T Plus 3 Months

(The full-sized images, which you can see by clicking on the images below, seem to be less blurry than these reduced-sized versions.)

	C Girl
	E Boy

Best Monopoly® Quote

Tonight, we played our first family game of "adult" Monopoly, with myself as the car, the Mrs as the doggie, my almost 9-year old daughter as the horse, and my 7-year old son as the battleship. I came in second to my daughter, who always wished people a nice stay when they stayed at her properties. (I wasn't "taking it easy" on anyone, either.)

But the best quote of the night came from my son. Not being 100% familiar with the rules, when he acquired a monopoly in the light purples (Virginia, States, St. Charles), he asked my wife, "Can I knock down your Electric Company?"

BD's Mongolian Barbeque

I recently had the opportunity to eat lunch at a BD's Mongolian Barbeque restaurant. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, the diner puts his desired meats, vegetables, and sauces into a bowl, where they are grilled together as a stir-fry while the diner waits.

There was a wide variety of meats and seafoods available. It had been a long time since I had duck, so I loaded up my bowl exclusively with pieces of dead duck. (So much for my consideration of making it a vegetarian lunch.) There was also a good selection of vegetables; really I would have preferred more vegetables than would fit in my bowl. I chose a variety, but the largest component was bean sprouts. Finally, for the sauces, I didn't know what I was doing, so started with some black bean sauce, added some Chinese hot sauce (I think it was kung pao sauce -- a Chinese co-worker said that I added too much) and some wine as well. Then, to complete my spicing, I added some curry powder.

All-in-all, of course, it was exactly what I wanted, even if it wasn't any good! Actually, it was fine. I can say that every time I've had duck, I've been less than 100% impressed, but that wasn't the fault of the restaurant.

Still, it's not difficult to find faults with the place. A few are as follows

• They priced a meal by the bowl, and not by the weight or contents of the bowl. This differed from the previous time I ate at a Mongolian-style restaurant, which was in Edmonton. There, the priced the meal by the weight of the contents of your bowl. That system had the problem of charging the same per gram no matter what the filling was. But the "by the bowl" pricing system is an example of what I consider to be the worst thing in current American restaurant practices. Since any bowl was priced the same, I felt compelled to fill the bowl to the brim, since I would be charged the same no matter what I put in it. Plus, they offered diners a second trip for only a few dollars above the initial price. Thus, it's another example of over-sized portions and inducement to overeating.
• I guess my second complaint against the place was that it just seemed a little ungenuine. I mean, it's a modern chain restaurant with waiters who smile a little too much, and the place is following processes from some manual of proper restauranting techniques designed to get as many customers in and out as quickly as possible, taking as much of the customers' money as possible in the interim.

In short, O.K. food, especially if you like to experiment, and an atmosphere and experience not any different than any other modern restaurant chain in its genre.

Curling Game on the Web

There's a neat (one player vs. the computer) curling game at mousebreaker.com. Some elements are missing, such as sweeping, but it's still fun and addictive. I should win almost 100% of the time; not that I do.

By the way, some of the games at that site might not be considered suitable for children (for reasons other than violence). That hasn't stopped me from letting my kids play, but maybe it should.

2004 Heisman Thoughts

I'm glad that I'm not a voter for the Heisman Trophy. Well, that's not exactly true, since I wish I was a voter for said trophy. However, I will freely admit that I am completely unqualified to vote for the award this year. But being unqualified to express an opinion hasn't stopped me before, so why should it now?

Anyway, the five finalists are:

• Reggie Bush, RB, USC
• Matt Leinart, QB, USC
• Adrian Peterson, RB, Oklahoma
• Alex Smith, QB, Utah
• Jason White, QB, Oklahoma

I'd vote for Peterson. The times I've seen Oklahoma play, he just stood out as being the best player out there.

Nothing Much to Say

It's been a while since I've made a blog entry. This means that either I have nothing much to say or no time to say it.

• Last night at curling, I had maybe the most frustrating night since the league (my first) started maybe two months ago. I released 18 stones as we played an extra "end" beyond the regulation 8. It was probably around stone 15 or 16 until I felt somewhat comfortable with my release, and I had some control of what the stones were going to do. I'd like to have some time to practice releasing a bunch of rocks in a non-game situation.
• Before then, I went to the Christmas pageant at my kids' school. Another sign of my kids' growing maturity is that I was confident that my son would be able to make it through the entire show without fidgeting too much, or otherwise being a distraction or calling inappropriate attention to himself. Maybe sitting on the opposite corner of the room helped, but he seemed to exude a new sense of confidence and maturity.

On tap for this weekend:

• Get a Christmas tree.
• Fix a flat tire.
• Write and send Christmas cards.
• Maybe go running, or at least otherwise get some exercise.
• Watch some football, if my favourite team is on the air.
• Maybe watch the rest of the Grey Cup tape.
• Finish and finally return the Babylon 5 DVD that I borrowed from a co-worker.
  
• Buy some Christmas presents. I'd better get something for my wife. I think I'd enjoy the time a lot more if we did what my parents do, and not buy Christmas presents for each other. But our relationship isn't at that level, I suppose. While I'm on the subject, one year I bought her a large cast-iron frying pan. As I was leaving the store, the (former) pastor of my church was walking in. I was all excited, and showed him, "Look what I got my wife for Christmas!!" He was like, "You got your wife a frying pan for Christmas??" But I knew she would like it, and she did.

OK, that's enough for now.

Love Is...

(Note: When I first wrote this, I wasn't planning on adding it to my blog. But, after reading it, I decided it was appropriate.)

1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is patient,

The verse continues, and I don't want to read too much into stopping the verse there. But, patience is the first attribute mentioned, and perhaps that is for a reason. Surely, love is not just patient. But, maybe by some measure, that's a good first approximation of what real love is. Indeed, try reading 1 Corinthians 13:4-12, noting how many times the statement about love relates to patience.

Having Fun With MP3's

I would say that I've entered the 1990s with regards to music, but I see that Napster didn't get started until 1999. So, I might not be as far behind the trend as I think.

Anyway, for my birthday last month, I got a new stereo. My previous stereo was a gift from my mother about 15 years ago. It was a fine stereo in its time, but a new one was needed. Other than the very basic stuff that you'd expect to come standard in a radio, there were a few things I was looking for, stuff that most people would probably consider to be "basic" anyway. These were:

• A "line in" option to be able to beam my Launchcast station to it over my RCA Lyra wireless unit.
• A remote control.
• A CD changer that held more than one CD.
• A CD player that played MP3 files.

I added that last requirement without knowing what I would do with it. However, I have learned how cool MP3's can be. I ended up getting a Sony CMT-HPX system. I'm not much of an audiophile, but it seems OK to me. One problem I saw with it was that if I would put the maximum of 5 CDs in the unit, it would still repeat songs on shuffle play more frequently than I would like. This is largely remedied by the power of the MPs.

With MP3s, I'm able to copy my meagre CD collection to MP3s on my computer, and then burn CDs containing these files to be played on my stereo. What's so cool about it is that (with an MP3 compression rate of 160 kpbs) I can fit ten or more albums onto one MP3 CD, and still be satisfied with the resulting sound quality. I can pop one of these into the Sony, put it on shuffle play, and get a lot fewer repeats.

So now I'm working on copying my CD collection to MP3s.

Depending on your level of experience and interest in this area, you're probably thinking one of two things:

• Yes, this all is obvious. What took you so long? Or,
  
• I don't really know what you're talking about.

In any event, I think it's kind of cool.

Currently playing on Launchcast: "Space Oddity" by Natalie Merchant. (What? Did anyone else do that song?)

Hand-Holding in Public

A few weeks ago, as I was walking back to the car with my son from one of his football games, I was holding his hand. I didn't notice any other father/son combinations doing this. At the time I thought "enjoy it while I can," since I know he's very close to the end of the Holding Hands With Daddy phase of his life.

It's interesting that my daughter and I can probably hold hands in public at any age, but that's not the case with my son. This is just an observation; I'm not bemoaning societal norms or anything.

T Plus 7 Weeks

Yet more baby photos...

Four-Year-Old Wisdom

• On horses: The 4-year-old knows that there is a type of horse that is larger and stronger than a regular horse. You and I would call it a draft horse. But, she doesn't quite call it that. Tonight she wanted to play "giraffe horse," with me as the giraffe horse. I thought it was cute.


• On Cesarean Sections: She said something like, "[A friend from preschool] said that sometimes to get the baby out, they take the Mommy to the hospital and cut off her bellybutton and take the baby out and then put on a new bellybutton." I don't think that's quite correct, but maybe not too bad for one four-year-old to another.
  

End of the Biking Season

With the demise of daylight savings time, it pretty much ends the biking season for the year. The early sunsets no longer allow daylight riding in the evenings. Of course, weekends are still available, but with the dropping temperatures, I don't expect to ride a lot between now and the end of the year.

For the second year in a row, the numbers of miles I've ridden has gone down. I may ride a bit more, but I'm not going to top my 2003 distance.

Year	Distance Ridden (miles)
2002	1168
2003	855
2004	700 (so far)

Motorcycle riding was also off for the year. I kind of make 1,000 miles my goal for the amount of miles I ride on my motorcycle, but this year's total was only 410.

Jeff Suppan Baserunning FolliesTM

While it is a bit late to talk about Game 3 of the four-game 2004 World Series, I did want to make a point. You may recall the brain freeze of Cardinal pitcher Jeff Suppan during the third inning of Game 3. He was on third base, when a ball was hit to deep second. The Red Sox were pretty much conceding the run, but Suppan couldn't make up his mind, broke home, went back towards third, stopped, and was eventually picked off.

My intent here isn't to rag on Suppan. These things happen, and it's not like the Cardinals would have won the Series if not for his mistake. He's a pitcher, not a "real" baserunner. Actually, that is my point. I hear National League fans claiming that the American League doesn't play "real" baseball due to the D.H. Maybe that's true. But... it's also true that the chances are that such a sorry display of baserunning would be much less likely to be seen in an American League park. One advantage of "fake" American League baseball is that it tends to keep guys like Suppan off the bases, resulting in fewer "little league" plays in the World Series.

Pumpkin

Baby Photos

People have been complaining lately that they wanted more pictures of the babies, so here you go.

World Series Comment: Bring on Game 7!

As I write this, the Boston Red Sox lead the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series, two games to none. While I guess I prefer Boston to win, a part of me prefers that no team that has won its most recent World Series before 1948 win a World Series before the Cleveland Indians do.

Also, it seems to me that there would be a certain poetic irony if the Cardinals would win the Series after falling behind three games to none.

But, what I think I would most like is a long World Series. I like the World Series. So, the way I look at it, the more the better. For that matter, bring back the 9 game Series. "I predict the Indians in 8!" d:-)

OK, maybe going back to a 9-game Series isn't a serious suggestion. But, I'd rather see the Cardinals win at least a few and make things more interesting.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Amazon link) was a selection from the book discussion group of my local public library. I've never seen the 1945 movie or any other production of this story. In the book, as you are probably aware, the portrait of a young man ages, while his appearance remains unchanged.

This was a slightly different representation of Dorian Gray than how he was portrayed in the 2003 Connery flick The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In that movie, Gray is rather immortal, as any damage done to his body is instantly transferred to the portrait, while he is healed. Needless to say, this is nothing at all like the book. In the book, the focus is on Gray's increasing moral corruption showing up on the picture. While his physical appearance remains unchanging, there is never the assumption that he can't be killed or hurt. In fact, those concerns are a major part of the story.

Another difference between Wilde's work and LXG was that in the mediocre (at best) flick, Gray (or maybe others, I forget) couldn't look at the portrait or he would die, whereas observing the portrait is a major item in Wilde's work.

This wasn't intended to be a comparison/contrast piece between the book and unrelated movies. Anyway, the most interesting parts of the book are not the journeys into Dorian's psyche, but the drawing room conversations involving his friend Lord Henry. If anyone represents the devil in the book, it would definitely be Lord Henry. Although I don't recall his exact quotes, he's the type of character that would say something like, "I hear that Mr. So and So has been spreading vile gossip about me behind my back. Let me assure you that these wild accusations are most certainly and completely true." Henry's advice reminds me of the Weird Al song "Everything You Know Is Wrong". His hedonistic advice is in the end devastating to the young and impressionable Dorian.

As with my recent review of Tolstoy, it's interesting to think that Dorian was written in 1891 or whenever, in the era of my grandparents' grandparents. Some of the sensual descriptions of male beauty make one not surprised to hear of the author's later legal troubles. All-in-all, it's an uneven work. Dorian Gray is enough of a cultural reference that one should be familiar with the concept. It's interesting and entertaining in places. But, in others it is boring and predictable. I certainly wouldn't want to discourage anyone from reading it that might otherwise be interested in the author or the era. I give it two stars out of five.

Roaring 40's Win ILCF Regular Season Title

I'm still amazed at my success, but my CFL fantasy football team's regular season has ended with it in first place. For the sake of posterity, here's the final 2004 ILCF regular season standings:

Standings as of week 18

                     GP   W  L  T Pts   PF   PA  DIFF

Columbus Roaring 40's 18  15  2  1  31  717  427  290

Nepean Killer Bunnies 18  11  6  1  23  718  604  114

Newfoundland Brigade  18  11  7  0  22  657  589   68

Yellowknife Ice Worms 18  10  7  1  21  667  564  103

-----------------------------------------------------------

Richmond Roughriders  18  10  8  0  20  706  625   81

Windsor Border Patrol 18   7  9  2  16  460  577  -117

Steel City Stench     18   3 12  3  9   463  566  -103

Edmonton Marauders    18   1 17  0  2   182  618  -436



Matchups for round 1 of the playoffs (Edmonton players idle)

Yellowknife at Columbus

Newfoundland at Nepean

On to the playoffs!!!

Here's the current roster, which got us through most of the season:

---

QB:	Marcus Crandell, Cal Casey Printers, BC Ricky Ray, ??
OL:	Ottawa
RB:	Antonio Warren, BC Scott Deibert, Cal
RC:	Chris Brazzell, BC Frank Cutolo, BC Winston October, Edm Tony Miles, Tor Mike Morreale, Ham Albert Connell, Cal Denis Montana, Cal
DL:	Brent Johnson, BC Clinton Wayne, Ott Roger Dunbrack, Ott
DB:	Almondo Curry, Mtl George White, Cal
LB:	John Grace, Cal
K:	Paul McCallum, Sask Sandro Sciortino, Ott
P:	Paul McCallum, Sask Sandro Sciortino, Ott
KR:	Winston October, Edm Chris Brazzell, BC

Due Date

Today is the original due date for C and I. I guess this means that my other kids and I can now say that they are "zero" and not "negative one".

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

I last (and first) attempted to read Tolstoy when I was in high school and bought a paperback copy of War and Peace mostly in an attempt to impress a girl. I've been asked whether or not I was successful. Well, I don't think I made it past page 50 or so of about 1500 pages, so you can use your own judgment to answer this question.

But today's review is on The Death of Ivan Ilych. (Here's the Amazon.com link for a slightly different collection.) This is a much shorter story than W&P. I'm not sure what the distinction is between a (long) short story, a novella, and a short novel, but it's in there somewhere, and I made it through the whole thing.

The subject of Ivan should be clear enough from the title. It begins with the title character's funeral, but then backtracks to cover his entire life, including the illness that ended it. The whole gamut of emotions is expressed by ol' Leo, including lots and lots of despair. Tolstoy was masterful in his writing. At times I found myself amazed at how "modern" it sounded for being written in eighteen hundred something-something or whenever.

While I can't say that it was a life-changing experience for me, I can say that this story has the potential to alter how you look at life and death. Thus, it's a weighty and consequential work that will make you think, rather than just being a piece of fluff. Just being potentially life-changing is enough for me to give it my highest rating: five stars out of five.


My copy of Ivan also included the story Master and Man. In this story, a wealthy rural Russian businessman and one of his servants set out (by horse and sledge) on a trip to close the deal on the purchase of a forest. In the middle of winter. In Russia. In a snowstorm. Can you guess what happens next?

Once again, Tolstoy very believably explores the thoughts of men as they approach death. While this story doesn't quite have the impact of Ivan, it's worth reading if you ever find it. Three stars out of five.

I still don't have any plans to pick up War and Peace any time soon.

Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Wait Till Next Year (Amazon.com link) tells the story of the author's childhood in Rockville Centre, New York in the 1950s. Despite the book not being very long (257 quick pages, including a good deal of photographs), the author goes into detail in at least the following areas:

• Her family, including its history, joys, and tragedies.
  
• Her friends, neighbors, and community, including the inevitable decline in community as the decade wore on,
• Her experiences in school and the Roman Catholic Church,
• Her increasing understanding of events of national significance,
• And, last, but not least, what it was like to grow up as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan and the how baseball was and can be a uniting force in families and communities. (As a aside, I was planning on adding a link to a cool Brooklyn Dodgers web site, but I couldn't find one on the first page of Google results.)

One thing I find striking is how much more unsupervised her childhood was compared to those of my children, while my childhood was probably somewhere in-between. Getting into the reasons for this would be a topic for another blog entry.

Back to the book: I found it to be a very good read. If you're not a baseball fan, don't be scared by the apparent baseball theme of the book -- baseball certainly isn't the main point. I suppose I could consider that to be a negative, but I won't. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to just about anyone who would think it might be interesting. Four stars out of five.

Zych For President

The brother of a friend of mine is running for President. Of the United States of America. Check it out.

If I've met him, I'm sure it was only briefly, like at my friend's wedding or something. But, hey, I'd vote for him! "We've Done Worse".

You're Never Too Old To Make a Semicolon Mistake

Not that this will be interesting to many people, but today I noticed that I had made the following C++ mistake. I wrote:

if ( !foo );
{
// ...
}

It was detected early enough in the cycle. Sure, it's legal code, but it would be nice if the compiler would give warnings in cases like this.

(If you'd like, insert your own joke here about the importance of semicolon screening.)

2000 Election Again (or How Big is Your House?)

The law that set the size of the US House of Representatives at 435 was passed in 1941. There is nothing magical about the number 435. If you asked Congresscritters in 1941 what they thought the size of the House might be in 2001, perhaps many would have thought that it would have been larger.

Since Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election, anyone giving a bit of thought to the makeup of the electoral college would realize that a larger House of Representatives would have resulted in a Gore electoral victory. But how large would such a House need to be?

You can find the answer at this link at thirty-thousand.org.

The answer is 492.

Hold on, this is where it gets interesting. House sizes of 491 and 597 result in an electoral tie. But for sizes between these two numbers, the result flip-flops (to use a term from the 2004 election) several times between favouring Bush and Gore, with a few electoral ties as well.

Gore wins with a House size greater than 597. Except for 655, which would have resulted in a tie.

According to the thirty-thousand.org site mentioned above,

The winner of the 2000 presidential election was determined in 1941 when the House size was fixed at 435. Had the House size been set at 500 in 1941 (and not been changed since) then Gore would have won the 2000 election!

Introducing...

Carys (L) and Ian (R)

Naming Research: Still Fascinated by Xzavier

We're still trying to come to a final decision on the topic of baby names. I confess, I am still fascinated by the name Xzavier. According to the Socialist Insecurity Administration, Xzavier was the 707th most popular name in 2003, having been used 268 times, and it is gaining in popularity.

Why do I find this name so interesting? Well, I suppose you need to consider its origins. I assume that somewhere, someone saw the name Xavier, didn't know how to pronounce it, and started saying "Ecks-zavier". Then, someone else said, "'Ecks-zavier', that's a nice name. How do you spell it?" and got "X-z-a-v-i-e-r" as the response. I guess the issue is, how many other names have two obvious mistakes in their derivation?

When it comes to our own name selection saga, we may be reaching some resolution. We've had a girl's name selected for a long time now, and other than some wrangling over the spelling, I think we're set. However, we always have more problems with boys' names. Some of what we've considered can deduced from an entry in this blog. However, we now have another leading candidate. (Hint: It's another non-English name from the British Isles.) I'm not sure if it will be our final decision or not, but it may be.

One problem with this choice is that it might be too popular. It was in the top 100 in popularity for each year since 1990. Ideally, we'd prefer to go with names closer to 200 in popularity: something you've heard of, but a name that isn't too common. We may make an exception this time.

Then there's the problem of middle names. Actually, we're not having as much indecision here.

Also, you may be thinking I should mention my ideas here and perhaps get your input. Sorry, but if I wanted your input on this, I would have already asked for it (and I have asked for some). I feel that I'm under a lot of pressure if someone asks which of two baby names I like better, and I don't want to burden anyone else. This is something we need to handle (mostly) on our own. (Also, once a kid is named, it is then too late for the polite to say anything but, "That's a wonderful name!")

Speaking of wonderful names, some of my better ideas, like Ernest, Frederick, and Brock keep getting vetoed.

Blog Templates: What's the Secret?

As you can see, I added two new little sections on the right column of the blog: Currently Reading and Friends' Blogs. To do this, I had to mess with the Blogger template files. I was able to figure it out, but it's the sort of thing that makes plain HTML look easy.

What's the secret? What am I missing? Surely there are some WYSIWYG template editors somewhere that everyone else is using, isn't there? I'm not so far behind the times that I'm the only one that isn't an expert with these blog templates, am I?

So, how come everyone but me has nice, custom-looking blogs? How do you do it? What tools do you use?

Please help.

Thanks.

More on the Decline of Small, Family-Owned Businesses

Due to the deterioration of the hubs of my front lawnmower wheels after years of use, I need to get some replacements. This Saturday afternoon, I motorcycled to the local, small-town hardware store. (I could have bicycled, but I didn't want to miss too much of the football game on TV.) Part of my thinking was that I could have went to the mega Dow Jones Industrial Average component international hardware store conglomerate, but I'd give the little guy some business.

When I got home and tried to attach the new wheels to my lawnmower, I found that they were the wrong size. (My axles were too short to fit all the way through the hubs.) I don't blame the store for that. I was going to return to the store for an exchange or refund, but I thought it might be a good idea to call first to make sure they were still open. No dice; I called at 5:15, and they said that they closed at 5:00pm on Saturdays. When I enquired about their Sunday hours, I learned that they are closed on Sunday.

These sorts of hours may have been the norm when I was a kid, but I've come to expect being able to do business before the sun sinks too far towards the horizon on a Saturday afternoon, and being able to do business on a Sunday. From this experience, I couldn't help but think to myself, "I should have went to the mega Dow Jones Industrial Average component international hardware store conglomerate. Next time I will."

---

I'm goin' (yes I'm) goin', I'm a-goin' to the
Goin' to the (hard) ware I'm goin', really goin' to the
Goin' (hard) I'm goin' to the (hard) oh yes, I'm goin' to the
Hardware store

Not a Good Day for the Mini-Whites

On Saturday, the "Mini-Whites" had their second game. This one didn't go quite as well as the first as they ended up losing 27-0 to drop their record to 1-1. Below is a photo of their snazzy new game uniforms. (Not shown is the gold helmet with red facemask.) Their whole setup is snazzier than we had when I was a kid and played football. No, the helmets were not leather! But, every team did have plain white pants and plain white helmets with gray facemasks.

Unfortunately, I missed the first bit of the game. The Omni needed a pair of tires, and the other car needed a flat to be fixed. That involved more than a 2 hour wait. The cost of a pair of tires was probably more than the value of the car, but I'm sure it will be a safer ride without the balding tires. I hate to invest too much in the Omni, but I also hate to get rid of it while it still runs.

---

Memories at the Republican Convention

Memories light the corner of my mind.
Misty watercolor memories
Of the way we were.

---

Tonight I watched George W. Bush's acceptance speech for the Republican Presidential nomination. For better or worse, it seems that his campaign intends to bring up memories of his leadership in the time after September 11, 2001, and to campaign on his response to international terrorism. Once again, my wife had the best synopsis of a candidate's speech when she started singing the Barbra Streisand song The Way We Were.

One thing that I found annoying about the speech was the constant interruptions for applause. Did Kerry's speech have so many interruptions? I don't think so, but in any event, it was aggravating for a person who just wanted to hear what he had to say.

A few other thoughts on the speech:

• I liked the self-deprecating comments regarding Bush's problems with language and having his English corrected by Arnold Schwarzenegger. One complaint I have with Bush's term in office is that he gives me the impression that he can't admit mistakes, or even conceive of the possibility that he might sometime make a mistake. So, it was somewhat comforting to see him able to admit some personal flaws.
• I question the need for the far-reaching social programs outlined in the speech, especially in the areas of education and health care. Personally, I feel that the federal government already has far too much say in my children's education, and would prefer that the involvement decrease, not increase. (Please show me which part of the Constitution authorizes federal involvement in this area...)
• It was interesting that when mentioning foreign leaders who were his allies, Prime Minister John Howard of Australia was the first one mentioned. I wonder if this would help or hurt Howard's reelection chances.
• While I'm on the subject of Howard, does he look like "Dick" Cheney? Or is it just that I believed it when I heard that a bald guy with glasses could never be elected President, so I'm surprised when I see them in executive offices?

Here are photos of Cheney and Howard. Can you tell them apart?

---

Memories may be beautiful and yet,
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget.
So it's the laughter
We will remember,
Whenever we remember
The way we were;
The way we were.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

I didn't intend this blog to be a book review site, but I would like to keep a log of the books that I read. The fact that book reviews take up a large percentage of the posts just means that I am not writing non-book review entries frequently enough.

Today's review is of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. (Here's the Amazon.com link.) In the first few pages of the novel, terrorists storm a formal diplomatic dinner party at the Vice Presidential mansion in an unspecified South American country. Their goal is to quickly kidnap the President and escape with him to the jungle. Unfortunately for their plans, the President is not there, things go awry, and they end up in control of the compound, with a houseful of kidnapped dignitaries, but surrounded by police and military forces.

Although it's not mentioned, there are many (superficial, at least) similarities between the story and the Tupac Amaru seizure of the residence of the Japanese ambassador to Peru in 1996-1997.

This could be the setup of a Clancyesque thriller. However it's actually about as anti-Clancy as could be imagined. The story focuses on the development of relationships between the hostages and each other, and between the hostages and the terrorists. There isn't really a "main" character, but the closest thing to one would be Gen, whose role as a professional translator makes him the only person able to communicate with everyone present, and puts him in the centre of most activity.

I can't say I know what it would be like to be in that sort of hostage situation, but the book doesn't have the air of realism to me. However, I don't think it's meant to be "realistic". I think the author tried to imagine what relationships could develop in this sort of situation, and went from there. In some ways, it's more like a romance novel than a political thriller.

It's certainly an OK read, but my opinion of the book went down as I neared the end and the house became more and more of a utopia. I was going to give it three and a half stars, but I'll remove the last half star.

Three stars out of five.

Part-Time Work

On Friday night, I started a new part-time job. This is the first new job that I've begun in too many years now. For tax reasons, I'm an "independent contractor", working for the television station that my brother works for. He's the one that got me the job. They have a state-wide high school football wrap-up show on Friday nights. My job is to scan various internet sites, find final scores from high school football games, and enter them into their system so that the scores will scroll across the bottom of viewers' screens.

Part of me wonders how much more automated this system can become. What would it take to read scores from a file or other internet sites, and transfer them into the system without having to type the numbers in myself? This is an interesting question and I'm not sure if there's a good solution. But, such concerns are really beyond the scope of my assignment.

There was always the feeling of being under pressure. What if I enter the wrong scores? What if I say the wrong team won? I joked that the job would have been a lot easier if their system already had the winning team on the top for each game. Also, they handed me the phone a few times when people called in to the station. I quickly learned that the caller sometimes giveth, and the caller sometimes taketh away. One caller quickly gave me a final I didn't have and hung up. (How very nice and efficient!) Another asked me for some scores. Finally, a third caller tried to give me a score, but I kind of lost him when he was saying, "I think they scored 23. Or maybe it was 25. Something like that." Could it be that the regular employees don't like taking calls? (Why else would they give the phone to the new guy on his first day on the job with no training?)

While I am getting paid, the amount will add about 3% (before taxes) to my income. (Of course I'll work a lot fewer hours at the TV station.) So why am I bothering?

• As Geddy said, "Ten bucks is ten bucks, eh".
• It allow me to keep an eye on my brother.
• It keeps me off the streets.
• It's kind of fun.
• Who know? Maybe a whole new career could spring up. I certainly don't expect anything of that sort. But, there are so little in the way of new opportunities in my current job, and also so little in the way of job security, that it couldn't hurt to try something new and meet some new people.
  

Dear John

I have been trying to figure out the derivation and meaning of the name English names John, Jonas, and Jonah. I've seen conflicting information concerning this. For example,

• Does John mean "God is gracious" or "He (God) accomplishes"?
• It's pretty clear that Jonah is from the Hebrew word for "dove", but is Jonas a variation of John or Jonah? Also, is Jonas Lithuanian or Greek?
  

I found what looks like reliable information at BehindTheName.com. That site has the following in its entry for John:

English form of Johannes, which was the Latin form of the Greek name Ioannes, itself derived from the Hebrew name Yochanan meaning "YAHWEH is gracious".

And the following information appears for Jonas:

JÓNAS m
Usage: Icelandic
Icelandic form of JONAH

JONAS (1) m
Usage: Lithuanian
Lithuanian form of JOHN

JONAS (2) m
Usage: Biblical (Variant)
Greek form of JONAH

(Just another example of the kind of stuff you probably won't learn anyplace else...)

Roaring 40's Undefeated After Week 8!

I've been involved on and off with the ILCF ("Internet League of Canadian Football") for about the past decade. I'm just amazed at how my team (the Columbus Roaring 40's) is doing this year. It's not like I have good access to the goings on of the CFL or anything. Last year's 40's finished with 4 wins or so all year. All I can say is that Casey Printers is the man and I received great advice that I should consider BC's backup because Dave Dickenson was likely to be injured. I'm just happy finish out of the cellar. Here are the standings after 8 weeks of the 2004 season:

                       GP   W   L   T   Pts     PF    PA   DIFF

Columbus Roaring 40's   8   8   0   0     16    371   211   160

Yellowknife Ice Worms   8   5   2   1     11    297   226   71

Windsor Border Patrol   8   5   2   1     11    228   217   11

Nepean Killer Bunnies   8   4   3   1     9     348   312   36

Richmond Roughriders    8   4   4   0     8     357   312   45

Newfoundland Brigade    8   3   5   0     6     257   329   -72

Edmonton Mauraders      8   1   7   0     2     101   247   -146

Steel City Stench       8   0   7   1     1     171   276   -105  

Electoral College Vote Predictor

Check out electoral-vote.com. It's a preduction of the upcoming US Presidential election, updated daily. I assume the guy uses reasonable data rather than just making stuff up. Its current prediction is as follows:


While we're at it, for a completely different take on the election, check out the "Mock Election" results at Dave Leip's uselectionatlas.org.

The Corrections: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen

I recently finished The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. (Here's the Amazon.com link.) This is a book that elicits a lot of thoughts from me, but I am not sure if I'll be able to express many of them in a coherent manner.

The book is the story of a typical(??) dysfunctional American family: two parents and their three adult children. At the highest level, it tells of father Alfred's struggle with Parkinson's disease and his slipping further and further into dementia. But, it also goes in-depth into each of the main characters, exploring how messed-up each of them really is.

At times, Franzen is quite amusing with the jabs he takes at our 21st-century capitalist/consumerist society. As an example, the only model of Sport-Utility Vehicle driven by any of the characters is the Ford Stomper. (This inspired me to call my new minivan a Ford Behemoth.)

So, what's the point of it all? In my book club discussion of this book, everyone was disappointed by the "and they all lived happily ever after" ending. After spending 592 pages describing how dysfunctional everyone was, nobody thought the final five pages were very believable. If I had to find an overall theme, it would be that the story is a confirmation of Numbers 14:18b in the Bible: "[God] punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

I found the book to be overly long. Also, why can't books be rated like movies? I found this one to be fuller of coarse language and sex than I prefer in a novel. It would be nice if there were some way to learn about a book's content or its "suitability for children" or whatever, othen than just reading it.

The author shows a lot of talent in this book, and I'm sure that some people will really like it and consider it to be an "example of meaningful contemporary literature". But in this case I don't think "a display of writing talent" necessarily translates into a book that I'd recommend.

Two stars out of five.

The Things You See In The Sky

I try to go camping in a tent with one or more of my children at least once a year. (Yes, I know, this is a pretty feeble goal...) Anyway, last night my son and I went camping in our spacious backyard. (Despite nothing but endorsements by me for Therm-a-rest, I'm a bit stiff today.)

I woke up at 5:00 AM and made a quick trip into the house's downstairs bathroom. When I got out, I was amazed at what was in the sky. It was a clear night, and I noticed:

• How bright the half-moon made everything. Sure, there was the light pollution of the neighborhood, but I think most of the light came from the moon.
• What I assume was Venus shining brightly in the eastern sky. (I've never seen Venus there before...)
• What I have to assume was a satellite floating by. I last remember seeing a satellite at summer camp maybe 25 years ago.

You can notice a lot in the backyard at five in the morning.

The Kerry Bunch

I was rather impressed by John Kerry's speech at the Democratic convention last night. I disagree with him on just about every issue, so that was no small feat on his part. For example, I don't remember which part of the Constitution mentions a right to health care, and I don't see the need to raise taxes on anyone. By the way, it was interesting to hear the applause at the convention for his proposal to raise taxes on people who make more than $200,000 per year. I wondered to myself how many of the people at the convention make less than $200K annually.

But all-in-all, a good job. I didn't see much that would scare away undecided voters. After the speech, my thinking is that Kerry's opponent had better state the reasons why the public should vote for him, and not just harp repeatedly on why Kerry would be the wrong choice.

What did you think of the speech?

The best moment of the night was when my wife, noting Kerry's 2 daughters and his wife's 3 sons, said, "Almost the Brady Bunch."

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

It would be nice for me to continue write reviews of books here as I read them. Yesterday, I finished The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. (Here's the Amazon.com link.) If you're not familiar with the concept, it's a collection of letters from a senior demon to his young nephew, who, through temptation, is attempting to bring about the damnation of his first "patient".

There's probably not a lot in the way of a review that I can add beyond what you can find at the link above. But, in short, I thought the concept of the book was very clever, and found it to be very interesting. There are some "Christian" books that I wouldn't recommend to the typical non-Christian reader. That's not the case with this book. I'd recommend it to anyone. If you haven't already, then read this book!

Five stars out of five.

Football Practice

Today was my son's first day of football practice. I had been concerned that his "sedentary" lifestyle (despite the fact that he has like 0.3% body fat) would cause him to have a miserable time and hate the physical exertion. So, to get him ready, I had been running about 1 km with him almost every day for about 2 weeks. As so often happens, he got along with no problems despite my reservations.

My son is one of the older kids in the group. He's probably average height and thin for his age. From looking at the kids, it seems to me that there are some younger kids that are big for their age in the group. Compared to the other kids, it seemed he was alert and paying attention -- using those sharp mental abilities to make up for lack of physical talent -- just like his dad would.

Today (and all this week) is just physical conditioning. He said it was fun. I told him it will be more fun once they actually touch a football!

Save Your Work!

Yesterday, I had written my longest blog entry yet. I was on a roll, discussing that spot where religion, patriotism, and motorcycles all meet. As I was putting the finishing touches on the piece, I tried adding an HTML link (to one of the works of none other than Flavius Josephus), messed up something when trying to add a target="_blank" tag to the link, and somehow lost the whole shebang.

Now you'll never know what Josephus and Kawasaki have in common.

What's In A Name?

Poutineq. Pronounced "Poutine Q", or even "Poo-Teen-Kyuu".

What does it mean?

1.) When my brother was in college, some of his drinking budd^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B fellow scholars used the term "doughnut". Since a doughnut resembles a zero, it was used to describe things in a negative way. It was also used (lovingly, I assume) for each other.

2.) Also, when these guys were in college, they were big fans of the letter "Q". Why? Well, why not? I'm under the impression that nothing could have made them happier than seeing a business with a huge "Q" on an overhead sign.

3.) At one point, my brother set up an e-mail account for himself named "DoughnutQ". While the account is long deactivated, its legacy lives on in poutineq.

4.) Not too many years thereafter, I first set up an account with a major internet site. I tried various combinations of my first and last names, but these had already all been taken. The site suggested that I add some digits (such as the year or my postal code) after my name, but I wanted an account name with no digits. Getting frustrated, I tried "poutine" as my account name. No dice; it wasn't available. Remembering the old "DoughnutQ" account, I appended a 'Q' after the word "poutine", and the rest is history.

5.) OK, so what is poutine? You could try looking in the dictionary(.com), but it isn't there. To quote one site on the web, "Poutine is a French-Canadian concoction comprised of french fries, gravy, and cheese curds." I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but I would say "fried potatoes" rather than "french fries", and I'll point out that poutine can be found all over Canada. I hear it's good for the heart and circulatory system.

So there you have it!

All Steinbecked Out

I recently finished reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. This is the 4th work by him that I've read in recent years (too many prostitutes), and I must say that I'm all Steinbecked out for a while. At 600+ dense pages, East isn't for the easily-sidetracked, and I've had enough.

Central to the story is the translation of one Hebrew verb (timshel) from Genesis 4:7. See here for a segment from the book. Basically, Steinbeck's character translates the verb as Thou mayest, meaning that it is up to an individual (and not his ancestors or anything else) whether or not he will choose good or evil.

Interestingly, Steinbeck seems to be the only one who translates this verb this way, as you can see if you click on the Genesis link above. So, while it's an interesting thought, it doesn't seen to agree with the mainstream opinion of Biblical translators regarding the proper wording. Steinbeck's opinion doesn't necessarily agree with the rest of the Bible either. I'm sure I'll comment more on the Bible (and everything else) in the upcoming weeks, months, and years.

I guess Steinbeck wasn't a Calvinist.

East gets four stars out of five. I'm sorry if that's too low a rating for such a "classic", but I liked his Grapes of Wrath better, and that gets 5 stars.