Never Forget

Red or Blue?

My second-favorite American-blogging-from-the-Ukraine (sorry...your wife always gets top billing!), Discoshaman, has created his own online quiz, designed to indicate whether you're a "red-stater" or a "blue-stater." (As an aside, isn't it interesting how being a "red-stater" has changed in status since the fall of the Wall?)

It's all for fun, although if you are really committed to the Blue State of Mind, you probably won't see the humor. My advice? Lighten up.

Unfortunately, I'll never have a definitive answer for my status as I couldn't complete the quiz. It didn't provide an option to select "Chocolate Soldier" as the Ultimate Adult Beverage.

Update: It's worth parading as a Blue Stater just to see the payoff!

"When is War Justified?"

Our pastor's sermon this morning was based on Ecclesiastes 3:8, the well-known "a time for everything" Biblical passage. As we in America set aside time to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice during time of war, it's appropriate to ask "when is war justified?"

You can listen to the message online, but here's an outline of his main points:

Five principles that need to be in place for war to be just:

I. SUFFICIENT PROVOCATION

II. SATISFACTORY PURPOSES

  A. The protection of innocent lives.

  B. The reinstallation of justice.

  C. The restoration of peace.

III. SUSTAINED PATIENCE

IV. SENSIBLE PROPORTIONALITY

V. STRATEGIC PROTECTION OF NONCOMBATANTS

Conclusion

What to do during a war:

  A. Exercise your right as a citizen of a free nation.

  B. Don't put your hope in military might or government. Put your hope in the Lord.

  C. Pray

Each of the preceding points may be supported by specific Scripture (which, of course, is the hallmark of good old Southern Baptist preaching!). Those who deny that war is to be avoided at all costs aren't paying proper attention to God's Word.

"The Day After Tomorrow"

MLB took today off so we went out for breakfast (IHOP), got in a nice tandem ride (20 miles) and caught a matinee of "The Day After Tomorrow" (large popcorn and two large DCs).

Now, I'd like to act all outraged over the not-so-subtle eco-shrieking (James Lileks' term; link below) and current administration bashing (really, Mr. Emmerich...could you be any less obvious with your American vice-presidential character?), but, frankly, I knew about it going in and was able to compartmentalize and even embrace it as just another special effect dreamed up by the masters of imagination in Hollywood. So, we were able to enjoy the movie for what it is: a spectacular (awesomely so, in fact) fairy tale.

It had enough gallows humor in it to keep it from just dragging you down completely, and even though many of the sub-plots were preposterous or never resolved, it was still fun to watch. I have to admit that I still get the willies anytime I see a disaster hit NYC, even an absurd made-up one, but I guess that's something we'll all be dealing with for a long time to come. At the same time, the filmmakers have raised the bar for special weather-related disaster effects. (Although I suspect that Minnesotans will be thinking, "huh...they call that a cold front?")

I did have to laugh at the attempt to dramatize the terror induced by a cold snap. Any clarification would represent a spoiler, so you'll have to see it for yourself.

The movie closes with a view of the newly-devastated Earth from the Space Station, and we see clearly that the USA is now solid ice all the way down to Florida. Nevertheless, it appeared to me that Midland was clear, and in fact, received less than a tenth of an inch of snow during the "storm of the epoch." At least some things never change, even in science fiction!

I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the movie quite as much if I'd read today's Bleat beforehand. You should read the whole thing, but at least scroll down 2/3rds of the way to read about director Emmerich's interview with a German publication. Roland apparently spent a little too much time in the f/x room making this movie, as his perception of reality is about as grounded as the plot of his film.

Photo Captions?

I'm sure you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a blog running a caption contest for the photo shown below, so I figured I might as well pile on.

You're free to leave your own caption(s), but you're really just playing for third place, IMHO. ;-)

A.P. Photo

1) Pilot over intercom: "Will Michael Moore please move to the front of the plane?"

2) Pilot to co-pilot: "I just hate it when we have to transport those special consignments of Cialis!"

Vinyl Conversion Status Report

I know you've been wondering how my vinyl music digitizing project has been coming, so here's a quick status report.

First, I quickly discovered that I could cut one step from my original process, where I was using CD Spin Doctor to record the LP to AIFF format, then using Sound Studio to edit the resulting file before burning it to CD. As it turns out, Sound Studio will also do the initial capture to AIFF.

I've managed to digitize ten LPs; at this rate, I'll be through in about eight years. But, there's no real hurry (other than trying to finish within my natural lifespan). I seem to have picked an eclectic group of albums, spanning about two decades. Here's the list, in alphabetic order:

• 1999 - Prince


• Brass Impact - Warren Kime and orchestra


• Briefcase Full of Blues - Blues Brothers


• Keep On Movin' - Butterfield Blues Band


• Little Criminals - Randy Newman


• Live at Leeds - The Who


• Machine Head - Deep Purple


• New City - Blood, Sweat & Tears


• Tarkio - Brewer & Shipley


• Tuff Enuff - Fabulous Thunderbirds

Some of this music has stood the test of time better than others. I had forgotten how pretentious Prince could be back then. OTOH, the Warren Kime instrumental album can still send chills up my spine; the dynamic range on this 60s LP is amazing.

It Never Fails...

...I finally get a little time to blog and I find that I have...nothing.

It's not like I'm just bubbling over with creativity to begin with, and when website development projects require what little I have in that area, I'm just running on fumes when I start writing.

Still, I've never let common sense get in the way of stubbornness (whatever that means), so you're gonna get a post, regardless.

Let's see...hmmm...

OK, here. It rained yesterday afternoon. Not much - .15" in my gauge - but that was the first measurable precip since mid-April and it was quite pleasant. Then, it rained again this morning. And, again, not much; just enough to keep me off the bike and in front of the monitor.

Oh, and I finally watched "Seabiscuit," bringing to three the total number of people in the country who haven't seen it. Pretty good flick, I thought, and a great movie to watch while on the treadmill or windtrainer. Like "Chariots of Fire," the race scenes inspire one to greater efforts.

And, speaking of greater efforts, this has been one. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Thanks for stifling your pitying giggles.

Kudos to Dawn

Our own* Dawn Eden's "The Dawn Patrol" was singled out as one of Joe Scarborough's favorite blogs on his MSNBC segment last night. Here's the transcript from the show; scroll down to the bottom, where he educates his audience about blogs (why is that still such a mystery to people?). Here's the money quote:

Pretty ritzy company you're keeping there, Dawn...way to go, kiddo! (Actually, they should feel honored to be in your company. Look at my blogroll and see how many of them are listed!)

Link tip: Blogger bud and NY radio host Kevin McCullough

*She may live in Joisy and work in NYC, but she's got the heart and soul of a Texan, whether she'll admit it or not!

Cox Communications Continues to Underwhelm

A month or so ago I was ranting a bit about the degradation in connection speed provided by Cox. Well, I just ran another speed test on Bandwidth Place, and guess what? It's gotten worse.

Running back-to-back speed tests yielded an average communication speed of about 870 kbits/second, just about half the speed from a month ago. The average cable speed in Texas is 2 megabits/second, according to Bandwidth Place stats...almost three times what I'm getting.

Add to that dismal picture the fact that I'm just now receiving emails sent two-to-three days ago, and Cox's mailserver has intermittently been too "busy" to send mail. To add insult to injury, Cox won't let you use a third party SMTP server to send mail; all outgoing mail must run through their old and busted system.

It all adds up to a really strong argument to check out the alternatives. I've got a website client who is switching to Grande Communications on June 1; anyone else got any experience with Grande's broadband?

Diluting or Divesting?

I was amused by a quote in this article from today's MRT. The article reports on ExxonMobil's sale of 28 Permian Basin oil fields to Apache Corp. and quotes an ExxonMobil spokesman who is explaining why this isn't really a big deal:

I re-read the sentence, trying to get a handle on what exactly was meant by "asset hydrating," a term I was unfamiliar with despite helping to negotiate the acquisition and sale of a half billion dollars of oil and gas assets during my career. Then I figured it out. The reporter heard "hydrating" but the spokesman said "high-grading."

While I suspect that most of these fields are, indeed, producing more water than oil, I'm sure that it wasn't the result of anyone's intentional "hydrating" of them!

[Yeah, I know...you just have to be in the awl bidness to get it!]

Who has time to blog?

Clients! Class! Chores! Chaos!

Don't expect much from the Gazette this week, folks...there's no relief on the horizon.

[And Jasmine's on an adventure.]

Infinity Between The Numbers

We attended a funeral this morning, a memorial service for the mother of a dear friend. The pastor conducting the service read part of a poem which sounded familiar, entitled "The Dash." I just googled it and the complete poem is here, on the author's website.

If you don't have the time to follow the link, the point of the poem is that on a headstone, the dash is much more important than the dates it separates. The dash represents the content of the person's life.

It's not classic literature, but it accomplished what any literature should strive for: it caused me to ponder things larger than myself. It caused me to think about how we are able to influence one another through actions and words small and large, and how those influences can perhaps ripple through still other lives, in ways and to extents that we can't begin to imagine.

Donne famously wrote, "No man is an island, entire of itself..." And that dash between our beginning and ending dates does scarce justice to our effect on our fellow travelers, if we care to accept the truth of our belonging.

For those who seek to please God by acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our Creator, I believe there's a more fitting separator between date of birth and date of death. The dash may be appropriate when the temporal span of a life is viewed within the context of eternity, but the infinity symbol better captures the true impact of that life.

Van Helsing: What a Mess!

Two movies in two days...don't even mention popcorn to me for at least, um, a week.

Anyhoo, we finally saw "Van Helsing" this afternoon. It was nice to avoid Shrekmania, but that was the best thing about the movie. I'm trying to recall a more disjointed, can't-decide-what-it-wants-to-be-when-it-grows-up film. Is it a comedy? Is it a horror flick? Is it a romantic swash-buckler? Is it a blatant rip-off of "Aliens"? Answers: not intentionally; rarely; oh puh-lease; whatever would even bring that to my mind?

And to top it off, every time Frankenstein appeared onscreen, all I could think of was Peter Boyle.

[It took me awhile but I finally put a name to the actor playing Igor: Kevin J. O'Connor, the irritating sidekick-turned-beetle-mousse in "The Mummy."]

Texas Barbie Dolls

You know, folks, when I respectfully requested that you remove my email address from your forward lists, I didn't mean that you shouldn't send me stuff like this!

[Having lived in three of the cities on this list (and MLB in a fourth -- you'll just have to guess which ones -- it brought a tear of sentimentality to my eye.]

Shrek 2: My Impressions

No spoilers here...just some quick thoughts from this afternoon's showing:

• The first half of the movie dragged in places, but the second half rocked, more than making up for the slow spots.


• The Fairy Godmother looks like Deborah Harry.


• The references to movies which are three times as old as most of the other attendees were hilarious. Mel Brooks is no doubt sooooo proud!


• Don't leave too soon when the credits start rolling (not that you would); there's a bonus scene midway through them.


• Yes, the CGI is really as good as everyone says!


• But...the CGI artists still haven't mastered a natural walk (human gait).


• I'd like to know how much Joan Rivers paid the director. (You'll see what I mean.)

Symptoms of Decay, Pt. II

In a comment on an earlier post in which I grouse about a local mom pulling her kids out of school to see "Shrek II," fellow blogger Gator raises a legitimate question:

The difference between Gator's scenario and the one I described earlier is like night and day. Cutting class is a time-honored tradition, dating back to prehistoric times, when Og and his buddies slipped out the back of mastodon-skinning class to ogle the racy new cave drawings. The big difference is that -- in a healthy society -- while skipping the (very) occasional class is a legitimate act of teenaged rebellion, the natural consequences of getting caught are the imposition of extreme sanctions by the parental units.

When parents facilitate the class-skipping, not only are they undermining the importance of education, they are depriving their youngsters of the heady feeling of getting away with something (or the conscience-searing fallout from getting caught).

More Texas Water Rights Voices

Kenneth Schustereit left a comment on a previous post to let me know that west Texans aren't the only ones in a battle to protect private groundwater supplies. The folks in south Texas -- Victoria, Goliad and Refugio counties, to be exact -- are engaged in the same kind of fight.

Kenneth has a website devoted to the issue as it affects those localities. Among other things, the website documents the flaws in the current regulations concerning the establishment of Water Conservation Districts (eg. the ability of the state to override local decisions). They also face some problems that we generally don't, such as management of rivers (we should be so fortunate)...but we all share the same fundamental concern: who owns and controls the water under privately-owned land, and how are those ownership rights best protected to ensure that we all have enough water in the future?

Is anyone optimistic about the ability of most of the state to avoid being eventually sucked dry by the demands of the three megaplexes?

Best Warning Sign

Caught this in the May issue of Reader's Digest. A sign seen hanging in a gift shop offers this brutal warning:

Symptoms of Decay

"Shrek II" opened yesterday and is attracting rave reviews and long lines of ticket buyers. MLB and I are planning to catch a matinee today -- she has the day off -- in order to beat the crush of schoolkids.

Or will we?

In a telling snapshot that speaks volumes about the state of society, the following quote appeared in an article in today's newspaper documenting the reaction of local moviegoers to the film:

How pathetic is that? Parents have become willing enablers of the mindset that a cartoon is more important than an education. They think so little of the educational environment, or they fail to recognize the importance of education, or they don't understand the message that they're sending to their kids, that this sort of behavior seems to be the norm instead of the exception.

We see it all the time. Little Jimmy and Susie are pulled out of one or two days of class in order to take advantage of special ticket prices at SeaWorld. Friday afternoon classes are expendable; the lake fills up pretty quickly on the weekends so we need to get our jetskis launched early.

<oldfogeymode>When I was in school, nothing short of spinal meningitis or outright nuclear war (we dealt with the mere threat of the latter under our desks on a regular basis) was an excuse to miss class. Family vacations were scheduled around the school calendar, not in place of it. If nothing else, we were taught by example that it was important to stay in school and fulfill our obligations.</oldfogeymode>

OK...I realize that we're nearing the end of the school year, and things are bit more, um, laid back all the way around. I also understand that some classroom experiences are lacking in true educational value (what, for example, is the purpose of showing "Secondhand Lions" in its entirety to a high school science class?). And far be it from me to chastise parents who are trying to spend more "quality time" with their kids (although I fail to see how sitting in a movie theater qualifies). Nevertheless, the message that everything is more important than school is wrongheaded and deplorable.

Usability in Everyday Life

One of my goals in building websites is to create designs that draw attention to themselves only long enough to convince the visitor that the site is credible, and then to fade into the background while helping that visitor quickly accomplish what he or she came to do. A website that does that can be termed "usable."

Usability also applies to many other things in life, and I've become sensitized to those that fall at either end of the usable/non-usable spectrum.

For example, my shower caddy is eminently usable. It's a masterpiece of simple and well thought out design. It's just a piece of molded plastic that hangs from my showerhead, but whoever designed it was in love with the concept of shower caddies and studied how they are used...probably by using it themselves. The soap holder slopes down slightly to ensure good drainage. There's a little loop built in to hold my razor. The shelf that holds the shampoo bottle has a special opening to permit storage with the cap down, to facilitate getting the last bit out of the bottle. Would you have thought of that? I'm not sure I would have, but I appreciate it.

Unfortunately, I see more examples of bad usability design than good.

For example, the headlines that scroll horizontally across the bottom of most major TV news programs are examples of bad design. That approach requires that you catch the beginning of the headline in order to grasp the meaning of the entire sentence. If you fail to look down at the beginning of the scroll, you may have to wait until it comes around again to catch the whole thing...and hope that you're paying attention when that happens.

A much bettter design...a much more usable approach...is the one employed by CNN Headline News, which uses a static two-line "ticker" at the bottom of the screen for each headline. As you glance down from the content on the main part of the screen, you can instantly apprehend the entire headline, without waiting for the scrolling to complete. I also think that this approach works better with the way people actually read. We take in chunks of text, instead of processing a word at a time. The downside is that this is harder on the headline writers, as it forces them to be brief without losing meaning. But, it can be done. Just ask Dawn Eden, headline composer extraordinaire.

Usability isn't just about design, either. Sometimes it's about execution.

A couple of months ago, in a post about random observations ("It's What We Do."), I griped about the way the soft drink stockers at my grocery store stack soft-drink 12-packs so that the carrying "handle" is hidden on the opposite side from the customer. This is annoying and I've wondered if it was being done intentionally.

On Monday, I had a chance to find out. The soft drink distributor rep was restocking the shelves and I asked him. Here's his answer: "It's company policy. We had too much damage to the product when we stacked them the other way."

So, let me get this straight. Either the "handle" (which is really a perforated cutout, designed so you can stick your fingers into the pack to carry it with one hand) is designed so poorly that it was damaging the product when used for its intended purpose. Or, shoppers are so inept that they manage to damage the product by using the handle incorrectly.

I suppose the former might be true, although I've never had a 12-pack come apart at the "handle." The latter also might be true, although my observation is that a lot more damage is being done by shoppers juggling the packs in their attempts to transfer them, sans handles, from shelf to cart.

I suspect the real reason is that it's, well, company policy. Policies are built to address exceptions, and the first report of a malfunctioning 12-pack handle resulted in a company policy to deter future use of 12-pack handles. The actual result? Diminished usability for the shopper; misguided sense of accomplishment for the company.

And that's the lesson for the day: usability requires that the user be given first place. Otherwise, it's either bad design, or art.

Desert Desert Dessert

Jasmine and I were debating about whether to post about the misspelled word in a front-page headline in today's issue of the MRT. I haven't checked to see if the offending headline made it onto the website, but knowing Jeff McDonald, I'm sure it was corrected before it went online.

Jasmine is an educator and her profession is devoted to attempting to ensure that such things don't occur, so her natural inclination is to make a fuss about it...and rightly so, from that perspective. I tend to be more sanguine about the situation, being a longtime practitioner of the art of making widely-viewable mistakes. It's not that I condone lax proofreading or whatever flaws in the editorial oversight process that allow such things to happen on a mystifyingly regular basis, but I no longer get a thrill out of pointing out such obvious mistakes.

I guess I'm all too aware of my own shortcomings in this general area. Oh, I'm a pretty good speller, and I could probably score about 90 in the grammar category, but I'm a total goof when it comes to things like punctuation (to name but one example). I realize that my approach to punctuation is akin to dropping a handful of bee-bees on a tile floor; I just throw 'em out there and hope they land in spots that approximate the same placement that Mrs. Buster, my 5th grade English teacher, would have used. I'm sure I fail miserably most of the time. In particular, the elipsis is my downfall...I use it all the time, but rarely correctly, I suspect. It just seems so...well...so doggone handy...you know?

Anyway, for those reasons Jasmine and I agreed that it would be inappropriate to post anything about the headline typo. So, you won't see such a post here. Nosireebob.

[By the way...speaking of grammar and spelling and the other black arts of the occult, is the subject of this post a complete sentence? I contend that it would be, with the addition of one bit of punctuation. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. And here's a hint. The subject line could be a legitimate follow-on to this:

"Regardless of the fact that its sweetness has served you well in its capacity as a coda to your wilderness dining experiences, you are hereby directed to abandon it forthwith, leaving it to its own devices in a means that might appear to some as ruthless and, perhaps, even illegal...but these judgments are meaningless to such as us, are they not?"]

Now That Was Fun!

After a suitable amount of debased groveling by the Site Administrator, I've restored Jessica's Well to the Gazette's blogroll.

Just kidding...about the groveling, that is; JW is back on the blogroll. But the Site Admin did do something to directly bring it about: she made me laugh. (Actually, she threatened me, but I will not disclose the nature of the threat, for fear that a similar tactic might someday be employed by those with a less well-developed sense of humor. I care about the world too much to risk that.)

Lighten up, folks! None of us is as important, interesting or wise as we think we are.

By the way, I'm considering adding this delinking thing to my standard bag of traffic-building tricks. I've had 50 referrals from JW since the first outraged post this morning.

[But I'm not kidding about the blogasites; my beneficence is not endless.]

It was only taking a breather...

How long does it take to go from wet to dry in west Texas? By my estimation, precisely 30 days, which is how long it's been since our last measurable rainfall.

Up until April 18, we were enjoying abundant precipitation, with rainfall totals well ahead of average. The result was wildflowers where once there was bare dirt, and money left in the checking account where once there was payment of the city water bill.

These things are just sweet memories today. I noticed today that if you stand at the edge of the pasture, the view from fence-post level is still shaded green. But this is a tromp d'oeil carried out by the dominance at eye-level of the mesquite, whose taproots are sucking up water at depths that the grass and weeds cannot access. If you revise your focus to concentrate on the spaces instead of the objects, then the more accurate indicators appear: the grass is brown and the wildflowers are shriveling.

This portends the worst possible situation, one where spring rains were sufficient to bring temporary growth spurts in ground cover, but summer moisture isn't sufficient to sustain it. Throw in some hot wind and a careless (or intentional) spark, and the threat of wildfire suddenly hits very close to home.

I fear that the drought hasn't really slouched off to other parts, but was just taking a siesta. The good news is that there are still parts of the Permian Basin and Edwards Plateau that are continuing to receive consistent rainfall.

Texas Bix Bender says that we might not be so bad off if we had a little less of everything. I don't think, however, that he was referring to rainfall.

Time to Lighten Up

Gack...the previous slew of posts are just downright depressing! (Except for yours, Jasmine.) What say we move on to more enjoyable topics, like animals who talk like people, only more intelligently. (No snarky comments.)

The following strip was left on my computer desk chair this morning. It still bore traces of dog drool and the scissors-work was suspect (although still better than mine). I'm still dusting for finger paw-prints.

Battling Blogasites

Any blogger will tell you that the decision to permit comments is a difficult one. The vast majority of commenters (commentors?) are polite, on-topic and welcome. Unfortunately, there are inevitably those who abuse the privilege.

The most egregious offenders are commercial spammers who leave perfunctory comments on posts solely to get their links and product-related text indexed by search engines. These folks are increasing in number and I've noticed that a number of blogs have turned off their comment capabilities in response to the continuing onslaught of commercial spam. I don't blame them, and it's a shame that it's come to that.

However, there's a second class of commentor (commenter?) comprised of people who are actually less sympathetic figures (to a blog owner) than commercial spammers. I use the term "blogasite" to describe these people. They either attempt to bend a blog's discussion to their own purposes via comments, or to engage in outright subversion of the blog owner's desires. Thankfully, this second type is much less common.

I did, however, encounter just such a creature this morning, and it's left me with a bad attitude. This person intentionally violated blogging ethics and abused my hospitality in allowing access to make comments. As a result, I've taken the unprecedented step of deleting the comments outright and banning the IP address to prevent this person from making future comments here.

That sounds extreme...and it is. I would be more willing to cut a newbie some slack, but this person has been around long enough to know basic blogging etiquette, and they did what they did intentionally.

I suspect that this person is now whining on another blog about how unfair I am. My advice is to take a deep breath, consider why your actions were inappropriate, and then think twice before trying to take advantage of a blogger's hospitality. If you want to email me to discuss the specifics privately, I'm happy to oblige.

Whose blog is it, anyway?

One of the anonymous posters at another blog has seen fit to define for himself what this blog should be and how it should be administered. His arguments might carry more weight if he had chosen accuracy over condescension.

He (she?) wrote:

There's no point in my trying to convince the writer that she (he?) has not only misunderstood my position on the issue in question, but has also misstated it. There's no incentive for him (her?) to get it right, choosing as she (he?) does to post anonymously in order to avoid taking any personal responsibility for his (her?) words. I'm sorry I ever allowed myself to rise to the bait of the original posters (who share this same strategy of anonymous blogging) in trying to defend against their attacks on the religious convictions of some of our elected officials. I should have seen where that path led. My bad; it won't happen again.

I would, however, extend an invitation to the anonymous blogger (heck...let's just assume it's a "he," for ease of reference) to do some research about what a blog is, and is not. He seems outraged that I would cut off discussion on -- of all places! -- a blog.

I'll not dwell on the fact that what I really did was tell a specific commenter that I wasn't going to continue to debate the issue with him, because we had each made our positions clear and neither was going to be swayed by additional debate. If that's "causing cessation of discussion," then I submit that someone needs get a clue.

Here's a clue. This blog is not a community message board. I have no obligation to allow comments, much less reply to them. I do, in fact, welcome and encourage comments about anything that's written here, and I'm pretty diligent about responding in some fashion to the vast majority of them. But that's not an obligation on my part, just as visitors are not obligated to leave comments.

Further, once a line of discussion has reached a point of staleness or stalemate, it's my right to end it, or at least my part in it. That's what I've chosen to do in this instance.

But, you know what? None of this is relevant to why I blog or why this blog exists. Most people don't come here to see debates about political issues, or hissy fits about who wrote what on whose blog. I apologize to those who have come here expecting better and have been disappointed. I shall endeavor to avoid future topics that are likely to deteriorate the way this one has.

And one step I've taken to avoid the future temptation of fruitless arguments with anonymous bloggers is by making certain adjustments in my blogroll.

I feel better already.

Reverie

Most computer technology is lost on me. But it's use gives me moments of great pleasure. Like tonight. I am able sit in my backyard, relishing the cool breeze and smiling at the soft sound of distant crickets chirping, punctuated by an occasional dog's barking or metal windchime's clanging. At the same time I can be in touch with the other side of the world, read Eric's blog and others, discuss them and their comments with my husband in the neighboring lawn chair, and research anything I can imagine. In the night sky a spotlight from the carnival at the mall is making an everchanging lightshow as it reflects on the advancing bank of clouds.

Whoops. A bug just dive bombed me and my computer screen. End of enjoyment. I'm going back inside.

Surfing the Slippery Slope

I'm taking heat from a couple of readers for my post about keeping sexually-oriented businesses ("SOBs") out of Midland. My support for our sheriff's and district attorney's efforts to intimidate SOBs from locating in Midland County has brought about references to Osama bin Laden, the communist government of China, Jewish Pharisees, old west "fastest gun rules" justice and religious bigots. I figure if I've been able to generate that kind of reaction, I must be doing something right.

I'm not going to attempt to address all the counterarguments to my position; those folks will not change their minds, nor will I, so further discussion is pointless. I do, however, want to address one statement left by a recent visitor who wrote:

This statement summarizes very well what I believe is one of the major contributors to the decline in the moral condition of our society: too many people oppose something on moral grounds, but don't want to do anything about from a legal perspective, for fear of offending the minority, or of crossing a constitutional line that, in fact, doesn't exist.

We've lost our moral compass, and so we now label as "the desire to control" what once was the desire to do the right thing. The rejection of the notion of such concepts as absolute truth, right and wrong, good and bad, and sin has been documented by many others much more perceptive and eloquent than me, so I won't try to replow that ground.

In the end, we as citizens have only ourselves to blame for relinquishing our right to do right by failing to use our laws to enforce our belief in what's right or wrong.

[And don't kid yourself that legalizing immoral activity so we can regulate it is anything other than inviting participation in the activity that we wanted to prevent.]

The "slippery slope" argument is, admittedly, a cliché. That doesn't make it inaccurate.

This is not a post (really!)

On the other hand, a little mystery is a good thing...use your imagination to fill in the gaps I've intentionally left.

• Name: Eric Siegmund


• Location: Midland, Texas


• Age: Old enough to be on the AARP radar, but too young to grab any of my [dwindling] 401K
  
  
• Education: Public schools from start to finish; BS in accounting, MS in Management & Administrative Science (emphasis in Behavioral Management)
  
  
• Occupation: Free-lance website designer. Oh, and 25 years with a Fortune 500 energy company doing everything from programming to accounting to deal-making. The website thing is probably a symptom of a mid-life crisis. Lord knows it's no way to make a living.
  
  
• Politics: Hmmm...that's a good one. As much as I am totally disinterested in the political process, I am also acutely aware of its impact on things I value. I vote, but don't contribute or campaign. I generally vote Republican, not because I think their candidates are inherently better people, but because they generally support the positions I think are important: less government in most areas, more government in a few. However, I don't vote a straight party ticket, and I've been know to support third-party candidates. Having said all that, don't try to engage me in a political debate; I'm not interested.
  
  
• Theology: Notice I chose this term over the more frequently used "religion"? I trust you're perceptive enough to understand the distinction, and the implications. But this area merits a little more detail, as it's important to me (unlike politics). Sometimes labels are helpful, even though no one likes being labelled ("I'm much too, um, complex for that."). In my case, you can label me a "conservative, born-again Christian" if that's something you understand and relate to (whether you agree with it or not). I believe in moral absolutes, and I look to God to help me make distinctions between right and wrong. I believe in Heaven and Hell as real places (as opposed to, say, Orlando and Las Vegas, which are obviously figments of someone's deranged imagination). I believe this life on earth is but a pale foreshadowing of that to come, and I can take great comfort in an eternal perspective of events that only seem to be unbearable at the present time. This also allows me to ultimately be an optimist, even if I present a very cynical view of events and people. And, finally, I'd very much like for you to have this same optimism (aka peace, love, joy and all those good things that sometimes seem just out of reach). But I won't beat you about the head if you decline.
  
  
• Other Interests: Oh, all the usual things you'd expect living 600 miles from the nearest beach and 400 miles from the nearest mountain: snow skiing, windsurfing, scuba. Also bicycling (recumbents) and guitar-playing (left-handed, self-taught, and amazingly incompetent, but never discouraged...except by my listeners!). I share my home with a peculiar dog-like creature named Abbye, and a loving and lovely and patient wife of many years who shall remain nameless in respect of her privacy. Go find your own.
  
  
• Computer Platform: I suppose I should have included this under "Theology"...I'm a Mac user, of course.

OK, I trust this has been helpful in some small way. Now when you read something I wrote that strikes you as particularly outrageous or inane or both, you can calm yourself with the thought, "well, what can I expect; after all, he's a [fill in the blank] with [fill in the blank] leanings and an obvious bent toward [fill in the blank]." You'll feel better, I promise.

Crawdads are tasty after all!

Being rather adventurous about foods and feeling I improve myself by trying new things, I decided my supper tonight prepared me to willingly eat just about anything. As I approached the entrance to our HEB, I was greeted by a host of tiny antenna and little pincers waving at me. A portable seafood steamer on a trailer was parked outside the store, cooking and Cajun seasoning mountains of crawfish and shrimp. The display of live crawfish, looking like miniature lobsters or something less delectable, spilled over the plexiglass retaining wall. Catching an escaping crustacean, the salesman offered to give my daughter and me a free sample. Upon our assent, he cleaned his hands and then grabbed a couple of steamed critters and thrust one into each of our hands. Deftly he demonstrated the means by which the head and thorax are removed and the tail is broken, exposing the teeny tiny bit of protein inside. The task evoked in me a visualization of breaking a large roach in half. EW!!! I popped the tail meat in my mouth. Mmm! No wonder people carry on so about these tasty treats! I bought 2 dinners (crayfish, boiled potatoes and corn on the cob) and a pound of shrimp. My daughter and I enjoyed our latest dining adventure. (My husband and son voted for Whataburgers.) But I don't think I'll be doing it again soon. There's just too much effort required for so little return. Besides, I have to worry now that the lingering odor on my fingers is going to be transferred to my keyboard!

Fun with TLDs

Did you ever wonder why the Top Level Domain ("TLD") for Australia is .aus, for the United Kingdom it's .uk, for France it's .fr and for Switzerland it's -- .ch?!

Wonder what China (.cn) thinks about this situation?

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know how Switzerland ended up with .ch, thanks to this entry on Wikipedia. This is where I learned that the Latin version of the official name for Switzerland is Confoederatio Helvetica, and the country's TLD is the acronym for that name.

Even in this esoteric area, Switzerland remains the ultimate diplomat. According to the Wikipedia entry, Confoederatio Helvetica is used because it "avoids choosing one of the four official languages," which include German, French, Italian and Romansh.

[For a complete list of TLDs by country -- from .ac (Ascension Island) to .zw (Zimbabwe), visit this site.]

PHrePeat

Some of you may recall a post here and there earlier this year about my experience with an online beginning PHP class, offered through the International Webmasters Association/HTML Writers Guild. I completed the requirements for the course in February, but never felt that I had mastered the material...so I'm enrolling for a repeat.

Frankly, the first course was a mess. It was, indeed, the first course, with a new instructor and an untried curriculum. Judging by the comments on the message boards, most of my fellow students became frustrated for two reasons: we tried to cover too much, too quickly, and the "textbook" was really an advanced technical reference book, with little value for someone trying to learn the basics.

I -- and, I suspect, many others -- submitted formal feedback at the end of the course suggesting some changes, including a more realistic, slower-paced curriculum and a better textbook. When I received the notice of the new class, I was pleased to see that both suggestions have been incorporated. In addition, the same instructor will lead the class, and that's a plus.

From one perspective, I feel like something of a failure for needing to repeat this course. However, PHP is such an important and useful tool for my line of work that I can't afford to let pride prevent me from taking the opportunity to master the basics of the subject. So, beginning May 24, you may see more signs of frustration and agony on these pages. If my plans work out, it will just be me growing less incompetent.

The Lowdown on Dropsy

I was reading in the Bible book of Luke last week, and came across this passage:

I'll bet I've read that passage scores of times without knowing what, exactly, the condition of "dropsy" entails. Seeing as how it's never too late to learn something new, I decided to do some quick research.

I first headed to my trusty "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible" (treeware version...the physical heft of a good research tome is one of life's small joys), where I confirmed that the passage in Luke is the only Biblical appearance of the word. I further learned that the word comes from the Greek hudropikos [hoo-dro-pik-os'; Strong's number 5203], which means "to be dropsical" or "to have the dropsy." Ah, well. But I saw also that the Greek word is derived from hudatos ("water") and optomai ("to appear"). That's better: one who has dropsy "appears watery."

A quick look at Vine's "Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words" didn't add anything, but a glance at this passage in Luke as interpreted by the writers of "Good News for Modern Man" revealed a description of the afflicted man as "having swollen arms and legs." Obviously, we're talking about some kind of edema.

And, in fact, this is confirmed by referring to various online medical resources. WebMD includes a reference to dropsy in an article about how many modern medical treatments have their roots in relatively ancient tradition:

So, even though the man described in Luke had a condition that had an ancient name, the condition itself is still around in various forms, and it does appear in literature down through the ages. I point you to this interesting discussion of historical references to the disease and its treatment (if the page renders funkily in your browser, copy and paste the text into a Word document).

And, finally, I stumbled across a discussion of a modern-day epidemic of dropsy, occuring in India in 1998. Those afflicted experienced swelling of their bodies "caused by the consumption of mustard oil adulterated with oil of prickly poppy. Prickly poppy scientifically known as Argemone mexicana contains alkaloids with physiologically active toxins (sanguinarine and dihydrosanguinarine)." 2,000 cases were detected, with 41 deaths reported. It's interesting to note what the WHO has to say about the treatement of this form of dropsy:

In other words, "we don't know how to treat it, so we'll try a lot of things to address the symptoms and then hope for the best."

This is all very interesting (well, it was to me, anyway), but, well, so what? Well, the "so what" is this: even today, with all of our scientific and technological advances, the treatment of any form of edema is still hit-and-miss. That makes the little account in Luke -- almost akin to a throwaway special effect in a movie -- a great deal more significant than we probably give it credit for. Once again, we see the Lord provide healing with just a touch or a word or a glance, even where the best efforts of man still come up short.

Guess what? He still does those things for us today, spiritually and physically! That's a great thought to take with you into the weekend. Amen and amen.

Shell Cheap Shot (I can't resist!)

I noticed this headline in yesterday's edition of the Herold Oil Headliner:

I couldn't help mentally writing the sub-head:

I'm soooo bad! (But, then, so are Shell's reserves estimates.)

Kevin Cleans Kennedy's Clock

Blogger bud and Noo Yawk radio talk show host Kevin McCullough is fed up with a certain senator from Massachusetts (no, not that one, the other...well, it is hard to tell them apart sometimes, no?), and says so in no uncertain terms in this article on WorldNetDaily entitled "Kennedy: The un-patriot."

Just when you think The Teddy can't burrow any deeper into the slime, he exhibits a new burst of digging energy.

[Incidentally, Kevin is taking the rare step of soliciting feedback as to whether his post is too "over the top." The results thus far are interesting. I probably wouldn't have taken the same approach, but I can't fault his outrage nor his conclusions.]

High Grossing R-Rated Movies

I saw an interesting statistic today: there have been only 6 R-rated movies in history to gross more than $200 million in the US. Of course, the most recent was "The Passion of the Christ," but do you know the other five?

Update (5/14/04): Commenter (and apparent Wall Street Journal reader) Bert correctly identifies the other five movies. Just for the record, here they are in descending order of profitability with year of release:

A Real Live Mad Scientist

I don't envy Dawn Eden much with regard to her New York stomping grounds, but I have to admit that it's fertile ground for blogging fodder. Last night, for example, she met Dr. James D. Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA. Her description of the encounter is chilling.

I don't believe that Dr. Watson's Nobel Prize and all the accolades he's accumulated here on earth are going to help him much when it comes time for him to defend his views before God about the commodification of life. I'm sure there's a better theological or philosophical term for it, but the guy creeps me out.

Bible Book Haiku - Job One

Get it..."Job One"? <snort> I kill myself sometimes.

Anyway, Aaron (no URL and we don't disclose email addresses) has neatly summarized the book of Job for us:

Very nice. I was hoping he'd use "leviathan" somewhere in there, but that pretty much kills a whole line on its own.

So, that brings us to the Big Bible Kahuna, the book of Psalms. I look forward to your work. Here are the meme rulez (notice how I'm now appealing to the "younger generation"?), and here's the complete list to-date.

Incidentally, you can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting another Bible haiku meme. This one was just brought to my attention; it started way back in March of Ought Four. However, it's taken on a different life, having expanded to all sorts of religions, including Zoroastrianism, which is not based on the sacred pronouncements of a certain Mexican outlaw/hero.

"A Response To Murder: Strengthen The Good"

This is a meme worth getting behind. Found via Lileks, who, although being a relative cheapskate (just kidding, James, just kidding!), will through his post generate more funds for this worthy cause than the rest of us combined.

Me? I'm down for a double-and-a-half sawbuck. How about you?

Writer's Blogk

I've started more entries tonight than I can count, deleting each one before developing it. I had time to write but, apparently, fatigue from the family affairs I've been handling has left me powerless to communicate anything of import, interest, intrigue or amusement even to myself. Maybe another day.

Name the movie...

...that gave us the following lines of dialog:

Yeah...I've taken the gloves off on this one. No hints. At least, not right now, not until you beg for mercy.

I Couldn't Be Prouder...

Just noticed that the Gazette holds down the #1 position on Google (Canada*) for the following search term:

...thanks to this rambling post from last fall about the creative process. Or lack thereof. I'm truly humbled and wish to thank all the little people who made this honor possible. You know who you are.

*The Gazette comes in only at #4 for this search on Google Proper. Why is Google's database different for the Canadian audience?

Bible Book Haiku: Esther Taken...Anyone for Job?

Larry Stephey, founder of the "Bible Haikus" website, and its sister site, "Inspired Haikus," (more about both in a moment) has joined our little blog meme by submitting an entry for Esther:

Larry also provided some context for his verse:

According to the set-in-stone-hey-don't-blame-me-they're-the-rules rules of this meme, the next fortunate participant really needs to come up with something for the book of Job. And, the entire list of haikus to-date is found here.

Now, at the top of this post I mentioned a couple of other sites devoted to Bible-based haikus. These sites pre-date this current meme by years, but I was unaware of their existence when I proposed this little endeavor. Larry Stephey has been exceedingly gracious in not loosing hordes of lawyers on me for what has all the trappings of overt plagiarism. But, he obviously loves the idea of folks like you and me reading and thinking about the Bible, and then attempting to put our thoughts into haiku form, so he's encouraging (and even participating in!) this "independently parallel meme," as he referred to it when he first wrote to inform me of his sites. I likewise encourage you to visit his sites, where you can also submit verses for inclusion.

Keeping Out the SOBs

I had intended to let pass the recent MRT article detailing concerns and issues surrounding the possibility of "sexually-oriented businesses" (SOBs) moving into Midland. I think the City Council is wise to spend some time strategizing on the best way to craft and then enforce regulations that make it overly painful for SOBs to operate here.

Then I read this post and accompanying comments from the anonymous folks over at fellow Midland blog Jessica's Well, and I couldn't let it pass without adding my own two cents.

A couple of the commenters seem to be reading a lot more into current law enforcement efforts than is justified by an objective view of the situation. My perception of Sheriff Painter's diligence in enforcing the law is that he's doing precisely what I and the rest of my fellow "fundmentalist simpletons" (which apparently comprise about 80% of the voters of Midland County, based on past election results) want him to do. If he's overstepping the legal boundaries, as one commenter claims, well, let's see some evidence. The Texas Rangers haven't hesitated to jump into the middle of Midland law enforcement activities in the past, and I'm sure they'd be happy to do it again, as needed.

Another commenter appears to compare our law enforcement officers to the Taliban, which is hardly the way to extend any kind of meaningful dialog nowadays. The real burr under his (her?) saddle seems to be that someone in public office has a strongly held belief in God, sees right and wrong in terms of black and white, and performs his job not just out of a sense of political responsibility, but in response to strong convictions of moral obligation. There's a big difference in letting your morals inform your job performance, vs. making it your job to impose your morals on others. Despite the commenter's arm-waving, there's no basis for accusing the Sheriff of doing the latter.

The Sheriff is picking on SOBs. So what? Newsflash: It's Not Illegal. And, the people who chafe at that idea are the same ones who insist that airport security should never look closer at at young men of Middle Eastern descent carrying heavy duffel bags than they do at elderly grandmothers in wheelchairs. Those people call it "profiling." I call it going where the action is, or is likely to be. The fact that SOBs are now run by "sophisticated corporations" makes them no less a breeding ground for crime of all stripes, and any law enforcement strategy that doesn't single them out is simply lacking in common sense.

In closing, I'll be the first to uphold the right of the JW bloggers to write what they want. Most of the time, they are at least amusing, and even correct, more often than not. But in this case, some of them have revealed their true mindsets and it's disturbing. Since they are obviously too sophisticated and urbane for my "fundamentalist simpleton" outlook on life, I'll be dropping by less often in the future. There are plenty of other bloggers who do a much better job of mocking my beliefs.

More Bible Book Haiku

Dan, blogging From Behind the Wall of Sleep, got energetic and submitted three new Bible Book Haikus, including two from the Old Testament Apocrypha.

If you're tracking the progress of the canonical books, we've now completed Nehemiah, and someone will have the fortunate undertaking of summarizing a theme from the wonderful book of Esther. Might it be you?

The guidelines for this project are here, and all haikus submitted to-date are found here.

"Revolutions" & Redemption

You shouldn't be surprised to learn that I've been watching "The Matrix: Revolutions" the past two days during my wonderfully boring windtrainer workouts. Indeed, that's the only reason I could remember the short quote for the previous "Name the Movie" quiz.

Anyway, this is the first time I've seen the movie since watching it at the theater, and a couple of impressions stand out.

First, you probably have no idea of how truly insipid the dialog is until you watch it with subtitles. (I watch most DVDs during my workouts in this manner due to the noise of fans, bicycles, knee joints, etc.) Thankfully, the action generally distracts from this aspect of the film, but there are a few places where the action fails and the dialog sonambulizes. (Trinity's death scene comes to mind.)

The second thing I noticed this time around is just how much the climatic battle between Mr. Anderson/Neo and Agent Smith borrowed from the wonderfully cheesy "The Champion," a song written in the 80s and performed by Christian musician and actor Carman*.

If you're not familiar with this song, you've obviously never attended a youth gathering at an evangelical Christian church, where it has been a staple for years. (In fact, the parody site "The Lark News" has an article about banning the song in Iowa due to overuse.) The song is actually more of a dramatic reading, wherein Carman describes the ultimate showdown between Satan and Jesus Christ as a boxing match. Jesus beats Satan up and down the ring for a few rounds, and the angelic onlookers are suitably ecstatic, much to the chagrin of the demonic contingent (portrayed on the recording by Gollum and his extended family: "We hates His left upper cut, we do."). Suddenly, with victory seemingly assured, Jesus drops His hands and allows Satan to land a fatal blow. Of course, we know what's about to happen, but apparently Old Scratch never made it all the way through Revelation and he is aghast -- aghast, I tell you -- when The Ref (aka God) begins the count...only He's counting backwards, and as the numbers roll down, the lifeless body of Jesus begins to stir on the mat, and...well, the rest is history.

The similarities in the battle between the two Matrix enemies, and the fight described in this recording are almost eerie. We see Neo kicking Agent Smith's rear in a mighty way at the start, then they both land telling blows, and, ultimately, Agent Smith ends up standing over Neo's lifeless body. Or so he thinks.

But, amazingly, a Power From Without inexplicably infuses Neo's body and Agent Smith's confused, bitter and helpless rage comes forth in precisely the same fashion as Satan's reaction to the unstoppable resurrection of Jesus. "No! This can't be! This isn't how it's supposed to turn out!" and so on. What a whiner.

So, you've heard it here first, as the Gazette once again unearths a previously unrecognized connection: the Wachowski Brothers are longtime Carman fans. I'm sure confirmation will be found in the extensive additional material on the second DVD; I just hope there aren't any subtitles.

*For the record, I am not one of those who believes that Carman's music is an embarrassment to Christianity. I don't want a steady diet of his stuff, but he's written some excellent songs and I believe he's sincere and effective in sharing the Gospel.

Name the movie...

...that gave us this scintillating bit of dialog:

If you simply cannot proceed without a hint, drag your cursor over the next couple of lines to highlight the text.

Not the best, but not the worst, either.

Furry Animal Redemption

OK, I feel a wee bit of shame over making light of the death of a filthy vermin hard-luck mouse. Let me try to atone for this [possible] transgression by directing you to this tribute to bunnies. This will take your mind off mice.

[Link via Simon Willison's Blogmarks]

Of Mice and Men*

So...which do you think is worse: finding an empty mousetrap, or one which has done what it was designed to do?

It probably depends on whether you're viewing the situation with or without a Y chromosome. I was glad to see that little mousy corpse splayed out under the sink this morning, while MLB was disgusted. To me, the successful baiting (a piece of dog food secured with a blob of peanut butter [Jif extra crunchy, if you must know]) and planting of the trap reinforced my status as the hunter-protector of the household, although perhaps in MLB's eyes, I should never have allowed the verminary presence in our home to begin with. But she didn't dare say anything, because there still remained the Disposal Of The Body.

Face it, women are endowed by their Creator with the ability to do certain things that men can't fathom, like seeing dirty socks on the floor, for example. Tossing dead rodents isn't one of those things, generally speaking.

I'll admit that I wasn't really looking forward to it myself. I briefly contemplated whether I could rent a hazmat suit for the occasion, but decided that the plague was probably easily combated by the avoidance of mouth-breathing during the disposal.

And, as I held the little dead guy over the trash, I felt a little tinge of emotion, and a song popped into my head, unbidden, that seemed to capture the full schadenfreude of the situation:

And I saw very clearly an image of Toni Basil prancing about in that cute little cheerleader's outfit, pigtails waving in time to the dead mouse's tail that I was unconsciously dancing over the trashcan...

Ahem. That's not really the point, is it? The point is, we've rid ourselves of one bad guy, and I've set a second trap just to make sure he didn't bring a second. I can't wait to peek under the sink in the morning.

[*Oh, don't you claim that you wouldn't have stooped to the same title in a similar circumstance. I know you better than that!]

Abundantly Blessed

As I understand John 10:10, Jesus' intent in coming was that we might have abundant life - life that is full and meaningful. Being a mother on the eve of the holiday that honors those of us in the sisterhood of maternal community, I am distinctly aware of the blessings of fulness and abundance afforded to me by the experience of motherhood. As a follower of Jesus, I believe that God uses every experience in our lives as a part of His relentless effort to express His immeasurable love for us. I praise and thank Him for what I've learned, undergone and survived as a mom. And I pray that the life of Jesus Christ is demonstrated at least to some degree through my practice of the art and skill of mothering. May I continue to enjoy and appreciate this abundant life.

"Gone Fishing"

Not really; fishing bores me. But I won't be blogging this weekend, starting right after the next sentence, so take care and be blessed.

I don't know if Jasmine will be making an appearance over the weekend...feel free to check back!

Bible Book Haiku: Ezra

Previously...

And now...

Feel free to jump in; next up is Nehemiah! Here's how:

Your post should include:

1. the previous book's haiku;

2. a link to the post where the previous haiku appears;

3. your book and its related haiku; and,

4. these basic instructions.

All Bible Book Haikus to-date are here.

Napalming the Kitchen: Overreaction or Necessary Precaution?

One of the unavoidable steps in replacing windows in one's house is the removal of the existing windows. This will inevitably result in the leaving in the side of one's house what is technically referred to as "big freakin' holes," which may also be translated into verminese as "Grab the kids, Ethyl...the buffet is open!"

This situation was first called to my attention by MLB early Tuesday morning.

Her: When we went to bed last night, there were two pieces of food in Abbye's bowl.

Me: That's interesting.

Her, following a pause pregnant with possibility: The bowl is now empty.

[Cue soundtrack; discordant strings, please]
reek! reek! reek! reek!

Well. Unless Abbye had suddenly developed teleportation skills, ala Nightcrawler in X2, something else was cleaning her food bowl during the night.

I confirmed the suspicion this morning, finding two half-eaten pieces of dog food in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, along with the usual disgusting byproducts of rodentary metabolism.

OK, so we may have a mouse in the house but no need to grouse, my spouse (I said, inexplicably channeling the spirit of Theodor Geisel)...it's not like we're in danger of, say, bubonic plague.

Then I looked at the front page article in today's newspaper.

reek! reek! reek! reek!

This will, of course, call for drastic measures. In a former life, we called it "wetwork," IYKWIM...AISYD. The only question I'm now deliberating is whether we should try to save the house's foundation, or rebuild from the bedrock. Stay tuned...

Eluded by the Concept

The first message in my email inbox this morning was from a friend* who is still struggling a bit with this new-fangled technology:

We've all been there, facing new and seemingly incomprehensible technology which is indistinguishable from magic...perhaps at a different level, but the feeling and effect is still the same. My reply? "The one you used for this email will work just fine."

*Yes, it was really from her, and not a spoof.

Name the Movie...

...that gave us this bit of dialog:

If you just absolutely must have a hint, drag your cursor over the following line or two to highlight it.

The main characters in this movie made a couple of blockbusters together. This wasn't one of them.

Claytie Bags a Big 'Un

I see that Clayton Williams Energy (CWEI) is going to acquire Southwest Royalties, in a cash deal worth almost $200 mil. It's nice to see a Midland company get bought by another Midland company, although it still means that a few people will hit the streets.

This blurb from the announcement caught my eye:

3.6 years?! Holy cow...if that's not incentive to find an acquisition, I'm not sure what is.

One would normally expect to see the acquiring company's stock take a hit the trading day following an announcement like this, due to the increased debt load. In this case, however, the news on the reserves front might just bump CWEI up a few points.

Good for Claytie, and good for our many friends who work for him. I don't envy their increased workload, however, getting this deal closed and assimilated.

In a similar vein, Pioneer Natural Resources is acquiring Evergreen Resources in a merger valued at $2.1B. Many longtime Midlanders still hold a grudge against Pioneer for moving from Midland to the Metroplex years ago. But Scott Sheffield and Co. are laughing all the way to the bank (even as some of his ex-Parker & Parsley buds are cashing in and cashing out...and cashing in again, big-time. I heard tonight that Concho III is now funded, and Tim Leach is back in the game).

If you thought the oil bidness was interesting at $28, wait until you see what happens at $40+!

Lesson #46 in the series: "Posting When You Have Nothing To Say"

Just noticed that someone visited the Gazette by way of a Google search on "devil beating his wife." In fact, we're #6 on this extremely popular search phrase, and I'm considering trademarking it, ala Donald Trump.

"But," you're no doubt asking, "why does the phrase 'devil beating his wife' appear in the hallowed pages of the Gazette? What useful purpose could it possibly serve?"

Those are excellent questions, and, as always, I admire your perceptiveness. And, thus, it gives me great pleasure to point you to the post wherein the phrase is enshrined. It's one of my favorite posts, by the way. I could read it over and over again without growing weary of its lilting, almost ephemeral quality. Plus, it has snakes.

Here 'tis...with the unlikely title of "Cycling Musings."

Like I need Tech support to tell me that...

The Gazette's commenting woes continue today. If you try to leave a comment and get an error message, you can either keep trying, or give it up until later. The webhost's crack support team has been diligently seeking the source of the problem and here's what they've come up with:

Sheesh. I could have told them that. I've been suffering from a memory leak for as long as I can, um, remember.

Anyway, they've ordered more RAM (always a good thing) and say that we should be out of the woods in 24 hours. We'll see.

Now, what were we talking about?

Patrol Smacks Pound

It's been awhile since I've linked to one of Dawn Eden's posts; it's not for lack of quality linkage...I could easily make this the "All Dawn All Of The Time" blog, but, then, that's why she has a blog, right? But today's "Gym Dandy to the Rescue" is just too good to go unlinked, as we see (again) why it's best that "abortion advocates" steer a wide berth around the Dawn Patrol.

I love it when she talks pro-life!

Prayers for the Simple of Heart

Prayer is a big part of my life. I start each morning with a cup of coffee and a Bible, and spend the next thirty minutes reading and praying...with an emphasis on the latter. It's not always easy to get up at 5:30 a.m. to do this, but if I don't, I know that I'll miss it later in the day. It's a discipline that energizes.

I don't understand how prayer works. God's ways are generally incomprehensible to me. For example, I pray each morning for my brothers and sisters around the world who are being persecuted for their faith. I don't know why God allows that persecution to continue on such a wide scale; all I know is that Scripture tells us to prayer for the persecuted, and when you ask the persecuted what they covet more than anything else, it's the prayers of other believers. So I pray that, today, God will grant each of His children supernatural peace, endurance and even joy...joy such that even their persecuters will be drawn to Jesus, turning to good what was meant for evil, and expanding the Kingdom of God.

Sometimes I think I'm in a rut when I pray, because I tend to pray the same things every day. I use the ACTS sequence as my guide: adoration of the Father, confession of my daily sins, thanksgiving for blessings beyond number, supplication on behalf of those whom God has placed in my life and who have special needs that only He can meet. I try not to pray by rote, but it's hard, sometimes. I think God understands my weakness, and makes allowances for it. He's answered enough of my prayers that I've pretty much stopped worrying about that aspect of it.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the simple prayers. I guess I'm a simple guy; I'd like to be, anyway...shedding the complications and arguments that tend to distract me from what's important. Simple prayers speak to my would-be simple heart.

I've previously referred obliquely to one such prayer (well, two, actually) found in Anne Lamott's "Traveling Mercies":

"Whatever" and "Oh, well." Snapshots that capture God's faithfulness and His grace. They are exquisite in their distillation of truth...and they dismiss any argument about not having time to pray.

Another simple-but-theologically-rich prayer was shared by someone in our Sunday School group a couple of days ago. She heard it at a recent women's conference, where the speaker told of hearing a prayer voiced by a very young girl. "Jesus, I hope you have a good time in my heart today!"

God lovingly tolerates our epic prayers, but I suspect He reserves His broadest smiles for those simple ones coming from simple hearts.

Living in a Glass House

You'd think that we'd take a breather after the time and energy we put into building a state-of-the-art sleeping system practically from scratch. But, because we are, in fact, clinically insane, we've moved on to the next Big Project: the replacement of four windows in our house.

Twenty-plus years of west Texas sun and Midland water (from our sprinkler system) has taken its toll on our wooden Marvin windows. No reasonable amount of painting would have prevented the eventual deterioration...but we fell far short in this area, anyway. The piper must be paid.

So, as I sit in the living room typing this on my PowerBook, I'm excruciatingly aware that anyone passing by can just look right in and see that "10.5" is now appearing on our TV screen. [Oh man; they just lost the warhead down the hole...I hate it when that happens. Somebody's going to have to climb down there and, well, arm it manually. Where's Harry Stamper when we need him?]

This is because the installers began today with the dining room window. They managed to get the old one out and the new one in (and, believe me, we are grateful for that accomplishment) before calling it a day, but we are yet without window coverings.

But, this is really the least -- and shortest term -- of my worries. Because I know in my heart of hearts that once the new windows are all installed, the old window coverings just will not, of course, do.

In the first place, I think the chances of my winning the next Powerball drawing are better than the likelihood that the coverings will fit the new windows...and I don't buy lottery tickets. But, even if they did miraculously fit, I suspect that someone in this household might deem it inappropriate to put old coverings on new windows. This is not unlike the scriptural admonition against putting new wine in old wineskins, although the exact relevance escapes me at this point.

Thus, I'm sure these new windows are just the beginning of this project. In fact, I'll wager that I'll be boring you with the fallout from this process through the entire summer. I apologize in advance.

Cursing Comment Spammers

The Gazette is being assaulted by a comment spammer using a bogus email address with the domain of sexmuch.com. I've deleted about 30 of these idiot comments, all of which contain links to the endlessly-pitched anatomical enhancement website.

The only reason I mention this is that the jerk who is initiating this spam is hijacking IP addresses. Since my usual protocol for dealing with comment spammers is to immediately ban the IP address so that no future comments can be made with it, there's always the chance -- however remote -- that I've actually prevented a legitimate visitor from leaving a comment. If you find that you can't leave comments, please email me and I'll remove the ban. I apologize in advance if this problem occurs, but I don't know of a better way to minimize repeat attacks.

Thanks for your understanding.

P.S. I know that MT has a plug-in that deactivates comments after a post reaches a certain age, but I don't want to cut off discussion for all older posts. I still get meaningful comments on some posts which are almost a year old, and I like that capability.

An Unimpressive Start

I apologize for the lack of posting after such a kind introduction by Eric. The family business to which I attended this weekend will continue into the early part of this week. My big brother, Eric, will have plenty of worthwhile reading matter for you as usual. (My husband is still chuckling and ribbing me about the confusion as to whose wife I really am.)

Jasmine...Clarified

Based on some feedback received from our valued readers, it appears that I need to clarify something about my new co-blogger, Jasmine.

It is true that we are both married...but not to each other! I suppose it was naive on my part not to anticipate that some might jump to the conclusion that Jasmine is MLB. But, Jasmine is a good friend and, really, more like a sister (OK...a younger sister; I can anticipate your reaction, Jas...) to me. And she is most definitely a sister in Christ.

I hope you'll now be able to place Jasmine's future posts into the proper context, now that we've cleared up this amusing (well, to me...I think Jasmine was horrified) misunderstanding.

More Bible Book Haiku...

Bryan at Arguing With Signposts has jumped into the Bible Book Haiku project with this verse about 2 Chronicles...

Name The Movie...

...that gave us this bit of dialog:

If you need a hint, drag your cursor over the following text to highlight it:

The movie was filmed in black and white.