Lies and really big fonts

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Mark Twain

I got one of those e-mails today. You know the ones. The text of the message indented several levels due to incessant forwarding. "FW:" prefaces the subject which, in this instance, is "9/11." You can tell where this is going immediately. It starts out subtly:

It was 1987! At a lecture the other day they were playing an old news video of Lt.Col. Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings during the Reagan Administration.

There was Ollie in front of God and country getting the third degree, but what he said was stunning.

DUN DUUNN!! Prepare to awestruck! I'm surprised it didn't say "There was poor Ollie...," but score points for getting "Got and country" in their early. It's important to set the tone. I am reproducing most of the original format of centered italics, but I'll skip the 18 pt. Arial. I think they showed admirable restraint in avoiding bold and underlined. It continues:

He was being drilled by a senator; "Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?"

Ollie replied, "Yes, I did, Sir."

The senator continued, trying to get a laugh out of the audience, "Isn't that just a little excessive?"

"No, sir," continued Ollie.

"No? And why not?" the senator asked.

"Because the lives of my family and I were threatened, sir."

"Threatened? By whom?" the senator questioned.

"By a terrorist, sir" Ollie answered.

"Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare you that much?"

Chuckle. What terrorist, indeed? Okay, you know what the answer is going to be. Hung's trained monkey knows what the answer is going to be. The sender, however, wants to make sure you understand that this is big revelation, so they pull out all the stops and reveal in 27 pt.:

"His name is Osama bin Laden, sir" Ollie replied.

Oh. My. God. Are you dumbstruck? Well wait, there's more. After such an earth shattering revelation, you need a little comic relief:

At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn't pronounce it, which most people back then probably couldn't. A couple of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator continued. Why are you so afraid of this man?" the senator asked.

"Because, sir, he is the most evil person alive that I know of", Ollie answered.

Hehe. That dumb senator couldn't even pronounce the name. Funny stuff. Heck, most people couldn't pronounce it back then. It's such a tongue twister. Say it three times fast. See how hard that is? But now, the tone becomes grave again. In an interesting stylistic departure, the author chooses this moment to switch Comic Sans MS, but those trusty italics are not abandoned.

"And what do you recommend we do about him?" asked the senator.

"Well, sir, if it was up to me, I would recommend that an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth."

The senator disagreed with this approach, and that was all that was shown of the clip.

Okay, did you get that? Oliver North wanted to assassinate Osama bin Laden in 1987, and was ridiculed for it by the senator questioning him at the time. Hmmm. I wonder if the senator was a democrat or republican.... Well, have no fear, that question will be answered:

By the way, that senator was Al Gore!

Al Gore, ladies and gentlemen! To drive this point home, the color changes to maroon. (I use maroon Comic Sans MS for e-mail - don't know that says about me.) For good measure, Al Gore's name is in 27 pt. I guess that's because it's also hard to pronounce. So there it is: Gore laughed away the threat of bin Laden back in 1987.

I probably don't have to tell you that this is all a load of crap, and Snopes explains in detail how completely false it is. Still, one fabrication just isn't enough for our sender. Hot on the heals of the Al Gore bombshell, we get more:

Terrorist pilot Mohammad Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986. The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him. As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called "political prisoners."

However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their
hands. The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, "insisted" that all prisoners be released.

Thus Mohammad Atta was freed and eventually thanked the US by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center.

Here we go. More centered italics. More 18 and 27 pt. fonts. More democrats turning a blind eye to terrorists. I like the little, "Thus..." part at the end. Almost biblical. One would wonder why such a bombshell would go unnoticed. Don't you worry. All the answers are right here:

This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified.

It was censored in the US from all later reports.

If you agree that the American public should be made aware of this fact, pass this on.

There it is. The cover-up. The conspiracy. The information you were not meant to know. It's 27 pt. It's maroon. It's italicised. It's bold. It's underlined.

And it's still bullshit. No matter which font you use.

Why the big post? It's not like this is the first e-mail like this I've seen. It's clearly fake, and Snopes is full of similar fabrications. Yet as laughable as it is to me, it wasn't forwarded as a joke. It was forwarded by someone who thinks it's true and sought to tell others. It's bad enough when someone cooks up this garbage, but it's even worse when people receive it with no critical scrutiny whatsoever.

And there's one more thing. Besides scaling down the fonts, I left off the pictures. We've all seen photos of the planes striking and the towers collapsing. I didn't need them here. But I will include this one, from the end of the message:

There's the final insult. The memory of those lost with symbols of peace and love invoked in service of some little jerk's political slimefest.

Bravo Bourdain

Colicchio, leave the Bourdaining to the master.
Stephanie Vander Weide
a.k.a. Keckler

Bravo decided Bourdain's stand-in blogging for Colicchio was so good, he needed a blog of his own. The combination of his blog and Keckler's TVwoP recaps might be better than the show itself.

No party

It's going to be a trap. It's not going to be a party... at all. It‘s never a fucking party.
Jeffrey Sebelia
Project Runway Season 3 winner

Comments to my last Top Chef post included Rob's opinion that Top Chef is more civilized than Hell's Kitchen. That may be, but last night they were pretty damned evil. The cheftestants are told they'll be getting a night out at a hot Miami club. They spend time getting dressed up, then hop in the awaiting limo that takes them to... an elimination challenge. Cook outside in catering wagons, and serve food to clubgoers after closing time.

Had they Jeffrey Sebelia's wisdom, they'd have known this was coming. As it is, they are stunned. What's worse, in a move reminiscent of POW camp mind games, the Quickfire winner is whisked away in the limo for a one-on-one dinner with guest judge Govind Armstrong at one of his restaurants. Even the nicest of those remaining confess hatred of their fellow cheftestant for this lucky break.

Ah well, what did they expect? After all, it's reality TV. It's never a party.

Senate caves to Bush. Again.

One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg*

What the hell? Recent Senate hearings sought to determine whether the Bush administration strong-armed then Attorney General Ashcroft into authorizing illegal domestic surveilance. One would think they didn't like Bush/Cheney spying on Americans.

So, when Bush demands they vote to expand his powers before going on vacation, what do they do? They give him exactly what he demanded. Wow. That's showing them. You really dealt a decisive blow with that one. Geez!

* Because the vote was last night, it looks like we won't know the roll-call until Monday. I've heard that Lautenberg and Menendez both voted against, but nothing official.
UPDATE: Lautenberg and Menendez both voted Nay.

On the White Stripes bandwagon

Everyone knows about it
From the Queen of England to the hounds of hell

The White Stripes

Okay, I know I'm arriving late for this party. The White Stripes grammy-winning album Elephant came out in 2003, and I've only just gotten it. Unfortunately, most music I purchase these days is new material by artists already in my collection. That can get kind of stale, so I do try to branch out.

I told Sharon a while back that I've thought about getting something by the White Stripes - I always the songs I hear by them. She oblidged by giving me Elephant and Get Behind Me Satan for my birthday. I totally dig both of them. It's a good thing I have them at work because Sharon would be getting sick of them right about now. That's how much I've been playing them. I am bopping my head at this moment to the "My Doorbell." I see more White Stripes purchases in my future.

Oh yeah, I looked up the video for "The Hardest Button to Button" and now I get the reference in this Simpsons clip:

Bourdain in for Colicchio

The ability to make a brilliant, creatively-dazzling and delicious plate of food is near worthless if you can’t do it again and again--exactly the same way--at high speed, under the gun, hung over, after a night of fierce Negroni drinking...while listening to Mexican thrash metal.
Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain is guest blogging for on Tom Colicchio's "Top Chef" blog. There are two posts so far. Classic Bourdain, but you'll probably need to have seen the show for context.

P.S. I have to admit, I didn't know what a Negroni was before I looked it up.

Impromptu summer sky tour

The moving moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Yesterday evening was absolutely perfect night for observing the sky. It was cool, dry, and, but for a few wisps of cloud, crystal clear. The sun was barely below the horizen when Venus was out, low in the western sky. The moon was higher in the west, half full. Jupiter was high in southern sky.

I got out the telescope and the whole family spent the next hour looking at everything. We started with Venus, now down to a thin crecent. Normally one associates that shape with the moon, and we had to remind my youngest that this was a crescent Venus.

Next we turn to Jupiter. I wasn't sure the bright object was Jupiter until I looked in the eyepiece. There is no mistaking Jupiter. You can see the stripes if the cloud bands, and the four pinpricks of light that are the Galilean moons.

We moved on to our own moon. This brought wows form the children. The moon more than filled the eyepiece, and we scanned the edge of the shadow where the surface features were in strongest relief.

Finally, so as not to limit our sky tour to the solar system, we aimed the telescope at Mizar, the second star from the end in the Big Dipper's handle. Mizar is actually a binary star - through the telescope you can clearly see that is made up of two stars very close to one another. It is probably the easiest binary star to observe.

It's been too long since we had the telescope out. We need to do this more often.

To catch Bill O'Reilly

Every once in awhile he becomes transcendent, perfectly merging the creepy with the unintentionally self-revelatory and the utterly hilarious.
Keith Olbermann

When Bill O'Reilly interviewed Miss New Jersey Amy Polumbo, he really wanted to know what the blackmail photos were like. Joel McHale's The Soup on E! first featured this clip, but here is Keith Olbermann's take (with obligatory shout-out to McHale).

One more Olbermann quote, from his "Worst Person in the World" for July 19:

His stupidity is effervescent. It glows. It fairly undulates and
vibrates. I'll stop now. I'm getting Bill-O exited.

Guess who won.

Venus making an exit

If you gotta go, go with a smile.
The Joker
Batman

This past Friday, my youngest daughter and I sat on the deck watching the stars come out. The first thing we saw, of course, was Venus. The "Evening Star" is shining its brightest right now, with a magnitude of -4.5. My daughter's eyes are better than mine, so she spotted the first actual star - Sirius. The "Dog Star" is the brightest star in the sky, but it couldn't compete with Venus. We looked at Venus through binoculars, and spotted Regulus just above it.

Venus is about to make a dramatic exit from the evening sky. Tonight it will be close to the moon and Saturn. I hope it's clear. Then each day, as it lowers in the western sky, it will become an upturned crescent. It will leave with a smile.

P.S. This was a welcome bright spot in an otherwise awful weekend. Here's why....

Eastern Organic - One year later

Look what's going on inside you
Ooooh that smell
Lynyrd Skynyrd

Over a year ago I began following the story of Eastern Organic Resources' Woodhue facility in Wrightstown. The company seeking regulatory permission a composting facility that recycled organic waste to produce soil and fuel a methane powered generation plan. To me, this sounded like a great idea. How could you not love a company whose business combined recycling and renewable energy?

If you've read the lead-in quote, you can guess the answer: that smell. Composting smells bad, and Eastern Organic found themselves in constant struggle with the local government and NJ DEP over air quality. Ironically, the project they sought approval for (the methane generation) could have alleviated the air quality. To collect the methane, they needed to enclose the composter, which would have eliminated most of the odor problem. (I covered most of this my first post).

Unfortunately, they couldn't work things out. Last July I posted that the DEP had begun proceedings to shut down the facility. I didn't hear much after that. Every now and then I'll google Eastern Organic Resources, finding nothing new.

Looks like I missed this story in June, though. The full article isn't available for free, but the snippet suggests someone may be interested in buying the company. I guess that means they're still operating. They still have a web site, but it's not clear how current it is. I'll have to keep an eye out and see.

Blenderific!

Me: They're not. No way
Friend: Way. Way way.

A friend sent a link to this:

There is a "Will it Blend" website with many more videos, including one with a can of EZ Cheese. The site was created by Blendtec to show off their blender. Now that's advertising!

More lies

Your tongue should be embarrassed, you're a threat to mankind.
L.L. Cool J
"That's A Lie"

Six days after receiving a report that FBI agents obtained personal information they were not entitled to have, Alberto Gonzales assured the Senate intelligence committee that the FBI had not abused its Patriot act powers. It wasn't the first report either - it was one of maybe half a dozen such he received in the three months preceding his testimony. I predict neither shock nor outrage at this revelation because no one will be the least bit surprised.

Check out the full story.

Net radio in danger

Lights out guerilla Radio
Turn that shit up
It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here
What better time than now
Rage Against the Machine

I've started listenning to YRock on XPN at work. Whenever you first launch the stream, you get a message encouraging you to visit SaveNetRadio.org. Here's the deal: the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio's royalty burden by 300 to 1200. Most Internet radio stations won't be able to afford this and will either go offline, or be forced into deals with record companies giving them control of programming content. Particularly unfair is that Internet radio royalties are already twice that of sattelite radio.

I have to admit, I was totally oblivious to this issue until now. I even missed the day of silence when all Internet radio stations went intentionally dark. *Rob did put up a post about this issue as it pertains to podsafe music. Check it out.

Also, check out SaveNetRadio to learn more.

Shivved

We enveloped our President in 2001. And those who did not believe he should have been elected—indeed those who did not believe he had been elected—willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point and stabbed this nation in the back with it.
Keith Olbermann

Sharon and Rob both posted this. Still, I wanted to highlight this quote that so accurately and succinctly illustrates what this administration has done to the American people.

Meat Cake!

Kick ass!
Eric Cartman

Sharon's Food Blog posted a link to the Television Without Pity recaps of Top Chef.^* Yesterday I was there reading the recap of Season 3 Episode 3. Meatloaf played an important role in the episode, and Keckler included a most wonderful link in her recap. What link?

Two words: MEAT CAKE. Check it out.

* BTW, I take credit (or responsibility) for sending her there.

Advair has some competition

We know that Symbicort delivers improved control as soon as the first day of use. And it has a fairly rapid onset of action, within 15 minutes. We believe that will be a point of differentiation for us.
Tony Zook, president and chief executive of AstraZeneca

It's been over a year since I've wrote this post about Advair and a sensationalist article about it in Forbes magazine, and I am still getting comments. It's possibly my most visited post ever. Most comments are from people like me, who found Advair to be almost life-changing, our Asthma under control for the first time ever. Some comments focused on issues with the Serevent component of Advair, and there are some good points to consider there. Read the post and comments for the details.

Anyway, I decided today to see what came up in Google News about Advair, and it looks like AstraZeneca's bringing in some competition. They are about to release Symbicort which, like Advair, contains corticosteroid and a long-acting beta agonist. It will be tough to compete with Advair, though, especially since Symbicort is only approved for adults with asthma, while Advair is also approved for children with asthma and adults with CPOD.

Judging by the quote I've included at top, AstraZeneca may try to highlight the speed with which their beta agonist takes effect. This is a concern, since neither Advair nor Symbicort is meant for acute asthma attacks. That's what rescue inhalers like albuterol are for. This type of marketing could lead to a lot of confusion and health risks.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Here's the WSJ article about Symbicort. Happy breathing.

Do you have what it takes to become a citizen?

Hey, do you know about the U.S.A.?
Do you know about the government?
Can you tell me about the Constitution?
Hey, learn about the U.S.A.
Schoolhouse Rock
"Preamble"

MSNBC has a July 4th Special Quiz with selected questions from the civics test given to prospective citizens. The quiz is supposed to have some of the more difficult questions, but the multiple choice format makes it easier, especially given some of the incorrect choices they offer.

See how you do. I scored 95%, as I didn't know the INS form is used to apply for citizenship.

What fore?

For me, the worst part of playing golf, by far, has always been hitting the ball.

Dave Barry

It's over a week ago now, as I was on vacation in New Hampshire (more on that, maybe later). Still, I figured I throw out my this little story of a rare event that happens now and then: me playing golf. My company has an annual customer shmooze-fest of a golf outing at an exclusive golf club in northwest NJ. Every now and then I get to go, usually because there's a customer I've been working with who's playing.

So this year I was out again, on a beautiful day in June, golfing. Or, at least something that remotely resembles golfing. I am not good. When I signed up for the outing, I was asked for my handicap. I have no idea what it is, but I'll bet it's a big number.

I do own clubs (the cheapest used clubs eBay had to offer), and a pair golf shoes, so I was marginally equipped. I managed to run afoul of the country club dress code because my shorts have pockets on the sides (e.g. cargo shorts). Mind you even shorts are a recent concession of the country club's owners. Luckily I ran into someone with a company card in the pro-shop, so I was able to score a free pair of compliant shorts.

I have to admit I had a lot of fun. Maybe it's the Scot in me. It helped that the game was low-key. The format of the tournament was a "scramble" where the foursome plays as one and uses the best shot from the team on each leg. I played with an easy-going group willing to offer helpful tips that actually improved my game. By the end, I managed to contribute a few good shots.

I'd prefer a course less saturated with lawn chemicals (after all, they didn't need them when the game was created). And is denim really so awful? I guess a private club means lots Judge Smails types (and there were plenty). You probably see less of that on public courses. However, I probably won't be playing again until the next company freebie. That, in itself, is a good thing, as golf balls aren't cheap (even the bottom-of-the-barrel ones I bought at Target), and I lost plenty of them....

Gotta post something...

Before this is over the Vice President may start going door to door asking if anyone wants to hear his story.
Keith Olbermann

Okay, if I want to stay out of Rob's crypt, I better post something. You can't go wrong with Olmermann's Worst Person in the World, and yesterday's was no exception, with runner-up Dick Cheney still, still beating the Iraq - al-Qaida link.

And yes, I got the 8 thinge meme going around, and yes, I'll get to it at some point.

Rediscovered: Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker

Clean as a whistle
Smellin' like a rose
The Black Crowes
"Twice as Hard"

Over a year ago I posted the first of what was to be a series of posts titled "Rediscovered!" These posts would be to highlight music I neglected for a long time that I've recently listened to again, recalling why I liked them so much. So today I am rediscovering the "Rediscovered!" series on my blog. A recent post on Jeri Smith-Ready's blog mentioned The Black Crowes' Shake Your Money Maker, an album I hadn't played in a year or more until last week. What a great album this is.

The first track is "Twice as Hard," whose openning guitar chords you cannot help but play loud. They set the tone for the entire albumn, informing the listenner that there will be no fancy effects, overdubbing, or digital magic. The guitar and drums are clean and tight, the vocals raw, and the only sound effect you'll find is a car crash at the beginning of "Thick and Thin."

The heart and soul of Shake Your Money Maker are the guitar/vocal combination of brothers Rich and Chris Robinson. The percussion is firm and precise - never over the top - and really comes through on songs like "Jealous Again" and their cover of the Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle." Piano and organ riffs add some extra depth on tracks like "Sister Luck" and the stand-out "She Talks to Angels."

My last rediscovered album was a collection of b-sides and outtakes, and it maybe wasn't such a surprise that it sank below my RADAR and gathered some dust. Shake Your Money Maker is none of that, and I don't know why I left it alone so long.

The sin of time-out

But in the town it was well known
When they got home at night, their fat
And psychopathic wives would thrash them
Within inches of their lives
Pink Floyd

I heard about this from a friend of mine. It's a news story about a church California instructing parents that spanking is God's will. Here are the actual instructions on the church's web site.

Basically, spanking is the only child discipline method created God. Not just any spanking will do, either. You need to use the rod, "flexible stick like a switch." The instructions note that you should never use your hand, a belt, a brush, a cord, or 2x4 (yes, that's on the list of "don't spank with" items). If you "withhold the rod" by, say, putting your child in time-out or speaking to them, you've sinned.

This bothers me on so many levels that it's hard to decide what to say. Here are a few thoughts:

It tells me I'm wrong or sinful because I don't beat my kids, and that I'm ruining them by withholding this punishment. Quotes from the Churh's paster take the rhetoric one step further. "We disagree with time-outs as a family," he says. "That's an attack on spanking." Here he's taking a page from the same-sex marriage debate. Not only is time-out wrong, but it's an attack. By framing the discussion in these terms, he suggests that we are out to get him and the other true believers.

Then there's there's the all to familiar tenant that the bible is the literal and infallible word of God. That's a popular sentiment, and it works great in these instructions. But I'm left wondering how he handles some of the stuff in Leviticus. I'll wager he's on board with killing men who sleep together, but what about eating pork and shellfish? I'll bet those passages don't come up much in these little discussions. Much better to go with the crowd favorites like denying evolution and climate change. In essence, it's simply cherry-picking pasages with little context. It's not just what you think any more, now you can say it's the word of God.

One final thought: in the face of literal interpretation of the Bible, I Googled "bible contradictions" and got plenty of results. I only checked out the first few results, all similar lists of verses that contradict one another in varying degrees. These lists reinforce my opinion that the bible is a mixed bag of ideas with varying degrees of merit. It strikes me that one can find within its pages justification for all manner acts both good and evil.

Click click click...

Don't care how
I want it now
Veruca Salt
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

So, are you a multiple clicker? If you're on a web page, do you start clicking a link over and over if it doesn't come up immediately on the first click? Do you engage in the online equivalent of pressing the elevator call button over and over, even though it's already lit? Just curious....

I encounter users like this now and then, usually when there is a problem in a program I wrote. I'm with the user trying to figure it out, and they just start clicking over and over. It's surprisingly frustrating. Here's my poor little program, struggling to do what's asked of it. Each click just adds to the load. I'm watching what's going on, maybe starting to see clues, tracing the path of the bullet if you will. Then "click click click click click" comes the virtual shotgun blast. Everything collapses and all clues are long gone.

Of course, my program should be able to handle it, and I've certainly done something wrong that needs to be fixed. That's probably why all those clicks infuriate me. They serve to further highlight the inadequacies of my creation. It's not like I don't do it, either. I've clicked away in frustration, fully aware that it does no good.

Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I was on a WebEx the other day, and the person driving the mouse kept doing it. I was reminded how much it bugs me, and figured it was something I could post. So there it is.

Priorities

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Theodore Roosevelt

When I look at some people's priorities, I really start to wonder if we're not all just doomed.

The Center of NJ Life reported today on the abysmal turnout for school budget elections yesterday. Unfortunately, this is par for the course. As for the results, where do I start?

In 2005 I voiced my support of every person who votes, regardless of how they voted. I still hold to that sentiment. I applaud everyone who voted, really I do, but, they're not making it easy.

Yesterday voters in Hightstown and East Windsor voted down a budget item that would have hired some additional teachers for educational programs that would go beyond the core curriculum mandated by law. However, they voted to keep funding courtesy transportation - busing that goes beyond what is mandated by law.

More transportation. Less education. That's our priority.

What was that?

Sultan: What about the virgins?
Horatio Jackson: Sultan, forget about the virgins! We're out of virgins!
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

What made me think of this was a conference call I was on today, where I said the following:

So the first thing we need to do is solve the virgin entry problem.

I'll let y'all know when we figure that one out....

This is my wife...

They're pissin' me off. Friggin' wolves. Should've known better than to adopt wolves.
Sharon

This is my wife on Zoo Tycoon.

I guess I know which animal spirit she's not.

Teach my children how?

Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made.
Bill Cosby

Friday morning I was checking to make sure my oldest had her homework folder. I found the cover of her spelling workbook was crumpled and torn. When I asked her what happened, she told me it got that way in her desk. I understood precisely, and imediately I had a vision of those little grammer school desks stuffed with a mess of papers, pencils, and who knows what else, all in complete disarray.

You can probably guess that the desk I envisioned was not my daughter's, but my own desk in grammar school. I couldn't tell you which grade precisely because my desk always looked that way. So did my locker. So, for that matter, does my desk at work now.

You could call this a manifestation the parent's curse Bill Cosby refers to in the classic Himself - we are cursed by parents who wish our children will be just like us. I think it's also something we all privately wish for anyway - a sin of vanity we can't avoid but will come back to haunt us. Either way, we're doomed to see in our children not only our best qualities, but our worst. It's the latter that gets you.

I feel like trying to convice her to be more organized, more outgoing, less nit-picky, or maybe a little neater is an exercise in futility. Nothing parents, teachers, peers, or complete strangers did rid me of these bad habits. Nearly forty (ack!) years later, I still haven't shaken off such tendencies. My garage workbench is still a disaster, my holiday shopping is still last-minute, letting go of an argument is like severing a limb, and I'm still hanging out in the corner of the crowd trying not to make eye contact.

I guess, like everything else with parenting, I shouldn't worry too much. These are the things that make us human, me and her. She's a great kid, they both are, and nothing compares to the joy they bring. A messy desk is a small price to pay for that.

DST Dumb-asses

I oppose the bill for two reasons. First, it contains a number of highly objectionable provisions. Second, it simply ignores several of our most pressing energy challenges, such as our dependence on foreign oil.
Senator Hillary Clinton
regarding the Energy Policy Act of 2005

Par for course from the do nothing Congress of years past. Highly objectionable? Let me just say that I have found this Daylight Savings Time change extremely questionable. What a bonehead maneuver that was. What, Y2K was too boring? No major glitches? We needed to create a new issue? It's even got its own acronym: Y2K7. What a bunch of knuckleheads.

After spending several hours patching all our servers last night, I'm willing to vote for Hillary solely on the basis of her opposition to this bill.

Death by Conference Call

To mute your line, press star-6...
Automated conference call voice

Lately it feels like that's the most useful think I've heard on a conference call. I am on more conference calls these days. I'm starting to feel like my phone headset has become some psychic vacuum sucking my productivity away. It's like the bridge line is some malevolent entity that feeds on my life force. I hang up from these calls feeling drained. I look at the clock and wonder where the last ninety minutes of my life just went.

"After the tone, please state your name." "*BEEP*" "Please, kill me now." "'Please, kill me now.' has joined the conference."

On Road House and the Guilty Pleasure of Bad Cinema

It may be the most peculiar recent movie ever except for "Road House," but then what can you say about "Road House"? Such movies defy all categories.
Roger Ebert
reviewing Black Snake Moan

Roger Ebert has been keeping to a light schedule, so it has lately been an unexpected treat when I find he's reviewed something. This week, he gave three stars to Black Snake Moan, a recent addition to my we-should-go-see-that-but-who-am-I-kidding-we'll-never-get-a-chance-until-it-comes-out-on-DVD list. I was glad to hear he liked the film, espeically Samuel L. Jackson's performance.

I was a little surprised, however, at the comparison to Road House. I wondered for a moment if Roger Ebert actually thought it was a good movie. He did not, of course, choosing to sum it up in this way:

Road House exists right on the edge between the "good-bad movie" and the merely bad. I hesitate to recommend it, because so much depends on the ironic vision of the viewer. This is not a good movie.

That's why I like Roger Ebert. He's not afraid to take joy in bad movies, and his reviews of them are some of my favorites (if you haven't read his review of The Core, you should). On his light schedule, Ebert is probably cherry-picking the better movies to review. I hope that as his health continues to improve, he'll choose to indulge in one of these guilty pleasures, in turn sharing with us all.

When you don't know the answer...

Joel, you wanna know something? Every now and then say, "What the fuck."
Miles (Curtis Armstrong)
Risky Business

Someone forwarded these to me - the appear to be a collection of funny test answers. I have no idea if their for real, but I got a real kick out of them.

Clearly each of ehese answers represent a person giving up. This first one just comes out and says as much:

These next two just went the wacky non-sequiter route:

Then there's the idea that if you follow the instructions, no matter how you follow them, you must be right.

I love the found x. Heck, that was easy!
And finally, like Kirk with the Kobayashi Maru, if don't know the solution, change the problem.

Well of course. There's an elephant in the way. I'll have to remember that one.

Release the hounds!

Along about midnight when it's dark, dark, dark
There's a long, low whistle and a faraway bark
And then a high, high whistle only hounds can hear
To let them know the train, the dog train is near

"Dog Train"
performed by Blues Traveller
lyrics by Sandra Boynton

We're getting two new hounds! Tomorrow! Woo-hoo!

(We tried to warn the cats, but I don't think they understood. They will, oh yes, they will.)

Clearly it's Friday

Monday I have Friday on my mind

David Bowie

Okay, no posts in a long time. This is because I've been so busy at work, though the following photo of my trash seems evidence to the contrary:

In my defense I will only say that the Marlboros, Cokes, and three of the bottles are not from me.

Paging Mr. Murphy

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong
Murphy's Law

Let me first point out that I have configured and enabled the Microsoft Routing and Remote Access service multiple times. Each time the configuration worked perfectly, on the first try, with no adverse effects to the system or network. Why was I so successful? It had nothing to do with skill or knowledge, I assure you. There was only one reason: I was standing right in front of the server when I did it.

The most recent time I configured the Microsoft Routing and Remote Access service, the system I was working on was not right in front of me. It was not in a nearby room, not in the same building, not even the same state. It was, in fact, at a hosting provider in St. Louis, Missouri. It was also 8:30 PM on a Sunday night. Oh yeah, did I mention that this was on the database server behind our production web servers.

Three hours later everthing was fixed, but I'm left pondering the often quoted, more often ignored Murphy's Law. I decided to check out its origins at (where else?) the Murphy's Law Wiki Page. It turns out Murphy's Law is named after Maj. Edward A. Murphy, Jr., an aerospace engineer who worked on experimental rocket sleds in the 1950s. He is rumored to have uttered the adage after a subordinate miswired a bunch of sensors resulting in useless test results.

There are actually conflicting accounts around this event. Some stories suggest it was really Murphy's fault for poor planning, and that term was a less-than-subtle dig at Murphy. Others suggest that it was just a quip of Murphy's that became the team's way expressing the pragmatic doctrine of always expecting the worst. That is certainly what the expression became as it was popularized by Murphy's friend and next-door neighbor John Paul Stapp.

Stapp was known as the "fastest man on earth" for his runs on the rocket sled. He was also a collector of expressions and adages, writing them down in a notebook he kept. At a press conference he was asked how such a dangerous program as the rocket sled experiments could have so few injuries. Stapp replied that they always considered Murphy's Law and explained what that meant.

Which is why I can blame Murphy now, instead of my own carelessness.

The End of Summer

The summer wind, came blowin in - from across the sea
It lingered there, so warm and fair - to walk with me

Summer Wind
lyrics by Henry Mayer

You've probably read Sharon's post. Today we lost our greyhound, Summer. Earlier this week she began vomiting. What the vet initially thought was pancreatitis turned out to be acute renal failure. Her kidneys stopped working. We don't know why; they will do tests to see. The answer won't help much, but our neighbors have dogs and sometime maybe so will we. We need to them to be safe.

When it came time, the vet began to explain the procedure, and we kind of cut him off. We already knew, we told him. We had gone through this only six months ago with her "sister" Toasty. That one came quickly, too. At the time, I remember thinking it may not be too long for Summer. She'd lost a leg to cancer, and there was every chance it would show up in her lungs or elsewhere. When they X-rayed her, it turned out she was clear. We never got a chance to take joy in this news.

On the drive to the vet, my one hope was that Summer would perk up, just a little, when we arrived. I wanted her to have some last bit of joy or relief. Just before the vet administered the drugs, we got her collar down. This was Sharon's idea; Summer was always overjoyed when the opportunity for a hop came up. It was possibly her favorite part of the day. She did perk up a bit. Her eyes openned wider, and her ears went up. I couldn't see her tail under the blanket, but maybe it thumped a little. I hope so.

There will be other dogs, and I expect they will be as dear to us as Summer. But there will only be one Summer Storm, and like we always told her, she was a good girl doggie.

Thirty-two days later

I can have a complete conversation on my own, and you know to stay out of it. You're in your own anyway....
Sharon

It has been a long conversation with myself. Here are a few of the things I would have blogged if I wasn't totally lame:

• 7 November: C'mon baby! C'mon! Daddy needs a new goverment! C'mon!
• 8 November: Woo-hoo!
• 9 November: Now what?
• Details of converting old Christmas tapes to digital format because the cars don't have tape players anymore.
• A post about a new contractor hired for a project I'm leading at work, and the... um... spirited debates we've been having about how stuff should be built.
• Several fun podcasts, including "How to Succedd in Evil."
• A paragraph dancing around the ugly fact that our cats have destroyed the floor in our office. A paragraph describing the 2-3 day project of replacing floor boards and cleaning the carpet. A paragraph (or two) on how I had to replace the door, and the frame, and the sub-floor. A paragraph cursing my home's previous owner and the fact they didn't use caulk.
• How I put the Pythagorean Theorem to practical use.

That's all I can come up with for a synopsis. I'm a little foggy right now from all the carpet cleaning chemicals. I will endeavor to post something more substantial soon, perhaps elaborating on the Pythagorean Theorem bit.

P.S. I'm listenning George Carlin's When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? and I'm wondering if the funniest part is the title. I'm a little dissappointed there.

Hubble Rescue Greenlighted

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill

NASA gave the green light to a final Hubble servicing mission!

"Big Fat Idiot" Ain't the Half of It!

You absolute horror of a human being.
Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear)
As Good as It Gets

Rush Limbaugh sought new depths to sink to yesterday when he accused Michael J. Fox of faking Parkinson's disease. The Washington Post story by reporter David Montgomery begins this way:

Possibly worse than making fun of someone's disability is saying that it's imaginary. That is not to mock someone's body, but to challenge a person's guts, integrity, sanity.

That showed some pretty impressive restraint. I guess, "Could Limbaugh be any more of an asshole?" wouldn't have made it past the editor.

Update: My hero Keith Olbermann voted Rush Monday's Worst Person in the World.

Goin' Mobile

And we'll see how it feels
Goin' mobile
Keep me movin'
-Pete Townshend

Okay, I'm trying out blog posting from my PDA phone. Let's see how this works....

Goodbye, Habeas Corpus

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.
Keith Olbermann

I have two things for your consideration now that the Military Commissions Act is law:

First, from WBEZ in Chicago, This American Life episode 310: Habeas Schmaebeas. It is a detailed account of how our government has denied Habeas at Guantanamo Bay and the gross injustice that has resulted. To listen, Click Here.

Next Keith Olbermann expresses the outrage we should all feel in this week's Special Comment:

Text Version

Return of The Hunter

I'm on the hunt, I'm after you.
Duran Duran

Every season has its familiar little joys we look forward to. Autumn, for me, has leaves, apples, and Halloween. It also marks the return of Orion, The Hunter, to the night sky. I never go out looking for Orion. Still, every year there comes a night when I glance up at the night sky, and there are the three bright stars, all in a row, that comprise his belt.

Like the Ursa Major, the "Big Dipper," Orion is a constellation that dominates the sky. You can't miss it - even in the light polluted skies of central NJ. And no wonder. Orion is home to six of the fifty brightest stars in the sky (our sun included). Two are in the top ten. Rigel is the blue-white star at his left knee. Betelgeuse is the reddish star at his right shoulder. I just read that Betelgeuse is one of the largest stars observed, with a radius roughly the same as that of Jupiter's orbit.

My favorite part of Orion, though, is the Orion Nebula. In clear dark skies, even the naked eye can see that there's something in Orion's sword that isn't a star. With a decent pair of binoculars you can clearly make out the nebula and maybe one or two of the young stars within. View it through a telescope and you're in for a treat. It quickly fills the eyepiece with purple clouds and tiny pinpoints of light from newborn stars. If I were Carl Sagan I'd have a more eloquent description, but for me it's just cool.

Tonight it's cloudy, so you can't see any stars. It's been a week since I spotted Orion. I meant to post this sooner, but I seem to have less blogging time, lately. But the idea stayed with me, so here it is.

More lies: Bush and so-called Faith-Based Initiatives

There are... there are... there are extreme elements that use religion to achieve objectives.
President George W. Bush
Baby, you ain't kidding.
Bill (David Carradine) in Kill Bill: Volume 2

Keith Olbermann's open war on Bush is his report Tempting Faith, the new book from David Kuo, second-in-command of the Office of Faith-Based Intiatives. It is a detailed account of how the office is merely a tool to sucker evangelical Christians out of their votes.

I'm scooping Rob S. on this one. Here's the video:

Couldn't even hear the whistle blow

Lord I'm one, Lord I'm two, Lord I'm three, Lord I'm four,
Lord I'm 500 miles from my home.
Hedy West

Sunday morning I began my day 1000 miles from home. It was the last day of our vacation in Florida. Sunday evening we boarded our 6:20 PM flight back to NJ. Sunday night found us safely home and in bed.

By 5 AM Monday morning, I was already up and back in Newark, boarding the 5:20 AM flight to Charlotte, NC. At 9 AM, I was in Greenville, SC. I was 700 miles from home. I made the return trip that same day, arriving home at 9 PM.

By 10 AM Tuesday I'd driven 75 miles to White Plains, NY. The traffic gods smiled on me that evening, and I was home by 7:30 PM.

In three days I travelled 2,550 miles through five different states (not counting the ones I flew over). I went through three international airports. I drove two rental cars, flew two different airlines, and rode on three different planes.

Some observations:

• I would fly JetBlue over U.S. Air any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
• The Chevy Cobalt was better than I thought, the PT Cruiser less than I hoped.
• I should have asked for an economy car. They never have them, so I'd have been upgraded for free.
• Orlando is a really nice airport. Charlotte is okay. Newark is getting better.

Yesterday, I went to work. It's 21 miles each way, and I don't have to leave the state.

Back in beer

Nearly two months of silence? You're like a Trappist monk!
Rob S.

Okay, fair point. It has been a long silence. Call it a sabbatical. But a Trappist monk? I think there are some key distinguishing charateristics. I will, however, concede one similarity: beer. Monks make beer. I make beer. That I make beer with my wife, of course, is yet another case where the similarity ends.

Speaking of beer, what have we been brewing, you ask? Well, let me tell ya!

Seaside Park Summer Wheat
It was intended as a German style Hefe-weizen, but alas, the brew store had no German wheat. Instead, we used Belgian Wit yeast. What we ended up with was a light yet fruity beer that went down easy and, for me, embodied summer quite nicely. It was brewed special for our week-long vacation at the shore, and much was consumed there.

DIY ESB
Two three letter acronyms mean one tasty beer. ESB is Extra Special Bitter and boy was it ever special. We enjoy all of our beers. We really like many of them. Then there is the select few that we savor, and when they're gone we remember fondly for years. This one falls into that last category. This was one great beer, and not that it's gone we miss it. (Maybe later I'll upload the label for this.)

Red Ale
Red Ales are, contrary of to the name, more dark than red. The red color can be perceived when you hold it up to the light. This one is more copper than red. Roasted barley is what produces the red hue, though what we ended up with was more copper than red. Maybe next time we'll try roasting ourselves. That doesn't mean it's not good beer. It less hops than some, with a nice dry malt finish.

Marzen
This was actually started before the other beers on this list (in March), but true to style it was not ready until now. It's a classic Oktoberfest lager, fermented and aged at lower temperatures than ales. It's a smooth and malty like it should be. Of course, homebrewing has it's pitfalls. Our old nemesis, poor carbonation, has returned. We'll see if a little more time makes the difference. It has in the past.

So there you go. Finally a blog post, and it's about beer. Now let's see who still comes here....

The Scotty approach to deficit reduction

Kirk: Do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?
Scotty: How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Star Trek fans accross America had to be pleased yesterday with Bush's homage to Commander Montgomery Scott. The AP article does not quite capture the absurdity the way NPR's David Greene did in this Morning Edition segment.

Eastern Organic update: time running out.

Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you
Lynyrd Skynyrd

I missed this story when it came out in June.

The DEP if piling up the fines against Eastern Organic Resources because of run-off and the stench from their Woodhue Composting Center in Burlington County. The latest fines total $955K with another $81K penalty for generating income while breaking the law. I've been watching this one deteriorate (or perhaps decompose) for months.

Even in the latest article, the concept sounds like a great idea:

Eastern Organic Resources takes in tons of rotting fruits and vegetables, stale bread, grass, leaves and other perishable organic materials and mixes them with dirt to produce a nutrient-rich compost and topsoil. The company then sells the product to golf courses, garden centers, nurseries and builders.

Sometimes a great idea isn't enough. It would seem they just cannot make it work in a way that protects the water in local streams and the nostrils on local residents. It's a shame.

For their part, Eastern Organic Resources continues to assert that they could fix the problem by enclosing the composting center, but the state won't let them implement this solution. I have a feeling it's not that simple. At least I hope it's not.

Meanwhile, everyone is awaiting the outcome of formal proceedings to shut the operation down entirely. Things look pretty grim at this point.

You shone like the sun

Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Pile on many more layers and I'll be joining you there.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Pink Floyd
"Shine on You Crazy Diamond"

Syd Barret died several days ago, quietly ending what had become the very quiet life Pink Floyd's founding guitarist. His death was reported today by the AP. There were few details, the announcement coming from a spokesperson for the band.

I am Carl Spackler

In this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong.
Carl Spackler (Bill Murray)
Caddyshack

Rodents beware! You will find no pity here! A pox on you all!

Let's just say that squirrels and mice are majorly on my shitlist.

Vacation's over

Vacation's over.
President Bartlett

Yeah, still here. Been on vacation for a week - Lake Winnipesaukee in NH. It was a great week. I swam every day, canoed, kayacked, and hiked.

One hike was up 2033' Red Hill. The hike was 5 miles, round trip, with an approx. 1700' ascent. This describes the hike (though on our descent we followed the Teedie instead of Eagle Cliffs trail). The trail is impeccably maintained by the Squam Lakes Association. The other hike was up 1067' Mt Fayal. The trail is part of the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, which also houses members of local species unable to return to the wild because of injury or overexposure to people.

We ate well, enjoying meals from:

• The Woodshed in Moultonboro. If you eat beef, eat here. The lobster crepe was also delicious.
• The Town Docks in Meredith. Great casual seafood fare. Lobster Rolls and Smutty Nose IPA on tap. Mmmmmm.
• Canoe in Center Harbor. Get the lobster mac 'n' cheese, but split it with a friend. They do take out. (Safe those food containers!)
• Walter's Basin in Holderness. Lakeview dining on "Golden Pond" (yes, the "Golden Pond"). Tukerman's Pale on tap.

And you have to be touristy now and then. We did our part by taking a cruise on the M/S Mount Washington. It was a beautiful day with great weather out on the lake. The kids had a blast. As a bonus, the bar had Harpoon IPA on tap.

So yeah, I guess you can tell we did our part to support the local breweries. Smuttynose and Tuckerman's topped my list of favorites, and both were available at most supermarkets and convenience stores.

So that covers my abscence last week. Before that, blame these guys. I'm all for providers and factories, but do you really think anyone's going to run this thing on Oracle? But I digress....

That's MY Assemblymen!

Not as much as no name politicians from New Jersey.
Ann Coulter

His name is Michael Panter, Ann, and I voted for him. It is out of respect for him that I have not told you what you can do with your book or where you can go.

My assemblyman, Michael freakin' Panter, challenged Coulter on her home turf -the FOX "News" Hannity & Colmes show. My favorite line:

Your hyperbole is exciting, but no one wants to burn your book.

Yeah! Damn, I was proud of my district tonight!

Flight or invisibility

Invisible Boy: I'm invisible. Can you see me?
Rest of Mystery Men: YES.
Mystery Men

Superman superman
I want to fly like superman
Superman superman
Wish I could fly like superman
The Kinks

Yesterday I was listenning again to a classic This American Life episode entitled Superpowers. Act One features John Hodgman asking a bunch of people which superpower they would like to have: flight or invisibility. He finds that this is one of those questions that offers insight into the kind of person you are. He also found it to be a great conversation item for parties.

He set ground rules for each ability, as follows:

• Flight: At will you can fly within Earth's atmosphere with a maximum velocity of 1000MPH.
• Invisibility: You and your clothes become invisible at will. Items you pick up stay visible.

I'm on the fence, leaning toward invisibility. Which would you choose, and why?

P.S. The episode also includes an interview with Jonathan Morris, editor of the website Gone & Forgotten, an archive of failed comic book characters with Morris' commentary. His articles are funny stuff.

OUTA SIGHT!

Heavy decibels are playing on my guitar
We got vibrations coming up from the floor
We're just listening to the rock that's giving too much noise
Are you deaf, you wanna hear some more
AC/DC

How can listen to AC/DC's Back in Black and not air guitar? I'm just sayin'....

"Forget about the check. We'll get hell to pay!" How can you beat lines like that?

Banging my head

Why do I keep banging my head against the wall?
Because it feels so good when I stop.

Yesterday I spent the entire day trying to resolve a configuration issue on a new server. The site I've been working on runs beautifully in my office on the computer I develop on. When I tried to deploy to the production system, it would not work, not work.

Would... not... freakin'... work.

I hate problems like this. You know there is some little configuration change you need to make, you just don't know what it is. Some checkbox somewhere will magically resolve the problem turing a cryptic error into a happily running website. You just need to find the damn thing.

My day goes like this: I spend hours googling error codes and re-reading documentation (yes, I actually RTFM). In general, get nowhere. Every so often, I come across a potential solution. For a few minutes, I think I've got it, I feel like this is definitely it. I click refresh on my browser and mutter obscenities when the error fails to go away. I repeat this process. Over and over.

Of course, one of the potential solutions finally resolved the error. With no warning, clicking refresh suddenly yielded the desired (if not expected) result: a happily running web site. I took no joy in the success, though. I don't feel like I've solved a challenging problem or designed an elegant solution. I just feel like I've been banging my head against a wall.

And it didn't even feel that good when I stopped.

So-called reality

This isn't reality. This is hell!
Andrew
Bravo was consulted on some elimination decisions.
Top Chef credits

Two weeks (or three blog posts) back, I confessed that I'd been sucked into Bravo's Top Chef, a reality show that can be summed up as "The Apprentice" with chefs. Last night was part one of the big finale. It began with the three finalists arriving in Las Vegas for the final showdown. At the end of the hour, only two remained.

The oft-discussed problem with reality shows is that they are not real. Although the contestents and even the judges are real people, it's still a TV show whose goal is to entertain. Even the decision of who get eliminated is as much a question of drama as of fairness. I should, therefore, not be surprised of the three finalists, the one we all despise did not get eliminated. A final battle between two friends has nowhere near the drama that a battle between two bitter foes, especially when one is the clearly established villian.

But I'm still pissed! That chef deserved to go down! None of their dishes were the favorite. The other chef was eliminated mainly because they made only two of the requisite three dishes in the final round. Even though both of those dishes were well liked, the penalty for one missing dish was worse than for several dishes no one liked. How lame is that? The worst thing a chef can do is serve bad food. To make matters worse, once the the chef was all smug, as if they didn't just get a total pass. Man, I want to be there next week to see that chef go down.

Which is, of course, exactly what Bravo wants.

Why the Impossible Mission Force is bad for America

Since Hollywood execs grew timid and began making movies out of TV shows, no movie has so screwed with its source material. The hero of the TV show had become the villain of the movie.
Erik Lundegaard

I read this commentary on the M:I movies last week and never blogged it. When I saw M:I3 was the top grossing film for the second week in a row, I remembered the commentary. It's good stuff.

There be dragons here

Caution: There be dragons here
Programmers' caveat

It's been forever since I posted anything. I've mostly been at a loss of what to post, mainly because my job has gotten interesting again, and I've been somewhat engrossed by what I'm working on. It's a new web development project using ASP.NET 2.0, SQL Server 2005, and VS 2005 (those who care will know what that all means). Anyway, I figure if that's what's on my mind, that's what I should blog about. So, a few thoughts and observations on comments....

Comments are bits of text in a program that are ignored by the computer. They are there for the sole benefit of other developers who may need to look at your code (not to mention your own benefit, should you need to remember what the hell it was that you did five months ago). They're akin to footnotes in a book, explaining the stuff that may not be obvious to the reader. Good comments are a hallmark of good programming.

Notice I said "good" comments and not "abundant" or "copious" or "numerous" comments. That is because comments, like food, is best in moderation. Not enough, and your program becomes an incoherent shell. Too many, and it becomes a bloated mess. Good programmers try to write programs that other good programmers can follow. Yet sometimes it is necessary to provide a some additional clues as to why your, say, multiplying that number by 3600 (it's in seconds - you want hours). Okay, programmers our there are right now saying, "You don't need to comment that! Any fool could figure that out." You're right, bad example, but you get my point.

Most of the time, one line is all you need. "Make sure the number is not zero," for example. Every now and then, though, you need to do something in your code that's a lot more complex and potentially confusing. Maybe five lines are needed. Then, there's the odd occaison when even you are disconcerted by the confusing nature of what you have just written. Yet, you cannot find a simpler way of doing it. There are many reasons why this may be the case. Often the vendor tools you're using have boxed you into the corner, and this obtuse mess you've just created is the only way out.

When in such situations, you often find developers leaving the comment:

Warning: There be dragons here.

Sometimes, they'll go so far as to say, "serious dragons." Generally this is to be taken, "Read the following code very carefully, or you might screw things up royally." After this comes a detailed explanation if what's going on. Often, there is also some justification of why it had to be done this way. It's an admission that the code is aweful, as in, "I'm really sorry you have to deal with this crap. Truly I am. But if you were in my shoes, you'd have done the same thing and you know it."

I'm writing all this because I'm coming close to the "dragons here" threshold. I am expanding and enhancing an existing tool, so I can claim that, in large part, it's not my fault. I've also found myself cursing the tool's original authors who, IMHO, did not practice good commenting. Some of the code comes close to what I like to call, "Heart of Darkness" code. This is code that is so bad that, when you finally make you're way through it to the other side, you're left muttering, "the horror.... the horror."

It is not the worst code I've dealt with, though. The worst code was very early on in my carreer. I had to find a bug in an X-windows application call xterm. When I openned the first source file, I found this comment:

WARNING: This code particularly, the tty setup code) is a historical relic and should not be confused with a real toolkit application or a an example of how to do anything. It really needs a rewrite. Badly.

And let me tell you, the author wasn't kidding. But at least they had the honesty of saying so up front. I printed this comment out and hung it on my wall.

A Guilty Pleasure

Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings.
Euripides
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
John Lennon

I admit it. I have been sucked in by the reality show Top Chef on Bravo. For those unfamiliar with the show, it's the same formula as Apprentice, done with chefs instead. Each week there are challanges, each week some gets sent home. Instead of, "You're fired!" they say, "Pack your knives and leave."

I have, in general, shown disdain for reality TV. I never watched Survivor, The Apprentice, or any of the other lesser shows whose names of which I can't even think of. But now I'm hooked. I want to see what ridiculous challange they give them. I want to see who goes down in flames. There are the chefs I want to see succeed and the one I wanted so badly to see get booted (and it was oh so satifying when they finally did).

I suppose the subject matter (food) brought me in initially. I love Food TV shows like Iron Chef, after all, so why not? But Iron Chef this ain't. It's pure "reality" TV. There is the requisite footage of contestents sniping and trash-talking. There is the overdramatic judging segments where the contestents get beat up by their "mentors." There is the annoying comercial break right before the final decision (okay, Iron Chef has that, but it's not the same). In short, it's Apprentice with knives and Chef's Whites.

Still, I keep watching. Call it a guilty pleasure.

Seven Wonders of My House

Makin' people happy, that's my favorite game,
Lucky Seven is my natural name.
Slippin' and slidin' my whole life through
Still I get everything done that I got to do.
'Cause I was born 'neath a lucky star!
Schoolhouse Rock

Rob thought this up. Then I read Jeri's. I figured this is one meme I actually have ideas for. So here goes:

1. My Children: They are truly wonders. Each day the surprise us, challange us, frustrate us, and delight us, sometimes all at once.
2. The Family Room Bookshelves: My brother-in-law built them for one of his company's customers, but the interior designer gave him the wrong stain color. The color was just fine for us, so now we have custom-built beautiful recessed bookshelves. He also made us furniture to match!
3. The Solar Panels: Turning each day's sunlight into the electricity that powers our home. Last July we had a $30 electric bill! I never tire of going downstairs to see how many kilowatt hours of electricity we produced and how many kilograms of carbon dioxide we didn't.
4. The Kitchen Cabinet Secret Compartment: The search for the missing teddy bear cake pan led to the discovery of this seeminly extra-dimensional space in our kitchen. A muffin pan and strainer were also recovered, as was a glass lid we had never seen before.
5. Franken-deck: This deck should have been torn down years ago. Each year I pull boards off the privacy screen to replace broken decking. I crawl underneath to shore up the rotting joists. One year we'll give in and buy a new deck. But not this year. (Knock on wood.) (If you can find any on that deck.)
6. The Shelf of no Return: If you can't figure out where to put something, that's where you should put it. If you can't find something, that's where you should look.
7. Sharon: Is there nothing she cannot do? I doubt it. Tremble at her awesome power. (Did I mention she's cute?)

I didn't mention the pets, so let me give them honorable mention here. Also the dining room table, which can hold food for eight and support a six-year D&D campaign.

Thanks again to Rob for a great idea.

Holy Wars

Holy detonation, Batman!
Robin

In Chios, Greece, on Greek Orthodox Easter, this is how parishoners of two churches celebrate:

To mark the resurrection of Christ, the two congregations fire thousands of
handmade rockets at midnight across a valley at each other's churches.

Story and video here. Their goal is to hit the bell tower. No major injuries were reported this year. However, they are not uncommon (ya think?).

More recycling challenges

But, anyway, Signor Sollozzo, my no is final, and I wish to congratulate you on your new business, and I know you'll do very well; and good luck to you - as best as your interests don't conflict with my interests.

The Godfather

A significant challenge of recycling waste seems to be finding someone's back yard to do it in. Awhile back I posted about a fight between Eastern Organic Resources, the DEP, and local governments. The last I heard about Eastern Organic was that the DEP revoked their license.

According to this Asbury Park Press article, a new controversy with a similar ring to it is brewing in Dover Township. Washington, D.C.-based Fuel Frontiers Inc. wants to build a new facility to manufacture ethanol from waste material. The ethanol would be blended with gasoline as a motor fuel.

Just like Eastern Organic, Fuel Frontiers idea sounds great on paper. Recycle waste and reduce oil dependency all at once. Unfortunately, local reaction is also similar. The article reports that:

Potential environmental problems are a concern in Dover Township, where the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. plant is now a Superfund site, and dumping of hazardous waste at the former Reich Farm led to contamination of wells in United Water Toms River's Parkway well field. Talk of any kind of fuel plant makes officials uneasy.

Well, who can blame them. Hopefully Fuel Frontiers can address Dover's concerns. The article reports that the two sides are talking:

"We recognize the issue here. We want the town to feel like they know what's going on," [Fuel Frontiers, Inc. President Jack] Young said. "We care about how we look, if we smell, and how we operate."

[Dover Councilman Michael J.] Fiure said he has been pleased that Fuel Frontiers has shown a willingness to work with the council. He said council members hope to schedule a public presentation of the company's plans at a future council meeting.

"I am very encouraged that they are going to meet with us and that we will be able to ask them questions," Fiure said.

In my Eastern Organic post, I said that this is technology we need. Let's hope things go better in this endeavor.

Thanks to Sharon for sending me the story.

More on Advair

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.
Benjamin Franklin

Of late this blog is a ghosttown, but apparently someone's reading. I got a great comment to my Advair post that actually explains some of the problems with Advair. Forbes would have done better to ask this person to write their article.

Clearing in the east, finally

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
Counting Crows

Several people asked me about the "darker weather" comment in this post. Sorry I left that hanging. I figured I'd have more to say when things settled down a bit, but it's taken a lot longer for that to happen. I'll cut to the chase - everyone is fine. Here are the details:

The comment came from news that a "spot" showed up on my father's chest X-ray. Also, blood tests showed certain elevated levels that can indicate cancer. He would be having a CT scan the next day. It took four more days to get results. To everyone's relief, the scan showed no signs of cancer - the best possible outcome. They'll keep watching, but the news could have been much worse.

A day later, my mom called me. She was in the car, my dad was driving her to the ER with chest pains and elevated blood pressure. She made me promise I wouldn't drive too fast on the way to the hospital, and I didn't. We spent the next several hours there while they ran tests, monitored her vitals, and gave her medication to lower the blood pressure. She was admitted, and they kept her two days under observation in a telemetry unit where they constantly monitor her heart. They did an echocardiogram and a stress test. All came back fine.

She did have a sky-high fasting blood sugar, so she's on drugs for diabetes. It's looking like she doesn't need insulin, though, so some good news there. She's back home now. She was still in the car when she called, enjoying the fresh air. I'm sure she feels better just being out of the hospital. Just being there makes you feel sick, I think.

It's been one thing after another these last few weeks. I'm knocking on wood as I say that maybe things are finally settling down.

Advair scare

Get the widow on the set, we need dirty laundry.
Don Henley

Thursday morning on the Today Show, Katie Couric spoke with Forbes managing editor Dennis Kneale (see the clip here). Kneale was discussing this article in Forbes magazine about the GlaxoSmithkline Asthma drug Advair, and concerns about its safety. The overall question is an important one, worth consideration: what do you do when a drug helps millions, yet can be harmful or fatal to a small percentage. I have a real problem with the way this article, and Kneale's comments on the Today Show, frame the issue.

When I first heard about possible dangers of Advair, I consulted with a friend who is both an MD and asthma sufferer. Advair actually contains two drugs. One is a steroid, the same steroid found in the GlaxoSmithkline's Flovent, which eases inflamation of the airways. The second, a bronchodilator that expands constricted airways, is the same drug found in the GlaxoSmithkline product Serevent. It belongs to a class of drug called beta agonists. All bronchodilators I know of are beta agonists, and some people have adverse reactions to them. The problem with Serevent is that it lasts longer (12 hours instead of 4-6), so an adverse reaction will go on longer before symptoms subside.

The article opens with two stories of people suffering reactions to Advair. One person said that, despite complaints of ill effects, his doctor said to keep taking it (sounds like the doctor's fault to me). The second was another story of someone suffering ill effects who continued to take the drug, an includes visual that is gratuitously repeated throughout the article: dying while still clutching the inhaler.

The the article highlights Advair's popularity, noting the advertising dollars spent. I can't argue with that; I am against prescription drug advertising. I didn't like the way the discussed Advair's "nifty delivery system," which they called a "purple plastic puck." Kneale also uses the purple puck term in the interview, telling Katie how "doctors love gadgets." His tone suggests that it's some kind of unecessay gimmick product, the asthma equivalent of the Swiffer.

In fact, the Advair Diskus (as it's called) is a vastly superior delivery method. Aerosol inhalers required the user to inhale at the moment as the push the cannister down. If you're off (as I was from time to time), you end up spraying most of the drug on the back of your throat instead of inhaling it. Further, unless you kept careful count of uses, you didn't know quite when the inhaler was empty. Finally, you needed between 2 and 4 inhalations, 60 second apart, each time you take it. Advair has a little number that decreases with each use. It turns red when you're under ten doses left. When you inhale, the force of your breath draws out the drug, so you always inhale it properly. Finally, you only need to inhale once each time. That's as much of a gimmick as anti-lock brakes.

Another issue they highlight is overprescribing. One of the people in the openning paragraph also had a persistent cough and wheeze, but was not diagnosed with asthma. Kneale talks about how his doctor prescribed it to him for a persistent cough from bronchitis. He doesn't say if it helped or not. The article also notes that Advair is being prescribed to more than just severe asthma sufferers. I thought that was unfair. My asthma was never severe or life threatenning, but it is still very important to my long term health that it be kept well controlled.

The article and Kneale play free an loose with the numbers. The first statistic the present is a single doctor's assertion that Advair and Serevent are killing 4000-5000 people a year. Only later do the note studies that showed numbers like 12 out of 17000, still taking time to suggest that this finding was inappropriately deemed statistically insignificant. When numbers minimize the risk, the article's tone is always questioning. They never cast doubt on the 4000 deaths/year estimate.

They also mix in statistics for other bronchodilators, like in this paragraph:

But Serevent had been under suspicion from the start, and earlier beta agonists had stirred doubts for decades. In 1948 one study of 2,200 asthma patients found a fivefold-higher death rate for patients who inhaled epinephrine, a beta drug, versus those who hadn't."

First off, I checked and found that almost all bronchodilators are beta-agonists. This article doesn't mention that. Non-beta bronchodilators are not inhaled - they're taking orally, so the side effects tend to be worst. Theophylline is non-beta example I've taken, and it sucked. As for epinephrine, the article is correct about its dangers. I've taken it - it's awful stuff. What the article failes to mention is that more modern beta drugs, Serevent included, are a vast improvement. To read the Forbes article, you'd think epinephrine and Serevent are like Motrin and Advil.

The article does everything it can to hype the danger aspect of Advair. They're searching for the next big drug company scandal.The article says as much when it conjures up the spectre of Merck's Vioxx and Wyeth's Redux. I'm all for keeping the drug companies honest, mind you, but Forbes this article is heavy drama and a light cogent fact. There is next to no mention of the drugs success in controlling asthma and similar respitory ailments. In my opinion, that success is the real reason for Advair's popularity.

There are also no anecdotal stories of people who's lives have improved thanks to Advair. So, here's one:

When doctors, insurance companies, etc. try to assess how well you are managing your asthma, they want to know how often you use your rescue inhaler. A rescue inhaler is a fast acting bronchodilater you use when you're having an attack. If you are using it often, you asthma is not well controlled, and you could be doing harm. Since I began taking Advair, I have all but stopped using my rescue inhaler. If I use it three times a month, it's a lot. I used to use it at least that many times a week. My respitory health has improved drastically thanks to this drug.

I'm one of the millions it's helped. I'd prefer a little less media hype about this one.

Morning buzzkill

The dream is always the same.
Joel
Risky Business

I awoke on my own. I looked at the clock, and it was 10:05 AM. "We overslept!" I shouted, "It's already after 10!" My wife's groggy reply was unintelligible as rushed downstairs to grab my cell phone - I was supposed to be on a conference call for work. As I fumbled through my bag, I noticed that it was still dark out. I looked at one of the clocks downstairs. It was 3:47 AM! Relieved, I headed back to bed, reassuring my wife that we weren't late and the bedroom clock got changed somehow, maybe the cat. I pulled up the covers and settled into the pillow, looking forward to another two hours of sleep....

That was when the alarm went off, and I awoke for real.

The story of John Cazale

Every time I put my line in the water I said a Hail Mary, and every time I said a Hail Mary I caught a fish.
Fredo Corleone
The Godfather: Part II

Last night, we were watching the Godfather. It seems to be a fairly regular staple on cable channels like AMC and Bravo. Sharon observed that you never see the guy who played Fredo anymore. I always figured he drifted into obscurity after the Godfather movies. He didn't.

John Cazale, who played Fredo, had won numerous awards for his stage performances before his film debut in The American Way. In addition The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, he appeared in The Conversation (also directed by Coppola) and Dog Day Afternoon (a performance that earned him a Golden Globe nomination). He was engaged to Meryl Streep, who was his co-star in The Deer Hunter.

That would be his final film, however. At the same time he was filming, he was dying of bone cancer. The studio, upon learning of his illness, wanted to remove him from the film. Streep fought to keep him, threatenning to quit. He completed the film, but died the same year.

Most of these details come from his IMDB biography.

Tough choices

"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
Albus Dumbledore
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
by J. K. Rowling

It's been awhile since I posted. I preoccupied with a pair of decisions that needed to be made.

I had to choose which job I wanted. I had pretty much come to the conclusion that it was time to move on because there was not way to stay here and continue doing what I enjoy - software development. For about a year I've been hunting. There were a few offers, but nothing worth taking. In December I interviewed at a really good place, but no offer came. In February, a new project started up here. It was completely unexpected, and it was exactly the type of stuff I wanted to do (although it's VB.NET, not C#, but I digress). Plus, they need me to get my MS certification, and they'll fund it.

It was nice. I remember telling someone that I was actually enjoying my job again. Wouldn't you know this would be when the place from December called be up with an offer? I know, people should have such problems. I understand that in this economic climate plenty of people are unemployed or under-employed. I'm damn lucky. That said, it was still a touch choice with serious implications on my future. I was back an forth a dozen times, sweating every detail. Finally I decided to stay where I am. This is the last thing I would have expected three months ago, but there it is. What changed was this: I was not longer under pressure to get out of my current job. That raised the bar on any job offer that came. I think I made the right choice. Time will tell.

The other big decision was much easier to make, but much harder to act upon. Odds are good that you've seen seen Sharon's post on the subject. Our 12 year old greyhound Toasty was suffering liver failure, and we decided to end her life quickly. That decision was clear for me. That didn't make it any easier. In reply to our e-mail about this last trip to the vet, my brother replies simply, "Sorry to hear that. Not a fun trip." He'd taken it himself only a week or two earlier. No, it wasn't.

Having weathered those storms, I got to enjoy a weekend of warm sun and gentle breezes. Yet amid the peace of bike rides and campfires, a phone call brought news of darker weather on the horizon. It's Monday now, with overcast skies.