Monday Morning Biochemists

You know, it seems that each year that goes by, the Internet proves more and more that old chestnut/axiom/proverb: "A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing."
 
First of all, let me preface with this: Those who know me will know that my wife and I birthed our daughter unassisted, at home, in an inflatable pool. Hardly mainstream... pretty radical to some people - but it is something we believe strongly: birth is natural, and birth belongs at home, unless there is some compelling medical reason to go to a hospital (or anywhere else). People in other countries birth alone or with midwives, all the time. Of course, there are those among you who are saying "But... they don't have hospitals available, that's why they do it - they are in third world countries." Sorry, that's bullshit. I am not talking about some poor country in Africa or South America (although they do it there, too)... I am talking about developed countries where the technology that exists is the same as here. I am talking about countries whose infant mortality rates are infinitely better than those in North America. Canada ranks 20th on the list; the United States is 35th! All the technology available here, and we are embarrassingly bad compared to many other countries in keeping babies alive to 1 year of age. It just goes to show that messing with nature is not always a good thing. Did I say not always? What I meant to say was pretty much never a good thing.
 
Back to my point: I caught my daughter, and her mother and father were the first people in this world to touch her, ever. No doctors, no midwives, no nurses. No "heroic" ambulance attendants, "heroic" cab drivers, or "heroic" firemen getting instructions by phone or radio what to do and being there to keep the baby from bouncing off the floor (our standards for heroism have sure fallen - or is that only on slow news days?) In order to prepare for this event, I researched... I read books, medical papers, first aid guides and most of all I used the internet. I did the equivalent amount of studying in the final months of that pregnancy that any midwife or anyone else does, and I did it on my own and with my wife. I am not claiming I AM a midwife, or that I am better than a midwife - but I do know that I know as much as or more than a lot of midwives, and if I had to write some sort of test to qualify for such a position I could probably pass. I don't have the hands on experience, though, having only attended one birth, but that one was a doozy since it was my daughter's own. The internet was my lifeline for cross-referencing information, gathering many (sometimes opposing) views, quizzing full-fledged midwives, helping me find support that there were other people doing the same things and believing the same things, and overall the best source of information of those I listed above. If it wasn't for the internet I am not sure I would have felt nearly as confident or competent. I can tell you that thanks to all the research I did, I never once felt a moment of panic, I never once freaked out, and I certainly never fainted as so many stupid-ass TV commercials portray fathers doing. I caught my daughter, I assessed her condition with APGAR, I handed her to my wife, I cut the cord tying it off one of my shoelaces sterilized in alcohol because I had nothing else at hand, and with a pair of scissors I had boiled and then dipped in alcohol as well. For me, and in that circumstance, the internet was an incredible, fantastic resource - as long as I double and triple checked anything that was ambiguous, contradictory, vague or otherwise misleading.
 
Not so, it seems, with most other people. For many it appears that if it comes up first on their Google search, it must be the truest, most accurate source of information. Forget cross referencing, forget asking someone experienced or an expert, and geez, forget the damn library, why go there when I can sit on my arse at home? Even better are those who look stuff up on the internet while at the library and never bother to double check anything with them newfangled things... umm... what do you call them... its on the tip of my tongue... hang on... oh yeah, BOOKS.
 
I have seen numerous examples of misinformation, as well as attempts to staunch the flow of the largest portions of this insipid stupidity. It seems that if you can get someone to read it (whether by being particularly articulate, hysterical with fear, persistent or whatever), it must be true. To hell with pesky things that get in the way... like FACTS or scientific evidence.
 
The latest example of this disturbing trend I have observed had to do with the use of pine or cedar shavings for small animals. It actually started with someone telling me that my budgie could not be near pine because it is "toxic", which I thought seemed odd. Upon researching further, the first reference I found claimed that pine bedding released Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Now, having lived near the Sydney Tar Ponds, I have some idea what Aromatic Hydrocarbons are - they may even have contributed to my illness (key word being MAY). Obviously, this person didn't, yet this is the first result if you look for something like pine shavings, toxic and budgie (I wish I had the exact search). This person had absolutely no idea why there was an issue with pine bedding, so they just pulled one out of their ass, posted it online, doing zero further research and managed to get their site to come up high on results list. For the most part, the information seems plausible and articulate but it is absolutely false. So, I decided that since it has people in such an uproar, I need to find some scientific facts. And find them I did (Of course, in the meantime I found numerous remarkably enlightening attempts to support the "dangerous" theory, including ones citing studies of human workers in the lumber industry who have breathed DUST for years with no breathing protection, and people who worked in chemical processing plants which processed chemicals extracted from saps, and the like. One absolutely telling "factoid" was an idiot who said his grandfather worked in a sawmill all his life and had eventually died of emphysema, so it had to be the pine that killed him - dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but it was his 3-pack-a-day habit that killed him). The fact is, there is nothing dangerous about pine or cedar or any other natural wood shavings for any particular small animal. There is a concern that for some animals they should be thoroughly dried, because some saps could be toxic (e.g. they make turpentine from processed pine sap). I found someone who was a small animal breeder with a Bachelor of Science degree, whose husband is an organic chemist, who had travelled around to some local Universities to ask questions of other scientists about this apparently well known, well documented problem. And it turns out it is a well known, well documented problem - for scientists. The ones doing very specific studies relating to the liver and how it processes and responds to drugs. Certain substances slightly change the enzyme balance in the liver and this causes problems in their tight control groups. One of the substances is the phenols in softwood bedding. Some other examples of such dangerous and toxic items are barometric pressure, cage design, cleanliness, diet, gravity, handling, humidity, light cycle, noise level, temperature, age, cardiovascular function, castration and hormone replacement, circadian and seasonal variations, dehydration, disease, fever, gastrointestinal function, genetic constitution, malnutrition, starvation, pregnancy, sex, shock and stress. Just try it, do a search for small animal bedding, pine and cedar. I bet you will find dozens of sites explaining how it causes cancer, lung disease and various other bogeymen. It is the biggest steaming pile of crap ever - well maybe not ever, but certainly a fine example. No scientist ever said it cause cancer or any such thing, they just notified researchers that they need to adjust their results under certain conditions. Some neophyte animal breeder wrote a book after reading something scientific-sounding that they didn't understand, jumped to conclusions when they didn't understand what they were reading, and decided that they were just as qualified to evaluate biochemistry as someone who has 4-8 years of University education. Internet being what it is, the good old "I told two friends, and they told two friends" combined with "broken telephone" and suddenly this has become "proven" junk science fact #7298123.
 
I know I linked to Cokelore at snopes.com before. I used to get crap like those red-dotted items in email on a regular basis; I suppose because I drink Coke and prefer it to any other soft drink. Here are some other "proven facts" I have found on the Internet:
 

 
1) A grown man referred to as goatse can now, after a lot of practice, fit an Austin Mini up his butthole. He cannot, however, leave it parked there during snow removal operations.
 

 
2) Nike produced an ad portraying an intact, but blood-covered, Nike shoe with the caption "You may not survive the blast, but your shoes will." Therefore, we should all boycott the company. Heck, let’s boycott all footwear companies and go barefoot in the snow.
 

 
3) Homosexual people have a form of minor brain damage that causes them to be gay. Apparently, though, the people making these claims have much more severe brain damage.
 

 
4) In the year 2007, the rights of Black people to vote will expire in the United States since the whole thing was only meant to be on a "trial basis". Ahh, if only it were true of Republican voters in October of 2000....
 

 
5) People in Taiwan eat human foetuses as a delicacy. Evidently they taste like chicken.
 

 
6) I need to delete the file jdbgmgr.exe IMMEDIATELY if it is on my Windows system. It is the worst virus, ever. Come to think of it, I just need to delete the entire Windows system - for the same reason.
 

 
7) If I want a kitten but I don't want it to grow into a full-sized cat, all I need to do is stuff it into a bottle that has holes allow feeding and waste removal. I think I might try this, but not with a kitten - I am going to do it with the first politician I can get my hands on.
 

 
8) Iraq had huge stores of Weapons of Mass Destruction. They just made a deal with their mortal enemy, Iran, to hold on to them until the US leaves. Ayatollah Khomeini unavailable for comment.
 

 
9) More than 90 percent of the children who witnessed Janet Jackson's breast baring during the Superbowl XXXVIII halftime show said they were still "confused and afraid" a year later. 100% of adults reported the same feelings about Janet Jackson's breast whether they saw the incident or not.
 

 
10) We all need to shut down our Internet connections every year on March 31st and not connect for 24 hours for a system wide "clean-up". You know, given the contents of this rant, this seems like a REALLY good idea.

 
But, that's another rant altogether...

I Was Feeling Artsy

I've been stressing a lot the last few days, over a lot of things going on. At some point I will recover enough energy to tell you about my debate with a bigotted self-aggrandizing idiot, and about my completely screwed up lifecasting attempt, and my inability to take my preferred available-light photography due to shakiness and weakness in my hands. By the way, if you believe in breastfeeding at all and the protected rights women have to do so however they choose, go and read that little link above.
 
So, I decided to focus on our newish pet "Sunbeam" and digital art for a while, and I made this pseudo-painting (click the pic to view a full-size version if you want to actually get some detail, it looks "incomplete" even as a large thumbnail).
 

 
Feel free to comment as always. I know you won't.

Huct Awn Fonix

ARGH!
 
ARGH!
 
ARGH!

 
Ok, that did not really help any... I hoped some bloggish primal screaming might, but no.
 
I know that sometimes I end sentences with adjectives. I know that I dangle the occasional participle. I make typos and errors in editting when I decide a sentence needs to be rephrased or moved which end up being difficult to understand.
 
I can take a few metatheses and typos. The split infinitive in "To boldly go where no man has gone before" doesn't get to me. But...
 

I can't take any more of this 21st century grammar-free-zone bullshit. I just can't.

 
Last night, it was a grammar-school teacher on the IMDB message board who apparently can't spell words like "definitely" (among other things) in a message railing about how wrong it is to tell a kid they are wrong. This is someone who is teaching our kids (well, not mine, I wouldn't subject them to the mediocrity-fest of the public school system short of circumstances where I was being tortured to death). Today, it was looking through Web Ring Descriptions. I figured, man I put a lot of time into writing these things, and in my circumstances, it is a lot of work - I need someone to actually read it and leave an appropriate comment now and then. Why write if you aren't being read (but that is another rant altogether)? I found aWeb Ring that sounded like it suited my content, although the description was a bit snobby. However, it had no right to be snobby considering this grammatical gem:
 

If your blog is about what you had for breakfast how cute your children or your cats are how upset you are with your boss the research you did before buying the perfect camera case or similar subjects please don’t apply to join this web ring. We re seeking blogs that reflect thought how your mind processes your experience what do you think it means. We do not want a description of your life; but a review. If you have something to say please join us; if you don’t please say it elsewhere.

 
What the hell is this? They have no idea how to use a comma or where to put a period, yet they make a bizarre attempt at the semi-colon in a last-ditch effort to save them looking like complete grade-school dropouts? The first sentence is run-on, virtually punctuation-free, and borderline incoherent. The second takes the step right over the edge into the wtf was that world, forcing you to read it again and again... Is that We're with no apostrophe or were, or a typo in the word "are"? Experience what, or should it be experience - what ...or what? How many clauses can you include in one "sentence" without punctuation? Although the idea of the ring seemed to be more-or-less what I was seeking to join, I could not bring myself to apply for it if the "administrator" was so moronic. I guess, on the bright side, at least most of the words are spelled correctly.
 
I was not aware that part of the Y2K problem was related to the rules of grammar. I had no idea that all those programmer/analysts worked all those years to make English syntax obsolete along with the 2-digit year format. Apparently, I was so concerned about the bank screwing up access to my cash that I forgot to pay attention to the part about making English indecipherable (this is on my banking institution's front page: There are some things money can't buy for everything else there's Preferred MasterCard..) It seems that sometime in the last few years, the rules of the English language were declared problematic and thrown out in favour of a new non-standard.
 
I have participated in many a debate on message boards in the past. I usually enjoy it, in spite of the time it can take me to compose a message. At times I have found discussing something frustrating because the person I was discussing it with could not speel, use the write werds in context, or did not use punctuation. When I mention that fact, rather than reacting like "Sorry, I am just bad that way" I get a response like "Wow, you have a real problem". No, buddy, I don't have the problem - you do. You can't communicate clearly and effectively and it is affecting how I can relate to you - it makes you look incompetent and moronic.
 
More than half the time, the people I talk to in these situations are high school graduates; often they are in college or beyond it. How did they get past grade 7, let alone high school? How can you not know which "right" is right: write, rite or right? Sure, some of it can be chalked up to typographical errors - but not the same error over and over again. Not substituting something that means "ritual" for something that means "correct".
 
There are dozens of online dictionaries. There are dozens of online sources for grammar rules. There is also the concept of owning a dictionary, or even just pasting your post into your word processor to use a spelling-and-grammar-checker. Even most email programs have rudimentary spell-checkers to avoid to most egregious errors, you could always paste into that and then copy back after corrections. And, may the heavens forbid - there are these things called libraries where they have books - not just about grammar, but other books you could read to see examples of correct usages.
 
I guess it just relates to that common theme - people just don't care, because they have been told that mediocre is ok. There is nothing wrong with looking stupid, because there is nothing wrong with being stupid. I know that lots of kids when I went to school would get back essays that had more words in red ink than the original paper contained, but somewhere between my school experiences and my younger brothers teachers apparently decided this was too much work.
 
People, being a lazy idiot is not creative. It is fun in chat programs to occasionally use different spellings to convey different emotional meanings, like using "KewL" to show sarcasm for something somewhat immature, but this has no place in regular writing to replace the description of the weather outside. The letter "r" is not a replacement for "are", and 4 is a number while "for" is a function word to indicate purpose; If you are so slow a typist that you need to reduce keystrokes in this way, get some "Learn To Type" software, you unmotivated weiner! You are going to need to know how for at least a little while longer, 'cause voice recognition just is not cutting it yet.
 
I'm bewildered as to how some of these people get jobs and function in the world - you'd think it would be difficult. As sad as it is when you see spelling mistakes in the credits for your favourite movie, or a book, restaurant menu or newspaper, it just shows you how easy it actually is for them to find employment. Apparently the employers can't tell the difference either. Sad.

I Sooo Miss Back When

Don't you remember 
The fizz in a pepper 
Peanuts in a bottle 
At ten, two and four 
A fried bologna sandwich 
With mayo and tomato 
Sittin' round the table 
Don't happen much anymore 
 
We got too complicated, 
it's all way over-rated 
I like the old and out-dated 
Way of life 
 
Back when a hoe was a hoe 
Coke was a coke 
And crack's what you were doing 
When you were cracking jokes 
Back when a screw was a screw 
The wind was all that blew 
And when you said I'm down with that 
Well it meant you had the flu 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
 
I love my records 
Black, shiny vinyl 
Clicks and pops 
And white noise 
Man they sounded fine 
I had my favorite stations 
The ones that played them all 
Country, soul and rock-and-roll 
What happened to those times? 
 
I'm readin' Street Slang For Dummies 
Cause they put pop in my country 
I want more for my money 
The way it was back then 
 
Back when a hoe was a hoe 
Coke was a coke 
And crack's what you were doing 
When you were cracking jokes 
Back when a screw was a screw 
The wind was all that blew 
And when you said I'm down with that 
Well it meant you had the flu 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
 
Give me a flat top for strumming 
I want the whole world to be humming 
Just keep it coming 
The way it was back then 
 
Back when a hoe was a hoe 
Coke was a coke 
And crack's what you were doing 
When you were cracking jokes 
Back when a screw was a screw 
The wind was all that blew 
And when you said I'm down with that 
Well it meant you had the flu 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 

 
 

-Artist: Tim McGraw;  
Songwriters: J.Stevens, S.Smith, S.Lynch;  
Album: Live Like You Were Dying,  
Released 2004

 
 
The real story is in the links.

Yeah... I Graduated From Kindergarten - Didn't You?

OK, the other day we needed to go out because we want to do something creative: We are making a "lifecasting". In this case, it is of the wife's pregnant belly. We have had this ongoing debate - I have done pottery, slip casting and clay sculpting in the past, and what I want to do is a genuine exact-image casting, where you make a negative mould using the model and then use the mould to cast your final product in your material of choice. The wife wants to do this newfangled trendy kind of body cast - you just use plaster-impregnated gauze (like they use for casts on broken limbs), spread it in layers on Mom, yank it off (along with any remaining hair) and that's it - paint it how you want it. Personally, I feel it is the lowest common denominator form of a "lifecasting", made so that even people who don't know how to do more complex stuff can still make themselves an image of their belly. To me, though, that is all it is - an image which is a rough approximation. My beef with it is that it is going to appear larger than your belly is because it has to be at least a few layers thick, and no detail comes through. It is true "Lifecasting Sculpture for Dummies".  
 
Amazingly enough, though, it is hardly the worst example of dumbing down going on in our society today. You have Talent? Wonderful... but you know that everyone is special in their own way. It doesn't matter that the guy down the street could not put together two matching colours if he was given only 2 matching crayons, his garden of multicoloured nauseating crap that looks like a dog ate pizza and then vomited is just "beautiful in its own way". Here's a hint - don't just buy one box of everything at the nursery... try picking flowers that go together and are of compatible heights., unless you are going for that trendy Wild Unkempt Look. You know the one Mother Nature makes without trying. But then you ARE the special master gardener, 'cause no one will tell you otherwise. When I was a kid, special meant you wore a helmet to school and rode the short school bus...  
 
Whoa, sorry, way off on a tangent. Where was I?  
 
Oh yeah - we debated how to do the "belly mask/life casting". My wife has no experience with ceramics, sculpting, pottery or anything in 3-D medium, but she is a very skilled painter, so I know that the belly mask "plaster-gauze version" will at least end up looking nice when it is finished, even if it lacks the "life" aspect I prefer. I know I can have some faith it will not look like the horrid pics of stuff I have seen on some web sites that would be embarrassing to hang on your wall, and never become the treasured family heirlooms they should be. (You know the kind of thing - in 60 years when Mom dies, the kids quickly get it out of the house before people visit after the funeral so no one realizes Mom was nuts and had no taste.) I figure what I will do is use some kind of impervious material, like liquid latex, as the first layer inside the body cast so that I can make a casting from the mould on the inside while she can paint the outside, and everyone will have what they want and will be happy. We agree that this is the coolest thing to do for all involved and set out to The Arts & Craft Stores. You know, where you buy the materials needed to make products of your imagination and talents. The materials needed I have looked up online, and are advertised as "available in any craft store".  
 
So... off we go to Michaels. You know, The Arts & Crafts SUPERstore. Have you noticed SUPER nowadays just means real-big-and-shitty-with-no-staff? Ahh, but that is another rant altogether.  
 
At the SUPERstore, and I use the term loosely, I discover that for the most part, you can buy a kit for just about anything. And that's just about it. Want to paint? Here is a kit. It has paint, brushes, canvas, and a PICTURE of what you should PAINT. Huh? Do you hear that rumbling? It is the combined sound of Da Vinci, Monet and Picasso rolling over in their graves. Want to decorate a cake? Here is a kit, which has friggin' stamps and pre-made things of candy icing to stick on your cake - forget about that whole making your OWN icing flowers and trim, we do it for you. Just stick it on. Buy an iced cake at the grocery store and you can do it regardless of the fact that you have 10 thumbs for digits, and you can proudly show off the cake you "decorated" yourself. Of course, you can buy 4 decorated cakes complete, or buy every cake-decorating tool ever made, for the money you paid for the other garbage for that one cake. Ceramics? Got a kit. Paints, pre-made sculpture, and a "decorating suggestion". Paint and display. Rug hooking? Kit - yarn, rug backing with the pattern on it, latch-hook. Hook the right colour yarn on the painted section of backing, it's rug-by-number. Jewellery? Forget that whole soldering, casting & metal-working deal, we got ya a kit - some string & chain, a bunch of stuff to slide onto the string or clip onto the chain, pliers described as a "special tool" and some end hooks. Wow - NOW you are rivalling Tiffany's. Hey, haven't I done all of these "kits" before - WHEN I WAS EIGHT?!  
 
I want material to make moulds. Well, gee whizzikers, I can buy A KIT. Of course, said kit is made to do one - and only one - lifecasting of something the size of a kid's hand or foot, for a mere $25. Let’s see, to have enough to do a pregnant belly, I would need to have - umm, approximately the same amount of cash as the Canadian Government's budget surplus this year. But, they do have available the convenient REFILL for the kit - for the same price as the kit was. Or I can buy a can of latex material that should just about be big enough to make a lifecast mould of gerbil's arsehole, and only for around $18! I'm starting to think the "SUPERstore... not so much", and I am wondering why they have so much SPACE filled with nothing useful. So I take a better look around to find out what in a 10000 square foot store takes up SOOOO much area. And I find my answer pretty quick.  
 
Scrapbooking. Yes, scrapbooking. Isn't that cut and paste for grownups? You bet your sweet bippy it is. The same stuff you did in Kindergarten is available NOW for a mere, ridiculously outrageous, gazillion dollars and you can USE YOUR OWN PHOTOS! Wow, you mean I don't have to cut them out of magazines like the teacher made me do? I can use my OWN?  
 
Yes, the ultimate celebration of mediocrity. There was a time, not too long ago, that a scrapbook was where you kept all your newspaper clippings, movie or sports tickets and memorabilia from significant things in your life. An honourable, inexpensive pastime, it allows you to share your memories with loved ones and to comfort you into your old age. You put together your scraps, reusing and saving things. No more. Now, scrapbooking is a massive, multi-million dollar competition between no-talent morons who have more cash than sense. You apparently are no longer allowed to get an empty newsprint or manilla paper book... oh no. It is no longer sharing your precious memories, it is now "Wow, did you get those kewl new pages at the... Scrapbooking Store? Did you see the new stickers?" STICKERS? Didn't we outgrow those at the same time as we outgrew laughing at Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum Comics? And look, you can buy 20 different kinds of scissors in order to hack the crap out of all your stuff and make it have pretty, fancy edges. Forget that the price of owning all these different scissors could buy you one of the Maldive Islands.  
 
If you have no talent or taste, you can make a modern scrapbook - as long as you have gobs of cash. No one is going to tell you it sucks, because they KNOW you spent mucho dinero on all this crap. So what if you can't compose a photograph, and they all have the tops of heads and an arm cut in half vertically - use those scissors to make fancy edges so it looks like it was MEANT to look that way. So what if your kid's biggest accomplishment to date was NOT getting hit by a car when they ran into the street. Make a scrapbook of all your joyous non-events! Isn't it great to be alive in an era where we can all do the same thing and be admired for it? Isn't it wonderful that talent is not actually needed any more, because someone with talent is willing to sell you the products of theirs? Can you imagine what archaeologists and forensic anthropologists are going to think when someday they dig up all this plastic-laminated 3-trillion-year-half-life crap buried next to your bones? Yeah, that's right - they are going to say "For THIS, they poisoned their atmosphere with toxic waste and piled up so much garbage they had to start shooting it into space? What a bunch of idiots."  
 
I once saw an ad that said "Scrapbooking: America's Newest Favorite Pastime" (sic). That is so what America needs - another activity where you sit indoors on your arse all day long while eating chips. No wonder North American's are skewing towards the obese on height/weight tables. Remember, there used to be "favourite pastimes" that involved going outside and getting exercise and fresh air? Oh yeah, I forgot, those ones now involve shooting oneself up with illegal performance enhancers. So much for that idea.  

Helen Parr: "*Everybody* is special, Dash." 
'Dash' Parr: "That's just another way of saying nobody is." 
-The Incredibles, 2004

New Record Low

"Joey" has won the "People's Choice" award for "Best New Comedy". Who ARE these people? But I guess that's another rant altogether... Now, I know the 'pickins' were a bit slim, but shouldn't the best new comedy show be FUNNY? I mean, CSI won an award, too, and it deserved to, because it is funnier than Joey. Oh wait, CSI didn't win in that category - but it could have with that competition.  
 
Shouldn't they have just tossed out the category since the nominees were "Father of the Pride" (read: CG Flintstones hack job with Lions), and "Complete Savages" which I don't think anyone watched, even Keith Carradine.  
 
Isn't watching "Joey" somewhat like a sympathy fuck? You know, you liked the "Friend", and hung out with them all the time in hopes of getting somewhere, but they always brought their ugly cousin with them. Then the "Friend" moved away leaving behind the ugly cousin you were obliged to hang with. One night while drowning your sorrows at the loss of your dear "Friend", you bed the ugly cousin just because they are there and you are both feeling bad - and you will never ever let it happen again because you would not want to be caught dead with that ugly thing.  
 
I really tried to give "Joey" a chance... I so wanted to... I watched every episode for the first couple of months. I REALLY wanted it to be good because there is so little actual intelligent humour on TV any more, at least that is not from Canada (try watching any CBC show with Rick Mercer). Not that the last couple of seasons of "Friends" didn't blow large chunks as well, but I thought - hey, they have a chance to take an established character and do a fresh spin. Wow, I must have been smoking crack that day, eh? "Fresh Spin" in Hollywood means "new set" and a new marketing campaign. Fresh does not involve, apparently, any new jokes or new plots. The only element other than Joey himself that should be repeated from "Friends" is the beloved Magna Doodle, because "Friends" was already recycling itself when it ended. Heck, I could almost respect "Joey" if they blatantly stole from "Seinfeld" because at least they would have been doing something intelligent.  
 
I am not sure when they are going to get this in Hollywood: YOU CAN'T POLISH A TURD.  
 
The season's Neilsen Ratings (to date) show Joey in a tie for 20th place with "Will & Grace". I would have to assume that most of that has to do with "Friends" fans tuning in like I did, hoping that there would be something to see. Let's see how it goes for the second half of the season, now that everyone has seen "Joey" for what it is.

 
A big steaming pile of turd. Covered in Turtle Wax.

ARGH

Being sick sucks. And so, no posts. Until I can work out how to post from bed, like get a laptop (or should I call it bedtop), I suppose I will only be able to post on days I can get to my computer all the way in the living room. Oh, and not have total brain-fog.  
 
I had 2 really good rants going on in my mind before, too... one about Oprah and parenting (why would anyone listen to parenting advice from that twit anyway, she has 0 seconds experience), and one about people who do not understand the nature of their job. Unfortunately anything I had thought out disappeared when I fell back asleep. I know it will eventually come back but I sure wish I could have got what I thought down right at the moment it was there the first time.  
 
As the Klingons say, Do'Ha.  
 
Hab SoSlI' Quch!  
 
Now, naDevvo' peghoS.  
 
nuqDaq 'oH puchpa''e' ?

Brad Bird

Iron Giant. The Incredibles. The man is brilliant. If you don't get why, see the movies. If you still don't get why, watch The Simpsons. Or even *batteries not included. If you still don't get why, please bite me. I am too tired to explain it to you tonight, if ever.

My Kid Is A Genius

Yeah, she is. Doesn't that bug you? I mean, personally, I think mine is but I know that is my view coloured by my personal pride and biases. No one else who is not related or does not know her is going to care. Even her grandmother doesn't really care most of the time, but that is another rant altogether...  
 
We have a friend who believes their child is some sort of mythical creature. I mean seriously, this kid needs sunscreen and aloe vera for their rectum because apparently that is the source of all sunshine. Sure, the kid is bright. Might even be a genius. But seriously, no one cares! It just gets old when someone acts like their kid is smarter than you are when you know they have no idea how intelligent anyone is but their own kid. It's like saying that dog crap is the best food ever, when they have never eaten anything but dog crap. No basis to compare, c'est non? And the problem comes up when the kid KNOWS the parents think they are smart - it's called [booming echo]EGO TRIP FROM HELL[/booming echo].  
 
Anyway - like I was saying - she is a genius. For a 4-year-old, anyway. She is in that stage that all kids go through, you know the one - it varies in length from kid to kid, can be annoying or delightful depending on how far it goes, and could turn out to be a really boring future career since most of the stuff has been discovered already. Yup, you guessed it. Dinosaurs.  
 
One of her holiday gifts was a bunch of dinosaur figures to play with. Just the little full-colour moulded-plastic a little bigger and better than army men type things, not really poseable or anything. Most of them have the names on the bellies, but my daughter only reads limited words right now, so Eustreptospondylus is likely a little beyond her. Heck, it is likely beyond the friend's kid too. Another thing she got for a gift was a dinosaur book for her LeapPad. Pay attention now, because all of this is important. Oh, sorry. WAKE UP. Now, pay attention, this is important. To me, of course. Not you, but heck, I don't really care.  
 
So... over the last week or so she has asked me, "Where is my Stiggy Mulluk? I had him here, and he is gone, and I can't find him." At first I did not know what she meant and then I found out it was a dinosaur. One with a rounded dome on his head, and according to his belly he is a pachycephalosaurus. So, I thought, yeah, she has just made up some weird name like she tends to do (for example, she wants to name her new baby sibling "Jungadoo" - this kid makes up strange and unique given names for all her toys). So, for the past while, Dad has been teasing the kid - when she asks for her "Stiggy Mulluk", I reply, "Gee, I dunno where your Sticky Mollusk is." Or, the one that really got her goat, "I have not seen your Stinky MukLuks."  
 
This inspired a conversation between my wife and I. "What the heck is a Sticky Mollusk?" she asked me. I replied it was what she calls her little dome-headed pachycephalosaurus. "Why does she call it that?" the wife inquired. I said I figured she just made something up, like she does when she names all her other "friends".  
 
Last night I found her dinosaur under the coffee table, so today, I gave it to her and asked her why she was calling it "Stiggy Mulluk". She said, "Because it is." I was unable to pass up such an answer, so I said, "Where did you get that name? A book?" She replied, "Yes, my Leap and the Lost Dinosaur book." Thinking I was going to be able to sort things out with her finally and correct this misconception, I said, "Please go get me the book, and show me what you mean."  
 
Off she goes, and fetches back the book by itself without the LeapPad or anything. She leafs through for a minute and says, "See Daddy? Right here." And points to a picture of a dinosaur.  
 
A dinosaur that has a "bald" domed head, with a crown of horns around it. A bipedal dinosaur, with short T-Rex-like front legs. A dinosaur which looks identical to the plastic one in spite of the plastic one being labelled "Pachycelphalosaurus" - obviously a member of the same family. Obviously misleadingly labelled by the company that made it, AND by Dad. Because it took a 4-year-old expert to recognise what it REALLY was.  
 
Because this dinosaur is called a Stygimoloch.

IT'S ALL OVER

Oh yes, it is. Well mostly. More or less. Except for all those final clearance sales on stuff the store does not want to store until next year. Odd that stores don't like to store stuff, in spite of being called stores. One last chance to squeeze out a few more dollars from the Holiday Season.  
 
You wanna know what gripes my ass? - doing best Paul Sr. imitation voice - Somehow, it has become how much money you paid for something that determines the value of a gift. Odd that I always thought value and money were 2 different things, since advertising used to say that you were getting good VALUE for your MONEY. It is pretty pathetic that you can put hours and hours of work into a thoughtful gift and the first thing that pops into the receivers mind is "How crappy, they MADE me a gift." On top of that, it is completely disgusting that it is suddenly wrong to give something of yours as a gift for whichever holiday you celebrate because either you don't use it or you know someone else could use it more. It even has a new buzzword... REGIFTING. Forget the fact the the entire original premise on Seinfeld was that the people were shallow and selfish and upset that someone gave them a "used" gift... I am using used loosely, as in used meaning it was once wrapped up and then unwrapped, not that the package had been actually OPENED or anything. Forget the fact that we are living in a world where it is all about how much CRAP you can accumulate and then throw into a landfill site and reusing stuff would be the ethical thing to do. You know, there is a reason for that order of presentation: reduce, reuse, recycle... you are supposed to reduce and reuse before you think about recycling because reducing and reusing use less resources than recycling. Also amazing that the remarkably-rich HARPy OPRAH asked two remarkably shallow skanks on her show about the "taboo", and they told her it was totally wrong to regift, and rude and tacky - as if Oprah was regifting to save money. Oh wait, she probably was, since she is so tight with her bazillion dollars that she can't even pay for the gifts "she gives" the audience on her "favourite things" shows, even going so far as to not classify things as her favourite any more if the company won't pay off her endorsement with a shitload of merchandise so she can play "look how generous I am" on her ultimate greed secretly-taped giveaway shows. I mean, do you ever see the beatific look on her face when she is giving this stuff away? Its like she took a job in a sweat-shop factory in China herself to personally make every item for her audience. Oh thanks be to the goddess Oprah, that she taketh from the evil corporations to raiseth her own profile whilst savingest the dineros from her own prehshuss pocketses (oops, sorry... ahem... Gollum in my throat).  
 
Lets put it this way for the gift-math challenged: If it takes 15 minutes to go and spend $50 to get a gift for someone, you have put exactly that much effort into it. If we universally translate that into lets say, $10 an hour (just for arguments sake, we are averaging over all waking hours and not just whatever you personally make at work), then your time and effort adds a value of $2.50 to that gift. Total, $52.50. If someone spends12 hours of work knitting something for you, their gift is already worth $120 in time and effort, not counting the yarn. Of course, this math only applies to those who feel the need to look at a gift for what dollar value is attached and not for the thought, effort and heartache that some people put into these things. As a side note, 150 years ago people could not go to WalMart and all gifts had to be well thought out, planned and either made or saved for to purchase - yet people seemed happier with the gifts they received and more grateful for them - coincidence? I think not.  
 
By the way, did you ever wonder if Oprah actually does pay for anything herself, ever? But, that's another rant altogether...

First Night… First What? WHAT THE H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEYSTICKS..?

OK, this is a peeve of mine. It is like the “beginning of the millennia” thing more or less, but more aggravating to me. Sheeple like numbers ending in 0s so instead of celebrating a millennia on the real millennia, the number ending in “1” (2001, in this case), they go bananas over the number ending in a 0. Dumb, mathematically incorrect, but typical of the mass-market commercialized society that pervades North America. So how does this relate to “First Night”?  
 
If it is Tuesday, and it gets dark, it is what? Tuesday NIGHT, correct? When it gets to be midnight it is Wednesday morning. Or still Tuesday Night. Does it become WEDNESDAY night? NO! So, how come, just because it is December 31st, does it become the friggin’ next NIGHT after midnight? It isn’t “First Night”; it is friggin’ LAST night and FIRST morning. First Night is, by ANY definition, the night of January 1st. We go through first morning, first noon, first afternoon, first evening and THEN first night. (In our family, we call New Year’s Day “First Day” as well – it is the first day of the New Year, the last day of our post-solstice family celebration and the first day to enjoy the new year. That is followed by our first dinner and our first night is spent together doing something enjoyable as a family). As if we don’t have enough stupidity in this culture, some beer company comes along and “patents” the name “First Night”, charges 15 bucks to get in, and instead of calling it New Year’s Eve like we have for a bazillion years we end up with a bunch of “First Night” celebrations.  
 
I don’t care who you are… we don’t suspend the days of the week all of a sudden for “special (read: commercial) occasions” and we don’t suddenly call morning night at midnight on Hallowe’en (All Hallow’s EVE) or Christmas Eve (Gee its 12 midnight, it must be Christmas night!). The first minute after midnight, the time is 12:01 AM – ANTE MERIDIEM: Latin meaning BEFORE MIDDAY. I’ve never seen night come before noon.  
 
Well, except maybe in an eclipse. But that isn’t night, and is another rant altogether…

In The Beginning...

There was dark. And nothing. In the middle of the dark nothing there was a singularity the size of a dime, containing finite matter squeezed to the point of infinite density. And it stayed that way, until it inflated like a big balloon and the universe started expanding outwards...  
 
Fast forward to around a bazillion years later:  
 

 
 
This is me, making my first blogspot/blogger post, and trying to add a profile picture.  
 
This thing is annoying. Remind me not to listen to stupid picture host propaganda. They promise something and then... it does not work the way you want it to. It works the way THEY think you want it to. Thanks, but I will do my own thinking, appreciate your help, now... get lost.  
 
It is the New Year, 2005. I have put off making a blog for quite some time, due to exhaustion and illness, but it finally has got to the point that I can't take it any more. Too many things bounce around in my head for me to not write them down someplace without sharing them somehow, and even though I know it is unlikely anyone will read this, at least I know it is going out there.  
 
If I offend someone, tough. The opinions expressed here are my own. They are sometimes shared by others. They are sometimes laughed at by others. Ideally I would like someone to laugh while still sharing my opinions but that is not likely. I am not trying to be controversial, I am just giving my honest gut reactions to things in life - my life, other people's observed lives, whatever.  
 
When you are reading here, remember two simple rules:  
 
1) This is my blog. When I post, I am right, because this is my point of view. Read: I am ALWAYS right.  
 
2) Should you ever perceive me to be wrong... refer to rule 1. I know, it is an old saying, but in my space it applies.  
 
Suck it up and deal with it. Don't like it, go make your own blog to rant in about me. If you have that kind of time to waste, that is.  
 
In the meantime, welcome. All materials - writing, photos and so on - in this blog are copyright to me, unless otherwise stated. Don't steal them. Don't copy them into an email, take credit for them, and send them off to all your friends. I don't mind you sending to your friends but give credit where it is due, and a link back to this site. Or just send the link to the site and save everyone some aggravation.  
 
Oh, and I have started this on BlogSpot for simplicity, but be advised that at some point in the future this may be moved elsewhere. I'll always leave a referral here if blogspot exists, though.  
 
Thank you for your cooperation. Goodnight.