iPod Shuffle Meme

Saw this over on NigelMoose and thought I would give it a shot. Hmmm. Don't know what to make of these results.

Instructions: Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

How does the world see you?
Seekers Who Are Lovers - Cocteau Twins

Will I have a happy life?
The Maltese Melody - Bert Kaempfert

What do my friends really think of me?
Creek Bank - Mose Allison

What do people secretly think of me?
John Steed - Tahiti 80

How can I be happy?
Dizzy Miss Lizzie - The Beatles

What should I do with my life?
Shaking Through - REM

Will I ever have children?
Hoarding It for Home - Mates of State

What is some good advice for me?
Blue Hawaii - Frank Sinatra [Time to get away?]

How will I be remembered?
Nightmares - Violent Femmes [Yikes!]

What is my signature dancing song?
San Tropez - Pink Floyd [Good beach song, see answer above]

What do I think my current theme song is?
Night Shift Guru - The Cash Brothers

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Haunting - The Pogues

What song will play at my funeral?
So Long, Superman - Firewater [Ha!]

What type of men/women do you like?
Excursion Into "Oh A-Oh" - Stereolab

What is my day going to be like?
In the Wake of Adversity - Dead Can Dance [You've got that right, brother!]

It's Good to Have a Plan B

Yesterday's walk, yeah, that was a bit too much. I am paying for it today with some soreness. At least it isn't sciatic pain which is literally and figuratively a pain in the @$$. I've got my work cut out for me to get ready for a zoo trek this summer.

Maybe I'll just join these dufuses:

Pretty Big Day for eMusic

A lot of classic albums by the Rolling Stones have been added to the mostly indie-music download service.

They have the US and UK release of Out of Our Heads listed separately. The album has several overlapping tracks. With eMusic you get a limited number of downloads each month, depending on which plan you signed up for. I wonder if they count the overlapping tracks as separate downloads or not.

I have a hunch that they are counting them as separate downloads even though they are the same songs. The links for the song "Mercy Mercy" are different within each release. Caveat emptor!

Absolut-ly No!

Not that I buy much vodka, but after seeing this ad, my next bottle will be something other than Absolut:


Read the details at Michelle Malkin's blog.

My Back: an Update

I usually spend my lunch hours volunteering in a local charity thrift shop. There wasn't much to today so I went for a walk. According to YahooMaps, I traveled 0.76 miles round trip and I couldn't wait to get back to my office and sit down. It wasn't that it hurt, the pain was minimal, but I felt very uncomfortable in my lower lumbar area (see earlier post). And it was a strain to keep up my pace on the way back, which is frustrating. I am (or used to be, and hope to be again) a fast walker and would zip all around. Today I couldn't keep up with two older gentlemen strolling down the avenue.

So there will be less volunteering and more exercising for me. Need to get in shape for a trip to the zoo this summer!

Dinosaur Show

I dunno, Walking with the Dinosaurs looks pretty good. Check out this review:

Paleontologist Huxley (played by actors James Roberts and Jonathan Bliss) narrates the story, describing the dinosaurs and events as accurately as current science allows while the 15 life-size, lifelike creatures interact with each other.

The story covers nearly 200 million years of history in two acts with an intermission, using both live and recorded video. It includes explanations of how the carnivores came to walk on two legs and how the plant-eaters fended off foes. During the step back in time, viewers watch as oceans form, volcanoes erupt and a comet crashes into the Earth.

The show includes 10 species representing the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, all built to scale, such as tyrannosaurus rex, plateosaurus, liliensternus, stegosaurus, allosaurus, torosaurus and utahraptor. The largest, brachiosaurus, is 36 feet tall and 56 feet from nose to tail.

"We take the audience on a journey back in time and show how the dinosaurs might have actually looked in their prime — huge, sometimes frightening, sometimes comical monsters that fought for survival every day of their lives," says director Scott Faris. "Our dinosaurs move exactly like they are real, with all the roars, snorts and excitement that go with it. The realism is mind-blowing."

A team of 50 engineers, fabricators, skinmakers, artists, painters and animatronic experts spent a year building the $20 million production.

The question is whether it is good enough to spend at least $72 (two tickets plus Ticketmaster's gouging fee) for (primarily) a four-year-old's entertainment and a trek to Baltimore? Only 1 parental unit would probably be able to attend the show, on account of our 1-year old. But we could all head up together for a day trip.

Way to Go, Kakapo!

Over the weekend I was reading Bird: The Definitive Visual Guide (well, I was mostly looking at the pictures, but I read some parts), a hefty new book from our local library. The Boy kept dropping the book saying it was too heavy, and The Girl tried to rip out the index page. Yikes! I've since moved the $50 book to safer environs.

Despite its failure to include White-Eyed Conures, or any other conures for that matter, it is an amazing, informative book.

Scent can be a strong trigger of memory and the shiny, plastic-y smell of the pages brought me back to the days of sorting and browsing through the Safari Cards I collected as a kid; they had the same smell when first opened from their shrink wrap. By the way, I saved the Cards for my kids although if this Wikipedia entry is to be believed, some of the taxonomy information on the cards is outdated. I don't think I saved the special Jade Pendant, though. Oh, well.

Anyhoo, one part of the book I did read was about an extremely rare flightless parrot, the Kakapo.

Unlike my now-flightless white-eyed conure, the kakapo evolved on an island near New Zealand where there were no natural predators so over time it grew larger in size and lost the ability to fly. Once predators were introduced into its environment it was in big trouble. The Bird book noted that there were about 85 left in the world, and the survivors have been taken to safe locations for breeding.

I could appreciate how up-to-date the Bird book is from a news report I read today:

A species of flightless parrot edged back from extinction with the hatching of five new chicks in New Zealand in recent weeks and two more on the way, officials said Monday.The latest births of owl-like kakapos in southern New Zealand brought the population of the rare bird to just 91, said Emma Neill, a senior official of a Department of Conservation program to save the parrot.

Check out www.kakapo.net to learn more about this unusual and endangered parrot.

Fun Fact o' the Day

Former Senator Lott's real first name isn't Trent, it's Chester.

Futurama Predicted the Future

Over the weekend I re-watched the very first episode of Futurama, which originally aired on March 28, 1999 (I didn't realize I was marking the anniversary). The main character, Fry, who was accidentally frozen in suspended animation for 1,000 years, is standing in line at what he thinks is a phone booth so he can contact his last living relative. We don't even have phone booths in 2008, forget about it in the year 2999. It is New Year's Eve so naturally people are queuing up at a suicide booth.Fry manages to survive and hear a smiley-sounding recorded message, "Thanks for using Stop-N-Drop. America's favorite suicide booth since 2008."

Back to 2008, lo and behold, this article from the UK Times:
"Death for hire - suicide machine lets you push final button"

To paraphrase Futurama's Anthology of Interest II, "You've read it. You can't unread it!"

Spring 2008 Compilation

Finally. Finished burning a new compilation (my 99th since '91/'92) and making it into a list on RateYourMusic.com. The list took a while because of missing track lists in the database; had to do some research and make several additions to RYM.

Most of the songs were pulled from free compilations and tracks from eMusic. A few remaining tunes were from albums I've been listening to lately. Plus the obligatory Stereolab song, this one, Blaue Milch, newly acquired, it's an instrumental they contributed to some sort of tribute album to Peter Thomas.

News for the Boy 3

We recently watched a DVD lecture on dinosaurs, can't remember who the paleontologist was who delivered the lecture but he was very entertaining. This guy argued that, contrary to popular belief, the dome-headed pachycephalosaurs (GIS) didn't butt heads because many had ridges and spikes around their skulls and they would run the risk of having their eyes poked out.

This new article argues that perhaps teenage pachycephalosaurs butted heads.

NyQuil

My Button

I can't get behind the Republican nominee, but I oppose his likely opponent, Barack Obama. Here is a button I could wear:

No BO in the White House!
Socialism stinks

An alternate tag line could be:

I smell a socialist!

Del Ray Blogging

I was looking for some blogs about our neighborhood, the Del Ray area of Alexandria, VA, but didn't easily find anything current.

Mydelray.net looked interesting initially, but then I noticed that it hasn't been updated in 211 days. Do'h!

The blog AlexandriaDailyPhoto had a good concept, "One year of daily photos of the colonial town of Alexandria, Virginia," but the blogger/photographer finished up her project in May of 2007. Here are her photos taken in Del Ray. Enjoy!

Any other links would be appreciated.

More Housekeeping

I added a widget down the right side of the blog to keep track of news The Boy might be interested in. So far, it is just pulling an RSS feed from a Yahoo News search for the word "dinosaurs."

The widget is courtesy of WidgetBox.com. It was fairly easy to create. And they have a gallery of other public widgets that you can subscribe to or edit.

After you either create your widget or pick one to which you would like to subscribe, you have to click on "Get Widget" to make it available for Blogger, Facebook, iGoogle, or where ever. This is where I ran into trouble. Firefox just froze up whenever I clicked on it. Had to resort to Internet Explorer to get it to work. It would have been a lot easier if they just gave you a box of the code to copy and paste.

Don't Tell the Boy This News

A live dinosaur show based on the BBC series "Walking with Dinosaurs" is coming to Baltimore, April 30 through May 4. It looks pretty neat, but $32 a ticket is pretty steep when considering taking a 4-year old. Plus the ridiculous "convenience" fee charged by those mother-less monopolists at Ticketmaster.

News for the Boy 2

"A rare wild jaguar seen and photographed in the United States by hunter Warner Glenn is bayed by hounds during a hunting trip at an unknown location in southwestern New Mexico, February 20, 2006. Glenn and other members of his hunting party caught the hounds and led them away after they cornered the jaguar. The male jaguar, which weighed around 200 pounds, left the site at a slow trot unharmed. Jaguars are extremely rare in the United States, and Glenn is believed to be the only person to have encountered and photographed one in the wild. Photograph taken February 20, 2006. (Warner Glenn/Handout/Reuters)"

(Source Link)

Google Docs Keeps Evolving

Was perusing the Google Blogger blog, noticed a typo in the "help" link, htlp.blogger.com doesn't go anywhere, not very helpful. Do'h! (Update: They have since corrected the typo'ed link.)

Anyhoo, hadn't scanned Google's list o' official blogs in a while and noticed the Google Docs Blog. Google Docs has now been integrated with Google Gadgets so you can make nifty charts from your spreadsheets, charts that you can keep track of in your blog or your Google home page. And they've opened it up so other developers can create their own data visualizations.

Here is a link to a gallery of spreadsheet gadgets.

Handy Dandy Handyman Checklist

Our handyman isn't so much. He's got ambitious plans that he rarely follows through on. Saw him twice over the weekend and these are some of the things he is going to do, or at least talked about doing:

• Finish putting in screens
• Put in a rain spout
• Dig an underground pipe to have the rain spout pour into the vacant yard to our side
• Clear out the gutters
• Seed the yard
• Clear out the trees in our other side yard and put in bricks or pavement instead
• Clear the old roots out of the front yard
  

Op/Ed of the Year

Charles Krauthammer has a brilliant op/ed analyzing the rhetorical gimmicks in Barack Obama's Big Speech on Race.

I had an additional problem with the speech. In assessing the plight of the black community, BO put a heavy part of the blame, correctly, on a history of racism, but the ranks of the black middle class have been growing, so why is it that some parts of the black community have succeeded where other parts are stagnant? His analysis should have borrowed from Bill Cosby in condemning an underclass culture that glorifies criminality and has a disastrous rate of out-of-wedlock births.

But this may have led to a discussion of the consequences of the failed welfare policies of the Democratic Party, policies that Obama's presidency would expand on.

Uh oh!

(Photo Source)

Google Blog Seach RSS

I was trying to feed a few related Google Blog Search result RSS feeds through Yahoo Pipes so that I could streamline them into 1 convenient feed, but apparently Google doesn't like that.

I tested each RSS link separately within Pipes, and they worked, but once I put two in at the same time, I got a 403 error.

Looks like someone else had this problem too.

Partial solution, use the search operand | (for "or") to combine 2 into one. Tried using a second | to squeeze in a third search term as well, but that didn't seem to work very well.

Ahh, screw it, system simplification didn't work, so might as well make it easy to see which search term is generating which results. 3 feeds it is.

Housekeeping

Deleted a link to Draft Fred Thompson! What a crushing disappointment that campaign was.

Deleted a few of the links I had posted, since I never use them from here.

Messed around with the colors. Got bored with what I had. I wish there was a way to make better use of all the empty space in blogger. the main column is too narrow. It should either be wider, or it should be easier to add a second narrow column on the left side of the page. I suppose it can be done with html programming, but I'm not interested in figuring out the coding. Maybe there is a Blogger Hacks book from O'reilly.

Deleted the text box of my old Reading List. I had it set to show 5 items, but there was no way to click on it to see other items that are in the list. So I scrapped it and replaced it with a widget from librarythingy.com.

Great, another link and password to remember!

My Back

Early in February, I experienced pain like I'd never felt before. the day of the President's annual State of the Union address, it happened that I had to do a lot of overtime at work on a project. The next day, another big project was being wrapped up, and at home, I was also absorbed in a extensive round of Sid Meier's Civilization. so there were two days I was sitting around a lot.

Late Wednesday night during that first week of February I noticed a little pain on the left side of my rear as I stood up from the computer chair. Thought, "Hmm, that's odd," and went off to bed. Thursday, the pain was bit more noticeable. By Friday, it started getting exponentially worse. I had already scheduled to take the day off to relax after the grueling week, ended up laying down most of the day to minimize the pain down my left leg. Saturday morning, it was dreadfully painful to walk. When my lovely wife asked if I thought perhaps I should see a doctor, I readily agreed! The thought was already on my mind. So I went off to a nearby clinic.

Turns out, I had sciatica. I was supposed to go help some friends stuff envelopes for their wedding invitations, but there was no way I could help out. I had my appointment, got my medicine, and spent most of the day in bed. Also ended up missing a presentation I was supposed to give on Wednesday because I couldn't walk to the offices in downtown DC, and I was forced to miss CPAC for the first time in 7 years. On the following Wednesday, I made an appointment with a regular doctor who scheduled me for an MRI. Thursday morning, it felt like something clicked into place in my back and I started to feel marginally better. But the recovery was slow going, but mostly steady, at least.

Another 2 weeks went by, I was feeling somewhat better, but still limping, the doctor called back with the MRI results. Turns out I have a herniated disc. That was depressing news. Got over it after a few days.

It wouldn't have been so bad if maybe there was something that obviously caused this, but it really just crept up on me. Maybe it was a combination of Civ and OT, who knows?

Thinking back over the past few years, my left leg was always a little tight and sore when I stretched, early symptoms that I would have never noticed. So it goes.

After digesting the news about the herniated disc, I decided I shouldn't mess around with it so I got a prescription for physical therapy.

Several people told me that for them, PT was a bust and they didn't get anything out of it. That wasn't the case for me. It was worthwhile and beneficial.

The insurance approves 6 visits without another doctor referral. At that point the PT place automatically sent over the proper forms to the doctor. I tried to call my doctor to see whether I should keep going. I had no point of comparison to where I should be recovery-wise. The doctor's response was the equivalent of, "Duh! It's up to you." So that wasn't entirely helpful.

Went to a few more PT sessions before I decided I'd had enough and could just as easily do at home most of what we did in the sessions. And I couldn't shake off a nagging sense that while, yes, they were interested in my recovery, they were also very interested in having a paying-patient for as long as possible.

Record Flippin'

The Boy has been in a jazzy mood, but Baby Girl is showing a preference for exotica:

"Nope....

...nope....

..that's the one!"

Things I Learned Listening to the Big Speech

Obama can travel through time!

I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together .. .

Obama is black!

I am the son of a black man from Kenya ... .

Wow, what a long-winded speech, shy of 5,000 words. I guess that increases its Importance. I'll have to find time to finish reading it later when I get some free time. First impression, is that it was a 1 part "we should come together", 1 part socialism, and 1 part obfuscation to distance himself from his "crazy uncle," without, you know, really distancing himself from his "crazy uncle."

Obama's Big Speech

Obama was supposed to start his Big Speech on Race at 10:15. Running about a half hour behind now. Fine tuning his speech? That's already been sneaked out on the Drudge Report. Extra rehearsing? He's been giving pretty much the same speech over and over again for the past few months, perhaps he needs some extra rehearsal time for his new delivery.

While waiting for the Big Speech, check out the American Thinker blog, they found an interesting passage in one of Obama's books about his style, in particular manner of interacting with white people, Make No Sudden Moves.

News for the Boy

An extremely rare mummified Edmontosaurus was discovered in North Dakota!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Now That's Marketing!

http://producten.hema.nl/

Netflix Redesign

If you're like me and can't stand the redesigned "New Releases" page on Netflix, the old-fashioned link still works.

4-Year-Old Jazzhead

Me: Do you know who we are listening to?
The Boy: No.
Me: This is Frank Sinatra.
The Boy: Could you put on the be-bop jazz?
Me: You mean the Coltrane?
The Boy: Yes!

More Wisdom from a 4-Year-Old

"Do you know how many mountain lions there are in the wild? Two. We are running out of mountain lions. And do you know why? Because sharks and whales are coming to their terrain and eating them all up. I'm telling the truth!"

Obillary

A boy's interests

Our son's favorite toys or interests change over time.

Thomas the Train
Since he was 11 months old, Thomas the Train and co. have been among his favorite toys. At about this time, the thrift store where I volunteer gave me a box of wooden tracks. His collection steadily grew over the next 2 years. He still plays with them, but over the past 5 months, he has been more interested in the larger battery-operated versions of the trains put out by Tomy.

Bob the Builder
He got into BtB several months after Thomas. And when he was two, someone gave him a special BtB DVD that kept his interest going for several months. He only plays with these toys intermittently over the past year.

Cars the Movie
Cars has been a favorite with his whole pre-school class, at least among the boys, since shortly after the movie came out. He hasn't played with his Cars toys as much since just before Christmas. Although, most of the pictures he draws are about Lightning McQueen and Leakless racing madly in circles.

Dinosaurs
Last fall, we would hear him reciting in a low voice a history of the dinosaurs. Eventually we found out that they've been listening to a book on tape in his class. I don't know how many times they played it, but he and some of his friends had it memorized. Since then, we've checked out just about every dinosaur book in our local library, went to the see the unveiling of the newly discovered Nigersaurus at the National Geographic building, and went to see the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. He is pretty much an expert at this point. One of his favorite Christmas presents was a paleontologist kit where you chisel through a chunk of rock to find the 6 dinosaurs buried within. Once retrieved, he painted them up. The dinosaur craze went pretty strong until about 2 weeks ago.

Animals
As noted above, about two weeks ago he got very interested in animals, kicked off by a few factors. First of all was Zoo Tycoon. I bought the CD-ROM game last fall with him in mind but saved it for several months, finally broke it out 3 weeks ago. It is a great game, too advanced for him to play by himself at four years of age, but it is fun to play together. We've been learning a lot about different kinds of animals and what kind of terrain and habitats they prefer. I am thankful for the Control-4 cheat key so we don't have to worry about the finances of the zoo!

The second factor was a Christmas gift I got from my folks, BBC's The Planet Earth. An amazing documentary set. My son and I have been watching an episode each week.

Another factor, I think, has been "movie night". I've done painstaking research to find decent G movies that he can watch. Three we've seen lately are adventure stories featuring house pets: Homeward Bound, The Adventures of Milo and Otis, and Napoleon.

He says he likes animals better than dinosaurs. He is working on reading through all of our library's animal books now.

Ninja Warrior
This is a fun Japanese show broadcast on one of the cable channels. Contestants have to traverse through increasingly-difficult courses and obstacles. We watch it mainly on Saturday afternoon around lunch time. Now whenever he goes to the park or plays in the yard, he does his own Ninja Warrior challenges.

Wisdom from a 4-Year-Old

Me: "Is the stairway gate closed so your sister can't get up there?"

4-Year-Old Boy: "Yes. But I can climb over it. [My 1-year old sister] can't climb over it because she doesn't have powerful arms like I do."

Move Over, Gerald McBoing-Boing

... and make room on the perch for Boris McChirp-Chirp:

From The Sun:

Bird Boy Found in Russia

BOY can reportedly only communicate by 'chirping' - after living his life in a virtual aviary.

According to reports from Russia, the 7-year-old 'bird boy' has spent his life in a flat filled with bird cages with a mum who treated him like one of her pets.

Pravda said the boy's 31-year-old mum did not talk him and treated him like a bird, forcing him to learn avian language.

Social worker Galina Volskaya said shocked authorities discovered the boy in a two-bedroom apartment with bird mess littering the floor.

Volskaya said: “When you start talking to him, he chirps."

And she added that the boy becomes frustrated at not being able to communicate and flaps his arms.

Pravda reported that authorities believe the boy is suffering from Mowgli syndrome, after the Jungle Book character who is raised by wild animals.

The boy has reportedly been released by authorities and put in a medical facility.

Tricky Mazes

Click on one of the individual mazes to open up a larger PDF copy for printing.

Hillary Zings Obama

It is unfortunate that Hillary is being beaten to her left, albeit only slightly. She can't really go after Obama's policies, since they are hard to differentiate from her own proposals, so she has been going after his style. The plagiarism angle didn't work. The raison d'etre of the Democratic party is taking money from people, so what does it matter to the base that he took a few words here and there?

Drudge posted a link to a video where she goes after the cult of Obama with a dose of sarcasm. It might be too late for her but I got a chuckle out of her statement.

Addicted to Heat

Capped off my physical therapy session with 10 minutes of soothing heating pad relief. Forgot to bring one from home into work today so I have to improvise. My office is chilly so I have an electric radiator next to my chair. I just reach right over and put my little lumbar pillow on there for a minute or two then place it behind me and melt into my chair. Aaaah. Repeat as necessary.

Let no presents go unused!

Several years ago now, my wife got me a Brookstone Single-Cup coffee maker for my office.
I meant to use it, but was in the habit of drinking instant coffee at work so I put it in my drawer and forgot about it. Then one day three or four weeks ago, I ran out of instant coffee, was out of walking-around money, and had a surplus of ground coffee at home. Now I've been using it regularly!

Immigration Nightmare

Springdale, Arkansas, with a high population of immigrants from the Marshall Islands is facing outbreaks of leprosy and tuberculosis.

Sounds like it is time for a quarantine before this spreads.

Wisdom from a Four-Year Old

If a dinosaur or a monster ever eats you, wiggle and jiggle inside his body, then climb up his throat, grab his teeth and shake them. Then it will spit you out.

"You Got People"!?

"You Got People" is H&R Block's new slogan. I've heard some of the commercials, but didn't notice the missing word until I saw an online ad.

If you ain't got grammar, I don't think I can be trustin' you'z wif my numberz.

Picture of the Day

Ehi's Official Endorsement

Mitt Romney has been accused of flip-flopping on issues, maybe so, but he has flipped in the right direction, and don't we want converts to the conservative movement?

On the other hand, John McCain's signature laws have been, or would be, flops:

McCain-Fiengold restricts our political speech.
McCain-Kennedy immigration bills is a de facto amnesty for people who have illegally breached our borders.
McCain-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill would impose a hefty new tax on businesses.
McCain-Kennedy-Edwards Patient Bill of Rights contained mandates that would have driven up premiums and expose employers and health plans to expensive lawsuits.

And notice how he teams up with some of the biggest liberals in Washington.

Mitt Romney is the best choice to lead the Republican Party and the nation.

If McCain secures the Republican nomination, I could never cast a vote in his favor. I would vote third party or write-in a protest vote.

Go, Mitt, Go!

The Transformation of AlGore

Gore's been animated several times now for special appearances in Futurama:


But, in real life:
he is starting to resemble a different Futurama character, Mr. Horrible Gelatinous Blob:

John Edwards Quote of the Day

"Nothing is more important to our children's future than America's teachers."

I would have thought it was parents, but maybe that is because I am not a stark raving mad socialist.

In his world view, teachers trump parents because they are generally unionized, and in most cases, agents of the state, oozing with mushy notions of political correctness.

Thankfully, this blinky lunatic doesn't have a chance to win the primary, unfortunately, the Dems have two other socialists in the queue, albeit slightly less nutty, and much less blinky.

Anyhow they are all three lawyers.

Don't
Elect
Any
Lawyers!

Now That's Irony

"Fire destroys building at insulation business."

http://www.kentucky.com/211/story/292127.html

Foux da fa fa

Mother Flippin'!

Honey

Another study. It seems there are as many studies as there are blogs, but this one is worth a shot. Our little guy has had a night-time cough.

A teaspoon of honey before bed seems to calm children's coughs and help them sleep better, according to a new study that relied on parents' reports of their children's symptoms.
The folk remedy did better than cough medicine or no treatment in a three-way comparison. Honey may work by coating and soothing an irritated throat, the study authors said.

Fuzzy Math

Michelle Malkin writes about a new teaching fad, the "Everyday Math" curricula, which she labels "fuzzy math."

I must admit, after reading the FAQs from the "Everyday Math" homepage at the University of Chicago's Education Department, it does look like a dubious, and confusing technique. Especially the "Alternative Algorithm" section. See if you can make sense of it.

As Michelle noted, there has been a backlash against "Everyday Math" by parents who wonder why their kids have the same homework over consecutive years, or asinine exercises like this:

"A. If math were a color, it would be –, because –.
B. If it were a food, it would be –, because –.
C. If it were weather, it would be –, because –."

Texas recently subtracted the "Everyday Math" textbook for third graders.

Only ran a quick search but I didn't see whether this textbook is used in Alexandria.

Is your computer playing random classical music?

Then you'd better read this.

Be Green Like Al

Thanks for the Songs!

I would like to extend thanks to the anonymous benefactor responsible for giving me 50 free songs from EMusic. They showed up in my account with no explanation and EMusic never answered my email asking why. So, thanks!

Park to Check Out

The Weekend section of the Washington ComPost featured a bunch of unheralded local parks. We went to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens a few months ago. It is a shame it is in such a terrible neighborhood in NE DC because it is a great park for hiking and nature-watching:







The one park in the article we haven't been to yet is the Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD. The Post's article had many favorable testimonials about it from visitors.

The Madman of Iran

The second that Iranian President Ahmadinejad sets foot in the US he should be immediately arrested and either tried or sent to Gitmo for his role in the kidnapping of American diplomats at our embassy in Iran.

How Did I Miss This?

Internet search guru Tara Calashain has a new book out:
Information Trapping: Real-Time Research on the Web.

Political Progress in Iraq

I've been waiting for someone to finally bring this information to light. Over the last few weeks there has been much hand wringing from the Democrats and their dinosaur media accomplices that there has been no progress on the political front in Iraq.

They use to complain that there was no military progress but since that is clearly not the case they've had to move on to the Plan B bitching. There hasn't been the grand reconciliation that most of us would like to see but how realistic is that over the short term? Let's focus on the areas where there has been progress.

From the White House:

· FACT: On August 26, Iraqi leaders took an important step towards reaching agreement on de-Ba'athification, a provincial powers law, a draft oil law, detainee issues, and developing a long-term relationship with the United States. As Ambassador Ryan Crocker said August 27: "The statement released by the five leaders yesterday is a positive and encouraging message that the government is making all efforts to achieve benefits for Iraqi people. I'm optimistic. I can see there is progress."

· FACT: The Iraqi Council of Representatives completed about 60 pieces of legislation in its most recent session, including a $41 billion budget that includes $10 billion for reconstruction and capital investment.

· FACT: Iraqis are in some cases reaching interim solutions to problems like oil distribution and de-Ba'athification as negotiation over legislation continues:

o Oil money is being distributed to the Iraq people even though the proposed oil law is still being negotiated, with $2.116 billion in oil money allocated for FY07 and $848 million obliged.

o The government of Iraq has contacted thousands of members of the former Iraqi army and offered them retirement, return to the military, or public sector employment.

· FACT: Our commanders report that Iraqi Security Forces are growing in number, becoming more capable, and assuming more responsibility. Currently there are about 140 Iraqi Army, National Police, and Special Operations Forces battalions in the fight, with about 95 capable of taking the lead in operations. As Gen. Petraeus said: "The Iraqi army has, in general, done quite well in the face of some really serious challenges. In certain areas it really is very heartening to see what it has done."

3 Surgeons

Recieved via email:

Three Arkansas surgeons were playing golf together and discussing surgeries they had performed. One of them said, "I'm the best Surgeon in Arkansas . In my favorite case, a concert pianist lost seven fingers in an accident. I reattached them, and 8 months later he performed a private concert for the Queen of England .

The second surgeon said. "That's nothing. A young man lost an arm and both legs in an accident, I reattached them, and 2 years later he won a gold medal in track and field events in the Olympics.

"The third surgeon said, "You guys are amateurs. Several years ago a woman, who must have been high on SOMEthing, rode a horse head-on into a train traveling 80 miles an hour. All I had left to work with was the woman's blonde hair and what was left of the rear end of the horse. I was able to put them together and now she's running for President.

eMusic Now Offers Audio Books

eMusic is branching out. They now offer audio books for $9.99 a month for 1 book, or $19.99 for two. An odd price system. Usually stores discount the price per item at the second tier to get you to buy more stuff. And with the number of books on CD and on MP3 from local libraries the price seems a bit steep. Maybe that is because they will have more newer titles. But as yet they don't have Laura Ingraham's New York Times Best Seller Power to the People.

Stack o' Stuff

How the Fed Works

Getting Organized

Making New Habits Stick

Time Management and Writing

One Scary Cloud

It's just a cumulonimbus, but it looks ominous.

Christmas Stocking

 

 

My aunt asked me to send her a photo of the beautiful stocking she made for our son so she can style a similar font for the stocking she plans to make for our baby girl. Click on the picture for a larger copy.

Good Jazz List

from eMusic:
: Soul Jazz


If you are thinking about signing up for this DRM-free music service, let me know so I can claim credit for their "free downloads for recruitment offer"!

3 Weeks 'Til Ultimate Fun!

I went over to the Ross store to buy for my son a Tomy battery- powered Thomas the Train set that came with a station, a bridge, and a tunnel for about $25. His birthday is coming up and we already got him some other Tomy trains and tracks from the Thomas universe so I was going to save it for Christmas, assuming he is good through the rest of the year.

But after I picked up the box, checked it over, and was about to make my way to the register, I spotted this hidden in a corner:
The Thomas Ultimate Set! Thomas and eight of his friends plus Cranky the Crane and a Troublesome Truck, a suspension bridge, a little bridge, a station, a crossing, and a couple of tunnels. A good deal at 50 bucks. Now this will be his b-day gift, [don't tell him!] and all that other stuff can wait 'til the 25th of December.

In your face, Mars!

Earth Might Survive Sun’s Explosion.

/That's all I've got.

One Smart Bird

Alex, the world's most famous African Grey parrot, passed away.

RIP.

A Polling Question That Hasn't Been Asked

Of the Presidential candidates, who has the voice you least want to hear over and over again for the next four years?

For me it is a close call between Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton, unless she plans to govern with the ebonics accent she uses whenever she is in the deep south or talking to a black audience.

Fred

Not as up on Fred as I was earlier in the year, he spent a little too long in the am-I-running-or-not? phase and lost a bit of his steam, and deservedly took some media hits on the way.
But now he is finally in it to win it and has a few weeks to rebuild his momentum.

This picture made me chuckle:

Free Classics Library

Questia.com recently made over 5,000 public domain e-books in its library available for free. Several classics are available, fiction and nonfiction. Their reader is similar to Google's Reader.

They also have some advanced features including highlights and notation, but for that you have to subscribe.

"Greeeaaaaat," he said sarcastically.

The new Yahoo mail is going out of beta over the next few weeks. Maybe they are fixing some bugs in the process to make it smoother, but as is, it is a clunky product.

One problem is that it takes a while to load, especially at home where we have a slow connection. I usually pre-empt it by clicking the link to view my mail in the old standard version.

And it always drives me nuts that you have to go through hoops to get to the actual email. What kind of email program doesn't open up by showing its inbox? Instead, you get some screen with a bunch of news links. If I wanted the news I'd go to the DrudgeReport (uh oh, Republican Senator Larry Craig is in a bit of hot water) but I wanted to see my email so I came to Yahoo! Mail. So then you have to click on the Inbox Tab and wait some more for that to load. And don't try to open one of the actual emails before the ads are fully loaded or things may come to a complete halt. Oh greeeaaaat, it finally loaded. I've got spam!

Lolcats and Star Trek

Thanks to a link from the Wall Street Journal (registration required), of all places, I found that Live Granades put together a lolcat version of the Troubles with Tribbles Star Trek: TOS episode.

Self-Proclaimed Pedophile is Taxpayer-Subsidized

Before his server was taken down, Jack McClellan blogged about taking pictures of little girls in parks, other public places, and near child care facilities. He is under a 3-year restraining order barring him from being within 30 feet of children, which, according to the Associated Press, he recently broke:

[McClellan] was arrested Aug. 13 for investigation of violating the order when he was found near a child care center at the University of California, Los Angeles. He had a camera with him at the time, but he told a local TV station that there wasn't any film in it.

Since he didn't have proper notice about a hearing to argue the merits of the restraining order, he was released from jail.

More from the article:

McClellan is unemployed and has been living out of his car. ... McClellan, who said he lives on supplemental security income and suffers from depression, has maintained that he launched the site as a form of therapy and wouldn't do anything illegal.

This, to me, is a case of an individual taking advantage of the welfare system. Why should taxpayers have to subsidize an unemployed, depressed pervert?

New from China!

Put your kid to sleep with some brand new Chinese Flamable Formaldehyde Pyjamas!

China is getting defensive. From the Financial Times:

The latest concerns came as Li Changjiang, head of China’s safety watchdog, claimed the product safety scares were “a new trend of trade protectionism”, and accused some governments of “demonising China’s products”.

It seems the Chinese are doing alot to demonize their own products. Maybe this is some misdirected revenge for the Opium Wars.

Loser Mentality Takes Root in Boston

With the Yankees now just 4 games back, Boston is feeling the heat:

The Boston Red Sox simply shrugged off their lead in the AL East dropping to four games over New York after they lost to left-hander Joe Saunders 3-1 on Sunday.

"If the Yankees win 20 in a row, they'll catch us," Mike Lowell said. "If every division winner got to the World Series it would mean something. But it doesn't mean anything" to finish in first.

Hot New Item: Chinese Lead Bibs!

Sure, your kids may turn out a little "slow", but they'll be safe from X-Rays in the meantime! Buy 'em up before they are all recalled!

From the NYT:

Certain vinyl baby bibs sold at Toys “R” Us stores appear to be contaminated with lead, laboratory tests have shown, making the inexpensive bibs another example of a made-in-China product that may be a health hazard to children.

The vinyl bibs, which feature illustrations of baseball bats and soccer balls and Disney’s Winnie the Pooh characters, are sold for less than $5 each under store brand labels, including Especially for Baby and Koala Baby.

Tests this summer, financed by the Center for Environmental Health of Oakland, Calif., found lead as high as three times the level allowed in paint in several styles of the bibs purchased from both Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us stores in California.

A separate test by a laboratory hired by The New York Times of the same Toys “R” Us bibs, purchased in Maryland, found a similar level of contamination.

Chinese Nazi Chewing Gum

In addition to sending U.S. children lead-coated crap, China is also selling Nazi chewing gum:

An Israeli woman was astounded to find a tattoo- sticker of a Nazi soldier inside a pack of bubble gum she had bought at her local store, Maariv daily reported recently.

"A surprise awaits you," said the "Roll Bubble Gum" pack, showing a picture of a pink wrapper alongside what it said was the sticker, which showed a Nazi officer in uniform and wearing a swastika armband. ...

The newspaper quoted Orna Gutman, 23, as telling its website the pack's label was in Arabic and English and stated the gum was made in China but did not name the importer.

Baby Rap Update

(Added a concluding stanza)

Little baby Shannon
She is demandin'
To be picked up 'cause she thinks she's been abandoned

She was on her mat layin'
With her rattle playin'
For her bottle waitin'
But her peeps they were delayin'

She let out a loud cry
But she got no reply
She said, "I want my bottle and I will not be denied!"

She's got a big brother
He treats her like no other
When he hears her cry he runs to get her mother

When her mom comes
She gets the job done
She puts a stop to her fussin' and then they have some fun.

They play some peek-a-boo
And little coochie-coo
Then she has to wipe her face; her new teeth make her drool.

It's been a long day
Full of anguish, angst, and play
But she's had her bottle, now she's tired
So it's time to hit the hay.

Is Homer Simpson Writing Legislation?

I just discovered "The MMMMM Act": Missing Mercury in Manufacturing Monitoring and Mitigation Act.

Mmmmm, missing mercury.

Baby Rap

Little baby Shannon
She is demandin'
To be picked up 'cause she thinks she's been abandoned

She was on her mat layin'
With her rattle playin'
For her bottle waitin'
But her peeps they were delayin'

She let out a loud cry
But she got no reply
She said, "I want my bottle and I will not be denied!"

She's got a big brother
He treats her like no other
When he hears her cry he runs to get her mother

When her mom comes
She gets the job done
She puts a stop to her fussin' and then they have some fun.

They play some peek-a-boo
and coochie-coochie-coo
Then she has to wipe her face; her new teeth make her drool.

Disturbing Picture of the Day

Stack o' Stuff

Victor Davis Hanson: Ripples of Retreat: Dark predictions for a post-withdrawal world.

Charles Krauthammer: "Petraeus’ plan is to eliminate all al Qaeda sanctuaries. You hardly hear about that from the anti-war Democrats in the Senate."

Groening on some Comedy Central show via iFilm.

Stupid and Guilty? Or Just Plain Stupid?

Someone who lives on my street (I won't to call him a neighbor because he isn't very friendly) recently had a brush with the law. He is a black barber and traded his SUV, which is probably a couple of years old, to one of his customers for a brand new Land Rover. You could tell it was brand new because it still had the dealer tags.

Turns out, the Land Rover was stolen from a dealership a day earlier. They must have used GPS or something to track it because 7 cop cars surrounded our parking lot and blocked off our street. The barber wasn't put under arrest but was taken away for further questioning. All the while that they were all out there, he was trying to call the customer -- whose name he didn't know -- on his cellphone but surprise, surprise, no one answered.

I guess the barber wasn't complicit in the crime. He certainly seemed shocked and surprised about the whole thing and he now has his old SUV back. But how stupid could a person a be? What a chucklehead.

The Goose Whisperer

The guy in the photo above can communicate with geese and his job is to manage relations between the birds and people in a city in the Netherlands.

WInged Walker

My white-eyed conure has gone from this:

to this:

About 2 weeks ago he started picking at his wing feathers, now he can't get any lift to fly up. I think it was out of jealousy of our 7 1/2 month old baby girl. I've had the bird for roughly ten years and he's never done anything like this before. He also gave me a rather malicious bite around the time picking began.

Once I noticed the problem, I added some news toys and shoe laces to his cage and have been giving him extra attention when possible - though without rewarding the bad habit. I've also added the ladder up to his cage so he can get himself back home on his own from the ol' futon. My son is on the lookout if the conure ever gets down on the floor, he knows to call for me so I can scoop the bird up.

I was never able to train him to "step up" onto my hand, he would always bite to hurt. What I would do is to gently lift him by the tail and slide my fingers under his claws out of beak-range. Now all I have to do is put my hand behind him and he steps up backwards onto my finger.

For his sake, at least the cats aren't around any more now that he can't escape a pouncin'.

Baby Bird Picasa Test

We've had 2 nests of robins outside of our rear window this summer. This little bird left his nest for the first time later in the day the pictures were taken.

Earlier in the week I installed Google's picture program, Picasa. I just used the program to upload the picture straight to Blogger, the process was several times quicker than using the regular upload within Blogger.

Only complaint so far about Picasa is the scroll bar. The scroll bar in iTunes is absolute: moving to the bottom of the scroll moves you directly to the last file. Whereas, in Picasa, the bar is relative, when you move the scroll bar to the bottom, it only moves you in the direction of the last file, you have to sit there and hold the bar toward the bottom while the menu moves gradually to the bottom of the file list. Irritating.

Hero

A Wisconsin state Rep, Frank Lasee (R), thinks there are too many lawyers so he is trying to block funding for the University of Wisconsin School of Law:

We don't need more ambulance chasers. We don't need frivolous lawsuits. And we don't need attorneys making people's lives miserable when they go to family court for divorces," said Rep. Frank Lasee, R-Green Bay. "And I think that having too many attorneys leads to all those bad results.

For Personal Reference

Here are three articles I had open all day to read but never had time to get to:

Democrats Facing a Fight To Lift Domestic Spending.

Getting things done.

55 articles on blogging

TinyUrl

Tinyurl.com is a handy website that transforms long and unwieldy html links into, well, tiny urls. For example, this long map link:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?ovi=1&mqma
p.x=300&mqmap.y=75&mapdata=%252bKZmeiIh6N%252bI
gpXRP3bylMaN0O4z8OOUkZWYe7NRH6ldDN96YFTIUmSH3Q6
OzE5XVqcuc5zb%252fY5wy1MZwTnT2pu%252bNMjOjsHjvN
lygTRMzqazPStrN%252f1YzA0oWEWLwkHdhVHeG9sG6cMrf
XNJKHY6fML4o6Nb0SeQm75ET9jAjKelrmqBCNta%252bsKC
9n8jslz%252fo188N4g3BvAJYuzx8J8r%252f1fPFWkPYg%
252bT9Su5KoQ9YpNSj%252bmo0h0aEK%252bofj3f6vCP

was shortened to http://tinyurl.com/6.

One problem with tiny urls is that they are blind links - you can't be sure where you are going when you click on one. Well, they've recenlty fixed that by adding a preview feature. Just add the word "preview" and a dot in the link as such: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6.

Or, if you have cookies enabled, you can go here to make "preview" your automatic default.

Happy Independence Day!

We watched the National fireworks from a marina south of the Reagan Airport. In addition to the display from the Mall , we could see fireworks being launched from about 20 different locations all around the horizon.

Daycare News

Here's the note Ms. A. sent home today for baby girl:

Oh mom, I was so mad with Ms. A. - she took much too long to feed me. I was calling my dad : ) and he didn't come for me. Ms. A. said that he loves me, but that didn't work. I need my dada! My outside play was wonderful and I do like playing on the floor with Ms. A and my friends.

PS I wouldn't eat my oatmeal this morning.

Death to Spammers

In a previous blog post here, someone posted a comment with some funky HTML that hijacked the page, directing it some spam/phishing looking site called Quote Database Home.

Since my page wouldn't display completely before being hijacked, I was unable to delete the comment. Had to delete and repost my article. Word Verification has been turned on now for new comments.

Daycare News

Baby girl sent us this note from her daycare:

What a busy day : ) I played on the floor with Ms. A. Fun fun fun! We ate the books : ) Story time. Mom, I can hold my fingers and toes and I do like pulling the table cloth off the table!

The boy's daycare didn't send a note home today, but he reported to us that one of his teachers, Ms. D., told him "shut up" and "stupid," two words he gets in big trouble for saying. Knowing Ms. D., we remain dubious of his claim.

Pointless Family Photo

Someone forwarded this picture to me this morning: