Tiny Chickens in Space

Posted on February 5, 2010
Filed Under YouTube | Comments Off

Wait. What? California School Bans… THE DICTIONARY.

Posted on January 26, 2010
Filed Under Politics | 3 Comments

This comes straight out of the WTF files for me.  I mean, if it were Texas it would still be bizarre but at least they’ve got their heads far enough up their asses – socially – to have this kinda-sorta make sense.

But California?  Really?

Perhaps Massachusetts electing a Republican senator really was some sort of a Sign that up is now down and California is now a social-conservative haven.  Was there an earthquake the slipped San Andreas into the bible belt?

So the meat of the ban is that the dictionary (Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary), surprise surprise, defines “oral sex”.  And it uses such graphic language as “oral stimulation of the genitals” – truly contentious.  It should also be noted that the parent who launched the complaint that lead to the ban was volunteering in her son’s classroom when she came upon the definition; there’s just something icky to me about reading up on oral sex when in a fifth grade classroom.

Perhaps that’s something to look in to?

The move to include the more advanced dictionary – targeted at college-level readers – is that some of the students are reading at a college-level.  It only stands to reason, then, they those students should be given access to learning materials that further their ability to learn.  Doesn’t it?

Obviously no one is advocating a big fluorescent bookmark in the “O” section to draw attention to the term, but there are plenty of words that people could consider contentious in the college-level edition of this particular dictionary.  For example: abortion, creationism and the n-word.  All of which, it should be noted, come before “O” (again driving home the point: WHY THE HELL WAS THIS WOMAN LOOKING UP ORAL SEX WHILE SITTING IN A FIFTH GRADE CLASSROOM?!?!?!  Creepy).

Now I’m usually the first person to say that news websites shouldn’t have comment sections on them.  I just feel that it makes it way too easy for the stupid people to have their say (yeah, yeah, I’m for censorship of morons, if you’re one of them, feel free to piss and moan).  But this is one comment that I absolutely love!  It’s so rare a find I had to repost it:

Comment by: Jeff Posted: January 25, 2010, 1:11 pm

This is a joke, right? Like, a story in The Onion? Man, there are some dumb people in the word.

Coming up next: ban the alphabet, since you can arrange the letters in it to spell all sorts of bad words!

Best comment ever (aside from the spelling error).

If Zorro Was A Weatherman

Posted on January 22, 2010
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

This is why we need to keep it to the pros.  Next week is going to be brutal.

Mass. Predictions

Posted on January 19, 2010
Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off

I predict a razor thin win for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts tonight.  I’m going to say a win by between 4 to 6 points.

However, if she loses there will be a very different President Obama in the morning.

Well, Crap.

Posted on January 13, 2010
Filed Under General | Comments Off

I recognize that it’s a fourteen-day long-range forecast, but the drama of it is at least a little bit inspired, I must say.  It almost seems a shame that such charts are automatically generated because the flare it exhibits really does have a character all its own.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc?

Posted on January 6, 2010
Filed Under General | Comments Off

After this, therefore because of this.

I’m not saying that it’s the reason that I missed making a blog entry yesterday but I did play Icewind Dale for 16 hours straight.

Now enough chatter!  There are ice trolls to kill.

Breadmaking Ain’t A Game, You Know!

Posted on January 4, 2010
Filed Under General | 2 Comments

So my second batch of bread turned out tenfold better than the first. It rose gorgeously and was light and airy just as I wanted it to be. I used the oven to keep the dough slightly warm (preheated for a few minutes before putting the bowl of dough inside) and that work gorgeously.

There are only a few minor tweaks left, I think, until I have perfected this approach.

First among them is to ensure that I don’t leave the dough too long during the first rise. Since I punch it down and let it rise a second time in the trays I have to make sure that I’m not leaving the dough so long that it doesn’t have enough “rise” left in it. I let the dough rise for almost 2 hours on the first rise with this batch because a friend brought his computer over and needed my assistance. The result was a MASSIVE ball of dough to be punched down on the first rise.

The second lesson is to not cover the dough with a cloth after placing it in the trays. I did this because I didn’t want the top of the dough to dry out while it was rising. Next time I’ll place a tray of hot water in the oven with the trays and leave the top uncovered. The dough rose in to the cloth and, on one of the loaves, ended up sticking ever so slightly. The tops of the loaves would have been perfect if this hadn’t happened. They ended up slightly scarred.

Aside from that I think I’ve got the recipe down. I changed it wildly from the first recipe, I removed two ingredients entirely, changed the mixture of sugars and flours, the order in which I added ingredients and generally refused to measure anything except the water and yeast. When I decide if this is absolutely perfect I will share this recipe.

And so as to not turn this blog entirely into a baking-blog: I’ve been looking for a new game to play on my computer.

I’m usually not much of a gamer and it takes a really great game to hold my attention for very long (The Sims, Civilization, Neverwinter Nights and Age of Empires being the only real successes). I’m looking for something RPG-esque. A character-building-experience-gaining game. Like Neverwinter Nights, but not Neverwinter Nights… or perhaps Neverwinter Nights if you know a really kick-ass module.

I’m looking for suggestion!

Adieu.

keep looking »

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    Welcome to my blog. For more than 14 years I've been blogging and writing on the Internet. I love politics, science and writing. Please feel free to comment on my posts and engage in dialogue.

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