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The Next to Last Samurai

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Oops! Jul. 20th, 2008 @ 04:26 pm
Well, I should know better than to make promises in the last quarter of the fiscal year. I apologize. However, I'll update every week starting 1 October.

We have to go in every Saturday from now till the end of FY and "entitle" payments (this means you write up all the paperwork saying it's OK to pay the contractor, and then the disbursing area cuts him his actual check). Poo. I don't mind the extra money, but they insist on doing it on Saturday, rather than throughout the week, which is a big nuisance and very disruptive.

Dan & I went to see The Dark Knight. I swear, these Batman movies get worse and worse. It was too long and terribly depressing, and also most of it seemed to have been filmed by the light of a 40-watt bulb and was therefore difficult to see. Heath Ledger's performance is everything the critics say it is, but don't waste your time and money. (And why does Bruce Wayne put on that obscene-phone-caller whispery voice when he's Batman? All it does is add sleaziness. Yuck.)

Many, many years ago way back before Dan was born, I read an article about a set of identical quadruplets who all became mentally ill, poor souls. Wondered about them for years. I finally got hold of the book about them. (It was published in 1963! I was 4 years old!) I thought the book was a biography, but it turned out to have been written by a bunch of psychiatrists, so it's only part biography, and part Freudian blah-blah, because at the time everybody blamed your mom if you were mentally ill. I'm working my way through the biography part, will write a review once I finish. I will tackle the Freudian part, and if it's not too stupid, and not too full of $10 words (we don't have a medical dictionary), and I will review it too. I must say that if the book weren't about such a sad topic, I'd be enjoying reading it; since it was published in 1963, it was written in English, not Feminist, and it's just such a relief not to have to wade through a bunch of awkward "he or she" and "him or her" constructions.
Current Mood: apologetic

Mea Culpa Jun. 15th, 2008 @ 11:47 am
I missed last week; I completely forgot it! I apologize. But nothing happened anyway.

My former sister-in-law, or whatever you call your brother's ex-wife, is terminal. I haven't seen her in years, I guess I will just send flowers. This all happened quite suddenly, apparently.

I bought a rice cooker; dr advised me to switch to brown rice, and I just can't cook the stuff. Either it boils over or it comes out half raw. According to all the happy people who wrote to Amazon, this particular model will cook brown rice.
Current Mood: apologetic

I'm Normal and I Can Prove It May. 29th, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
I had my first EKG a while back and I had a Q-wave, which can mean you had a heart attack, so I got sent for a nuclear stress test. The cardiologist said as far as he can tell my heart was fine and explained that in a minority of people a Q-wave is normal.

I am normal, I tell you! I am!

To have a nuclear stress test, you have some kind of radioactive stuff injected into a vein, and then they do an MRI-type scan. Then you go walk on a treadmill for a few minutes while you chat with the cardiologist and he studies your EKG that's running while you walk. Then they finally let you go get the caffeine you haven't been allowed for 24 hours before the test. Then you get one more scan, and that's it.

If I begin to glow in the dark, somebody's got some 'splainin to do.
Current Mood: chipper

Chinese Belly Dancers in Cowboy Hats! May. 17th, 2008 @ 07:53 pm
Among the many acts performing today at the International Festival. I thought their routine was kind of cute, myself. And where but the U.S. would you see Chinese belly dancers in cowboy hats?

Do the rest of you old folks notice more hostility between ethnic groups these days? I do. I think it's a darn shame. It seems like the more that businesses and the government talk about diversity, the less we have. Maybe we should all just ask businesses and the government to stop making an issue of it and just all get acquainted at our own pace. I'm not proposing revoking anti-discrimination laws, I think we need those, but I think diversity programs and classes and whatnot mostly annoy people and in reaction they cling to their own little group more than they would have otherwise.

Yipe. Sorry about the long silence. My life is so boring I didn't think anyone would notice. I promise to do better.

My dr. tells me I have a bad case of Americanitis and to lose some more weight. So it's Japanese food for me! This is not a big sacrifice because I like it anyway, but we didn't often have it because Dan's not big on soup and pickles, and how can you have Japanese meals without soup and pickles? However, he has agreed to try different versions till we find something we both like.

Apologies again, especially to Koko! If you get a chance, head east and visit, and we'll spoil you. Seems like the least I can do.
Current Mood: apologetic

Hi Everybody Mar. 23rd, 2008 @ 06:10 pm
Sorry about the long silence. Because of the BRAC, we have had a lot of new work come in and we are all working a lot of overtime, and so the last thing I want to do on my own time is stare at a computer. I hope all is well and that everyone had a nice Halloween, Xmas, Easter, and all other holidays in that time period.
Current Mood: tired
Other entries
» Still Alive
Sorry about the long silence. At the end of the fiscal year, about the last thing I want to see at the end of the day is a computer. Then after 30 September, it takes me a couple of weeks to recover.

The kitten was duly captured and taken to the animal shelter, where he was much better off. I hope they found him a good home. He was a cutie.

Dan is interested in Vikings. So are a lot of other people, it turns out. There's a local Viking historical society of about 300 people.
Oct. 14th, 2007 @ 02:29 pm
» Various
There's a tiny kitten, about a month old, hiding under my porch, and it's too frightened to come out. I left it alone for about 3 days, hoping it would get hungry enough to come out, but the mewing just got weaker, and I was afraid it would die (at 98 degrees outside--yipe!) so I have been feeding and coaxing it. It still won't come out, though if I go back inside and come back out half an hour later the food has disappeared. Then again, since it's been 98 degrees out, I haven't been hanging around outside coaxing steadily. When the weather improves I'll try again.

I broke my toe. Ow.

Has anyone else noticed the population getting steadily stupider? (Is that a word?) This isn't a political joke along the lines of the famous headline "How Could 46 Million Americans Be So Dumb?" I'm serious. It seems like the average person these days is too stupid to pick his nose. It's almost impossible to get anything done without repeated requests, not because they're not cooperating but because they're too stupid to understand what you're asking.
Aug. 25th, 2007 @ 09:52 am
» Fair
The fair we went to was, at best, fair. The contractor wouldn't let Dan on the merry-go-round (too tall & too heavy), and that's his favorite ride. Poo.
He did get to see the horse show.

I got an award from the other Government thugs for keeping my jackboots well polished. Grin.

Is there an epidemic of wanting to learn going on? I certainly hope so. And in the last two weeks I have explained to two people who Martin Luther was and his connection with the Lutherans. Normally I get one every six months, if that.
Aug. 11th, 2007 @ 09:44 am
» No, the Last Word is NOT "Scar"
And who else immediately turned to the last page? Fess up!

Yes, I thought so. Me too.

Back after I see who kicks the bucket. Or bumps the log, as we say at our house. My mom has George Bush Disease, things come out garbled, and once she meant to say someone had kicked the bucket and came out with "He bumped the log."
Jul. 21st, 2007 @ 12:11 pm
» A Cautionary Tale
The background, in which one Episcopal priestess attacked another:

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/4248/

I'm not an Episcopalian, so I ain't got a dog in this particular fight, but I wanted to seize the opportunity to remind everyone that Children and Family Services (or whatever it's called in your state--the people who can take your kids away) is frequently used as a weapon, as we see here. If you are homschooling or if you are involved in an unpopular political cause, such as 2nd Amendment activism, you must be particularly careful.

This concludes today's public service announcement.
Jul. 15th, 2007 @ 05:56 pm
» Minimum Age Drinking Laws
A public-service announcement about not letting your kids hold keg parties at your house, because YOU might go to jail (unless your last name is Libby), just came on. Grandpa mentioned that while minimum-age drinking laws never affected him one way or the other, as he was too poor to afford liquor, for a while, in Pennsylvania, the minimum age for drinking for women was 18 but for men it was 21. That's a historical tidbit I'd never heard before. How about your state?

I think you'd have to be an idiot to let inexperienced drinkers hold a keg party at your house even if it was legal, unless you really enjoy replacing broken furniture and cleaning up puke. Yuck.
Jul. 4th, 2007 @ 06:34 pm
» Submitted for Your Approval--
According to the National Geographic Channel, there is no such thing as a chupacabra. Or a Bigfoot. Darn it. The world needs a little mystery. Which can be found today on the Science Fiction Channel, which is running the usual holiday Twilight Zone marathon. God bless 'em.

I am mastering the exchange food system; I lost about 5 lb. Which I may have found this holiday; visiting my family is not exactly Health Food Central, and I do find myself nibbling from time to time on the many, many varieties of junk food available. I figure one holiday won't kill me. At home I prevent myself from absentmindedly nibbling a Fun Size candy bar here, a handful of Pringles there, by not buying the junk food in the first place, and at work I've trained myself to ignore the vending machine and Cafe Barb (the desk of the nice lady who likes to cook and likes to feed everybody). I go over and talk to Barb, of course, she's a sweetie-pie, but I try not to look at the file cabinet atop which is spread the feast.

Harry Potter and the Endless Hype: A few of my friends and I started a Harry Potter guessing pool--no prize if you win, just bragging rights. Although he's not in our pool, I liked the guess from Keith Olberman, the newscaster on "Countdown." Keith observed that for 6 books now, Harry's scar has been a Voldemort-early-warning system and there has been an awful lot of talk for 6 books now about how he's tied to Voldemort through that scar. He suggested that the scar is a Horcrux and the last little bit of Voldemort is in that scar. Harry will blast the scar at the climax of the series, killing Voldemort but also destroying his own powers, which he derives through his symbiotic tie with Voldemort, thus heroically saving the world but condemning himself to a tragic life of Squibhood.

If any of you want to join the Potter pool, just leave your guesses in comments, and I'll add you.

Keith's idea is a heck of a lot more creative than what I came up with. So I guess not all TV news folks are pretty airheads. Keith's neither. He asks intelligent questions--which doesn't necessarily means that he writes them, but at least he understands them enough to read them well--and he looks like Clark Kent. MSNBC also has a fat lady reporter, Lisa Myers (not sure how many "e"'s are supposed to be in that name, sorry). I didn't think fat ladies were even allowed to be on TV. Congrats to MSNBC for giving equal time!

Speaking of TV news, where in the world does Fox Noise get that endless supply of skinny blonde airheads? Does Rupert Murdoch have a cloning operation going in the basement?
Jul. 4th, 2007 @ 06:03 pm
» My Fellow Americans...
Happy 4th! Wheeeeeeeeee!

More later.
Jul. 3rd, 2007 @ 06:55 pm
» Still Here!
Things just got hectic again, but I WILL catch up!
Jun. 23rd, 2007 @ 12:34 pm
» I'm Still Around
Several weeks ago I found out I was officially diabetic, which is why I was so tired all the time. So I have to be on the American Diabetes Association diet (which fortunately is not too complicated, and you don't have to buy expensive special food) and I have to take horse pills 3 times a day. Anyway, I've been catching up on all that stuff I was always too tired to do. So I will be resuming my normal Live Journaling next week.
Jun. 2nd, 2007 @ 12:25 pm
» The Phone is Phinally Phixed
Our phone has been on and off, mostly off, for most of the last three weeks, while the phone phactory tried to phigure out what was wrong. They phinally phigured it out and got it fixed (they had to replace all the outside wires). So now I'm playing catchup.
May. 5th, 2007 @ 01:18 pm
» The Last Word in Tolkien Critiques
...courtesy of the very funny Reverend Dwight Longenecker, whose blog is called Standing on my Head. Go over and check out his Screwtape updates.

Well, my computer ate the darn copy of the critique--so you can also read that at Standing on my Head. Sorry about that.

We're all fine here, I'm just rather busy. Stay tuned.
Apr. 21st, 2007 @ 12:36 pm
» Note to Newscasters
SHUT THE @#$#$%@^%$#@$! UP ABOUT DON IMUS, WHO WAS LARGELY UNKNOWN UNTIL YOU IDIOTS SPENT AN ENTIRE WEEK YAPPING ABOUT HIM.

I feel much better now.

I am working a lot of overtime lately, so I am going to pause on the Gospel of Mark until the first week of May. If anyone else wants to pick it up, please do so, otherwise I'll go ahead when I get time.
Apr. 14th, 2007 @ 09:27 am
» [Insert Fanfare] It's Here! [Insert Fanfare]
The Gospel of Mark! Chapters 1-3! [with groveling apologies for the delay]

I'm not going to bore you with large blocks of text quoted verbatim. Almost everybody has a Bible around, so we can read along together, and we won't snitch on you if you have to blow the dust off the Good Book. If you're not a Christian and want to play along with us, just borrow a New Testament from a Christian you know, and we'll all jump in together.

Mark is the earliest Gospel, thought to have been written sometime around the year 70. It zips along at a nearly breathless pace, the evangelist pouring out his wonders on paper, scribbling as fast as he can, and is thus great fun to read, until the Good Friday part when things get ugly.

Chapter one begins with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, and the appearance of the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, at the rite. The happy mood then shifts abruptly: "At once the Spirit drove [Jesus] out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for 40 days, tempted by Satan." Mark leaves it at that; we have to get the details of the temptation from the other Gospels. Despite the lack of detail, this is still an important point. "40 days [and 40 nights]" was a catch phrase of the time and place, meaning "We don't know how long whatever-it-was went on, but it was for quite a while." So, for a good long time, he struggled with temptation--possibly the temptation to chuck the entire unpleasant mission. This is helpful to you and to me. Whatever we're struggling with, the temptation to do, or not to do, something, it's probably not nearly as unpleasant as having to get yourself crucified, and it's always comforting to know that someone else went through the same problem you did, and handled it.

Having returned from the desert, Jesus spends the rest of chapter one collecting disciples, healing the sick and the possessed, and teaching. We have to wait until later chapters to find out what he's teaching; for now, chapter one tells us only that it is revolutionary and that Jesus's absolute authority is visible to all, and astonishes everyone who hears him. This too is significant. Here's this nobody, some dorky Jewish carpenter from a crappy little town, his contemporaries would expect him to be completely clueless about spiritual matters that even puzzle the learned scribes and Pharisees--but that's not how it is. The man knows what he's talking about.

Word spreads. Having finished his lonely struggle in the desert, Jesus goes home, and at the beginning of chapter two, he's teaching the crowd around his house. So crowded is it that a paralyzed man has to be lowered through the roof. Consider the account (chapter two, verses 3-12) of what happens, and notice how Jesus blows the grumbling scribes out of the water with impeccable logic. As we go along through our studies, let's keep track of how often Christian teachers teach logically. Christianity is one religion that, when properly taught, encourages devotees to think. And (to use St. Paul's favorite rhetorical device) does this mean that we need have no faith, that we can reason it all out? By no means! In Christianity, faith and reason are two sides of the same coin. God wants us to have faith, and we should, but we also should use the reason he gave us. When we lose the faith, we are susceptible to current intellectual fads, however pernicious, e.g. the sad case of the Episcopal Church of the USA; when we lose the reason--well, I think we all know what happens when a religion gets too caught up in emotion. Faith and reason are the keys.

Moving along through chapter two, we have more logic. For more of the exciting, miraculous stuff, we must proceed to chapter three. In chapter three the mood darkens, as the Pharisees begin plotting to silence Jesus permanently. Jesus also has problems with demons shouting out his identity, which, at this point, he prefers to keep secret. We also come to an important passage, chapter three, verse 21. You have family problems? So has Jesus. One would think his relatives would never forget the unusual story of his birth, but it seems that the Pharisees have talked them into going against their reason, and now at least some of the relatives have come to believe he's lost his mind. We aren't told which relatives, exactly, but later, in verse 31, his mother and brothers show up at his house looking for him, presumably with straitjacket in hand. All the family lore, all the miracles, all the impeccable logic he uses against the scribes--and still, the relatives have talked themselves into believing what's convenient to believe. It's easy to do. Beware. Having made its point, this story kind of peters out. Jesus explains that whoever does the will of God is his mother, brother, or sister, and then the story, and the chapter, ends.
Mar. 31st, 2007 @ 12:15 pm
» Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
May you be in heaven half an hour before the Devil realizes you died!

I was going to put up the one about God turning either our enemies' hearts or their ankles, but Rgoing beat me to it, and he also has a cute picture up, so everybody make sure to go over and look at his St. Pat's day message.

Has anyone read Therapy Gone Mad, by Carol Lynn Mither? It's about a cult, but it wasn't a religious cult--it was wrapped around a pair of evil psychotherapists (accent on psycho). I couldn't put it down. I got my copy at Half Price Books for $1. It was published in the mid-90's. You can probably find it at the library. It's a gripping story.

On the subject of cults, if you know a recovering victim of the Herbert W. Armstrong cult (Worldwide Church of God), there is a support web site for them. http://www.hwarmstrong.com . A family member of mine was involved in this cult in the '70's, but fortunately was rescued by his 2nd wife. I had always thought of the Armstrong cult as more silly than anything else. It was a British Israelite cult. (The phrase "British Israelites" always makes me think of a line of pinstriped butlers with black bumbershoots trekking solemnly across the desert.) If you have never heard of British Israelites (there are several British Israelite cults), they all believe that the British people are the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel. Why somebody would completely revamp his life for this idea I don't know, but they do. Anyway, while the Armstrong cult was indeed silly, it was also a lot more destructive than I had known. People died. So it's a good thing the cult has pretty much broken up and there is support for recovering victims.

*ahem* I have no idea what I did with my notes. If I find them we'll tackle the Gospel of Mark this weekend--otherwise, we'll tackle it NEXT weekend. Mea culpa.
Mar. 17th, 2007 @ 11:34 am
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