  Are foxes a metaphor for composters/decay?  I don't know.
  
 - White Stripes  Icky Thump and You Don't Know what love is.  Is there any real doubt that the White Stripes are the greatest mainstream musical act currently in existence?  I guess it depends on whether or not Modest Mouse qualifies as 'mainstream'.  I think not, since most of their really good stuff is pre-Float On.

-  Paramore Misery Business (and acoustic!).  Probably my biggest guilty pleasure is pop-punk bands.  I really liked Blink 182 and Less than Jake and now Paramore and essentially the entire
lineup from "Fueled By Ramen" is filling that gap.  Paramore essentially sings the same songs as Britney Spears (in terms of topics), but apparently guitar and attitude count for a lot in my book.

-  Dashboard Confessional  Vindicated.  I forgot about this song, even though I really like it, then I stumbled upon it last week.  I hoped this would lead down an interesting avenue of new music, but it turns out Dashboard Confessional are border-line incoherent and sort of a bunch of losers.  So that sucked.

-  Sparklehorse Sick of Goodbyes.  Actually, I could have picked a bunch of songs from Sparklehorse.  They're part of the Cracker-Camper Van family, and they are weird and beautiful.

-  Cute is What we Aim For Curse of Curves.  That's just a stupid name, but the song isn't bad.

Other stuff:

 -  Apparently there is no pretense internally that the Guantanamo Bay detainees are real people.  There are a lot of people who like to divide the world into *good* people and *evil* people.  If you're one of those people, then you can't possibly refer to the Bush presidency as anything but evil.  He has overseen the widespread kidnapping, imprisonment, and torture of people from all over the world.  That's either evil or you don't believe evil exists.  That's all the options there are.

-  Apparently the movie Jumper sucks.  So much so that someone had a 'Dead Poets Society' moment.  I'll be honest, that's kinda what the first three years of graduate school did to me.  

-  So I've been trying out Opera on my work laptop for the past couple of months.  I've got to say, it kinda sucks.  Everything that's in Firefox is here too, but everything seems to run slower, and right now, as I type this, the browser seems to have real problems dealing with the Blogger "edit post" window.  Things keep re-arranging, and shifting and damnit if I am not getting real close to ditching it altogether.  Other stuff is just more annoying to use, like the password wand or the history.  

-  NBA:  This is supposedly the greatest season in NBA history.  So why am I losing interest faster than at any time in the last 5 years?  Because the model franchise for great basketball (the Suns) threw it all away.  Look, Shaq is everything that is wrong with basketball recently:  He whines when he doesn't get enough shots, he can't dribble or shoot, he has no team loyalty, he takes credit for the success of everyone he plays with, he slows down the game, he has always benefitted from ridiculous officiating, and he takes off half the season.  Why would the Suns want to get that?  The Spurs lead this wave of up-and-coming basketball teams that focused on skilled basketball, great on-court chemistry, and planning for the long-haul, but it certainly seemed like the Suns were on their way towards succeeding the Spurs as the best team in the league.  How bad could the off-court chemistry with Shawn Marion have been?  The two teams most poised to rip the West out of the hands of the Spurs were the Mavs and Suns, but now, purely by default and raw talent, the Lakers are clearly the best team out there.  And I hate the Lakers.  No wonder the NBA is losing me.