Wednesday, 08 February 2012

So…Two events happened in my life in the last 24 hours that are both, well, weird.

First: Yesterday, in class, the professor asked for thoughts on a certain chapter we were assigned to read. I raised my hand. This was about an hour into the class, and I – as always – was an active participant during that whole hour. The professor scanned the room and said, “Okay, I’m looking for someone beside James.” A couple students looked at me, as if to say, “That’s weird.” Later during the class period, the professor said something similar.

Then, today, I attended the biweekly Toastmasters meeting. During Table Topics, which is the portion of the meeting dedicated to extemporaneous speaking, the Table Topics Master called upon me to come up an deliver an impromptu speech. So I did. A few minutes later, when it was time to evaluate the main speeches, I got up and evaluated the first speech, since, after all, that was my job at today’s meeting. Then, when a fellow club member got up to evaluate speech #2, he began by saying that he wished he didn’t have to follow me.

About five minutes later, the Grammarian got up to deliver their report and, after citing some of the “ums” and “ahs” that other speakers said during their speeches, she looked back down at her notes and said, “I’m not even going to talk about you James, because you’re in a league of your own.”

Huh.

This is weird stuff to me. At both school and work, I feel much like a junior to many of my peers. This “junior” feeling is not based on chronology (because, after all, I’m not the youngest in any situation at school or work), but on ability, experience, and training. So…it’s kind of weird to be singled out as exceptional like this. And it’s not just a case of “good job, James, you get an A on this assignment” or “James, I enjoyed your speech today.” No, instead, it’s a case of, “The normal metrics we use to gauge our progress do not apply to you.”

So, I suppose they are compliments. But these occurrences are also weird (are you sick of me using the word “weird” yet? I know I am). In class yesterday, for example, how do I react or respond to the professor’s comment? On the one hand, I guess I’m on track to get an A in the participation portion of the class, but on the other hand, i’m being silenced for having already said too much. Would it be better if the professor just paused for a few seconds to see if other hands go up? Or maybe she just meant it as a joke – “James, you raise your hand all the time and, thank you for that, but I need to get these other students to share their opinions, too.” And in Toastmasters today, a co-worker joined me as a guest today, and it was kind of embarrassing to be singled out like that. Both times, my co-worker nodded at me as if to say, “Well, I guess you have quite a reputation here.”

Anyway, I don’t know what to say. I just think it’s weird. You probably think I just sound extremely cocky right now, which, I’m sure, confirms your suspicions.

Thursday, 09 February 2012

 Here are some recent photos:

Look at all the nerds I live with! I snapped this photo over the weekend.Guess what they’re watching? A vintage Sesame Street YouTube video? A music video from children’s troubadour Raffi? Some cute kid video that was spammed to us? No, no, and no. They’re watching a video on the evolutionary development of life on Earth over the past billion years. Like I said, NERDS!

My wife took this picture earlier this week:

That’s my daughter wearing Jennifer’s glasses. She’s not allowed to play with them since, you know, 18 month-olds are prone to destroy eyewear. But, in the bustle of the morning, Isla clandestinely absconded with the. Sorry if this exceeds your RDC* limit.

 Today we attend a Physics Force presentation at the Minneapolis Convention Center. It was similar to the program Owen and I attended in November. In fact, I would say there was about a 1/3 overlap between the two events (both presentations were put on by the same people). But today’s presentation was longer, louder, and more engaging. Owen thoroughly enjoyed it. He laughed at the corny jokes and he even got a thrill out of the metal drum that collapses under air pressure. This gives off a loud boom that, in November, scared him. But today he was expecting the loud boom, and even prepped my wife for what was aobut to happen.

Here’s a picture of him in front of the stage:

Do you see how thrilled he is?

*Recommended Daily Cuteness

Sunday, 05 February 2012

Today we tried to watch the Super Bowl. My wife even prepared chili in our crockpot. Unfortunately, we discovered the Big Game was set to air on NBC. Around here, that’s channel 11.

We don’t get channel 11.

Not sure why, but our antenna does not pick it up at all. This is another example of technology regressing: if TV was still broadcast analog, we would have been able to pick up something, even if it wasn’t very good. But, no, thanks to digital, all we had was a black screen.

“Hey,” you say, “Why don’t you guys get cable?”

“Hey,” I answer, “Because I don’t feel like paying for 20 channels I won’t watch just to get one channel that I intend to tune in once a year.”

My wife tried all sorts of MacGyver maneuvers to get NBC into our home, but nothing worked. We even received an 11th hour invite to a friend’s home, but since we are all quasi-sick (it’s how we spend our Februaries), we decided to stay home.

I discovered that, for the first time ever, the Super Bowl would be streaming online. So I proposed that we set our laptop up in the living room, hook up the speakers, and watch it that way. Yes, that is a small screen, but it’s not like we really care about the Super Bowl.

The first thing we discovered was that the streaming would not work on my laptop; it kept closing my internet browser for no reason. So we used my wife’s computer. However, the external speakers didn’t work on her computer (which is very odd since our headphones work just fine), so she just turned up the volume on her laptop as loud as possible, which still is not loud enough.

Once the Big Game began, we enjoyed our chili, along with barely-audible sound and a constantly freezing stream. When the first commercials commenced, we realized we weren’t watching the Super Bowl commercials, but a crappy trio of commercials designed especially for people watching online:

-A series of commercials featuring Rainn Wilson. I think I saw about ten of these commercials, and I still can’t tell you what they were advertising.

-A series of commercials extolling the wonders of GE. Since NBC is owned by GE (the three notes struck when the NBC logo appears are, fittingly, G, E, and C), this was basically an “aren’t we awesome?” bragfest.

-A series of commercials advertising an upcoming movie titled Act of Valor, which looks like it was paid for by the Department of War Defense. It might be an interesting movie if it didn’t look just like 500 other movies in the budget bin at KMart. I think the plot is something like a hey-look-how-brave-we-are-that-we-got-our-own-men-out-of-a-place-they-shouldn’t-have-been-in-the-first-place kind of thing.

At half time, there was no Madonna, just a black screen with words telling us the program would resume soon.

Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. We’ll never know. We shut down the laptop and did something far more interesting. We went to sleep.

Online Super Bowl Streaming: F

Monday, 06 February 2012

I dropped off my taxes today.

Yeah, I gotta admit defeat. In 2010, I made a major blunder in doing my taxes; a blunder that would have caught me several hundred dollars had a friend not casually mentioned one item I missed. It took two letters to the always-helpful IRS to get matters straightened out. After that, Jennifer said I should just admit that our lives are too complicated now for me to continue doing our taxes myself.

Problem is, I always hated the idea of having to pay someone else to do my taxes.

In fact, there was only once in my life that a professional did my taxes: in the tax season after I turned 18, I received a coupon from H&R Block saying that they would do my taxes for free. So I stopped in. It took them about ten minutes. Other than that, I have received help from time to time. Another friend (not the same as the one mentioned above) did my taxes for me one year and, for a couple of years, my mother-in-law-to-be did my taxes. But over the years, I kept on top of things just enough to know how to do them. For a time, I was even the go-to guy at work when co-workers had questions about their tax forms.

But after 2010’s blunder, Jennifer strongly suggested we have them prepared professionally.

So, I put the word out, and a co-worker suggested STAT Enterprise in Crystal (and they don’t even appear to have a website, otherwise I’d put a link RIGHT HERE). For about $60, they did my taxes and filed them online.

Today, I dropped my taxes off there again. It’s a little embarrassing to say, “Hey, my life is so complicated, I don’t even understand it anymore” or, perhaps more correctly, “I’m too stupid to do this here cypherin’ correctly,” but what can you do?

Call STAT Enterprise, I guess. No, really, call them: 612-481-3283. Tell them James sent you. That way I’ll get a kickback.

Tuesday, 07 February 2012

Things I did today…

-Dropped off internship papers with my adviser

-Attended class at Hamline

-Put in a 6.5 hour day at work

-Met up with a woman who contacted me on Craig’s List and sold her a lamp

-Returned a set of office chair casters to Office Max

-Sold a shirt and book to Once Upon a Child

-Filled my car’s tank with gasoline

-Faxed in papers to the accountant who is doing our taxes

-Installed a bumper sticker on my car’s trunk

-Signed up to volunteer at St. Paul’s Annual Citywide Clean-up

-Signed up for a health evaluation to take place at work next week

-Signed up to attend Physics Force 2012

-Dined at IKEA, where we serendipitously met up with friends and shared a table with them.

-Obtained the correct office chair caster we needed (also at IKEA)

-Read a chapter out of the book for class

-Watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie

-Updated this blog

-Read two chapters from The Kidnapped King with my son

Yikes, no wonder I’m tired.

Saturday, 04 February 2012

Have you seen the billboards Minnesota Atheists and American Atheists have put up in Minneapolis and St. Paul lately?

If not, here’s an article about them.

Here’s another one.

And here’s another one, complete with footage from a local news crew.

Here’s the one in St. Paul:

And here’s the one in St. Paul’s suburb, Minneapolis:

Let me tell you what you’re thinking: they’re ugly. Yep, they certainly are. When prototypes were posted online, my one and only contribution to the discussion was, “I don’t think you could pick a worse font than Comic Sans.” Well, they didn’t go with Comic Sans, they went with Chalk, which, to many people, is indistinguishable.

The other, general ugliness was due to an attempt to emulate pro-life billboards (you know, the one’s that say, “Daddy! Save me from Mommy’s body!” and “I could fart five days from conception.”

Let me tell you what else you’re thinking: That’s not the best message. Yeah, I agree. I think the “born-again” idea is funny, but it might turn off people who are “on the fence.”

Still, considering the main idea is to show non-believers that they’re not alone, I think they do the job, especially since I know people have contacted both organizations saying they were, until now, unaware there were atheist groups in the metro area. And, in fact, Minnesota Atheists’ Meetup site has seen the biggest jump of its five year history, increasing by 35 members since the billboards went up two weeks ago.

But here’s the funny thing: Though this has certainly peeved a few theists (watch the above video for that), none of them have commented on the easy targets: bad font and color choice. One of them wrote to me. Not sure why…maybe because I’m listed as the editor of the newsletter and that means I MUST be responsible for the billboards. And while I don’t think he’s representative of most theists, he is the only one who wrote to me about the billboards.

Anyway, he wrote to me and said:

> So you nutcases are now concerning yourself over how people raise their children?  My God, just when you  Think you’ve heard it all, the circus comes back to town. I think I’m going to start concerning myself Over how the people on the next block over cut their grass. Makes about as much sense. You people Really should get a life. By the way, are you NOT teaching your children to be aethiest’s, go ahead lie, say you aren’t. What’s The difference? None. Even a moron can’t argue trhat.

(Speling, Capitalization, and grammary errors were in original message.)

So I wrote back and said:

Mr. Corn:
Thank you for your email; it has been great to hear from a diverse group of Minnesotans. As you probably can surmise, one of the billboards’ purposes is to raise awareness of the atheist community here in Minnesota, so emails like yours show that they are doing their
job!
Your email indicates an unease regarding atheists being concerned about how children are raised. Yes, of course atheists are concerned about how children are raised! We all should be and, in fact, I think most people – regardless of ethnicity, age, religion, economic bracket, or sexual orientation – are concerned with how children are raised. Contrary to your assertion, I believe how my neighbors raise their children is infinitely more important than how they cut their grass. To that end, we as a society have seen fit to enact laws
protecting our children and punishing those who harm them. We also use our tax dollars to educate our children and to provide assistance to parents who, due to limited resources, are unable to feed, clothe, or shelter their children.
Of course, as a diverse society, we do not always agree on how to best care for children. There are many examples I could cite here, but the most relevant has to do with religion. I’m sure you would agree, for example, that the men who carried out the events of 9/11 would have been better citizens had they not been indoctrinated with religion.
So, the religious indoctrination of others, and their children, affects us all.
You are correct that most aethiest’s [sic] naturally raise their children free of religion. Catholic parents, by comparison, likewise raise their children as Catholics. In that way, there is no difference. However, in this society, we are free to express our views and to claim them as preferably to other methods. To use my own parenting as an example, some people may feel it is proper to beat their children. I feel that is not an effective or loving way to raise children, so I do not beat my children. I teach them to not hit other people. I would support a billboard campaign that read “Please do not beat your children.” Of course, someone like you would be correct to assume that I teach my children to not beat up other people and, in that way, I am not different than someone who instructs their children
to beat up people. But rather than just noting that all parents raise their children to share their values, a more effective way to dissent would be to offer specific criticisms or to provide evidence as to why your viewpoint is superior.
I hope this gives you a clearer understanding of the billboards’ message.
Truth be told, however, I did not personally play a role in this billboard campaign. I am therefore attaching the Minnesota Atheists’ Board of Directors to this email; perhaps they can offer further insights or clarifications on the matter.
Thank you again for writing and, by the way, the word is spelled “ATHEISTS.” Even a moron can’t argue trhat [sic].

So he wrote back:

The point is that in this overly Liberal society we are having forced down our throat, some people
Have taken it upon themselves to be excessively concerned over other people business. It works both ways.
I was not specifically addressing the situation of violence, hunger, and education, merely the idea of
The mentality of “meddling” in someone else’s affairs. Some people might object to tricycles, where does it end.
Would you like to be dragged into a courtroom simply because some group thought tricycles were “inappropriate” for
Children? I hope not.   P.S. Exremists always show their true colors in the end. Re:
the word is spelled “ATHEISTS.” Even a moron can’t argue trhat

So I wrote back:

Mr. Corn:
I am not a fan of billboards, either. I feel they clutter the landscape and distract drivers. However, I don’t think it’s quite fair to say that messages displayed on billboards are being “forced down our throat;” to the contrary, they are quite passive.
You are right, some people might object to tricycles and, in this society, they are free to litigate against tricycles. I guess I would need to know more about the objection before passing judgement. Are tricycles the number one killer of preschoolers? Does the paint on tricycles make children sick? Are they manufactured in unsafe conditions?
People can and have litigated against all sorts of apparently benign apsects of childhood: stollers, cribs, and baby formulas. Some of the claims have merit and, regardless, I think it’s good to hear them out.
Atheists feel that religion causes much damage in our society and that people would be better off without it. A billboard message requesting that parents not indocrinate children with one worldview but, instead, teach them to think for themselves is among the most passive methods of getting this message across.
Finally, regarding my correction of your spelling: I meant it tongue-in-cheek. My attempt at humor evidently failed but, you are correct, it does reveal my true colors in that I am a stickler regarding the language and I enjoy a good joke. If we are talking about “true colors,” I think addressing a group of people as “nutcases” and telling them to “get a life” speaks volumes.

So he wrote back:

society we are having forced  down our throat……I didn’t mention BILLBOARDS…..

the paint on tricycles make children sick?….Yeh, two cases in 51 years, lets ban ‘em all………..

Let’s all “litigate” against something, ANYTHING, please any any anything………it’s the America way.

I’m perfectly fine with you and your “organizations” beliefs. My opinion about these matters is more in regard

To such notions as, we will sue you if you put up a cross, but in the meantime

We can put up a billboard stating our objection to it. Once again, for those who have not read the constitution, a cross

On a watertower has NOTHING to do with religion and government promoting it. But those that don’t understand

The Simplicity in this now, never will, so the argument is moot.

Another perfect example, people of the Muslim

Faith are specifically exempted for O’bungle’s healthcare mandate. So typical of this group of sideshow entertainers

that wound up in the White House. What could be a more obvious example of government promoting a religion?

I’m telling you, people in this country are about fed up with this dog and pony show that used

To be the greatest country on earth. This one guy don’t like it, the the rest of 350,000,000 can

Go without mindset is ruining this country.

Anyway, have a nice day. Nothing personal, I’m just saying the pendulum always swings, historically,

in the matter of social extremism. It usually takes about 20 years to go full cycle. Someday it will

be alright to have a Santa Clause in the mall again, and our children will no

longer be taught the roll homosexuality has played in history.

Later, dude……..gotta read RT, MHz Worldwide, BBC, etc and see whats really happening in the world today, rather than the liberal bias

medias interpretation of it.

So I wrote back:

Mr. Corn:
For the record, I would never pursue a lawsuit against people’s rights to organize and install a cross on their property, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find an atheist who would.
I think your thoughts in this exchange would make interesting reading for the atheist community as an example of the response the billboards have generated. I will use it in a future issue of The Minnesota Atheist, but please let me know if this is unacceptable.
Thank you again.

Thursday, 02 February 2012

This morning, I began another class at Hamline. Though dropping out of classes has become somewhat of a hobby of mine at Hamline, Jennifer is insistent that I not drop out of this one.

I had a class by this professor before. In fact, that’s one reason why I chose the class: if I see that a teacher is not a dipshit, I attempt to take more classes by the same teacher, thereby limiting my exposure to such dipshits.

When the professor asked what we were expecting when we signed up for this class, I raised my hand and (referencing the online description) said: “I expect to watch a lot of films.”

The professor, remembering me, said something like, “James, James, James,” which I think means, “You silly boy.” She then spent about 20 minutes explaining that we’d be watching documentaries, not films.

Later, she told the class that she grades more on improvement rather than on overall performance, so if we totally botch the first exam, don’t lose heart: she’s interested in how well we can turn that fumble around. I, therefore, plan to simply doodle on the first exam.

This evening, I once again hosted Atheists Talk. Tonight was a two-parter: first, I interviewed co-worker and GLBT rights activist Arthur Schultz, who gave info on why the freethought community should support GLBT rights, particularly by helping to defeat the asinine anti-marriage ballot initiative. Part two featured a discussion between me, Eric Jayne and Mindy Rhiger about Richard Dawkins’ latest book The Magic of Reality.

Friday, 03 February 2012

Owen has been sick for two days now. I took the day off of work to help out with Owen, especially since Isla has a class in the morning, Jennifer has an appointment around lunchtime, and I have to meet with my advisor at Hamline this afternoon.

I took Isla to her music class today. It’s held in a meeting room at one of the local libraries. I had a fun time, even if it is a little strange to just start singing and dancing around a bunch of other moms and dads (just one dad) that I’ve never met before.

Isla’s class is Music Together. The instructor knew her stuff. She kept pulling out a pitch pipe to ensure she was singing on key, and it appeared she had absolutely no inhibitions about said singing and dancing. She also knew how to keeps the kids entertained and interested, spicing things up with various dances, tossing bright scarves around the room, letting the kids play with instruments (they all took a turn at “strumming” the guitar) and just letting them do what they wanted when they wanted. For Isla, this meant that instead of using the drumsticks to beat the floor in rhythm, she would just hold the sticks in her hands and spin in a circle. Later, she attempted to escape over the gate. No one seemed to mind, though if there’s one thing that makes me more self-conscious than singing children’s songs with my daughter, it’s singing children’s songs without my daughter.

Anyway, I’m glad I went.

Also today, here are Bill Maher’s new rules regarding theists who seem to think it’s a stunning argument to claim that athiesm is a religion:

Monday, 30 January 2012

I dropped a couple of books off at the library book drop this morning.

I normally don’t do that. Almost always, when I have books to return, I also have books to pick up, so I just go into the library. In fact, even if I don’t have anything waiting for me, I still go into the library to return books. This encourages me to get off my ass, for one thing, and it also gets me to browse the shelves.

But there are three things I dislike about most library book drops:

1) They’re too high.

About twenty years ago, when Americans started driving Ford Land Destroyers en masse, fast food dives, banks, pharmacies, libraries, and any other place with a drive-though window began installing such windows really high. I guess they figure us losers down in our Chevy Cavaliers can more easily reach way up than the SUV snobs can slightly lean down. It’s a stupid design and I’d imagine people shorter than me have even more frustrating experiences trying to hoist their books over their heads.

2) They’re electronic.

It used to be, you just had to open up a door and drop the books inside. Kind of like a mailbox. Now, you have to hover the books in front of some eye and wait until it opens up. Then you have to shove everything in there as fast as you can or the door will shut. Again: a stupid design. In fact, at the Maple Grove library I visited today, they have a back-up drop just a few feet down from the electronic drop, for those inevitable occassions when the electronic one is on the fritz. This makes me wonder: why bother with the electronic one, anyway? Especially since the Maple Grove libary prides itself in its ostensibly green-friendly design.

3) They talk to me.

As soon as the door magically opens, some soulless voice begins giving me instructions – as if people who use a bookdrop are too stupid to know how to use it. I think they must have gotten a lot of patrons pulling up and requesting an order of fries, or something. One thing the voice tells me is to insert the items one at a time, because, you know, placing one book on top of another is sure to overload the precarious electronic system they’ve got going on. I think it says other stuff, too, but by that time I’m already driving away. Maybe it says, “Don’t drive away until this very important message finishes,” but I’ll never know.

On a completely unrelated note: Rupert Boneham, best known from his three attempts at Survivor, is running for governor.

Tuesday, 31 January 2012

Overheard at work–

MAN (standing at nearby cube): Good morning!

WOMAN (seated in said cube): Oh, hey, I’ve been expecting you!

MAN: Yeah, I have something here I think you want.

WOMAN: Oh, great! I’ve been waiting very patiently. (pauses) Ooohh…I like the package.

MAN: Thanks.

WOMAN: I’m gonna rip into right now, okay?

MAN: Nothing would make me happier.

ME: (stifles laughter)

WOMAN: (grunts) Huh. It’s harder than I thought. (reaches for something) Here, this’ll do the trick. (a minute goes by) Oh, my, it’s lovely.

MAN: Yeah? You like it?

WOMAN: Oh yes! Mmm. Oh, I love the way it feels. Wow. It’s longer than I thought it’d be.

MAN: I hope that’s okay…?

WOMAN: Oh, certainly. I hate when they’re too short.

MAN: Yeah, my wife says the same thing.

ME: (totally cracking up – like slapping my hand against the desk cracking up)

WOMAN: God, it’s so smooth and silky. I could just rub it against my skin all day. (pause) Make sure you thank your wife for me.

MAN: Yeah, of course.

WOMAN: Tell her it’ been a long time since I’ve had a really good scarf.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

So, the nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced several days ago, but I finally had a few minutes to sit down and take a look at them.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE COMPLETE LIST.

As always, I am sure the cinephiles will complain that it’s not representative of the true art taking place out there and, to an extent, I agree. However, as always, I will argue that the Academy Awards do a great job of giving notoriety to otherwise ignored films and encourage people to look outside the top ten box office hits.

Here are some of my thoughts on this year’s nominees:

Hugo leads the pack with 11 nominations, including best director (Martin Scorsese) and picture. When I first read the book Hugo, I recall thinking that it would be best brought to the screen by Tim Burton. But, as fate would have it, Scorsese – better known for his über-violent misogynistic gangster films – helmed the picture. Even though I think Scorsese is an awesome film-maker, I was a little concerned that this was outside his expertise. Now, all those nominations has me thinking I should give it a chance.

Oh, look! Meryl Streep is nominated for an acting award. Again. This makes nomination #17. Sometimes I’ve heard people say “Streep’s the one to beat,” as if she’s some sort of unstoppable machine. Here’s the thing, though: she’s only won twice, and her most recent win was in 1982. So…yeah, fifteen women have beaten Streep. In one sense, then, she’s the biggest acting loser of all time. If I was a betting man, however, I would wager that she will win this year.

For the first time since the Academy began the Best Animated Feature category (long overdue, in 2001), Pixar’s film is not nominated. Cars 2 came out in 2011. I haven’t seen it, but my tells me it’s the worse Pixar film ever. I believe her. Oh well. PIxar will have to stay home on Oscar night and take comfort in their Oscars for Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL•E, and Toy Story 3.

Max von Sydow is nominated for his role as the Renter in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I hope he wins. He commanded every scene he was in, he made the film much more fun to watch. Also, if he wins, he’ll be the oldest man to ever do so (he’s 32. Just kidding. He’s 82).

Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon is nominated for three Academy Awards. Wow. Just wow. I guess that’s what you get when you use an awesome album from Pink Floyd as your inspiration.

And what’s it like for non-popular people to find out they’ve been nominated for an Academy Award? Just watch the creators of Time Freak, on of the nominees for Best Live Action Short:

Finally, here’s one of the nominees for Best Animated Short, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. It’s like porn for book-lovers: