Sadness Abounds

Guys,

I have bad news. My laptop crashed with all of my data and dissertation. I can not respond to the blog, but give me a few days. I'll catch up.

-Dave

To aide and abet...

I found this a while back, and noted that it discussed a lot of the different topics we've been going over. It's a debate site, where things are VERY cleanly put into simple questions that are debated by people who have a vested interest in the topic; e.g., "Abstinence-only sex-ed?" debated by Lifeway Christian Resources vs. American Public Health Assn. I've not had time to investigate thoroughly yet (S. and I looked through the 'Same-sex Marriage' and the 'Death Penalty' ones, but briefly), but I'd like to go deeper. All these people are, at least somewhat, experts, and have been vetted to be who they purport, so it seems to have cred.

Check it out and lemme know what you think.

Happy Birthday, K!

You know her. You love her. It's her golden birthday. 25 on the 25th. And you know what we always used to say around the Hall - a golden birthday deserves a golden shower. I was only sixteen on my golden birthday . . .

But I digress. Guys, did you really ever think I would get married? Okay, maybe you did, but did you ever think she'd be this cool?! In a perfect world, she would have been right there at Ole Miss with us. Then again, I probably would have alienated her with my drunken antics.

She will never play beer pong against Nic or get stupid baked with Dave, but we will still have good times together. Happy birthday, boo!

New Weekly Segment

I am going to start a new segment called "Abby's Crazy Dreams." Believe me, you are going to love it.

Pilot Episode:

We move to Cali into a new futuristic duplex that is round. We own half of the round shape, like a half moon. Also, the apartment came pre-filled with feral cats that we had to dispose of. There is a vending machine in the kitchen filled with frozen desserts and the bathroom had an airplane style toilet (vacuum suction). Also, gangs controlled the railroad tracks. There is an elevated bicycle ramp with a train stop connected to the duplex. The strangest room is the 'drying room.' Upon shutting the door and turning the handle to closed, anything in the room would become instantly dehydrated. Apparently, I left our baby in the room and turned the room on. Our baby instantly became dehydrated and was declared dead. Abby was very upset but I told her I didn’t mean to do it. Then I explained that since it was freeze dried, she would have the baby forever, like a baby doll. The baby's mouth was even stuck kind of creepily half open like a baby doll. Also, we would have competitions when having sex. When the train arrived at the station, we would start having sex and try to finish before the rain left the station (can't imagine that would be hard for me). Abby describes it as "crazy jackrabbit sex."

When you left the apartment down metal ladder stairs, you entered a lobby with three hallways. One hallway lead to the pet area, where you could take your pets to poo and stuff. Another one is a grand ballroom, where you they enforced a dress code of tuxedo and ball gown to enter. The third was a banquet hall where weddings are always held. None of the hallways were labeled and the realization of walking into the wedding room with a dog and messing up a wedding was a reality to the occupants. The other side was a train station terminal with a Santa Fe restaurant. The owner is very wealthy and we became friends. One night, while laying in bed and watching a documentary about former gang leaders, we saw the owner and he was identified as a former gang leader but was reported as dead.

This is but a mere glimpse into what is reported to me on a morning basis.

FYI...

From JetBlue's website:

JetBlue To Discontinue Operations in Ontario, California

JetBlue announced it will discontinue operations in Ontario, CA, effective September 3, 2008.

"The dramatic rise in fuel prices has forced us to make the difficult decision to discontinue operations in Ontario," said Dave Barger. "While we understand the impact this decision has on our customers and our crewmembers, we need to make appropriate network adjustments to better match our capacity with customer demand."

2 Good Things

1. The Dark Knight on IMAX
Went to see it with Kelly, Vince, and a few others Friday night at 9:00. IMAX is the way to go, not only because of the stellar views of the city, but also because the seats were assigned, so there was no huge line and no rushing in to get the best seats. We didn't even start gathering around the entrance until 8:30 or so. The whole affair was much more civilized than I expected. I was a little worried when this woman in the row in front of us was blabbing about how her friend was in the movie and how they were all going to scream when they saw him, and when someone started shining a bat signal flashlight at the screen during the previews, but that was the extent of the rowdiness. The crowd was enthusiastic but silently reverent during the film. They laughed at the right places, they clapped where appropriate. I guess when tickets are $15 and sell out two weeks before, you weed out some of the riff-raff.

As for the film, I thought it was phenomenal. There were a few plot points I found implausible, and I found Bale's Batman voice a little silly at times, but I'm not going to nitpick. Vince texted me over the weekend and said he kept thinking about the movie. I feel the same way. Moments keep coming up in my mind. It was also doubly fun to watch the movie as a Chicago resident. So many buildings were familiar. The court building where Harvey Dent worked is the same place where Kelly and I took filings for the law firm. There was even a scene filmed right outside the church where we got married. One of the Gotham City buses was clearly a CTA bus with the logo changed just a little bit to say GTA. It was fun picking all that stuff out.

Also, I thought Heath Ledger's performance fully lived up to the hype. I think I would feel the same way even if he hadn't passed. He did a fantastic job embodying that character. I loved Nicholson's turn as the Joker in 1989 when I was in third grade, and I loved what Ledger did with it. In contrast, I found his performance in Brokeback Mountain very understated and subtle. Kelly hasn't seen that film, so it's next on the Netflix queue.

2. Wii
I got about 2 hours of sleep Sunday night, so when it came time for me to get ready for work, I had been up for hours and had a splitting headache. I decided to call in sick. Kelly did as well, and as luck would have it, the Wii arrived, after almost two weeks from the time the eBay guy shipped it USPS. I had it mailed to my work address, so there was a covert operation to retrieve it from the mail room without being detected by any co-workers.

The operation was a smashing success. I got in, picked up the package, and slipped back out. The mail room is a floor below where I work, and I didn't see anyone I knew on the elevator rides up or down. Everything was in great condition and we were playing Mario Kart Wii within minutes of opening the box. I also tried out Wii Play (lame) and baseball and bowling on Wii Sports (cool). I have yet to try out Link's Crossbow, but that'll be sweet. There are also some Nintendo 64 games I have yet to try.

How about your respective weekends?

Politics Shmolitics

I had a gchat with Dave earlier. It seems he's unhappy at the way I've responded to some of his political posts. According to Dave, instead of presenting the other side of an issue, I have simply written about why he is wrong. I did not mean to be negative or overcritical. Dave also went on to say that he feels he should no longer make posts of a political nature because he gets too caught up in the debate.

I think this points to why political discussions are often so heated; they get too emotional. People stop listening to each other, or they only address one part of a person's argument. Even in blog form this is a problem, as I am guilty of not fully reading Dave's posts and responding to one piece of his argument with which I disagree.

Why do they say not to discuss religion and politics in polite company? Because it's so personal. I think facts and figures are all well and good, and they'll score you extra points if you're on the debate team, but I think most political beliefs are way more subjective than all that. They are a mixture of ideas handed down from our families of origin and the lessons we have taken away from our own experiences in the world.

Trying to get a person on the other side of the ideological fence to come around to your way of thinking on an issue is like trying to convince someone how delicious your favorite food is. Talk until you're blue in the face, they're still going to hate bananas. Maybe it's not as simple as all that, but it seems that way sometimes. Maybe people can change their point of view, but I don't think talk does much good to effect that change.

Chillax

I think things have gotten a little too serious on here. Try this. And please watch the video with the screencap you see above.

Where they're from.

It turns out that I was mistaken. If you walk up to a person who got their Ph.D. in 2006, they most likely got their undergrad degree from Tsinghua University. Second most likely is Peking U. The total over the past decade still goes to Berkeley, but Seoul will pass that soon, and the Chinese unis will pass all of them very quickly at this rate. Blog here, original article in Science here.

Why don't we, as Americans, get Ph.D.s anymore? Of course, these numbers are not on a per capita basis, which will skew things a bit. Interesting to think about though.

Trying to convince me that this is satire is a waste of time. This is inappropriate no matter which candidate you support.

This seems unfair!!

Poor suckers.

This is why the Yankees Suck

You can buy talent, but you can't buy personality or a good attitude.

Should America have an official language?

As i am sure most of us know, Barack Obama made this statement (video below) about American's learning to speak Spanish instead of worrying about Hispanic immigrants speaking English.



Now, he qualifies himself by saying, "Yeah, I agree immigrants should speak English" but then goes on to say that we should learn how to speak Spanish. Now logically, why would one say these things. If he agrees that immigrants should learn English, then why does he also agree that we should learn Spanish. I am an amateur traveler and have been to several foreign countries. I have been to China, India, Mexico, and Holland (briefly). When I went to these countries, I tried to speak as much of their natie language as possible (China was the most difficult by far). If I was going to move to any of these countries, I would definitely learn the language before I embarked, at least to the point of understanding daily functions (groceries, transportation, etc.). I would not expect them to learn English.

If we encourage our society to become bilingual in Spanish, we are only encouraging those who speak Spanish to come to our country and not assimilate into the American society, which I think is wrong. I have seen this example happen before my very eyes. There are several Chinese people in our lab. One only lives and socializes with Chinese outsided of lab and the other one associates with Chinese and Americans alike. They were both at the same level of speaking skills when they arrived 2 yrs ago. Now, if you talked to both of them, you could be convinced that one came to America 3 months ago and one has been here for 5+ years. If you only speak the language you are comfortable with then you will never learn the language of the natives.

I feel in my heart that Obama meant these comments for good. Essentially saying that we need to better ourselves in the world arena and become more well-rounded. The way they were said was quite harsh and condesending in my opinion. I dont like someone who cant speak English voting in my country, opening businesses in my country, having children in my country. I just dont. I know this makes me a hard-hearted person, but i feel like no one gets a benefit in this situation and everyone receives a benefit in the bizzaro situation.

Like Riding a Bike

A couple months back, I got an email from a member of my first ever iO team, Quincy. Most of us went through classes together and we performed at the theater for two years before getting cut, longer than most teams there. My teammate was writing to see if anyone would be interested in entering Battleprov, a show at ComedySportz that pits their house teams against different groups from around Chicago. I thought it would be a disaster; we had't played together in over a year and I figured we'd be rusty as hell.

The show was last night. K. and I rode our newly-purchased bikes about thirty blocks and still made it in time to have dinner in the old neighborhood. As we were riding home, I commented on how amazing it is that when you're a kid, it is so daunting and difficult to learn to stay up on a bicycle, but once you've got it down, you never lose it. It's been years since my last bike was stolen, but of course I had no trouble riding the new one (getting it assembled was a different story).

Anyway, my show last night was the same way. We whooped the other team's ass almost two to one. The vote was something like 37-19. We didn't rehearse, we didn't warm up before the show, we didn't spend more than five minutes discussing what we would do, but we had a great show. It felt really good.

Unlike iO's Cagematch, Battleprov is not a tournament. We will not advance in a bracket, but we would like to do some more shows together. It takes such a long time for an improv team to build chemistry that it would be a shame for us not to perform together.

Calling All Power Hitters

The Cardinals nation just received bad news this week. The Milwaukee Brewers traded for CC Sabathia and the Cubs acquired A's ace Rich Harden. The Cardinals got nothing so far. We need a quality bat, like Pat Burrell or Chase Utley, or we need a fast leadoff hitter, like Jose Reyes. Please, anything, we can't finish behind the Brewers!!!

-Dave

Wii the People

Since Dubya thought it'd be a good idea to slap a Band-Aid on the shitty economy by sending me a check for $600, I decided it'd be a good idea to stimulate the economy and blow $400 of it on toys.

K. and I played Wii Rockband and Mario Kart at a friend's place a few weeks ago and it became clear that we needed some Wii in our lives.

After much searching on eBay today, I found this. Not a bad deal when you consider that buying everything new would be close to $500.

Next on the wish list are the Wii Fit and Rockband. If you haven't ever played Rockband, please find a friend who has it and let them know how much you miss hanging out with them. Also, allow yourself several hours of hangout time. It's quite ridiculous.

Money money money money..... MOOONEEEY!

This website is really interesting to me. It's a blog by some guy who, I don't think, ever espouses to be some kind of financial guru, but if you read his story (top of the page... 'my story'), he had a very tough time of it and got out of some deep financial ruin. It was all his own fault and spending, and he admits that, and he has good suggestions for people, it seems. Some of the people who write in are wackos, but that's everywhere.

I know Dave likes the financial sites, and he and I are almost to the point where we're actually going to have an income, as opposed to student-level pay scales we've had for the past ten years.

Thoughts from you two (or others) on savings/spendings/financial stuff and how you're going about setting up security for later?

Happy Bday, Amurrica!

K. and I are heading to Wisconsin this afternoon. Morningstar is closing up shop at 3. Hopefully we won't get stuck in gridlock, but it is likely, as many Chicagoans own or rent summer homes in WI.

The place we're going is the gaily named Snug Harbor Cottages in Sturgeon Bay. It's way the hell up there on Lake Michigan, just across from the pinky finger of the mitten that is the state of Michigan.

Should be fun. I've been to Lake Geneva, WI, with K. once, but that was for New Year's, so I didn't experience the summer fun.

I know Dave will be donning his captain's hat for the 4th. What's up in the Roch?

Routine

My last haircut was just before the wedding, so I was long overdue for another one. I had to drop the car off at the mechanic this morning, so I was going to get up early and drive 25 blocks north to my old barber. I planned on being there at 7:00 when they opened their doors. K. suggested I try the downtown barber her father uses. I was extremely hesitant to do so. I decided to give it a try, since the place was in the Civic Opera building, a short walk to my office.

First of all, I feel like I've cheated on my regular barber, a very nice gay man named David. Unlike the other black-shirted barbers at Gabby's, a great old-fashioned place where they shave your neck with hot lather and a straight razor, David always wears Hawaiian shirts. It's fun.

Aside from that, Sam scraped my neck with the straight razor and did not apply a hot towel after the neck shave. He also scraped a vacuum hose over my scalp, which hurt like hell. I got a good haircut, but I think this new place was doomed from the start because they weren't my "regular" place. Even Gabby's wasn't just around the corner from my old apartment, but it was familiar.

Do you have routines you hate to break?

Critters

I thought I'd show you two Mittens, since we've seen all of your critters. Next, we post pics of our girls in lingerie! w00t!

Mmmm...

We just got the most amazing peaches I've had since being in the frozen tundra. Of course, it's hot as balls outside and i've a bit of a burn from the sun, so it's about time my comrades from the South let some of them through the Mason-Dixon.

Off that note, S. and I had a great talk tonight about how we read the Second Amendment as it stands. Just taking what's said there (with the context of what they wanted to say there) and what do we come up with, etc. So here it is, for reference:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I have to say that it says that the People have a right to bear arms. Not what kind of arms, but that there is a right, afforded the People (which is up for discussion too), that they can own a gun. She reads that it's inherently tied to "the need for a Militia", in the first part of the sentence. All in all, it's so poorly written (independent subordinate clause?), it's hard to parse it out. Part of me wants to read the antithesis to it as, "Since we don't need a Militia, we shall infringe on the people's right to keep and bear Arms." Still a 'right' in that context. She reads the antithesis as, "Since we don't need a Militia, the people have no right to bear arms." And I see what she's saying, and I agree with that stance, but it's easier to see how people want to, and can, poke holes in it.

Then the question is, do we need a Militia now? Further context here, if you're interested. Seems it was intended to allow white men to keep their guns to fend off the Injuns and Redcoats (if they came back), and is not necessarily a personal right. Much credit to S. for finding this stuff and totally disagreeing with me, while not using her law and English background to stripe my arse on a meds day. She's the bestest.

Harry Reid is probably not on Dennis Miller's Christmas card list

- Dave

A "Funny" "Blog"

I've got to give some love to this "blog"

Anybody Remember Phil Moore?

He loved wrestling just as much as these guys. Also, I have to stop posting and work on my dissertation, but I love our new toy so much.

Not Good News for Our Friends in the Windy City

Looks like that Pockets lunch is going to cost a bit more.

Mash It Up

I remember the first time I ever heard about YouTube. I was in the car listening to NPR (now I sound like my mother, citing NPR as the source of all new information) and there was a story about the rise of YouTube. The reporter talked about YouTube as a vast store of other artists' work - he looked up old recordings of his favorite jazz musicians, for example.

Obviously, YouTube has become much more than an archive. There are millions of video blogs, original films, and home movies posted to the site. There are also many tributes - type in any popular song title in the YouTube search box and you see several dozen kids sitting on their beds with acoustic guitars, turning in their best covers.

But there is another widespread, and often more interesting, phenomenon on the site - the mashup. Here the poster plays DJ and brings two different songs together to make a new tune. The best mashups are those that use two seemingly very different songs. Sometimes the effect of the juxtaposition is simply humorous, but other times one is surprised how well the two songs go together.

Here are three of my favorites:

Pump Up My Doorbell


Come Closer Together


Smells Like Billie Jean

Yet Another Perk to SoCal

This happened about 1 mile from the school where I will be teaching. Yeah!!!!

It's Not Even the All-Star Break

Wow,

The Cubs get swept by the White Sox and all hell breaks loose.

-Dave

The Irish are Coming! The Irish are Coming!

This is absolutely amazing! I can't believe people would actually spend their time searching for such a ridiculous item. I especially love the Leprechaun Flute and the artist's rendering of the mysterious being.

-Dave