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.

Lakers v Spurs

In Salt Lake City.

Saw the Mormon Temple.

Ate at the semi-famous Lamb's Grill.

Sitting in the hotel...

...Not sure what to do now.

Good lord...

My biggest fear that is child related is that I am bringing someone into the world that is going to have to go through the absolute hell of moral depravity and idiocy that is childhood. For some reason, this country is filled with idiots who think that 'children are innocent' and 'cute'. Seriously? No, really, seriously? When you say that, all I can hear is you saying: I'm too old to remember. I'm about to turn 30, and I sure haven't forgotten. Kids, in general, are pretty much the moral equivalent of dog shit, and that's pretty much how 95% of them treat 'weird kids'.

The reality is that this is 100% encouraged by teachers, principals, and other adults in the school system. I can't tell you the number of bullies and scumbags who got 2nd, 3rd, 4th chances when I was growing up, just because the kids they were picking on were somehow weird. And yes, of course, I was one of the weird ones. I don't really know why adults (teachers) allow this kind of stuff to happen, but I assume it is because they are around it all the time. I mean, stories like this are way too commonplace. There's no defense for this kind of behavior. As a group (there are exceptions) I trust school teachers about as much as I trust Republicans.

There a lot of nights I spend lying awake and thinking about this and worrying like hell about what my son is going to have to go through. I really can't think of anything to do about it.

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.

All of this brain cyclone

The loss begins now:

- I'm finally going to admit the truth to myself, I don't feel comfortable going through a round-about.

- Ticks..ticks are back. They're back. Screw you stupid f***ing ticks. 10 ticks! This means war!

- We've still got no internet. And no cable, but I'm not really missing the cable (other than the NBA and Top Chef)

- Does anyone else think this Boston team has to win it this year or never? (I'm in a hotel room watching the game) Ray Allen looks dead. Rondo has to get better, and maybe he will.

- So we moved into our house and it is pretty awesome. The kitchen rocks. We managed to put stuff into every cabinet, but none of them are really full. We've made some neat stuff, some that didn't work: Pumpkin tortillas...which ended up more like flatbread, but heavy. And chicken with shallots and garlic, allegedly Alton Brown's favorite recipe of all time (according to I'm just here for the food), which I have to admit, was pretty astoundingly good. The kitchen is just amazing. We've actually set up a card table, IN THE KITCHEN, and we eat there. I think of it as the Chef's Table for the house. The boy thinks of it as a place to eat puffs while dad cuts up smelly stuff.

- I'm getting frustrated about this: There appears to be a widespread perception that high gas prices are somehow something the President can directly influence. I'm skeptical that this perception is anything close to reality. Presumptive Hypocritical Party Nominee John McCain's suggestion that Congress should temporarily life the Federal Gas tax makes me think he's borderline senile. I mean, yes, it is the President's stupid policies over the last 8 years that have resulted in ever-increasing consumption (demand) within the domestic and international energy markets. I'm not disputing that. If this Administration had done what the previous administration had done (consistently push policies aimed at reducing consumption, improving relations with oil producing countries, setting reasonable limits for greenhouse gas admissions, and develop alternative power sources), then we would not be in a predicament where every random approach to producing more gas seems like a viable economic policy (I'm looking at you idiot-biofuel movement).
So yes, the President ends up affecting the price of gas, but not because he wakes up in the morning and decided: Screw you America, this year gas is going to hit $4 a gallon just to benefit my oil company plans. No, its because the President got up every damned day of his term and said: Screw you America, today I will ignore all rational thought and just do whatever my old college buddy says to do. With that policy, predictably, everything is going to pot.

- The Cavs and Celtics engaged in two of the chippiest (firefox spellcheck doesn't like that word!) first round first round series I ever saw just a few weeks ago, and yet now they are both playing like dead men. BORING!!!!!!!!!

- This drive to KC is getting longer. Wow...today's drive sucked.

- So about the Neosho Madtom: My new boss at work may have just totally won me over this week, and now I'm kinda wondering what the limit is...or if there is one. Meanwhile, I'm getting to the borderline of time to prepare this NABS talk...especially considering it is on a subject I've never spoken on before. Saying I've got a lot going on is sorta ridiculous. I've got so much happening I'm having a hard time keeping it even organized in broad categories. I need to sit down just to figure it all out, except I don't have time.
Of course, this is fun beyond all expectations. If we can accomplish something here, I'll be happy. Even if I do have to keep reading the letters of the ignorant and bitter.

I just got...

I just got 35K from the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore fish
passage in the Neosho River!
I just got 35K from the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore fish
passage in the Neosho River!
I just got 35K from the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore fish
passage in the Neosho River!
I just got 35K from the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore fish
passage in the Neosho River!
I just got 35K from the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore fish
passage in the Neosho River!

Hee hee hee...whee! Wha...woo....ha ha ha....Yay! whew... Yay!
Yes! ahhhh.....

I'm going to save the Neosho Madtom from extinction.

This is why I took this job.

We moved...to a place without internet

We moved! We moved! We moved!

No time to talk because we headed to a wedding today, but we moved! Yay! I don't have to drive an unseemly amount every single day.

Yay!

Politics

As the long fight for the Democratic National Party's Nomination continues, I am occasionally asked online or in person who I believe to be the best candidate.

I honestly can't even understand why this is a question.

I won't mention the Republicans, except to say that voting for John McCain is no different than voting for Stalin or Hitler. If you hate people, if you want to see death and destruction on an epic scale, if you believe humans have no right to exist...well then by all means vote for a Republican. I'm not kidding, and if you think that assessment is wrong, then you just aren't thinking clearly.

So as for the Democrats...

Every election year, at about this time, I realize I'm just going to have to take a step back. I have to take stock, and realize that there are very, very, stupid people in this world. I'm not talking about people who vote Republican...those people could be smart, they just have no desire for humans to exist. I'm talking about Democrats who want to vote for idiots.

Is it obvious that I'm referring to the campaign of Hillary Clinton here?

~6 years ago I would have estimated that a Clinton II White House was about the best option for the country. Gore obviously wasn't going to run again, Nader killed himself with too little success in '00, and I didn't even know anyone else worth mentioned. ~4 years ago I was coming around to the idea of open social anarchy as a last resort to save the country, then Dean and Edwards started talking as if they weren't total idiots.

Yet somehow Kerry got nominated. Edwards was the intelligent guy who actually acted like he cared about the rights of individuals, and Dean was the grassroots movement guy who seemed to be the people's choice. And then Dean yelled and Edwards admitted he was a lawyer and somehow we got stuck with the Kerry-Bot who somehow still made GW look like an idiot in the debates, and then lost because the Republicans stole the election in Ohio (yes, they did...again, this is a litmus test for intelligence).

This was not a good moment for my faith in humanity. In fact, I basically think this is the point in history where democracy revealed itself to be a failed proposition (in other words, that whole Nazi Germany thing wasn't a fluke).

Now Dean and Edwards weren't exactly one-man social movements. They were just guys who weren't complete idiots and seemed to actually care about things beyond corporate America.

Barack Obama is different.

Barack Obama is the first presidential candidate in my lifetime to represent a genuine possibility of the old guard being thrown down. This is evident both superficially and significantly. The mere fact that a black man named Barack Obama is a viable candidate suggests that the past 200 years are finally going to die, and perhaps the ideology of capitalistic greed might die with it. Obama's philosophy represents the reality that most Americans have come to accept: Not everything about naked capitalism is a good thing. This is the manifestation of the philosophy that people should care about other people.

This is a belief system that goes way back, but for some reason has become lost in America. This belief, in our fellow man, has been replaced by a belief in the truth of the free market, and capitalism, and majority rules. Free market capitalism and democracy have their place, but ultimately, the most important difference between humans and animals is our ability to empathize and respect other humans. George W. Bush and the neo-con assholes he brought with him have be trying desperately for the past twenty years to turn us back into animals who can justify any atrocity on economic grounds.

Yet despite the presence of Barack Obama on the candidate list for the DNC, the primary continues. Why? Because Hillary Clinton continues to ride the coattails of her husband. She has, over and over again, referred to herself as the experienced choice. Exactly what does that experience consist of? Watching her husband explain the difference between sex and a blowjob? People seem to be confusing Bill Clinton's exceptionally successful presidential term, with Hillary's credentials. Is she running as herself, or is she running as her husband? This fundamental problem ought to undermine her entire campaign, but for some damn reason it hasn't. Name recognition is more potent than actual policies.

And so my faith in humanity is tested again.

Barack Obama is the only person worth voting for in this election. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. I won't argue with you about it, if you believe otherwise, we have nothing to talk about.

Which is why I don't care anymore about this political season, and I am already sick of it. Only the result is interesting now, because if the people of this country do not elect Obama, then my lack of faith in humanity will be re-affirmed, and I will continue to have no particular reason to love all of mankind.

On the other hand, if Obama does win, then maybe there's something worthwhile out there after all.

The NBA...

I'm having a hard time watching the playoffs because I work a lot, I
have a baby, and the weather has been beautiful. Still, I have some
thoughts:

- I hate the spurs.

- I'm not sure how much of this is Chris Paul, but considering the
Mavs have been a fair to good defensive team the past two seasons, I'd
say Chris Paul gets more credit than the Mavs get blame. What am I
talking about? I'm talking about the flat-out best player in the NBA
right now. Chris Paul has been amazing, better than amazing.
Astounding and astonishing. For his size, he's had the best NBA
season anyone has ever had, and right now he is so good that he's
making the Mavs look ridiculous on defense. I don't think, in the
past 15 years, I've seen a single player be able to throw so many
alley-oops or generate so many easy baskets for his teammates IN A
PLAYOFF GAME, as Paul did last night. To steal the Sports guy's
phrase - there is NO CEILING for this guy. Nothing seems
unreasonable. I could see him leading this Hornets team to 4 of the
next 5 titles. He's too fast to double, he's too smart to put a young
guy on him, and he's too athletic to put an older guy on him. He's
got Jason Kidd's all around game combined with Steve Nash's shooting
touch. He's not merely the perfect point guard, he's playing right
now at the Larry Bird-MJ-Magic level.
And seriously, the Mavs wanted to face these guys over the Lakers
(who still feature the worst ball-hog on the planet). The Mavs should
have rested their starters in the final game of the regular season,
just so they could face the Lakers as the 8th seed, because they only
way they can exercise their demons at this point is to turn the tables
on someone else the same way they were beaten last year. The symmetry
would have been perfect. Instead they're just another team that slid
from first to mediocre.

- Seriously, the Spurs? They whine like little girls, they fall down
when brushed, they get the most ridiculous lucky breaks, they play
dirty, and when all else fails, they do happen to have the best big
man and the most amazing closer in the L. The Suns may not be able to
beat this Spurs team (it sure doesn't look like it anyway), but that
just means that I'm probably going to give up on the NBA 1 round
earlier this year than last. I might even root for the Lakers over
the Spurs. Ok. Probably not.

- The Jazz are good. This season-long problem with winning on the
road appears extinct. I can't really imagine how the Lakers take them
in less than 7, if they can be beaten at all. Only the possibility of
a Williams-Paul Western Conference Finals would keep me interested
past the Suns and Mavs demise.

Relief

1. The woman I talked about in my last post had the surgery. The
gall bladder was in worse shape than the doctors suspected, but
everything seems to be ok. She's back at home.

2. Yay! NBA playoffs. Hornets and Spurs --- YOU GOT LUCKY!
Especially the Spurs. And Denver...What the hell is wrong with you?

3. Top Chef - I could write thirty thousand words a week about this
show, but instead I'm just going to point out that Nikki is like a
vampire...she can't be killed. She _ran out of food_ before the
judges got there, and she still didn't go home. She's going to win
this thing without ever having made an exceptional dish.

Yeah...right

When is the keg party? Not soon, but whenever people come to visit...yes...maybe.

First of all:
Arg...why is it so hard for some people to get what the want, or what they need? One of my best friends and his wife have been trying to have a child. They've been trying for awhile, and with the help of some medical intervention, they are successfully pregnant.

This is actually the most frustrating story that I'm sure many other people have experienced. But judas freaking monkeys.... To start with, their first doctor was a old-fashioned semi-idiot who had them taking the most out-of-date drugs available; then the right drugs didn't do the trick, but did deliver frustration and (reportedly) moodiness; so then there is 'other activities' that I didn't want to know too much about, but I know enough; now they're finally pregnant. Initially there were 2 embryos, but then there was just one. Then the wife started getting swelling in her hands and fuck...she can't work anymore, and it turns out the only real hand specialist in town is really busy (go figure), so even getting in to see him is a semi-ordeal. The diagnosis is surgery or cortisone shots...neither of which is particularly attractive in your third trimester. Now, for whatever reason she's having severe gall bladder issues (no details from me), and again she's facing the possibility of pretty severe drugs or surgery...in her third trimester.

There's a lot of gaps in that time-line, but mostly you can just fill in the blanks in emotional terms. There are a lot of ups and downs there, and I know life is full of them for everyone, but really...is this necessary?

She's in her 25th fucking week! Pregnant women, as a group, are the most resilient, tough, and overall amazingly pain-tolerant people on the planet, but at the bare minimum she's looking at least 10-12 weeks of pain management. Real pain...she's on morphine right now. Weeks!!!! How in the hell is that going to happen? And that's the non-surgery option. The surgery option involves the terrifying possibility of induced labor three months early...

I won't lie to you, I didn't sit down here thinking I was going to write this all out. I really planned on writing a post about how the NBA is awesome and hey isn't KU great, and wow I walked around in the rain for two hours today...but...this is the kind of thing that you just can't get out of your head.

Moving day and other nonsense

In exactly 1 week we take possession of our new house. What? I
haven't mentioned we bought a house? I'm sure I must have mentioned
it at some point. The real point is that we're moving into a
4-bedroom, 2 bathroom house that is about a 3-4 minute drive from
work, (as opposed to my current 1 hr 15 min drive). I can't put into
words how great it will be to get two hours of my life back.

I think it will be pretty funny too, because we've got enough stuff to
fill a 2-bedroom apartment, or even the main floor of a 2-bedroom
house, but a 4-bedroom house (and a fully finished basement)?
No....there's going to be a lot of open space, which is beautiful!!

Have I mentioned the kitchen? Let me mention the kitchen here. I'm
not going to say it is the most amazing kitchen I've ever cooked in (I
took a class in a restaurant once and my parents have a huge kitchen),
but it is so much nicer than any kitchen we've had previously that we
are both a little flabbergasted. For instance: There's a pantry!
We've never had a pantry before! The kitchen has a huge amount of
counter space, a huge number of cabinets, a big open area you could
set up a little table in, and, I can't emphasize the amazingness of
this enough: A PANTRY!!! You know, a location dedicated to the
storage of food and stuff. Separate from the cabinets for the storage
of plates/dishes/pots/pans/etc!

See _world_, this is how your treachery has reduced me. When I was a
child I dreamed of ruling the universe, of unifying quantum physics
and relativity, of curing the world's energy crisis. Now I am
borderline giddy at the prospect of a shorter commute and a pantry.

Of course, once I've gotten that pantry issue taken care of....look
out _world_....just what do you think I plan on doing with my extra 2
hours a day!

Funniest sig line on an email I've seen in awhile...

From the email of a guy who is, literally, paid to answer random
questions from the public:

We have not succeeded in answering all your problems. The answers we
have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some
ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are
confused on a higher level and about more important things.

Wahoo!

With 2 minutes left I was sitting, semi-dazed, on my couch and telling
myself: "This is fine. This is just a game. This isn't really a big
deal. The team played great all year. Just let go all that emotion."
Two minutes later I was standing with my arms raised in absolute
shock. For 20 years I've just become so accustomed to KU being
consistently one of the top 5 teams in the country, and ultimately
falling anywhere but No. 1, usually because of poor play in the
clutch. Instead this time it was KU stealing victory from the jaws of
defeat, and validating an entire style of play and recruiting that
prior to this seemed to be doomed. Here's all my thoughts in jumbled
order (I wrote most of this last night):

Some credit to Memphis... - Those guys are pretty good. When CDR and
Rose stepped to the line to hit their free throws I was certain it was
over. Those guys had been so good when it mattered all game and all
tournament. The "shot of the tournament" by Rose....I couldn't
believe it. They won the game half a dozen times. How about the
offensive rebound off the FT? I just felt like these guys knew how to
close out a game, and somehow KU tied it up anyway.

...and John Calipari - How come this guy isn't referred to as one of
the greatest coaches of all time more often? I didn't even realize it
before, but he's taken 2 mid-majors to the Final Four. Wasn't there a
huge deal made about George Mason a few years ago? How is taking
Memphis and UMass any different (maybe because they were ridiculously
better)?

OK Roy Williams - I forgive you. 25% of my bad feelings went away
when KU beat UNC. The remaining 75% disappeared when Roy showed up
wearing a Jayhawk sticker. Has any former coach (who is still
coaching somewhere) ever done something like that before? Roy (sob
sob) I forgive you (tears), its just so hard to stay angry (sob sob
sob). [Note: My wife walked in the room when I was doing this
'sobbing while forgiving Roy' bit over the phone to my sister and just
looked at me like I was crazy. She's right, of course.]

This KU team - Watching the media try to pick which KU player to
'promote' all week has been hilarious. The overall consensus seems to
have been Brandon Rush, but there's no good reason for that. I'm
pretty convinced that the best big man on the team is Kaun and the
best guard is Collins, even though both those guys come off the bench.
I'm not sure a single guy on this team will be an NBA All-Star at any
point. I'm not even sure if any of them will make it into a good
team's rotation. But defensively this group plays together better
than any team I've ever seen at the collegiate level. I mean, really,
that's what won them games this year, because half the time they
didn't know what they wanted to do on offense.

Speaking of offense - The one thing KU did do great on offense was
lobs. Has there ever been a team featuring undersized big men
(Jackson and Arthur are both under 6 9), who played the 'toss it up
and come down with it' game like KU does? How many alley oops did we
see in this tournament from KU?

Oops, have to finish this later...there's a whooping crane I have to go see.

So yeah

The new site template was driving me crazy because A) the font doesn't look right on all computers, B) the formatting was stupid, and C) it was just annoying. For now, I'm going back to the old template. We'll see if I can stand it.

Bleh

What's been going on? I don't even know. Go check out Analyze
Everything for pics of Kansas waterfalls and stories about asian
clams. And hopefully a picture of the first wild black-footed ferrets
in Kansas in a long, long time.

Otherwise:

- We're buying a house. Four bedrooms, 2 baths, in town, nothing
much happening in the yard, no garage but a 2 car carport. Across the
street from a Catholic school (Am I ever going to get away from
Catholics? I'd convert but I loathe religion). Best positive of the
house is that it is in town, but number 2 is the incredibly huge
kitchen. Ok, incredibly huge is an overstatement, but this kitchen is
easily twice the size of our kitchen in grad school, with tons of
counterspace and a huge pantry (wow...just...wow). We move in April
23rd, and I can't wait. I'm borderline desperate to quit driving so
much all the damn time. We're going to turn the yard entirely into
natives and garden. I've actually got all kinds of plans involving
solar heating and geothermal and damn near every other crazy scheme
you can think of (using greywater maybe?).

- Morel Hunting. So who's been doing this? Sightings are starting
to come in from Missouri and Kansas, so I thought I'd do a little
hunting last weekend, but I was totally shut out. I suspect finding
the first one will be the hardest, because I'm not even sure if I'm
looking in the right places. Basically, native woodlands with some
moisture. While I think we'll definitely get in on the morel action
this year, I think we're also going to buy a 'mushroom log'. They
sound fairly easy to maintain, and the prospect of having an abundant
supply of shitake mushrooms is pretty appealing. Let me know if
you've done this and how successful/easy it was.

- The baby decided to be extra cute this weekend, which was pretty
good timing, because both grandma's got to see him. For some reason
he's not really crawling yet. Almost seems like he's just unable to
get good enough traction on the ground, because when he's in my arms,
I'm pretty much his own personal jungle gym. The kid loves, loves,
hanging upside down. He's kind of a little monkey.

- Top Chef. I never thought I would watch this show, but I have
been, and despite the unbearable awkwardness of it (as compared to the
professionalism of Iron Chef's similar competition), the show is
fantastic. I can't help but compare Top Chef to "The Next Iron Chef"
and find Top Chef inferior. The competitors are less confident, less
experienced, and the judges seem very unprofessional. Also, some of
the competitions are pretty bogus. I'm rooting for the guy with the
weird mohawk-type hair.

- The Darjeeling Limited. In my opinion, this was probably the worst
movie Wes Anderson has made. Which actually sounds bad, but isn't,
because this movie is fantastic. This guy just makes unbelievably
good movies. I didn't think Royal Tenenbaums could be topped, but
then The Life Aquatic happened. I'd actually probably put this movie
as dead-even with Bottle Rocket, but since Bottle Rocket was the first
indie film I 'discovered' on my own, I still like it more.

- I am Legend. Disappointing. Will Smith can act, really well, and
unfortunately a pretty lame script killed what was a good film. The
next sentence is a spoiler, so stop if you want to watch the film. In
particular, I think every single thing that happened after he was
knocked unconscious kinda sucked, and everything before that was kinda
awesome. The script-writers should have read World War Z.

- The NBA: I don't care about the seeding in the West right now.
There are 5 legitimate contenders for winning the Western Conference:
Phoenix, San Antonio, L.A., New Orleans, and Dallas. Yes Dallas! Are
you kidding me? That's the last team the Spurs want in the first
round.

- College Basketball - Well, Tyler "Mr. Will"
Hansbroughuruhgoghghrogh showed his true colors against KU by playing
like ass and falling down a lot. That guy winning a national player
of the year award is an embarrassment to those awards. Yes, the guy
plays hard, but he's TERRIBLE!!! I'm starting to think Mark Madsen is
getting embarrassed by the constant comparison. Who honestly thinks
this guy is better, in any way, than Beasley?

KU in the Final Four...again

Dear Roy Williams,

I'm not rational about this, and I know that. That doesn't change anything.

Kansas can't beat you badly enough on the basketball court next week
to satisfy me. If we win by sixty, destroying every record in the
book during our rout, and move on to win it all, it won't be enough.
I want to see your entire program smashed to the ground by defeat. I
want to see an annual KU-UNC game, and I want to see KU win them all.
I want to see everything you touch in your basketball career from this
moment forward to turn to dust.

This isn't a game, it is revenge.

Sincerely,

Kansas Fans

Basketball

This is the greatest NBA season ever played, and simultaneously, one
of the best seasons in KU basketball history. I've been thinking
about this a lot as I drive around, and here are my thoughts:

- Michael Beasley: This guy should be the player of the year in
college basketball. I'm hearing a lot of talk about how Tyler
Hansbrough will probably win it because he's got "will" and "heart"
but the real reason is because he averages 20 ppg and 10 rpg and yet
totally sucks. Everyone agrees Beasley is a better pro prospect, but
what everyone seems to be missing is that he's a better college player
too!!! There isn't a single coach on the planet (other than maybe,
maybe, Roy Williams) who wouldn't take Beasley over Hansbrough in a
heartbeat. Beasley gets more points, more rebounds, more assists, has
3 pt range, hits his FTs, guards all 5 positions, and (trust me, I saw
this against KU) cannot be defended by anyone at the college level.
Tyler plays on a better team, and for some reason this is also used to
support his candidacy. Excuse me? If you put Tyler on K-State, that
team wouldn't have made the tournament, wouldn't have beat KU and
wouldn't have won 50% of their games. If you put Beasley on the Tar
Heels….well, if they lost a single game all year it would be the most
astonishing upset of the past twenty years. Beasley has dragged a
perennial loser with a lousy coach and not one teammate who could get
on the floor at a power school into the NCAA tournament. I watched
Beasley play probably 5-6 games this year, and he never once made a
mistake. Not once! He doesn't take bad shots, he doesn't make bad
fouls, he doesn't miss rebounds, and he is the best player on the
court at all times.

- KU: This KU team is bizarre. On the one hand, they've got no
stand-out scoring threat, their best big men are short, and you could
never convince me their coach isn't a disappointment. On the other
hand, Brandon Rush sometimes looks like a dominant NBA 2 guard, they
have the best defensive backcourt I've ever seen, and they've got an
amazing amount of versatility and depth. I sorta think this is the
best KU team since the squad featuring Jacque Vaughn, Paul Pierce,
Raef LaFrentz, Scott Pollard, Greg Ostertag went 30-1, but I also
sorta think these guys don't always know what to do on offense. I
could see them going the distance, or I could see them flaming out in
round 2.
But you know how I'm going to fill out my bracket. KU winning it
all! This is the year baby!

- The NBA: No, wait…too much to talk about here, how about:

- The Rockets: Awesome. And anyone who's actually watched them play
knows this isn't about an easy schedule. There's no way they can't
beat the warriors in the first round.

- The Suns, Spurs and Mavs: Despite all we've seen this year, I have
a hard time believing these three teams won't be in the second round.
The Suns and Mavs are as good or better than they were last year, and
the Spurs are the Spurs. Yet if we see these three teams in the
second round, it might be the most upsets in a first round NBA
playoffs ever, since these guys sit 5-6-7 right now. Does anyone
honestly think the Suns won't beat the Jazz in a 7-game series, or the
Spurs won't beat the Hornets? Right now the Mavs would play the
Lakers, and I could see the Lakers winning that, but if the Mavs end
up playing the Rockets…who's the favorite?

- The Sixers: This is like Rockets-lite. Neither of these teams is
being lead by a transcendent superstar (although McGrady might have
once been one), but both of them fill up the rosters with a lot of
strong role-players. The Sixers would have a legitimate chance
against the Cavs (and maybe the Magic), but will get destroyed by the
C's or the Pistons.

- Shawn Marion: At this point, I can't imagine the Heat offering him
a big contract after this season, and here's why: Marion doesn't want
to be the third option. No matter how great your success, he will
sabotage it with self-centered talk off the court if he isn't the #1
or 2 man on your club. We saw that with the Suns! So in Miami
they've got Dwayne Wade as the #1 guy, and probably whoever they draft
(Beasley?) as the #2 guy, and then Marion may not even get as much
love as the much beloved Udonis Haslem. Would you resign him? The
best-case scenario for Marion is probably Minnesota for a couple of
reasons: 1) They've got a stellar #1 guy, but no clear #2, 2) Kevin
McHale makes stupid decisions and might throw 20 mil a year at him,
and 3) he won't have to worry about not getting enough credit for a
perennial contender. Oh, and they could use a good defensive player
and rebounder. (the Clippers would work too).
Of course if Shawn has learned from this awful Heat season, he might
decide he waits to get back on a contender, no matter what his status.
In which case it would make a lot of sense for him to sign up with
the Nuggets, who desperately need a defensive-minded perimeter player,
and seem willing to throw money around.

- The Lakers: The Lakers are the NBA version of the Yankees, in that
they totally suck and I hate them and I couldn't wish any more for
harm to befall them. Which is why I'm frustrated by their annoying
habit of collecting players that I like (Lamar Odum, Pau Gasol, Jordan
Farmer, Luke Walton, Caron Butler [freed at least], etc.) and putting
them on the same team with guys I hate (Kobe, Kwame Brown, Kobe, Derek
Fisher, Kobe, Smush Parker, Kobe, and..uh…Kobe). Pau is just the
latest to join the ranks of pure evil, against his will I hope, and
now I'm forced to hate him.
Putting aside my hatred, this team is really really good IF they're
healthy. Nobody seems to have noticed, but Kobe is not nearly the
player he was two years ago. He's gone from the most potent offensive
perimeter player in my lifetime, to one of the best offensive players
in the league. He's also a lot worse on D, but is still better than
80% of the guards out there. Watching him dominate T-Mac on the
defensive end on Sunday was embarrassing, because McGrady clearly
wasn't prepared to deal with that kind of defense.
Kobe is the biggest liability to the healthy Lakers. After 10 years
in the league, he still doesn't understand when to pass the ball. So
long as he's on the team is almost unstoppable. If he's just playing
so-so, well, they can definitely be beaten.

Site News

Ok, so I got sick of the old template, and decided to be slightly less nihilistic about it. I also updated the links on the side there to reflect a more current collection of awesome.

The other thing: Apparently the last time I changed my profile info those of you who were subscribed to the blog got deluged by all the old posts since they got 'reposted' with the new name. So here's fair warning, I'm changing my profile name because it irritates me. Feel free to cancel your subscription and then re-subscribe. You've got a week, the switch will take place next Thursday.

Got it? UNSUBSCRIBE BY NEXT THURSDAY or risk over 300 awesome posts being re-sent (or you could just set it up in Google Reader).

Dear Asshat,

Dear Mr. Asshole Who Sent Me and the Legislators a Nasty ,

I read with interest your comments in response to my email of February 28th, 2008. I would like to point out that at the end of my email was my phone number, and that in the future you can feel free to pick up the phone and call me at any time to let me know if we have failed to account for a previous site visit when commenting on one of your proposed dam sites. In this case, this may have saved you and your Watershed Joint District (WJD) some embarrassment (and a lot of time), since the site you refer to as having been previously evaluated for the presence of Broadhead Skink habitat (site xxx) is not, in fact, the site referred to by my comments or the public notice (PN). The PN referred to site yyy. From a phone conversation with Mr. Jerky Engineer Who Actually Wrote the Letter You Signed, and numerous helpful reminders from other assholes, I’m now aware that you do not receive a copy of these PNs because you're too lazy to download them off the web, and I will endeavor to include the location of the site I am evaluating more prominently in the future.  Because apparently putting it in the subject line and the first sentence of my email isn't enough.

As to your other comments, I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to some of your assertions and clarify our position:

- “[Your agency's] inference that this project will degrade a uniquely valuable aquatic habitat is absurd unless aquatic habitat that are very limited in extent and connectivity, and substantially devoid of water in excess of 90% of the time are inordinately valuable!” [emphasis by author]

   This is, in fact, exactly what we are suggesting. Ephemeral and intermittent streams are heavily used by many species of native fish, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates. These habitats are often temporally important refuges and spawning grounds, and they are rapidly disappearing from this state's landscape. The mere fact that they are dry or greatly restricted for much of the year is, actually, one of important characteristics that make them so valuable for these species. Permanent pools, and perennial streams, often include predatory fauna (e.g., fish, waterfowl, etc.) that would extirpate many native species.
  We do recognize that the term “valuable” has a variety of connotations. We are tasked with acting as an advocate for wildlife and wildlife habitats. As a result I use the word value in relationship to wildlife, not in terms of monetary gain. From the perspective of a publicly funded entity like a WJD, value might mean something different. For example, placing dams on streams with virtually no water or connectivity to the rest of the watershed my have little value for a WJD.

- “[Your agency's] assertion that the number of dams in [this state] is proof that appropriately sited, designed, and managed dams can’t relieve flood damages is just as ridiculous as the widely presumptive representation on their part that landowner investments in wildlife populations and habitat pale in comparison to theirs.”

   For the most part, we are confused by this statement. Nowhere in our initial response did we refer to landowners, to our own investments in wildlife, or to the relative merits of landowner vs. state-sponsored wildlife initiatives. Nor did we assert that the number of dams in this state was proof that dams were incapable of flood control. I have attached the original email to this, so that you may re-read it to confirm these details yourself. Proof is a nonsensical term in science. In science, the weight of evidence is used to determine whether a theory is strongly supported or should be discarded. For instance, a vast amount of scientific evidence exists suggesting that dams and reservoirs alter the species diversity, flow regime, nutrient processing, and thermal regime of downstream reaches. Pointing out that this state's amazingly ambitious history of dam-building over the past 100 years has not prevented flooding is not proof of anything, merely a fact.
    Personally, I am unaware of any agency policy whereby we diminish the importance of landowners or “conscript and internalize all of the credit…for the widespread support for wildlife populations”.

- “…[your agency's] assertion that this proposed structure may negatively impact the Broadhead Skink or it’s critical habitat is almost as ludicrous as the fact that [your agency] listed this invasive species in the first place and has enthusiastically used it to take thousands of acres of property and associated financial resources from both public and private projects over the past two decades in the name of species protection and mitigation.” [emphasis by author]

   After reviewing our permits from the past twenty years, I can find no evidence “thousands of acres” of Broadhead Skink habitat have been appropriated by our agency at any time or in any fashion.   In fact, our agency is unwilling to acquire any land for the purposes of Threatened and Endangered species mitigation. We also hold no conservation easements for the purposed of Threatened and Endangered (T&E) species mitigation. This is a public agency acting on behalf of the citizens of the state, whose elected officials felt that the conservation of T&E species was important enough to pass the Nongame and Endangered Species Conservation Act. Subsequent polls have generally shown that act to be well supported by public opinion, and a recent review of the act by the legislature resulted in no significant changes.
    
    Accusing this agency of acting against the interest of the public is particularly ironic for a WJD whose very existence would not be possible without state laws forcing all residents of a watershed to pay for structures that benefit few (by your own admission this dam site has very limited connectivity to the rest of the watershed). This is particularly egregious when these watershed structures are primarily for the purpose of “recreation enhancement and protection” on private land with no public access. The use of public funds for private “recreation enhancement” can hardly be construed as anything less than a violation of the public trust.
   
    If you and your fellow members of the WJD are so inclined, you are welcome to file a petition to change the status of the Broadhead Skink (I’ve include the form as an attachment here). There is broad support for such a change within the agency, but unfortunately the agency does not unilaterally determine whether species are added, removed, or changed on the state list.
    
    I would also be interested in reading any scientific study or analysis that describes the Broadhead Skink or its critical habitat as invasive species. Such studies would also be useful to include in any petition to de-list the species (although I am not involved in that process).

- “…their demand in the subject e-mail for “holding all other permits in abeyance”…is symptomatic of their limitless and unjustified lust to conscript any and all natural resources to their control.”

  Comical rhetoric aside, we have no authority to demand other agencies issue or not issue permits (feel free to re-read the email in question). Certainly, we hope that other agencies do not issue permits to project sponsors who are unwilling to comply with state statutes, and we have reciprocated that policy for other state agencies. I fail to see how requesting project sponsors abide by state laws constitutes “unjustified lust” for control.


  Finally, I think of myself as an enlightened and polite person.  I'm not the kind of person who would point out what an asshole you are, or the fact that you're too much of a fucking coward to return my phone calls.  I'm not going to point out to all the world that you're just using an antiquated piece of legislation to line your own pockets with public money.   And I'm certainly
above pointing out that the people you hired to work for you were all fired from previous jobs for laundrying money, stealing, and disregarding state and federal laws.  I'm not above pointing out that I will be watching your WJD very, very, closely in the future.

Sincerely,

Wow...

I just got a letter from a project sponsor in response to a letter
that I sent out a few weeks ago. I had basically just posted the
generic stuff I always post: We're opposed to dams because we're
concerned with the continued loss of unique aquatic resources, blah
blah blah. Based on aerial photographs of the site, I also said an
on-site evaluation would need to be done to determine if Broadhead
skink habitat exists on-site.

Holy cow...the response I got was priceless. I could literally not
put a price on it. Wow. Oh, and the bastards sent me all this info
'proving' the skink wasn't on that site....except of course it is the
wrong damn site (actually, the wrong "dam" site too).

So I called them up and pointed this out.

"Oh...it is?"

Also priceless.

For some reason...

...I continue to look up my email address when someone asks me on the
phone. As if I don't have it memorized. As if I haven't been working
this job for 7 months. As if I'm an idiot. I've gotten to the point
where I can do it so fast that I don't even interrupt the flow of
conversation.

And let's talk about conversation a little bit. I call people on the
phone a lot, a hell of a lot. And usually I'm telling them bad news.
So my phone manner is changing. I've gotten to the point where I'm
just reciting previously stated lines, I'm not even sure that really
counts as communicating. Does it? All I know is I've begun to notice
I'm doing it.

But I'm not doing it as bad as all the other agencies! Yesterday, I
called a guy from the Army Corps. I'd say it was like speaking to a
machine. I'd say something, and before I could finish, he'd start in
on one of his obviously rote response....that took probably 2 minutes
to finish!

Me: "I was wondering if this sandstone quarry -- " ("project that I'm
reviewing is in jurisdictional waters of the U.S" I didn't get to
finish)

Corps Guy: "Well, if you're talking about a quarry you'll want to
talk to the KDHE Surface Mining section. There's a guy there named
XXXX. Have you met XXXX?"

Me: -- (0.25 second pause)

CG: "Yeah, he's the one who does quarries on the state level, we
primarily get involved only if there are jurisdictional waters of the
U.S. being effected. What county did you say this was in?"

Me: "Uh...Wilson."

CG: "Well the only DWR notice I've gotten recently from Wilson county
is a stream crossing near Fredonia. Is this a stream crossing?"

Me: -- (no pause)

CG: "But we don't get every DWR notice, you might have been confused
about that. You know the DWR covers some stuff we don't cover? For
instance they've..."

Ok, I'm going to end this here, but just imagine that conversation
going on for twenty minutes before I managed to convey the concept
that no, this is a sandstone quarry and NO this wasn't a DWR notice,
and yes XXXX and I go way back...at least a month.

Then I called the State Conservation office and, you're not going to
believe this, but I spent a half hour on the phone before the person I
was talking to realized I wasn't trying to build a sandstone quarry
myself.

One time I called an engineer with my own agency, and guess what, I
spent 30 minutes on the phone being told over and over again "what do
you want from me?" with different inflections until I finally started
laughing into the phone and told him I'd get back to him. Seriously,
what part of "A map showing the footprint of the project" is hard to
understand!??!

But no, I never scream or yell or get upset at these people, even when
I really, really should, because I'm a representative of the great
state of Kansas, and to be honest, it feels like getting stabbed in
the back when the state represents me by voting to build a new coal
plant and forgetting the environment part of the "Energy and
Environment" committee.

Sooo....That went to kind of a weird place. I'm going to be honest,
writing this was kind of a roller coaster in itself.

Cell phones

I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but I don't talk on the phone
that much anymore.

The reason is simple...I'm annoyed by my cell phone. I'm a little
annoyed by cell phones in general. I just don't like talking on them.
I know my wife thinks I'm always yelling into them, but that's
because I can't ever hear anything...and that's not very good logic.
The phone is annoyingly small, and annoyingly light, and so it feels
like its not really there at all.

Anyway, I'm just annoyed by my cell phone. So if I called and talked
for like 2 minutes, that's why.

Go check it out

To those of you who read Omnivore's Dilemma, the same author wrote a
book called "In defense of food" and Paul wrote up a book review about
it on Analyze Everything. Go check it out
(http://analyze-everything.blogspot.com/).

Other news: I don't think any post I've ever made has spurred the
controversy of the rotisserie chicken issue.

Allow me to concede defeat, calm the outcry, and diminish the whole thing:

Grocery store rotisserie chicken sucks! I don't understand, and never
will, how someone can walk into a grocery store, see the unbelievable
bounty of different foods present, and decide to eat the piece of meat
that's been rotating in some display oven all day, was probably chosen
because it was on the verge of going bad, and has been doused in some
generic spice rub that's really just 80% salt. As an added bonus,
sometimes its sitting next to the checkout in a plastic container.
How long has it been there? You _do know_ that the grocery store
sells other food, right?

And everyone can stop telling me: It's quick and easy. Quick and easy
isn't a good thing when it comes to food. McDonald's is quick and
easy, is that where you want to associate yourself?

Oh wait. That didn't really sound like a concession at all, did it?

Doesn't random count for anything anymore

I bet you're wondering what I've been doing today. I'm going to tell
you. I've been thinking about a 2.75 mile long log jam in the Neosho
River. You can see the damned thing on aerial photographs:


View Larger Map

Hmm...I hope that embedding worked right. (Update: Should be working now)

There's a town nearby (Jacob's Creek), and a boat ramp, and the boat
ramp is apparently jammed in with logs, so that nobody in town can get
on the river. Apparently the log jam started decades ago, and they've
tried dynamite, fired, and a lot of hope to get rid of it...without
any luck. Now they're talking about dragging the logs out by truck.
Right now this area of the river etc. are kinda cut off, so I'm sure
the wildlife is loving it. I've personally never heard of something
like this, which is why I'm heading out there at the end of the week.
I want photos!

Other news:

- 300th post!

- NBA: The Suns screwed up. The Mavs are much better than anyone realizes. The Lakers are border-line awesome.

That little yellow light

Lately, whenever I log on to gmail, a little yellow dot next to a particular name is always illuminated. Always. I get on at 6 in the morning, the light is glowing, I get on at 12 30 at night, the light is glowing. At work, after lunch, at 8 in the evening: Glowing light.

I'll be honest, I don't know what the color is...is it green? The color I'm referring to is the one that means: This person is online and active.

And the light isn't 'clocked out', meaning the person hasn't done anything for awhile, and therefore might be away from the keyboard. Nope the light is always bright and active.

So far, I haven't sent you any messages DC, but you can bet that when I do, it will be at like 2 in the morning and go something like:

Holy cow dude! Are you ever off the computer???

In other news: Have you guys checked out Bash.org. I love reading through random idiots talking to each other.

No Title

Well, I guess I'm finally at a point in my life where I can honestly assess the world.

And the world has two kinds of people in it.

People who think the rotisserie chicken sold at the supermarket sounds like a good idea, and those who don't.

My wife is the former, and I'm the latter.

I don't think we ever discussed this before getting married.

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.

Work is getting weird

So for the first time in years I am now a non-exempt employee. What
does that mean? If I work over 40 hours a week, I get paid overtime,
or comp time.

That seems fine, but I _do_ work over 40 hours a week, and I don't
want to bankrupt the section I where I work.

I'm not sure how this is going to work out. I guess I'm going to have
to take vacations.

Other stuff:

- NBA: Despite any reports you might have heard to the contrary, the
Cavs just got a lot better. And the Suns? The Suns should have kept
Marion. I may have to quit watching the NBA. The Lakers are good,
like, scary good. I'm really doubtful anyone is ready to deal with
them in a 7-game series. Right now, the next best team in the West
might be Utah, and Utah might be able to handle the Lakers, but the
Spurs are just plain outmatched. They desperately need Tony Parker
back and 100%. The Mavs are a complete enigma. On the one hand, they
only have 1 legit offense weapon. On the other hand, Dirk is capable
of carrying a team to the Finals.

- Juno didn't win best picture at the oscars. Frankly, the Oscars suck.

- A friend of mine has been in the hospital since Wednesday of last
week with an aneurysm. That's pretty scary, since there's really
nothing you can do about it beforehand. You just suddenly get a
horrible headache and pass out. If you're lucky (and he is) you don't
die. He ended up having brain surgery to stop the bleeding, and stop
a bunch of other 'potential' aneurysms.

Movies...again

After 7 (or so) long months, the wife and I went to a movie. We intended to go see No Country for Old Men (cuz it looks intense), but we missed the start, and we saw Juno.

And it was awesome! This is the first movie we've seen in a theater in forever, and it was a great one to mark the return of theaters.

You need to run to the theater to see this movie. Run.

Other news:

Nobody listens to me when I tell you to stop eating beef. Everybody's like "You're just a nutjob." Here's another 130 million pounds of explanation for why you shouldn't eat beef. In fact, you need to start buying your food from a grass farmer, and you need to read Omnivore's Dilemma.

Ok, I gotta go watch the rest of the NBA All-Star Game

Presidential Idiocy

I've been stressing out a lot lately about the presidential debates.
Apparently having a kid has thrown my concern for the future into
overdrive. And this is swinging down to the presidential debates,
because we, as a country, have royally fucked-up everything over the
past 8 years.

Seriously, if you don't understand this, then you need to think about
it more. Not one area of our country is in better shape than it was 8
years ago. Not one. That's astounding.

I'm not convinced a president really has any strict control over any
of this, but between a president, his appointees, and the legacy of
authority he/she leaves behind, our country clearly views presidential
terms as mini-epochs. I've only been alive and aware at all for 3
epochs:

Bush Sr. - A guy who embraced the belief of compromise, downplayed his
affection for corporate interests, and generally didn't do anything
else memorable.

Clinton - A guy who mostly did whatever the people wanted, began the
process of bringing the government into an era of openness, and began
the process of co-opting industry to make environmental change.

Bush Jr. - A guy who has managed to create enemies of practically
every other nation in the world and all but about 20-25 percent of his
most loyal followers in this country. Bush was actually pushing for a
bill that would make it illegal to _think_ a certain way.

The country will hopefully resume what I once assumed was the
inevitable march of progress from animal group to tyrannical state to
something else (human?). Or will it? Apparently people are actually
casting votes for guys like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Really?
Someone out there wants to elect another idiotic religious ideologue
who won't work with anyone who doesn't strictly agree with his limited
view of the world? Mitt Romney referred to Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama as terrorists a few weeks ago!

Romney and Hucakbee are running on pure hate, nothing more. The
hatred of things like Islam and women's rights and abortion and
equality for homosexuals and taxes and health care. I used to think
that voting for Ron Paul was like voting for a system reset. If you
honestly thought that Paul was the best candidate, that meant you
thought the last 120 years (or so) of the United States was a failure,
and you wanted to reset the whole thing back to the constitution and
Bill of Rights. After awhile I realize that Romney and Huckabee are
even more a system reset. They are saying: Vote for us and we'll
reset things back to a theocracy.

Meanwhile on the Democratic side we have Obama and Clinton. In what
has to be the most ridiculous political irony of the past 30 years,
Clinton is the conservative, old-school candidate here. If it were
still 1994, you'd appreciate just how weird that is. But its because
Clinton has compromised on so much stuff. Obama, on the other hand,
hasn't been a politician long enough to have to compromise.

I forgot where I was going with this. All I know is that there's only
one candidate that doesn't suck this year: Barack Obama. And not one
of the Republican candidates have the moral integrity or intelligence
of a garden slug.

The happiest baby in the world?

Now bear with me for a minute here:

My son is big. He's tall, he's heavy...he's breaking moma's wrists
(seriously). In fact he's off the chart in terms of size.

So in all the world, there might not be all that many babies who are
bigger than my son at his age.

Therefore, there probably aren't that many babies who have a bigger
smile than my son at his age. Right? Bigger all over means bigger
smile too right?

So when my baby is _exploding_ with happiness and smiling from ear to
ear and so filled with joy that it is almost impossible to contain it
within his body...

well, his body is bigger than most babies, so most babies _couldn't_
contain it...right?

Oh who cares, I just wanted to point out that my son is a ridiculously
happy baby. If I haven't sent you his photoalbum from Feb. yet remind
me to. There are a couple of pictures where he's obviously about to
explode from happiness. Its really hard to stay depressed while
looking at them.

(where have I been? Sick...lord...sick. Curse you constantly
evolving diseases.)

You're kidding right?

Oh, looky what's in my email today:

"The Ecological Society of America is pleased to announce the establishment
of an official Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?
gid=9475287002&ref=mf. We hope that this group will serve as a fun,
informal venue for ecologists to network, share ecology-related media and
links, and further spread discussion of ecology across the Web.
Registration is required, but free and open to the public, so "invite"
your friends and colleagues!"

Seriously? I've been openly pining for a Web 2.0 application for
ecology that's the equivalent of Reddit, and this is what I've got? A
Facebook group? Who do I have to mortally wound to get some
satisfaction around here?

Sports Thoughts:

- So, Shaq to the Suns. For Shawn Marion. Am I honestly supposed to
believe that Shawn "Awesome" Marion was the problem for the Suns? It
sounds like the Suns had to get rid of either Shawn Marion or Amare
Stoudamire. The problem the team has had in the playoffs is with Dirk
Nowitzki and Tim Duncan (nobody else has beat this team in the
playoffs in years). Amare sucks on defense, shoots terrible shots,
and won't box out. Shawn Marion grabs a ridiculous # of rebounds,
plays amazing defense on bigger defenders, and scores without even
having the offense run through him.

Why would you trade Shawn? Amare is what he is, he's not getting
any better. And if you'd traded Amare, you could have gotten back a
guy (or guys) who really fits your team (like, say, David Lee and
Jared Jeffries, or Josh Smith and Al Horford, or Channing Frye and
Joel Pryzbilla, or Tyson Chandler and Julian Wright).

The Matrix WAS Phoenix for the past 8 seasons (or however many it
was). If it were me, I wouldn't have traded him for anyone who wasn't
a first team All-NBA guy.

- So K-State finally beat KU in a home game. Of course, to do so
they needed the Urinator, the whiniest coach and players I've seen
outside the ACC, and then afterwards an assistant coach got a DUI.
Winning is hard, winning with class...apparently a little harder. On
a less bitter note: Beasley is the best player in college basketball.
Nobody else is even close.

- That was a great Super Bowl. And my son started rolling over
finally. I was a lot more excited about the rolling over.

- I don't actually think Shaq will suck with the Suns, at least not
once they get in the playoffs. I'm not even convinced they can't
still run. I just think that they should have kept the core together
for one more year. I mean, really, who in the West is going to beat
them? The Spurs don't look good, for whatever reason, against anyone
but the Suns. The Lakers, Hornets, Warriors, and Blazers are not
battle-tested enough to beat the Suns in a 7-game series. The Mavs
are great, but they appear to be playing head-games with themselves.
I think a rematch with the Warriors this seasons would kill them. The
Nuggets are never going to win as currently constructed. The Jazz are
good, maybe even really good, but I can't honestly imagine them
beating the Nash-Marion-Amare trio. The West has never been more
wide-open, and the Suns have never been this healthy. If they hadn't
gotten stupid suspensions last season they might have won it all then.

Kind of a lot of tears today...

So this wasn't really my son's best day ever. For the past two mornings (the weekend) the boy has been pretty much an unholy terror unless dad is taking care of him. Yesterday morning I was gone for maybe half an hour before I got a call from mom that was borderline frantic. I came home, and the boy immediately turned on the charm...big-time. Big smiles. High-pitched squeals. The works.

But only for dad. And it isn't even like I was doing anything. I just sat there and stared at him. Maybe I sang "Amazing Grace" (one of the two songs I can remember at any given time).

Today, same story. In the morning the boy was borderline hostile to mom, but totally smiles and giggles to dad. This is a bad trend, since dad isn't around in the mornings most days.

Part of the problem might be that mom is the one wielding the snot-sucker. What? You don't know what a snot-sucker is? Here's one, apparently the correct term is aspirator. All I know is that my son views it as a highly developed torture device. I don't know if I've ever heard him scream the way he did this morning. And that brought on the tears. This was actually a lot worse than the shots he got at the doctor's office.

(yes, you have to use an aspirator on a baby. They don't blow their noses! And it seems like all babies have a ton of mucous build-up overnight. The boy is so bad in the morning that he can barely breath through his nose at all. You try nursing a boob without the ability to breath through your nose...ok...you probably won't want to actually try that. That's gross.)

Baby tears are tough on mom and dad, especially because you know the kid is fine. There's nothing painful about the damned snot-sucker. There's nothing painful about waking up. There's nothing painful about being alone for ten minutes. But that doesn't mean the baby doesn't feel like crying whenever those things happen.

Is this becoming a blog about my kid? Are the only interesting things that happen to me lately kid-related? What has happened to me? Here's the other stuff that happened this week:

- My good friend J and I rented an XBOX 360 and Halo 3 on Saturday. You know, to see whether those video games the kids are always talking about were worth anything. Well, the game is good, and the system seems good, but $400 good? Has inflation really gone up that much? The most I ever spent on a video game system was on my DreamCast, and that was because it came with 2 games, 2 controllers, and it was the Sega Sports all-black edition. My XBOX cost less than $200. And I'm going to have to pay $350 just for a system with 1 controller for the 360? No. No.

- I went to a hibachi bar for the first time in my life on Friday. I was pleasantly surprised. The only really memorable things about the food were the sauces (an intense ginger/soy thing and a mild mustard sauce that was referred to as 'spicy') and a ginger-rice vinegar dressing on the salad. But the overall atmosphere was fun, and I like seeing my food cooked. As far as I could tell it was all pretty simple.

- Nothing makes sense in the NBA. The Boston Celtics played amazing on Sunday against the Magic, but lost because Hedo Turkoglu hit an amazing shot over near-perfect defense by Paul Pierce. And am I the only one who thinks Pierce looks thirty pounds heavier than he did three years ago. Is that muscle? Last year Ray Allen scored 30 ppg for the month of January and averaged 26 ppg, 4 apg, and 4.5 rpg. What happened to that guy? Meanwhile the GS Warriors (whom I loathe) aren't as awful as they ought to be, and the New Orleans Hornets are, without a doubt, the best team in the West. Nobody else is even really close. They demolished the Spurs on Saturday.

Maybe I just have less to say these days...

Well, I have been quietly waging my own personal war against social networking sites that look like bullshit pyramid schemes for the better part of the last ten years. What actions have I taken in the pursuit of this war? Ok, basically I just wished anyone who used Facebook, Myspace, and god forbid, YTMND, would become a miserable idiot.

In retrospect, this was a bad strategy. For one thing, these sites now boast something like a hundred trillion users all over the freaking world. Assuming my wish were granted, we'd have a world where total idiots get elected on a regular basis. And since we're winding down our second Bush administration, I guess I'm a freaking wish-maker.

The other reason this was a bad strategy is that it turns out I actually know a lot of people who are on Facebook and/or Myspace (I pretend I don't know the people on YTMND). At first I just made vomiting noises every time someone mentioned they had a Myspace or Facebook account, but eventually I realized that was just making me look like an idiot.

Even after realizing everyone I know is involved in this stuff in some way, I've generally snickered to myself every time I hear anything about these sites. After all, everything I've ever heard is bad. I mean, every damned MySpace page I've ever seen is a poorly designed wasteland that starts playing some stupid song without any prompting. And Facebook? Facebook stole their code from another company (and don't get me started on Secret Crush)!

So it was with a certain amount of glee that I read an article posted to reddit with the title: "Why I Will Not Be Using Facebook - Fierce yet detailed attack on the social networking site." However, upon reading the article, I realized a few things:

1. The author is an idiot.
2. I have no basis for my own dislike of this idea.
3. reddit titles kinda suck.

But basically, I realized I was falling into the same stupid trap that everyone falls into with music. You learn about something in a particular way, and you tend to start dismissing the new stuff without really thinking honestly about it. My internet life began before the web, when basically the interactions were through message forums and bulletin boards. Web-versions of those kind of interactions (i.e., IM, blogs, link aggregators, etc.) make sense and seem cool, while stuff like Facebook and MySpace just seem like more annoying versions of Geocities (and for those of you who don't remember Geocities, well, let's just say this is probably the coolest website for NBA 2k1 ever created!).

So anyway, if you're on facebook or myspace or orkut and I made little cough*idioti*cough sounds when you mentioned that: I'm sorry.

And no, this doesn't mean I'm going to create a facebook account.

Other stuff:

- I stayed at a hotel the other night that had a free-alcohol "happy hour". A FREE ALCOHOL HAPPY HOUR. And I worked through half of it!

- Speaking of that trip: You know what's worse than spending two and a half hours walking around in semi-freezing rain? Trying to explain to two skeptical consultants the difference between abundant and common in terms of leaf litter at the same time. I drove for an hour with the heater on full blast before I got warm. Why the hell didn't I try to get a job in Mexico?

- the NBA: Just off the top of my head everything we thought we knew about the western conference should be tossed out the window. Just forget it all. The three best teams right now are the Hornets, Blazers and Lakers (well, before Bynum got hurt). The Mavs and the Suns are apparently trying to pull a "spurs" by sucking early and getting great late. You know what they're missing? Tim Duncan. As for the East: Nobody in Miami should feel bad...they won a frickin' championship! You think I wouldn't trade a year or 3 of Dallas being miserable for a Dallas championship. And hell, Miami'll probably end up drafting Beasley, turning them right back into title contenders.

- If you like Carcassonne, you can play it online here (called Toulouse). And yes, we've probably played 60 games in the past three days.

Taking baby to get his shots

So sickness was an issue over New Years. And by that I mean: We
ended up in the ER twice in two days.

Yay.

Anyway, as a result, I got to take my son to his 4-month doctors
appointment. That is one of the ones that involves shots.

Here's how that visit went.

Son and dad are sitting in the patients room, waiting for the nurses
to come in and give son a reason to cry. As we're waiting, a girl
down the hall, probably 3 or 4, is getting her shots. She is unhappy.
She is screaming. She is screaming: "No no, don't hurt me! Don't
hurt me, no!" and then she got really really hysterical: "NO NO DON'T
HURT ME! NO!" This girl had a little sibling (less than a year old,
probably 4-6 months or so) who then started bawling.

Son looks at dad (whose starting to feel a little nervous about this
whole thing) and smiles :). Son doesn't know why we're in this funny
room, but hey, if dad's here, everything is ok. Right?

Well, about that time the door opens and a nurse enters. I'm starting
to worry that in about a minute my son is going to hate me.

So I propose a plan to the nurse:

"I'm going to leave the room while you do the shots, then, when you're
done, I'm going to _fight my way back in_ and 'rescue' my son...you
know, so that he thinks I would never let anything bad happen to him."

The nurse looked at me like I was the dumbest person on earth. Ok,
well, I guess that's not really funny, but still, you don't have to
act like such a prude.

Anyway, the other nurse comes in, and I end up having to hold Alton's
arms while they jab his legs. And Alton's just laying there looking
at me like "Hey, dad's holding my hands. Good times!"

And then the tears came. Good times...and by that I mean, dang...that sucked.

Alton was tough though. He shrugged off the shots pretty fast and was
fine for the whole drive home. That might have been helped by the
fact that dad couldn't find the damned car in the parking garage and
we walked around in the freezing cold for 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure
the cold numbed the pain from the shots.

Other things we learned from the doctor visit:

Alton is off the charts in terms of weight. Literally, I saw the
chart, which has a whited-out area designating the range of weights
for children at different ages. Alton is waay above the top of that
range. That's the same as he was last time, but on the plus side,
this time he was almost at the top of the chart for height as well
(>95 percentile). So he isn't just heavy, he's tall too. And he
doesn't appear to be as far off the chart as he used to be....although
maybe that's just me.

KU won a BCS game!!!!

I know there are unexpected stories a lot in college sports, so-called
Cindarella's, but KU winning 12 games and a BCS bowl game is the most
unexpected thing to happen in football since Boise State went
undefeated and didn't win it all. What? That happened last year? Oh
yeah.

Still, even if this is the peak for KU football for the next 40 years,
it was a good peak. What an amazing season!!