Category Archives: uncategorized

The Guardian: A teenager impregnated his younger sister, who later killed the baby and hid the body in a duffel bag in her closet, authorities said. Everybody loses here. Everybody.

The Crimson: In one entry, Burch said she was “ready to get a shotgun and declare open season on all senior faculty members and students who dared cross [her].” “It was definitely not my intention to slander anyone and I wasn’t trying to stir things up as they seemed to be implying,” she said. “I just sort of used the blog as a way to let off steam.” Um, yeah. You might want to rethink the whole “getting a shotgun and declaring open season on your co-workers thing” then. That kind of statement is apparently easily misconstrued.

azcentral.com: Sen. Mike DeWine fired a low-level staffer Friday after an Internet diary of her sexual exploits – including stories about taking money for sex from government officials – became the buzz of the Washington Beltway. Speaking of things you shouldn’t write on your weblog.

The Oregonian: Murder-by-abuse, punishable by life in prison with 25 years before possible parole, means the victim suffered from a pattern of assaults. An autopsy found Ryshawn Bynum died of a brain injury and had a broken neck, broken ribs and as many as 70 whip marks on his legs, buttocks, back and chest that were of various ages. This story holds a special place in my heart. Not only did a man do this to his own son, he also claims he’s not responsible because of generational trauma: Randall Vogt is offering the untested theory, called post traumatic slave syndrome, in his defense of Isaac Cortez Bynum, who is charged with murder by abuse in the June 30 death of his son, Ryshawn Lamar Bynum. Vogt says he will argue — “in a general way” — that masters beat slaves, so Bynum was justified in beating his son. OK, all racial and political overtones aside, how does anyone justify beating a child? I’m not naive, and I don’t condemn spanking, but breaking your kid’s neck and ribs and whipping the child is a horrible, horrible thing to do. Rule Number Three in my personal list of rules is Don’t Hurt Kids. A corollary to that rule says Especially Your Own Kid. This guy’s a sick piece of crap and needs to be punished twice: once for killing his own son and a second time for trying to hide from his actions with such a lame, politically charged excuse. The guy sickens me. I’d have taken his kid into my home if he didn’t want him anymore.

But there are some bright spots, like the eleven year old girl who wrote to Nordstrom’s to tell them that some girls would like to buy less-revealing clothing. Good for her. And some good folks are trying to save the apostrophe. Someone should. Plus, someone has mapped out Springfield. Cool. And someone is pointing out the idiocy of email disclaimers.

So it’s not all bad news. But is this the world I want my daughter to grow up in? It’s a scary thought.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

No, wait. It is a bird. A small, flightless waterfowl, to be exact. A penguin.

I am caught in the grip of SuperTux, an open source game I happened upon a few days ago. It’s a clone of Super Mario Brothers, featuring, of course, a penguin, the darling of the open source crowd.

Even though it’s trendy or cool, I’m a sucker for side scrollers. There’s something to be said for simple, engaging gameplay. Sure, it’s not 3D. Sure, it’s not ultraviolent or controversial. But it sure is fun to play.

Today is May 25, 2004. This is the day my daughter turns five years old. This fall, she’ll begin Kindergarten. I don’t know how this happened. I blinked, and all of a sudden there’s this baby in the house. I bilnked again, and suddenly there’s this little person, who can walk and talk and do all sorts of funny things. And today she’s been with us for five years.

It’s just after midnight. Five years ago right now, Jen and I were in the hospital. Jen was doing the hard part. Her parents were there waiting. My mom was there waiting. Her sister was there waiting. We were all in the room together. We weren’t supposed to have that many people in the delivery room, but Jen was in labor for a long time, and we had all stuck it out, and the nurse didn’t have the heart to kick us out when it was “time.” So we all got to be there.

All but five years after that, she got her first stitches. On Saturday, she tripped at the store and bumped her head on a metal shelf, requiring four stitches, which she doesn’t feel look very princess-like. I’ve never had stitches myself. Gracie tells me I don’t ever want to. She’s probably right.

But she does feel like a princess now. A few hours ago, I installed a canopy on her bed. She fell asleep grinning and staring at the canopy and talking about how much she felt like a princess.

I hope she always feels like a princess. She’ll always be one to me.

You know, for a long time now, I’ve figured that TV had gotten pretty warped. But I think a lot of things follow a pendulum, and that soon TV would be improving again. Alas, I’m beginning to lose hope.

At the risk of offending reality show junkies, reality TV is simply one of the worst things that has ever happened. Ever.

And we’ve reached a new low. Introducing Dr. Love’s Super Baby Making Show. Yes, that’s the actual title, as reported by CNN. And in case you didn’t guess, here’s the goal: Ten couples from around the world could compete in a reality TV show in Singapore to see who can procreate first, the city-state’s self-styled sex guru said Thursday. Yes, that’s right, the first couple to get pregnant wins. I think they should have called it Making the Baby, in an homage to Making the Band, one of the worst shows ever to grace our airwaves, which incidentally gave us Otown, one of the worst “bands” ever.

At least it’s kind of for a good cause. I mean, aside from making babies, which is almost always a good thing. But part of the goal is to encourage Singaporeans to have more kids, since their population has been on the decline.

According to the article, nine foreign couples and a Singaporean couple will take part. I sincerely hope that one of the foreign couples is not this German couple: A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless – they weren’t having sex. Yes, the childless couple hadn’t yet sealed the deal, so to speak. Of course, abstinence is the best birth control, but only when you’re trying not to get pregnant.

More from the article: The 30-year-old wife and her 36-year-old husband are now being given sex therapy lessons while the university clinic undertakes a study to try to find out if there are more couples with a similar lack of sex education. Good for them. You know, this could really enhance their marriage.

While your qualifications are noteworthy, I regret to inform you that you are not among the finalists for the position.

I’m thankful for some clarity, finally. Looks like I’m staying at Etown, and I’m happy about it.

I’m part of a really good team. There’s Dave, who quite frankly, needs me to look after him and wouldn’t be able to function effectively without me. And Mike, who’s been a faithful friend and companion since seventh grade (and who also happens to be the best hardware guy around). And Nicole, aka Niner, who will realize tomorrow what I did to get even for the stunt she pulled during the “Change Process” seminar at the IM conference. Not to mention Angry Young Dan, my favorite libertarian, who is now so sneaky that his website can no longer be read by mere mortals. Throw Doris and Brenda into the mix, and you’ve got yourself quite a crew. A crew that I’m proud to be part of.

I know it’s really easy to say stuff like after you’ve been rejected, but you can ask Dave and Mike – I made my decision before I got canned.

You know, I don’t even remember who gave the speech at my college commencement nine years ago. All I remember, aside from the grad cap tanlines on my head, is waking up and telling Jen that I didn’t want to go, because, really, we were just as graduated without the ceremony. (Note: We got married the summer between our junior and senior years of college.)

She would have none of it, so off we went. Our parents were planning on being there anyway. I think we walked to graduation.

But I don’t remember who gave the speech. Certainly wasn’t anybody cool or famous.

So now I read that Will Ferrell did the speech at Harvard last year:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Faculty, Administrators, Friends and Family and, of course, the graduating Class of 2003, I wish to say hello and thank you for bestowing this honor upon me as your Class Day speaker. After months of secret negotiations, several hundred secret ballots, and a weekend retreat with Vice President Dick Cheney in his secret mountain bunker, a Class Day speaker was chosen, and it was me. You obviously have made a grave error. But it’s too late now. So let’s just go with it.

And Jon Stewart was at William and Mary:
I know there were some parents that were concerned about my speech here tonight, and I want to assure you that you will not hear any language that is not common at, say, a dock workers union meeting, or Tourrett’s convention, or profanity seminar. Rest assured.

Penn State had freakin’ Bono! But I doubt he said anything funny. He’s been remarkably non-funny lately.

But that’s not the kicker. Villanova had Big Bird AND Oscar the Grouch. That’s right, Caroll Spinney, and he did some of it in character!

Now if there had been muppets at my college graduation, I wouldn’t have had second thoughts about attending.

Are these people computer programmers or serial killers? Find out here. I scored 6/10.

Which Nigerian spammer are You?

Which OS are You?

While I still intend to create a standalone comments system for use with tangelo, I’m not going to do it tonight. So I’ve temporarily signed up with HaloScan, which is actually providing trackback as well. I’m reasonably happy with the look of the HaloScan comments. I just wish it provided email notification in the free version. Oh, well, I suppose one can’t have it all.

I’ve ripped out tangelo’s old FTP code and replaced it. Seems much more stable and reliable now except for one specific case that I need to nail down, when republishing a huge number of individual posts. Otherwise, it’s in way better shape than it was.