Newspaper Fail

Andy caught this one in the Mercury News last weekend, and we just had to share. Why is this nice lady smiling about a fatal wolf attack? And are crabs really appropriate here? (This one is for you, Joe!)

Live, Mixed Martial Arts

After a lot of roughhousing on the ice during tonight's Sharks/Blues game, Randy and Drew made the best ever announcement of an upcoming sporting event at the Pavilion.

"Live, mixed martial arts return to the HP Pavilion," said Randy.

Hahahahaa, Andy and I said to one another. We're looking forward to the next home stand. Hahahaha. Oh wait-you mean actual mixed martial arts, not hockey? Give the fans some notice, wouldja?

Oh, and if you haven't met the elements with TMBG yet, you should. We can't get that song out of our heads here. Science is real! At some point I will share the deep mathematical thinking their Here Come the 123s album inspired in Elise. Somebody remind me...

Aaaaaaaaaaa's

The Mercury News is running articles about a potential move of the A's from Oakland to San Jose these days. They officially nixed plans for a new stadium in Fremont, and San Jose is experiencing that hope which springs eternal etc. I find this interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the series of nasty articles the Merc was running when we first moved here which lambasted city government for spending lots of money on environmental impact studies and the like. Fickle.

As someone who used to live cheek-by-jowl with the proposed stadium site, I have some opinions. First, the neighborhood is feeling a little worn out on development. The city council hasn't been terribly friendly to residents who want to preserve what walkability we have and create more. Any time a developer whimpers that they can't possibly build new high-density housing if they don't put residences instead of retail at street level, planning commissioners hold their little hands and protect them from the big bad neighborhood. This doesn't instill confidence in the process.

Second, a lot of the people in the neighborhood worry that a stadium would cause no end of congestion and noise. With the HP Pavilion just up the street, they know what they're talking about. If the city wants a stadium, there needs to be good planning and budgeting to handle traffic and crowd control. Get creative! Someone, somewhere must be able to design a public service campaign to make it socially unacceptable to pee all over the neighbors lawns and parks on the way back to your car after a sporting event.

I realize I'm sounding grumpy here, but if I had confidence that planners could get these little things under control, I'd be the biggest cheerleader for moving the As to SJ. As many loyal readers know, back in Chicago we were big Sox fans. Our good friend Job cleverly rented an apartment just a few blocks away from Comiskey, which meant that we spent a lot of time at his house enjoying BBQ, free parking and a leisurely stroll to the games. It was wonderful! I've missed being able to get to MLB games since we got here. No desire to go all that way to see the Giants, the A's are my area team of choice, and transit there is kind of a pill. Fighting traffic to Fremont so that we can take BART the rest of the way to the stadium is a little more stressful than it needs to be. And we could WALK if the A's move to SJ's proposed stadium.

My friends over by the train station are worried that a stadium would turn them into a ghetto, but I think the opposite would happen, given what I saw in Chicago. Wrigleyville is a happening place, drunken fratboys peeing on the grass after games notwithstanding. Big fans will be willing to pay decent money to live near the stadium. I think if anything, the proposed stadium would raise property values, which I know would relieve everyone over there.

A clever A's management would notice but not mention the fact that the South Bay has a high concentration of kids along the autistic spectrum. A built in fan-base of stats keepers who would make lifelong fans. Sure, you'd have to tone down the music at the stadium and not set off fireworks after every home run if you want to sell tickets, but that seems like it would be better for everyone anyway. A total win. (For those who don't know me well, I'm NOT making fun of people with autism. I'm making fun of baseball stats and fandom in general.)

Who knows-maybe some of the passion and excitement around the hockey team just up the street would rub off on the A's and keep the fire in their bellies. I'd love to see the A's move to my neighborhood, but I'm doubtful it'll happen.

Comic Time Waster

Many thanks to the Belgian Atheist for this-I think. It is very hard to watch hockey and laugh at creative test answers all at the same time.

For you educators out there, save your best ones!

Apropos of Nothing

Elise has decided that it is great fun and very funny to tickle people on the neck. This does not thrill me as I am generally just annoyed by small hands reaching up and grabbing at me at random times. Stick-in-the-mud Mommy, anyway!

So that got me to thinking about what Vulcan kids do as they grow up. (Not thinking hard, mind you, just thinking.) Do they explore the boundaries of socially acceptable physical humor? Do they practice the neck pinch thing at inopportune times? Then, of course, I got to thinking what would happen if a human kid got adopted into a Vulcan family. (Yes, it was 4am, how did you know?) I'm imagining something akin to Will Farrel in Elf. And I'm imagining Elise tickling Leonard Nimoy, or maybe that uptight dude who played his dad on TNG and what they'd do with her. The neck pinch we understand, but this tickling stuff? That's just weird. Elise would either be the most popular mind-meld partner out there because she'd be a completely known quantity, or they'd all avoid her like the plague.

I think I'm glad we're Earthlings.

How Will You Know Where to Find Me?

It's always an interesting exercise to look at the search terms people use to find this here blog. This week's gem:
cat pee under lemon tree

Hahahahahaha. My neighbors' cats are famous!

Bloggety Blog Blog

Hmmm, it's been awhile since I last wrote anything here. Perhaps time to rectify that. We've had Thanksgiving, a notable birthday and random interesting things going around here...

Quote of the Day

This is not likely to be a regular feature, but I just had to share this one. You know, in time for Thanksgiving and all.

So here it is, courtesy of a media relations tool at AIG.

"Let me know if you are interested in engaging. If so, we can establish some rules that are amenable for both of us."

This one has a delicious back story. Read it if you dare! And then bear in mind that this was sent by someone hired to do media relations for this appalling excuse of an insurance company.

Read it? Good. My comment: No wonder the place is a federal disaster area*. It's idiots all the way down!

How is AIG exempt from ridicule when the company as a whole has failed so spectacularly? I'd say some armchair management tips are par for the course when you've just begged and received $150 BILLION in handouts. After all, you've got all the money any of us might ever collectively hope to have, and all we have left is our snark. Leave us our snark. Or at the very least rob us of that too by hiring a mildly clueful media relations doobie.

But by all means keep sending vague messages of strong-armishness to Wonkette. Because I am amenable to more entertainment value for my $150billion.


*Well, almost. AIG only gets half of the money that we're spending to get Katrina's victims sort of back to some semblance of normal.

Strange Maps

One of my regular reads is a blog called Strange Maps. All kinds of interesting ways of presenting information. A recent one caught my eye and I thought I'd share it here.

So, head on over and check out an interesting comparison between cotton production and presidential voting. And then have a gander at some of the other interesting (and strange) maps.

***Update***
The link to the map has been fixed to direct you to, er, the map. For those wishing to read about a whale smacking a kite surfer, you can find that story right here.

Evidence

Alright, neighborhood kitties. 'Fess up! Who did this?! Was it a pigeon or a mourning dove?

Either way, I want to give you a reward.

Random Newsiness

Hi, there, loyal readers!

I was going to try to respond to the debate last night shortly after it happened, but really the whole thing just wore me out so I settle for leaving that commentary to others who apparently have more stamina.

Before I go off to bed and try to get a decent night's sleep for a change, I thought I'd share a few bits of current eventage here at Steingruebl World Enterprises.

1. Ebay's big layoffs have not included Andy. We think he's pretty well secure, but there are a lot of people who aren't now and it stinks. Layoffs. Yuck.

2. I hate street lights. It might be time to finally join the International Dark Sky Association. There is one light across the street from us that has been shining through the gap between the blinds and the windows to keep me up at night. At least, I assume that's why it's up there and on all night like that. We've installed curtains, and hopefully tonight will be better.

3. Power tools are fun! Curtain hanging required drilling, and I have to say that I continue to love the drill that I purchased awhile back. Even better, I get to pass my love of tools on to my kiddo. Today, Elise used our electric screwdriver to help me with some self-assembly furniture. Wahoo!

4. On Tuesday, we officially handed back the keys to the previous headquarters. I'm really proud of how we left things, and it was good to see Sandra and Celerino back in their home. Even though their stuff won't follow them from Spain for eons. I think they're going to like how the neighborhood has grown in the last 2 years.

5. Tomorrow's goal is to get the dining room to be less like a jumble of boxes and more like a cozy place for us to have meals and play games. Daunting. But I think I can do it. Especially if I quit dawdling now and actually go to bed!

6. Someone has been trespassing in our back yard. Prickly pears have been harvested, which I actually don't mind at all, but I'd sure like the courtesy of an introduction before people come in and just take stuff. I'm thinking of getting one of those motion sensitive sprinklers that people use to scare off pests. And then just be on the lookout for wet neighbors...

7. The Sharks start their season at home tomorrow evening. Go Sharks!

Fall is Falling

Tonight, we're expecting our first rain of the season. Wahoo! I'm kinda hoping that we'll be able to hear the patter of rain on the roof in this house. I went outside this evening to hang some cute pumpkin lights for Halloween, and the air has that perfect autumn smell to it.

As I worked, I started noticing sounds in the distance. And doggone it if we can't hear the neighborhood high school's football games from here! The band was loud and clear, and we could hear the refs' whistles and the crowd's cheers. The whole thing seems so New Englandy/Midwestish. I continue to think we're gonna like it here.

Of Homesteads and Houses

Due to my desire to procrastinate on the housework, I'd like to take a moment to make a wild historical comparison between irresponsibly regulated financial institutions and irresponsible railroad expansion. I'd love to hear your perspective, dear reader, as to whether or not my comparison is valid.

Back in the olden days, we here in the US were looking to populate the continent from coast to coast. The Homestead Act helped achieve this goal, and homesteaders claimed lands (often from indigenous peoples) at a tremendous rate. When railroads got to be big, more of the countryside became reachable than ever before. (Huzzah! USA! USA! USA!) But, the railroads needed refueling and water stations all along the way in order to operate. How do we give more people a chance to farm, industry an opportunity to expand, and make our country great? Hmmm...

The Homestead Act. Originally signed into law by Abe Lincoln, it could be "improved" upon to convince people to move to the real hinterlands. All of the best arable farmland was taken, but there was dry land that needed train tracks through it to get us from coast to coast. As a result, you could get as much as 640 acres of land (as opposed to 160 acres for a regular homesteader) as a bonus for taking a risk on this new kind of farming. Procedures for farming (read:destroying) semi-arid land were developed and demonstrated to wide-eyed dreamers. My great-grandfather was one of those, and he had the misfortune to see an impressive example of what was possible in a very wet year. He, and and many, many others headed west.

Montana's population more than tripled in less than 20 years as a result of this expansion of the Homestead Act. For some very good perspective on this, I recommend this article. Go ahead and read it-this page will be waiting for you when you get back.

******

Fascinating, eh? The unusually rainy years came to an end when my grandfather was born. People lost their homes. They starved. Gramps told stories of families too poor to afford a stamp to write to family back east for help. Sixty thousand people left Montana in the 1920s. What began as a seemingly reasonable plan to achieve something great failed dramatically. Real people suffered in earnest, and the railroads carried on.

It's ridiculous to compare homesteaders to people who borrow beyond their means, but I think the legislative and regulatory situations are very similar. In an attempt to stimulate growth, we relaxed regulation on major industry and incented lots and lots of people to take major risks to bolster that growth. Whether it's railroads or the housing industry, Americans have invested heavily. In the case of the dry land homesteaders, they simply failed and moved on to deal with the effects of poverty and disappointed dreams for generations. Today's honyocker (a term used to describe those short-lived dryland homesteaders) has too much house that's been foreclosed AND gets to pay for a loan (and interest on that loan) back to the people who sold it to them in the first place. At least this time people aren't starving to death and the costs are being shared. Small consolation.

One of the figures I've heard floating around is that this bailout is the equivalent of $10,000 for each household in the nation. Me, I'd rather have the $10k myself. The investment bankers can go build railroads.

This is Why I Can't Get to Bed at a Decent Hour

The internet, it's just so much fun!



C'mon-you know you're dancing too.

Polls are Open

In a recent post about the Steingruebl World Enterprises avian associate, I introduced a poll pertaining to parrot gender issues.

Beaker has always been referred to as male by us here at SWE. However, there's no good reason for that other than we were just in that sort of a mood. Every vet and vet tech who's ever seen Beaker has exclaimed, "Oh, isn't she just a sweet little one!" Given that and Beaker's profound interest in Andy (parrots are known for their hetero attractions to people), it would be much more reasonable to call Beaker a girl.

Of course, we could settle this once and for all with some exploratory surgery, but Steingruebl World Enterprises has some strict policies against such things.

So, on the front page we have a poll. Alert reader and sister-in-law Roni has pointed out another excellent option which has now been added for your voting pleasure.

Time to practice for November, people! Head for our main page and vote. And, if you're so inclined, talk to Google about adding Instant Runoff Voting to their little polls widget. Or write one yourself and I'll use it in my next opinion poll.

Obama's Pick

Why did it take Barack Obama so long to announce his running mate?

He was Biden his time!

Not Forgotten

It's no secret that I get the majority of my news from Fark these days.

I managed to miss out on the excellent bigfoot press conference in Palo Alto on Friday. Rats. It would be nice to shake the hand of the guy who dressed for the occasion.

Normally, I don't give the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal the time of day. However, I think that this editorial is spot on about college. Anyone else care to take a stroll down memory lane and think about your undergrad life? I know very few people who left school and then continued to actually make a living in the field to which they dedicated so much time, money and effort. The exceptions, of course, being teachers. And the occasional musician.

Anybody out there think about the suburbs? San Jose feels like a lot of suburban living (and we've signed our lease to claim our piece of that pie), and I don't see your average Californian letting go of that any time soon. Walkability, schmalkability. The number of new gas guzzlers on the road here is interesting. Of course you should drive your monster pickup to commute from Gilroy to Redwood City every day! This article offers a lot of speculation, and I'll leave it up to my loyal readers to discuss the merits thereof in the comments.

Last but not least, I present Doloris Aguilar. Apparently, a shining example of what Ebeneezer Scrooge could have accomplished with modern sensibilities. I'm trying to think of something profound that could tie this all together here, but I'm drawing a blank. With nary a Doloris in sight, I feel lucky.

Can't Decide

Well, I'm not sure what to think about this one.

Watching the Daily show tonight, I saw an ad from these people. On the one hand, it was an "uplifting" message about a high school voting for a girl with Downs Syndrome for queen of some formal dance. And they were clapping and cheering nicely. On the other hand, the dude who funds this foundation and another one has an overall agenda I despise.

According to Wikipedia, I was treated to this bit of inspiration by none other than Philip Anschutz. Who's he? Well, again, I turned to Wikipedia and read that he's a gazillionaire who dabbles in all sorts of stuff. If you read a newspaper with "Examiner" in the title, chances are it's his. He owns(or owns bits of) some soccer teams, hockey teams, oil companies, railroads, and of course some major controversy with regard to London's Milennium Dome. Oh, yeah, and he also apparently hates on homosexuals and funds the Discovery Institute. So, basically a businessman with a disturbing streak of pure evil.

So, I guess that when I think about this I'm not so worried that he's sneaking an outright evil agenda onto the public airwaves via a disingenuous non-profit organization. Anything that diverts resources from his other projects (without obvious harm to humanity) seems like a step in the right direction to me.

A Meme From My Cousin

I like trying these things out once in awhile. I think this list is a ~bit~ arbitrary, but I'll bite anyway. Feel free to play along on your own blog-and be sure to leave a comment here (including a link to your blog) so we can all see what you've been up to.

The book meme

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald-
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis- Out of sheer stubbornness. The premise stinks.
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis- This one was fun, it was the rest of them, dragging on and on that stunk.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown--only material at hand on vacation once. Ugh-waste.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding-Absolutely disagree that humans are naturally evil
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon-Excellent. Try reading Steve Martin's _The Pleasure of My Company_ directly after. It's fun!
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas-based solely on its mention in Shawshank Redemption
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy-really really liked it
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker--because I feel I should
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White-and I even own a couple copies of it. Go figure.
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery but I didn't get it at the time
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams actually really liked this
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Top 'o the Mornin'

Ah, some early-morning randomness before I fire up the coffee maker and get the day started here at Steingruebl World Enterprises.

1. You know you've stayed up too late when you go to brush your teeth before bed and instead of opening the toothpaste you open your deodorant. You know you've been up waaaaaay too late when you stare blankly at said deodorant, wonder why the toothpaste is behaving so strangely and then consider rubbing your toothbrush on the deodorant since the usual squeezing action looks like it would be ineffective. What stopped me? My love of the movie Amelie-it has apparently hard-wired me to be wary of such things.

2. Giving Elise a haircut is difficult, but worthwhile. I can't believe I was so conservative about the bangs that I ended up leaving them too long. The whole point was to get the hair out of her eyes!

3. Beaker is going to school with Elise for about a half-hour today. We've prepared by talking about some of the things he likes best and some of the things he does. With any luck, Elise will be willing to do some of the talking. I'm planning on teaching the kids some bird body language. Luckily (or unluckily) Beaker is in the midst of a tremendous molt right now. This means that we have lots of feathers to take to school for the kids to look at and touch and examine with a magnifying glass. It also means that Beaker is a little cantankerous and will probably be a challenge. Add to the fact that I forgot to trim the razor sharp points off his toenails and to get his wings clipped, and it may well be an interesting morning. The idea of keeping him in his carrier keeps looking more appealing all of the time.

4. No new housing leads, but I'm optimistic about the one I learned about last week.

5. I am very jealous of the bloggers I read who are at the ComiCon in San Diego this weekend. How come the SJ show didn't have any Doctor Who?! Anyway, it looks like a blast.

6. There is a social networking site aimed at atheists. Given the amazing response to my last post about atheism, I thought some of my readers would be interested. It's not nearly as noisy as Facebook (and not quite as easy to use, really) but it's great to have a place to talk with people just like me. If you're so inclined, check out Atheist Nexus and be my friend. :)

7. I've been reading more and it feels good. I might even come up with a library book list for the week after Beaker and I get back from school...

That's about it. Thanks for reading!