100 word philosophizing

I enjoy the 100-word writing exercise sometimes. It forces you to be concise and precise; and helps you whittle away all but the most essential.

I just got a major surprise from an acquaintance, and it made me think. I decided I'd try to encapsulate my thoughts into 100 words. Here's my attempt:

Once in a while, things you think are "this way" are really "that way" and have been so all along. I wonder how old I will have to be before things stop taking me by surprise.

People all around me are trapped in one kind of cage or another, and are expending great effort to pretend they're not.

How many people realize their mistakes and choose to do nothing about them? Why are those people somehow less guilty than those who choose to take action to rectify the original wrong?

Is anyone out there truly happy? I'm beginning to wonder.

Just shoot me and let's be done, k?

Another headache day.

Traffic in the 'hood

There's only really one time each year that I dislike being a resident of the neighborhood surrounding Drake University. This is that time. It's called Drake Relays days. Suddenly everything erupts into bizarre traffic idiocy, parking along every spare millimeter of curb for six blocks in every direction, and streets closed for runners. GRR! People seem to be unable to obey simple traffic laws. Frat brats are congregating by the dozens in front yards, shouting things to one another across the street.

I am going to be SO GLAD when this weekend is finished, even though it means back to work. There's a freedom in knowing that my time at that workplace is finite. It has caused me all the distress and anxiety that it can, and in just a little over a month, it'll be done.

I'm not going back to work there next year.

I will let you know what I will be doing next year... but not right now. Soon.

New addition to the blogroll

I've added Nobody's Business to my blogroll. I found it while reading Dr. Shackleford over at The Jawa Report and thought it sounded like something I'd like to read more of. Maybe you'll think so, too.

Home

Just got home this evening and I'm so tired I can barely think. I promise -- I'll tell you ALL about my trip to Quebec just as soon as I can. I have lots of pictures and lots to tell.

And obviously, as you probably figured out by now, I was not able to catch an internet location even once while I was gone. The family I stayed with did not have internet access at home, and there wasn't really any other opportunity at all, so I just went eight days without being online. I think it might be a record.

My next must-have item

I never thought I'd see the day, but I think I'm becoming a junkie already. A music-equipment junkie, that is.

I just got back from Rod's house where we all got together to watch our blues night performance on video (thanks to Mr. Saxophone Don Brown). That night I was using a special footpedal add-on that Dewey lent to me... I was already in love with it, but now that I've heard it from the audience perspective, I know that I simply MUST have it. What is it? Well, it's a little doodad that takes a plain organ sound on my Roland and turns it into a screamin' B3 with Leslie that sounds about as close to the real thing as anything I ever heard. It most definitely improves my sound, which in turn improves my playing... when you feel like you sound good, you start being more confident with your playing. At least that's my experience.

Any-hoo, here's the critter I just gotta get:



It's a foot switch that you hook up between the keyboard and the amp, and it alters the sound when you turn the on/off switch... and then the right-side switch makes the sound wah-wah faster or slower, just like a real Hammond. Zowee, it's the bomb. It's just $225... way less than a real B3 would cost me, and a lot less bulky too. This is without question going to be my next equipment purchase. And until I can get the $225 saved up, I know Dewey will let me use it when we're playing the blues. I just wish I already had it so I could use it at church; holy cow, it's terrific. But I'll be patient.

FREE!!!

At least, for the next eight days.

Turned in all my paperwork, prepared all kinds of lovely work for the boys to do, and said TTFN to the Dungeon. My head still hurts, but at least work's done. Lots to do tonight, though.

Oh, Canada!

Pro-cras-ti-na-tion

I have GOT to get packing, but I'm sitting here with another of my headaches instead. I'm going to turn off the computer and force myself to accomplish something in spite of my throbbing cranium. I think I've been clenching my jaw again, which always brings on a headache.

I don't really know why I'm tense, to be honest. I'm just on the verge of having all my paperwork done at school, which will leave me free to not worry about it while I'm in Canada. The trip itself is going to be awesome; I'm bringing my own guitar along (as well as all my other musical equipment) and Jeff & I are going to try to do some songwriting/arranging. We've already got another one almost finished; it's one that I wrote words to while I was bored to death administering standardized tests a couple of weeks ago. He put it to a cool melody that makes me think of Southern rock. We just need to tweak some of the phrasing and nail down the bridge and find a "hook" to put with it. We were hoping to get some time to do that on the drive up, and since my guitar is a "mini," it won't be as difficult to play in a small space.

I WANT THIS HEADACHE TO GO AWAY.

Easter pix

Easter 2006 pictures

It was a fun, if hectic, weekend. The kids thought Easter egg dyeing was the bomb. We never did get to hide them, however, because it stormed all day Sunday. They had a lot of fun making them, though.

Quebec

Well, it's finally The Week... the week that the team from church is leaving for a trip to Montreal, Quebec, to encourage and support a small church there (in Blainville, actually, a suburb of Montreal).

Four worship-team members are part of the mission team, so we're going to do some worship-leading while we're there. We've been getting together to run through some songs to have in our repertoire, and on Tuesday night we're going to pack all the equipment into the trailer so we'll be ready to pull out at 6 AM on Wednesday.

I've had so much other stuff going on in my life, the Quebec trip has been sort-of a hazy thing coming up sometime in the future. Now it's imminent, and I'm going to go, and I'm finally getting the chance to really get excited about it.

I'll take my laptop along and try to catch a wi-fi somewhere along the way.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!!!!

Resurrection Sunday came and went... we did our celebrating throughout the past three days rather than all on one day. FCC had three Easter services: one on Friday night, and then the normal two this morning. The Friday night one was identical to a Sunday morning service rather than being a special "Good Friday"-type service. It worked well; the place was packed all three services, and there weren't many repeaters. Lots and lots and lots of new faces, which I was glad to see. The crowd just keeps growing bigger at that church, and it's very exciting to watch it all unfold and to get to be part of the action.

We dyed Easter eggs this year, which we haven't done in a couple of years for one reason or another, and we had a blast. The kids loved it; they used crayons to make designs, then we dipped the eggs in the dye. Isaac did partial dips to make a few with a tie-dye effect, and Martha did some half-and-halfers.

I set out Easter baskets for them to surprise them this morning... candy, a couple of toys, a chocolate bunny... you know, all the traditional stuff like that. Even plastic grass. Of course, it's now all over the house, as you'd expect. But that's tradition, too, isn't it? Kind of like stepping on a Cheerio in the carpet when you have a one-year-old... it's just part of the package.

Music blurs the lines that divide us

More evidence that music can cross even the bitterest divide:

Serb folk music strikes chord in postwar Croatia

By Zoran Radosavljevic

ZAGREB (Reuters) - People's arms go up in the air, their eyes close and their bodies start to sway to the deafening, hypnotic rhythms.

The music, known as "turbo-folk", is unmistakably Serbian but none of the ecstatic young Croats in the Sova (Owl) nightclub, who lip-sync the words of each song, seem to care.

Until recently, for most Croats Serbia was the enemy they fought in the 1991-95 independence war and all its products were shunned. Turbo-folk, synonymous with Serbia, was considered politically incorrect.

With its lyrics about unrequited love, adultery and revenge set to folk melodies, strong beats and synthesizers, turbo-folk started in the 1980s. It was generally ignored in urban areas, but became popular in rural parts of Serbia and Bosnia.

However, times are changing and turbo-folk -- blasted, or even ignored, by critics who say it has no musical value -- is conquering the very heart of the Croatian capital, where semi-secret folk clubs have mushroomed in the past year.

The Jutarnji List daily's rock critic describes it as "a mixture of mutated Balkan melodies, howling vocals, idiotic lyrics and sampled disco and house rhythms".

Not that that puts the fans off.

It reminds me of the way rap and hip-hop were once the exclusive territory of young black Americans, but that it very quickly became a multi-cultural phenomenon that began to define an entire generation of music. Even the rock, alternative, punk, and other genres of music being produced today have been influenced by hip-hop; it's unmistakeable. I always smile to myself whenever I'm with someone and they tell me something like, "I like just about any kind of music... except RAP, but that isn't music, now is it?" Ummm, well, actually, yes it is. And it's permeated everything you listen to, but you don't even know it, silly.

And that's not a bad thing.

Bad music gets made every day, but it isn't the style that defines its quality. There were scads of bad operas and symphonies written and performed hundreds of years ago, just as there are truly terrible songs being rocketed to Number One nowadays. The few truly quality examples of music will always rise to the top and stand the test of time.

I hope that Serbs and Croats eventually work out their differences (although I'm aware that they have a very long history of hatred)... and I daresay that those differences, if they're breached, will be breached by the very people who are smashing the barriers over here: the young.

Photos from the Challenge

Big Mike & Holdin' On Tight
is:

"Big Mike" Edwards, lead vocals
Don Brown, saxophone, backup vocals
"Fast Eddie" Buntenbach, drums and backup vocals
Dewey Cantrell, lead guitar, vocals
Rod Moulin, bass guitar
Kris Wood, keyboard, vocals

The 2006 Iowa Blues Challenge Finals

Friday, May 19
9:30 PM

Hilton Gardens Inn
86th & I-80
Urbandale, Iowa

And the winner is...

BIG MIKE & HOLDIN' ON TIGHT!!!



We beat out three other bands tonight to advance to the final round, where we'll take on the winners of two other preliminary rounds. The big winner gets an expenses-paid trip to the blues festival in Memphis this summer, 8 hours of recording time in a studio, some $$$, etc...

After a brief bout of "What was I thinking?" nerves before any of the evening festivities began, I recovered and managed to make it through the entire set, remembering every key change, keyboard-voice change, B-3 Leslie switch, volume adjustment, etc. The 45 minutes went by in an absolute blur! What a great time, and what a packed house of great people came out to hear an evening of hot blues music. This was no dive-bar populated by half the town drunks; no, this place was full of some very cool people.

Now I get to try to settle down and get a couple of hours of sleep.

Good luck with that. I'm stoked.

48 hours from now...

I'll be at Blues On Grand doing my best Etta James rendition.

I can hardly think of anything else. Oh, I got plenty of work done today, never fear. I find menial paperwork to be almost comforting when I'm this keyed-up.

I never EVER get nervous when I play at church, but at church I don't have people scoring my performance! Or if they do, they're there for the wrong reasons. Actually, the word performance is at the heart of the issue. When I'm playing at church, I'm not performing. I'm worshipping, and I'm leading others to join me in doing the same... almost more like my familiar role as a teacher, never as an entertainer. Whenever the notion of entertainment enters in, it repulses me. I'm not there to make the people happy; I'm there to make God happy by doing what he made me to do. If anyone else is happy, great.

That's all different this time. I'm most certainly there as an entertainer, and our success hinges on our collective ability to entertain. That factor alone brings out the nerves.

48 hours.

Count me in

I absolutely love the new installments of Doctor Who that the Sci-Fi channel has gotten from the BBC.

What I love most about it is that it is totally, totally true to the original. Hokey, ridiculous-looking aliens, seriousness coupled with drollery, and Eccleston brings his own personality to the Doctor while still being very Doctor-ish.

I approve, wholeheartedly. I love it. I think I love it as much as the original... yes, even the Tom Baker episodes (which, in my opinion, were the quintessential ones prior to this new series).

I'm sure I'll arouse the ire of Hartnell aficionados or Pertwee freaks, but so be it. I'm allowed to have my opinions, just like you.

Some people have waaaay too much time on their hands

But they do cool, cool stuff with that time, nonetheless.

The coolest origami you've ever seen

Here's one example. There are lots more. Yes, that's really folded paper. Click around and check out the site. The geometric stuff is mind-blowing.

Curiosity

Okay, my curiosity's getting the better of me. As I've mentioned before, I have Sitemeter on this blog and it gives me an up-to-the-minute report of the hits that it receives, where the hits are coming from (geographical location AND IP address), even what kind of system (Mac, Windows, Firefox, etc) the visitor is using. I have no way of finding out direct locations... meaning, I can't check Sitemeter and find out who you are and drive up in your driveway or something creepy like that... so don't go all freaky on me. But still, I can see what city your ISP is located in. This is kind-of fun, because I get visits from Kuala Lumpur and Norway and even Iran and Azerbaijan... bizarre, I know, but it's true. You'd be amazed.

And normally, I don't bother any further than that -- just fun curiosity. But lately there's been someone hitting my blog a LOT from the same IP address, multiple times a day, and whoever they are, they live not to far away from me in Polk City (or at least, that's where they're getting their internet service from; they may live out in the country or something, I dunno).

I do have a couple of friends up that direction whom I haven't seen or talked with in several years, so I'm hoping it's just one of them discovering my site (and not some creepy stalker). Anyway, this post is for that person: If you live near Saylorville Lake, near Polk City, and you've visited my blog several times a day lately, please e-mail me and let me know who you are, k? Just because I'm dying to know!! My e-mail link is on the sidebar, in case you're wondering.

HAPPY 40TH ANNIVERSARY!!!!

Today is JoeMama & AngieDaddy's 40th wedding anniversary!!! That's my very own mommy and daddy, if you didn't guess. Anyway... Y'all all wish Joe & Angie a happy one, k?

Gitmo Resort & Spa

Cuba? It was great, say Afghan boys

This article from the UK's Guardian is a mixed bag, which doesn't surprise me; it's a left-wing publication and is on the prowl for ways to criticize the US and the war on terror. They take the obvious -- we're not only not torturing Gitmo prisoners, we're giving them an extended Caribbean vacation and an education -- and turning it into a way to mock us, to point out that we kept three boys from their grieving families and threw their fathers into irredeemable debt, yadda yadda.

Debt? Yep. You see, one of the boys' dads had to pay all his neighbors to search for his son after he went missing, and now he can't pay back his creditors. How much would it have taken to get that family out of debt? Fifty dollars US? Why didn't the reporter just take care of it right then?

Can you imagine Elizabeth Smart's dad having to pay all his friends to come search for little Elizabeth when she went missing? No, see, in a nation which was begun by Christians, based on Christian principles, we do those kinds of things for our neighbors because it's the right thing to do.

Here's what the boys, the former Gitmo detainees, had to say:

The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. "Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don't have anything against them," [Naqibullah] said. "If my father didn't need me, I would want to live in America."

Asadullah is even more sure of this. "Americans are great people, better than anyone else," he said, when found at his elder brother's tiny fruit and nut shop in a muddy backstreet of Kabul. "Americans are polite and friendly when you speak to them. They are not rude like Afghans. If I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer -- or an American soldier."

Mmmm-hmmmmm.

101 uses for pre-teenagers

Life with my eleven-year-old daughter can be entertaining and maddening and everything in between.

This afternoon after school, I had to help out some friends by picking up their kids at school and taking them home. My own crew stayed home to watch after-school cartoons while I ran this brief errand.

When I arrived home, kids (my own and various neighborhood pre-teen girls) were running in and out of our house and backyard. (!!!)

A long-standing rule in our house is that when Mom steps out, nobody goes outside and nobody gets invited in. This is not a rule that just got made up; it's been hammered into her head for years.

"I forgot!!!" she tearfully exclaimed.

"Well, after a week of being grounded, maybe you won't forget again," I said.

And then this middle-school attitude came spewing forth in abundance. I calmly and quietly replied, "Two weeks."

Even more screeching and rudeness. "Three weeks."

She howled and stamped all the way up to her room to complete her homework, screaming that she wanted a new family. A few minutes later she came to my bedroom door and tried to argue some more. "And that makes four weeks. Do you act like this at school?" I said.

Blank stare.

"I can't control how you act when you're at school; I know how I want you to behave, but those are choices you're making. However you act at school, though, leave it at school. In our house and in our family, I expect you to continue to behave the way I raised you. If you continue to bring that nasty attitude home with you, there will continue to be consequences."

Later this evening, right before they all went to bed, she meekly asked, "Is there anything I can do to get un-grounded?"

"No, honey. You behaved very, very badly -- and in front of your brother and sister and best friend. You've been showing me a pattern lately of bad choices and bad behavior, and those things have consequences."

"But why four weeks?"

"Well, if you remember, it would've only been one, but you earned three more weeks with more bad choices. Do you remember what those choices were?"

"No," she moaned.

"Mmm-hmm, right. Good-night," I said.

If there's one thing I have learned during the past however-many weeks I've been in the Behavior-Disorder classroom, it's to spot a lie.

The most irritating thing is that this will inconvenience ME and the rest of the family just as much as it inconveniences HER.

Allah-Approved Public Partaking of Pasta

You gotta watch this video clip.

I have no words.

Pre-teen fashions

Okay, can I get a witness up in here? It is durn near impossible to find clothes for an eleven-year-old girl who's already in junior sizes but that department is still just a few years too grown-up looking.

We were on the prowl at the mall tonight, looking for Martha something pretty to wear to my sister's wedding in May. We finally found an ensemble I think will work, although it took a little scouting and a lot of creativity. The top part we found at Von Maur, and the skirt we found at Banana Republic. The shoes are from PayLess; I am not spending big bucks for her shoes until her feet stop growing. They've already far surpassed my own in size -- a fact for which I am eternally grateful because she no longer steals my shoes -- but they're still going upwards and I'm afraid to PayMore when I can PayLess, yanno?

I'd complain and say that someone needs to invent a store just for pre-teen girls, but the problem is that stores like "Limited Too" try to fill that niche and just don't go up large enough for girls that grow up physically faster than others. Actually, the junior department would be fine except that the trendy stuff these days is so trashy-looking that I wouldn't dream of allowing her to wear such stuff at her age.

And, of course, she's all about the "bling" which makes my job just that much harder. It's difficult to find formal attire for a Daddy Yankee fan. [shudder]

News of the weird

From the Anchorage Press comes News of the Weird... and here are some snippets from this week's version:

Kapila Pradhan [has] been living in a tree for the past 15 years in a village in Orissa state in India. He sought solitude after a fight with his wife, according to a January BBC News dispatch.

I do NOT want to know what THAT fight was about... but, may I ask your opinion as to who was the winner?

Arrested in February in Town Creek, Ala., on drug-related charges: University of North Alabama basketball player Reprobatus Bibbs ("reprobate," in the dictionary, is "morally depraved" or "beyond hope of salvation").

And what drugs was his mother on when she picked out THAT name?

A teenager lost control of his car in Kettering, Ohio, in March, and smashed into a house, causing major damage. According to police, he had swerved to avoid hitting an albino squirrel.

I still hate squirrels. This is just more evidence of their nefarious schemes. Whenever I'm at someone's house and they have one of those obnoxious squirrel figurines on a bric-a-brac shelf, I want to pick it up and hurl it through a window. Vile, wicked creatures, squirrels.

Russian president Vladimir Putin apparently surprised diplomatic observers in Britain in January when he declined to expel four U.K. diplomats who had been accused of espionage. Reasoned Putin, according to a January dispatch in Britain's Guardian, these four weren't smart enough to avoid getting caught, and if he expelled them, the U.K. would just send replacements who are more clever.

Whatever might be said of Pooty-Putin, the man has a lick or two of common sense from time to time. If we could just get him to quit arming Iran, China and North Korea though...

And finally:

The latest recycling laboratory breakthrough that makes possible the conversion of manure, urine or methane gas into a new energy source, as was Japanese professor Sakae Shibusawa's March announcement that, by pressure and heat, he can produce an ounce of gasoline from 5 pounds of cow dung.

Now we know what they'll be doing with all of CBS' Dan Rather archives... heck, the network news divisions of the Big Three have to find new sources of revenue these days.

Sigh...

There are some days when you're driving home from work and you just want to keep driving.

The things you can find out...

Because of Sitemeter, I can see where my blog hits are coming from, even what search terms they used if they reached my blog via a search engine. I can't see physical addresses or phone numbers or anything that revealing, and unless I know specific things about your system, I really can't tell if it's you. I can usually guess that the daily hit coming out of Southlake, Texas is my mom, and that the hits from Ada, Oklahoma are my aunt. I also know my best friend Cindy's IP address so I always know what time she logged on, too. But for the rest of you, it's a crapshoot and it's likely I have no idea that was you visiting my blog.

That being said, it's kind-of fun to comb through the Sitemeter statistics and see funny things like what search parameters were used to reach my blog. Usually it's something like "Famolare shoes" (which I have posted on in the past) or "Haitian recipes" (which I have also posted on).

Tonight might've seen the oddest one so far for me. A Google search for "homemade shocking toy" brought up my blog as the fourth one on the list.


[snicker snicker]

Maoist Manners

Apparently once a country's been governed by a hard-line Communist dictatorship for well over half a century, that's enough time for people to forget manners and polite social graces.

Beijing authorities issue etiquette guide in hopes of sprucing up Chinese manners

BEIJING (Reuters) - Some 30 years ago, no home in China was complete without the collection of sayings of Chairman Mao Zedong known universally as the Little Red Book.

By the end of this year, Beijing authorities hope etiquette guides, aimed at improving the manners of the city's inhabitants before the 2008 Olympics, will have found a similar place in the capital's 4.3 million households.

Bad manners were a significant threat to the success of the Olympics, He Zhenliang, advisor to the Beijing Games organizers , warned last week.

The series of books go far beyond encouraging citizens to cheer for foreign athletes and not take flash photographs at sporting events.

The "Basic Reader in Civility and Etiquette" is packed with suggestions on posture, crossing the street, ordering steaks and at least one tip that seems to have been plucked from a guide for swinging singles.

"Intimate gazing zones include the eyes, lips and the chest. Gazing at these areas can stimulate emotions and express love," it reads.

WOMEN'S UNDERWEAR

There is extensive advice on fashion and formalities, some harking back to a past era.

"Women's underwear should not be exposed and especially should not be worn on the outside... Pajamas should not be worn in public areas," the book says.

"The proper way to greet a person from a Socialist or Marxist-Leninist country is with the term 'comrade'."

Sister volume "Rules and Propriety for Olympic Programs" walks readers through all the Olympic sports -- each illustrated by cartoons with athletes represented as a chicken and a plump panda -- and explains when and how to cheer at different events.

Societies devoid of freedom, where the individual has no value aside from its usefulness to the state, eventually find themselves devoid of purpose and historical progress and significance. People start thinking and behaving like domesticated animals that have no idea what to do without fences and pens and bridles and bits. Like pet dogs, the "owners" have to resort to reward systems and harsh training methods:

City officials admit that book learning will not be enough to get people to change their ways, so the Chinese capital is taking its etiquette campaign to the streets.

The city is mobilizing an army of volunteer "civility supervisors" charged with persuading people to queue for buses and stop spitting in public.

The volunteer patrols will be backed up by thousands of new trash cans bearing reminders to "spit civilly" and warnings that expectorating in public can fetch fines as high as 50 yuan ($6).

Past attempts to free the city of unsanitary habits such as spitting, including a big push when Beijing was in the grip of the SARS epidemic in 2003, have failed to have much impact.

"They spend lots of money on printing all those books but it seems like a waste to me," taxi driver Zhang Jie, a 45-year-old Beijing native, told Reuters.

"There are just too many people in this country. How are you supposed to be able to control the actions of that many people?"

Makes sense to me, Jie. Get too many animals herded into one small enclosure in the barnyard and you find you can't keep them under control nearly so well. Farmer Hu Jintao may have to start culling the herd. Can these people not hear what they're saying?!?

As usual, when these things are held in hard-line states, the Party will make sure things look rosy and proper when the world's magnifying glasses are trained on their city. They'll clean it up and make nice, and move all the undesirable elements elsewhere, out of sight, until everyone goes back home. They've still got two years; a lot can happen in that time.

I grieve for the Chinese people, captured and domesticated by Farmer Mao, groomed and culled by overseers and handlers.

This is not the first time good manners has come up as an issue.
Giving thanks to become new moral lesson in Shangai

Gratitude will become a new moral requirement of high school students in Shanghai when their new semester starts in September.

The educational commission of the municipality issued new regulations on school kids' behavior and moral standards earlier this week, demanding that students "learn to present thanks to others."

"It's very essential for today's youngsters, most of whom are from single-child families, to learn to harbor gratitude to others," said Zou Hong, an official in charge of students' moral cultivation at the educational commission.

The official said the single-child generation, regarded as "little emperors", are egocentric and should learn to be thankful for all that they own and enjoy.

"Only after they learn to be grateful, can they consciously love others and make contributions to society," Zou said.

Love?!? And why should people have a spirit of gratitude when everything's automatically handed to them, and everyone gets the same amount? It's a guarantee, right? Why should I be grateful for something I'm owed? Or rather, for things that aren't really mine in the first place? It all belongs to the government, who can take it away at will, so why should I appreciate anything?

"Moral requirement," eh? I'm sure I won't be alone in my insistence that high school is way, way too late to start "requiring" morals, ethics... or love.

Eventually, guys, you start realizing (like our taxi driver in the previous article) that you cannot hope to control that many people down to the minutia of daily behavior and thought. Marxism fails in that point -- the hearts of humankind were not meant for such governance, and will eventually overthrow their captors in one way or another. Karl Marx did not understand the true nature of man.

UCLA vs. Florida

[yawn]

You know that everyone wanted to see George Mason U. in the final... and that the bigwigs at NCAA are crying in their beers tonight because the TV viewer ratings won't be nearly as high as they would've been had GMU been in it.

UCLA and Florida are fine teams and it's a little hard on them for having worked so hard to get where they are. Nonetheless, the nation got behind a true Cinderella for a little while this March.

Did you know...

Did you know that a group of frogs is called an ARMY?
.........
.........
.........
.........
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And that a group of toads is called a KNOT?



Just thought you'd like to know.


Here you can listen to the vocalizations of many different types of frogs and toads. I downloaded a frog-croak ringtone for my phone a while back and used it for my voicemail alert. Dunno why, really, just thought it was cool. I've always thought frogs and toads were way cool. I remember catching teeny-tiny ones when I was little, at the lakeshore, and I remember consuming frog-legs at Grandmother's house after my dad and uncle went "gigging" down at the pond. When I was in the seventh grade, we dissected frogs and I remember frog-fat being really weird-looking, like little fat pointy orangish worms.

I've noticed in recent years that it seems like there are a lot fewer toads. When I was younger I remember there being tons of toads, and you could always count on finding one hanging around under a streetlight waiting for their evening meal to buzz by. On summer evenings there were always toads hanging around, and occasionally in the street you'd see a dried, flattened one. In fact, we showed one of those to my little sister when she was very small and it impressed her so much that she always referred to it whenever we would remind her to stay out of the street. Nowadays I almost never see toads in the evenings. At first I thought it was just because I was in Iowa and that maybe they're fewer in number here than in the south, but Mom says there are a lot fewer toads there now, too, because of fire ants.

Rotten fire ants. Wish there were a good way to eradicate that plague. They are absolutely vile creatures.

Nuclear plant owners lose keys

Does Homer Simpson's German cousin work at this place?