23 March 2010

So here’s a rather small scale model of the USS Enterprise: CLICK THIS.

It’s small. It’s amazingly small. 8.8 microns. To put that into perspective, if you lined 113 of them up end-to-end, they still wouldn’t be as thick as dime (I’m talking the skinny side of the dime – not the diameter). I just think it’s really great when scientists use their know-how to do something marvelous for the human race like this.

Here’s another link: NOW CLICK THIS. I felt compelled to write this article after watching said episode. Something like this happened last season on Survivor, too. One contestant prayed to her god to help her team win the challenge. They didn’t, but I think she continued to believe in her god after he failed her so miserably. Maybe her god was busy in Haiti that week, who knows?

I also found out today that my work was accepted into Hamline’s book of student stuff titled The Fulcrum. (Sorry, I don’t have a link for you to click this time.) This is kind of amazing because, last year, when I first found out about the Fulcrum, I made it a goal to submit something. That was in September. The deadline was something like December 3rd. All through October and November, I kept meaning to write something, but I was busy with other matters. So, finally, like the day before the deadline, I had to take the day off work because our baby-sitter canceled on us. So I took Owen to preschool, and then had three hours to spend at the local library. I was all caught up on my schoolwork, so I wrote an essay real quick, and sent it in about 15 minutes before the noon deadline. Apart from Word’s auto-spellcheck, there was pretty much no editing.

In a way, though, it’s not at all amazing that my work was accepted. After all, the editor-in-chief shares my last name. I’ve never met her but, hey, nepotism must work at all levels of human endeavor, right?

21 March 2010

I was at my niece’s birthday party today. From the looks of things, there are two types of toys that girls can have: toys with Disney Princesses on them, or toys with Barbie on them.

Have I mentioned that I hate Disney? No, not Walt Disney, the pioneering cartoonist and film-maker. I’m talking about the media giant that has sunk its tentacles into every aspect of childhood. I can’t stand the way they extend copyrights, sue quasi-copyright infringements, market junk and proclaim it as the next “classic” and ruin otherwise perfect Pixar films by slapping their logo on the beginning.

Anyway, nothing seems worse than those princesses directed at little girls. I can’t quite figure out why Disney seems to think that, in order to be somebody, you have to be royalty. I thought my ancestors fought some big war a while back to throw off those royal tyrants. And, actually, now that I think about it, the best Disney cartoons are the ones about non-royalty: Dumbo, Bambi, Pinocchio, and all that early stuff with that mouse and that duck. The British royal family is just a waste of UK tax-payers’ money. It shouldn’t even exist anymore. It’s just something everyone over there is afraid to get rid of, kind of like the way Americans are with their gods.

The bigger crime, though, is the look of these picture-perfect princesses. They look so fake and phony (is that redundant?), like they all went to Glamour Shots. The story, as first told in Snow White, then repeated in Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and probably that new movie with the obnoxious alligators (oh – and if you click this link, the site shows you a montage of prior Disney princesses, in case you forgot that this is just another rehash), is this: if a young girl wants to make something of herself, she needs to:

1 – be pretty. If you’re not naturally pretty, like, say, Snow White, try to employ witchcraft. Maybe some fairy can turn your rags into a prom dress or – more drastically – you can contract with a sea hag for major body alterations.

2 – catch the attention of a rich, handsome man. Yeah, that’s right, even if you’re a princess (what is that, like third in line for the crown?), your best bet is still to just lie around all day waiting for a Prince Smarming. You can literally lie around, like Snow White, or that chick from Sleeping Beauty, or figuratively lie around, chilling with your pet tiger.

3 – well, honestly, there is no #3. Because, let’s face it, once a girl has grown up into a 16 year old woman (that’s how old Ariel is on her wedding day), and has snagged someone with that coveted XY combo, there’s really nothing left to achieve. And that’s why the movie is always over at this point.

Hm, I was going to mention Barbie, with her gravity-defying bosom and permanently-ready-for-stilettos feet, but you get the point.

22 March 2010

While at Mississippi Market today, we recruited assistance from one of the employees to get us some bulk pop-corn. As the employee stretched out to grab a bag for us, I noticed her tattoo. She was wearing a button shirt, but the top two (maybe three) buttons weren’t fastened. emblazoned on her sternum was something that looked like this:

I only saw it for a second, but wow…if that didn’t look like Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I don’t know what does. Later, as she was ringing up our items, I could only see the very, um…Northern shore of her tattoo.

So now I bet you’re wondering three things:

1) How can I be sure it was Michigan’s UP?

Because, I’m just THAT good at geography. It’s my favorite Trivial Pursuit category. One of my favorite past-times in junior high school was correcting teacher’s when they got their geography facts wrong. I once asked a table of co-workers if any of them ever noticed that Wisconsin looks like Tanzania, and they all gave me a look that said: “Wow, I bet you could spot Michigan’s UP on a tattoo in less than 0.5 seconds.

2) Why would someone get a tattoo of Michigan’s UP?

I don’t know! Isn’t it great, though? I mean, everyone gets hearts, crosses, names. How many people get a road map?

3) Did she also have the Lower Peninsula?

Ooh… I could’ve asked …but that might have gotten me thrown out of the store.

19 March 2010

I invited myself to join my co-workers in going out to lunch today. I usually don’t go with them when they head out for lunch because, for one thing, I’m too cheap to buy lunch at a restaurant (or the cafeteria) everyday. Second, I usually have stuff I want to take care of during my break – writing this blog, running errands, reading a book, doing my homework, stuff like that. But, today, I just felt like doing something social.

In fact, so many people from my department went out to lunch together, that I joked that it was kind of like a department meeting. I was exaggerating, of course, but this has been quite the month for our department. Early in the month, one co-worker quit. Less than two weeks later, another co-worker quit. As of today, my department employs exactly 50% of the people that it employed when we were at our peak (14 from 28). And they’re gonna be announcing lay-offs soon, too, so it’s feasible the department could shrink even more. It’s feasible, actually, that I could be one of the people laid-off. So, stay tuned.

20 March 2010

Happy vernal equinox!

Today, we went to Olive Garden for lunch. While there, I asked Jennifer if she had any hand lotion in her purse. She said she didn’t, and the following conversation ensued:

ME: You have gotta have the most useless purse contents of any woman I’ve ever lived with.

SHE: You’ve never lived with any other women.

ME: Um…my sister, my mom, both my grandmothers –

SHE: Well of course they’d have the same stuff you’d need in their purses.

ME: What’s that supposed to mean?

SHE: It means they all have OCD, just like you, so they carry all that stuff you always want.

ME: Huh. That’s probably true.

Man, the passion just never ends in our relationship.

If men could carry purses, here are ten things I’d keep in my purse: my keys, my wallet, Advil, lip balm, hand lotion, a pen, a small notepad, a multi-purpose knife, a few tissues, a flask with some hard, hard liquor in it.

17 March 2010

In class today, we watched the motion picture A Raisin in the Sun. No, not the 1961 version, the 2008 version. We watched the 1961 version last week. That means that in one week, I saw 4 movies for school-related projects.

Here’s what I gotta say about the two Raisins: if you’re in the mood for a film version of Hansberry’s famous play…skip the new one and proceed directly to the older version. Without going in to detail (’cause that’s what I’m gonna do for my class paper), let me delineate a few reasons why the older one is to be preferred:

1961: Sydney Poitier and Ruby Dee

2008: Puff Daddy and John Stamos

I think that pretty much says it all. In fairness, I felt Phylicia Rashad gave a superior performance of the Lena/Mama character, but…that’s about the only good thing I can say about the 2008 version. The newer version was also a made-for-TV production (automatic demerits), it’s longer, the dialogue features anachronistic slang, and the music (to paraphrase one of my classmates) was Disney.

To summarize —

1961: Sydney Poitier and Ruby Dee

2008: Puff Daddy and John Stamos

18 March 2010

I opened our Volkswagen Jetta’s glove compartment this afternoon.

As I’ve indicated earlier, we plan to pawn off our hecho en Mexico money pit in the near future and, consequently, I figured it was time to pry open the dashboard Ark of the Covenant and see what was in there.

To explain: a few years ago (spring 2006?) I went to open the glove compartment, and the handle broke off. I tried digging my fingers in there to open it, and I tried shimmying the lock mechanism with my keys, but I just couldn’t do it. One day, I brought a crowbar out to the Jetta and tried to open it. I would’ve succeeded, too, except a last minute decision to not permanently deface the car gave me a change of heart.

After a while, the glove compartment turned into a kind of forced, unplanned time capsule. I forgot what was in there and, since we hardly ever used it anyway, it didn’t seem like a big deal.

Well, a few days ago, while stopped at a light, I jabbed a small screwdriver in the lock and, viola! (or, presto!, if you prefer), the left-side latch unhooked. With the compartment half open, and ownership soon terminating, I decided to walk out to my Jetta during my lunch break today (with large screwdriver in hand) and finish the job. Unfortunately, the right-side latch wouldn’t budge, so I had to force it, but I didn’t hear anything break, so I think I could still close it again if I wanted.

At any rate, for the first time in years, human eyes laid eyes on the contents of the glove compartment. Talk about a lame-ass time capsule. Contents included:

-A matchbook

-A map of Sherburne County

-Directions to my sister’s house

-Another small screwdriver (jeez, I guess I have a lot of screwdrivers laying around)

-A tire pressure gauge

-A brochure advertising Big Lake Automotive (that’s a great place to bring your car, by the way)

-A receipt from April, 2006 for one of the Jetta’s 500 car repairs.

-Directions to our friends’, the Kimballs, house (they don’t even live in that house anymore)

-Directions to my sister-in-law’s townhouse (she doesn’t live in that house anymore, either)

-Directions to my brother-in-law’s house (wow – did we know where anything was back then?)

-And these:

They’re candles. Tea light candles, to be precise. Over the years of hot summers and cold winters they’ve apparently expanded, melted and spilled over the edges of their original containers. Notice the candle on the left: the wick has been completely enveloped by the wax. Meanwhile, the other two candles have conjoined to form a hybrid super-candle.

I can’t wait to go hunting for my next long-lost lame-ass treasure! Stay tuned!

15 March 2001

Today Jennifer and I went to St. Thomas University to hear a presentation by James Loewen, author of one of my absolute favorite books, Lies My Teacher Told Me. Loewen was an amazing speaker, with great humor, animation, some self-deprecation thrown in. During his presentation, I learned more about the history of our nation than I did in three years of high school history (though that’s not saying much).

For example: have you ever heard of Sundown Towns? Those are towns that put up signs, rang sirens, and even enacted ordinances to keep out Blacks. Their heyday was during the first 4 decades of the 20th century and, Loewen claimed, there were over 500 in Ilinois alone. Closer to home, he cited Edina as Minnesota Sundown Town. I guess, in the 1920s, Edina’s slogan was “Not one Negro, Not one Jew.” Loewen says Edina has made good progress in the past 80 years, because now they have one of each. Ha! Now that’s funny.

Loewen began his presentation by polling the audience. He said: raise your hand and vote on what you feel was the cause of the Southern States’ secession from the Union in 1860. Here were the choices:

1. Slavery

2. States’ rights

3. Lincoln’s election

4. Taxes and tariffs (issues)

Loewen conducted this survey to prove a point, that being how uninformed Americans are about their own history. Now, the trouble is, I don’t think the survey was fair (and I say this as someone who selected the correct answer). Take a look at those choices. Which one would you pick? If you’re like most people in the audience, you probably think: “Well, it can’t be #1, because that’s what I’ve been taught to believe, and Loewen is here to argue that I was taught wrong.” Then you probably think: “It might be #4, because that’s the last one, and if the correct answer were to appear sooner than that, it would wreck the ‘gimmick’ he’s got going on.” Then you might think: “I’ll just raise my hand slowly, after everyone else has, and just go with the majority.”

Loewn claimed that the correct answer was #1, though he admitted #3 was an acceptable response as well (that’s the one I picked). Interestingly, about 65% of the audience picked #2, and Loewen claimed that was the exact wrong response, because the South was not against states’ rights, they were for them. In which case, I cry foul – the above options did not stipulate if the Southern states were for or against any of the options above, it merely listed the reasons neutrally, as I have shown.

But I hate to rip on the good Professor. Overall, I’d say it was one of the 5 or 6 best talks I have ever listened to (and THAT’S saying something).

16 March 2010

The three of us took a walk today. On our way back home, we were stopped by a tall older man, with an eye patch and a white cane. (I’ve included a link here so you’ll know what I’m talking about, ’cause I didn’t know what it was called until I looked it up, and I didn’t want to say “that thing that blind people have”.)

Anyway, he asked us if we heard about the deer, the skunk, and the duck.

“Um, no, we haven’t,” I said, not sure what to expect.

“Well,” he began, happy for the opening, “The deer, the skunk, and the duck go into a bar and they have some drinks. When they’re done, do you know who paid?”

“Um, no.”

“Well, the deer didn’t have a buck, the skunk didn’t have a (s)cent, so they put it all on the duck’s bill.”

Ba-dum-POW! More hilarity!

Also today, Owen and I played with his microscope. We looked at protozoans and human hair. More importantly, though, I want to point out the box that houses the microscope. Check this out:

Okay, so I hope you can see that the side of the box lists some of the features of the microscope. It also shows five pictures inside circles. Though it doesn’t say, I think it’s safe to assume these are some of the sights you can see when you use the scope. One looks like an amoeba, another one looks like a close up of a leaf, or maybe it’s a feather. But the one on bottom right, well, have a look for yourself:

Um…that’s sperm. SPERM! Holy crap!

Now, just to be clear here: my wife and I do not shelter our son from the “facts of life” (god, whatever happened to Charlotte Rae?). When he asks where babies come from, we tell him. When he asks how the baby got in there, we tell him. We also promote learning, especially about the sciences. In fact, I think looking at sperm through the scope might be quite fascinating. So, what floors me is not the adult content, nor the idea of learning about such things. What floors me is this: how do the microscope’s manufacturers expect these young explorers to collect this specimen?