Monday night and, despite my best intentions, I ended up at the bar for St. Patrick’s Day after work instead of home in the garage repairing my downed shelving. It started out as an innocent non-commitment to some friends at work. You know the kind, where you say to your encouraging buddy, “Yeah, I dunno, maybe I’ll swing by after work - I’ll let you know.” Most males know this for a fancy-worded version of, “Nah, I’m gonna pass, but I’ll patronize you with niceties anyway.” It’s understood, you could go, it’s entirely feasible - you just won’t. Occasionally, you’ll be challenged on these non-commitments, and it’s then that you have to decide where your loyalties lie.

For me, and tonight, it was an easy decision: Sharaun was at her pregnant teen-moms thing, and she’d taken Keaton along (man, I hope Keaton doesn’t learn anything from those teens…), so I effectively had a kitchen pass until around 9pm. Even though she’d bought a rotisserie chicken for me, and left me handwritten instructions on the various sides I could make for myself (salad: tomatoes and cucumbers are in the bottom drawer; au-gratin potatoes: the box is in the cupboard; and garlic rolls: they’re frozen, bottom shelf of the freezer), I decided to instead join the crew at the brewpub for a drink to the patron saint of Ireland. I spent about $15 on beer, $13 on a dinner of shepherd’s pie, salad, a side of potatoes, and bread (starch-laden, just the way I like it).

But, I did manage to make it home by 8:30pm so I get to see Keaton before she goes to bed… and that’s where I am now: Sitting on the couch typing while I await the arrival of my family. I even sliced off some of that (now cold) chicken and ate it, just so all my wife’s efforts to take care of her poor helpless lout of a husband in her absence weren’t entirely wasted. The chicken was good, and I’m able to listen to the iPod a little too. So, in all, it was a a good evening - even if I didn’t lift a finger to get the garage shelf (and all its contents) up off their pile on the floor (which, incidentally, happened to fall right on top of our other garage-pile, making some kind of stunning super-pile - read yesterdays’ entry if that doesn’t make sense).

Well folks, that’s about all I have. But, in closing, I just wanted to share an image I received in an e-mail from a dear, dear relative - one who believes all Democrats are direct spawn of Satan, and only Republicans can get into Heaven (I’m not sure she really believes this, it’s just a comedic device - and, really, I do love her… for-serious-real). This was attached to a long mail about how President Bush is the Second Coming of Christ or something (read the thing here, if you’re interested - but note Glenn didn’t really say it all), but it was so good I had to share it all by its lonesome:

See, all the hubbub over that Abu Ghraib business was totally overblown, because… I mean, when you put it in context… look what Kennedy did. I was all like… wow…

Goodnight my friends.

Monday night and I finally gave into this sickness I’ve been trying to shake the past week or so, coming home after noon to try and get some rest (didn’t work, ended up on the phone or e-mail the entire time). Monday night and Neon Bible still hasn’t leaked (the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! did though, so that helps a little). I really though it’d be soon after those five tracks dribbled out last week… I think they’re just messing with me now. Hurry! Up! Arcade! Fire! Let’s write now.

I wanted to start these next few paragraphs with an impactful, attention-grabbing sentence: In this day and age in America, religion, Christianity in particular, I fear, is headed for the same fate as the Southern accent.

If you haven’t noticed, in recent times the Southern accent has, quite unfairly, been associated with ignorance. I’m not sure where this stereotype actually came from, but you can pick up on it from just about any piece of pop culture from the last 70 years or so: look at Gomer Pyle, who was famous for his idiocy, and had the most pronounced twang in Mayberry; there’s Cleetus, the “slack-jawed” yokel from the Simpsons; the entire premise of the backwoods hillbilly Clampett family being misplaced in the modern world. Yeah sure, those shows are serving to foster the image, and maybe it’s unfair to use them as examples - but for more proof you don’t have to look much further than Saturday Night Live’s President Bush caricature. When did having a Southerly drawl automatically lower your perceived IQ? I’m not claiming it’s ubiquitous, not everyone is shallow enough to pigeonhole someone by their accent, but still - it’s there.

When I was a kid, we used to this incredibly mean and insensitive thing when we wanted to ape an idiot. We’d let our hand hang limp at the wrist, and then repeatedly thump it against our breast while making “Der, der, duh, der” sounds. This was an imitation of a “Jerry’s Kid.” Crazy thing was, as a kid I really didn’t even know what I was doing. I mean, I knew I was somehow making fun of retarded kids, who apparently beat their own broken wrists against their chests on the Jerry Lewis Telethon - but I had no idea how mean it really was. We were just calling each other stupid. Make a dumbass comment, and I’m gonna tease you by thumping my chest and doing my best “Uhhh, derrr, oohhhuhh.” See, I didn’t really know any retarded kids (that’s not entirely true, but mostly so) - but I assumed they were all stupid (OK, strict definition of “retarded” aside) and therefore a good point of reference when calling out someone else as such. Hicks, yokels, Okies, hillbillies, rednecks, Johnny Rebs. And I think Christians are headed the same way. Instead of tomorrow’s kids beating their chests with limp wrists, maybe they’ll thump and imaginary Bible or fold their hands in mock prayer.

Being religious is is turning into being stupid, and it’s happening fast. Oh sure, throughout history people have always been “too smart” to have faith, the whole science vs. faith thing has been around for eons, but I think it’s different these days. Today, the loudest voice is not longer the church and it’s various supporters installed as kings and queens. Today, the voice heard above the most is that of media and celebrity. And that is, more often than not, not the church’s voice (some might say it’s the voice of reason, others the voice of Satan). Regardless, if the believing collective don’t get their act together soon and do a major PR campaign, they risk being forever viewed as the Flat Earth Society - the new Jerry’s Kids, the new Cleetuses. Plenty of smart people believe in God, right? Doesn’t matter - who’s going to willingly join a organization of dinosaurs futilely holding onto the old ways? You may think that, as everyone gets dumber, everything will balance out - but I disagree. Everyone being dumb just means it’s easier for those who aren’t to convince the masses their way is correct.

I’m rambling now. Let’s sum it up: Christians in danger of being recast as simpletons, need to come up with plan of action before this fate unfairly befalls them. Stereotypes are bad, but they’re also powerful as hell and take centuries to overcome.

I wrote fast, probably full of typos, omissions, and things I didn’t mean. Goodnight bitches.

Welcome to Wednesday night. It’s getting harder and harder for me to remember what I’ve written about on this thing. Usually, before I set out to write something, I’ll do a quick search through the archives to see if perhaps I’ve covered it before. I’m sure, though, that if someone printed this rambling mess out and read through it cover-to-cover, they’d encounter a fair amount of repeat and perhaps even contradictory materials. It’s hard, you know, trying to keep track of it… all these words, all the arguably-wasted effort. That’s a good intro, eh? Good enough for me…

Motivated by nothing in particular, I spent some time tonight downloading MP3 versions of both the Bible and Quran. Put them on my iPod as audiobooks, which makes them “bookmarkable” (you can pick up listening where you last left off rather than beginning anew each time) and excludes from playback while shuffling (Matthew chapter 11 as a follow-on to some Kanye could really kill a party). Admittedly, I don’t plan on listening to these very often, but I do think it’s neat to have them at arm’s reach for curiosity’s sake. Used the Firefox DownThemAll extension to speed up the download process, grabbing all the files automagically (i.e. bandwidth-raping) rather than navigating through hundreds of individual links and pages.

As a pleasant second-order effect of my search, I was turned on to several great sites which offer completely free MP3 audiobooks. I think it’s awesome that I can download and listen to all sorts of material on the iPod, from the classics to philosophy. If you’re interested, Librivox and AudioBooksForFree.com both have nice-sized collections of completely free-to-download audiobooks (between the two sites there is nearly 1,000 works of literature available for listening). Most of the works available are older and are now public domain, but there are some original and newer titles as well.

In the process of writing the above paragraph, my mind once again drifted to being stranded on a desert island. How much more enjoyable would being stranded be if you had an iPod chock-full of music and books? Well, providing of course you first have health, food, and shelter. Anyway, the only problem here is the one of power… the iPod battery won’t last forever. But… any person who has irrational fantasies about one day becoming stranded on a desert island who’s worth their salt will have a solar-powered iPod charger with them at all times. All you need is the solar iPod charger, a solar AA battery charger, and a set of AA-powered portable iPod speakers - and you’re the life of the castaway party! Seriously, I’m thinking about getting that solar iPod charger just for the “cool” factor.

Keaton’s hair has almost all fallen out and is slowly being replaced with a new, blonder, quaff. Seeing this happen over the course of weeks tends to downplay how dramatic of a change it really is. In fact, I hadn’t realized just how much her hair had changed until I was browsing some old pictures last night. In an attempt to illustrate this, I GIMP’d Keaton’s hair from a picture taken at fifteen weeks onto the head of a picture taken last week. Roll your mouse over the image below to see the difference (allow a couple seconds load-time on the 1st rollover):

Wow! Goodnight.

Sunday evening, another very enjoyable weekend - lots of downtime with friends. As is tradition for the week’s first entry, I’ve uploaded a new set of pictures to Keaton’s gallery - why don’t you go ahead and check them out here.

Been devouring Wikipedia articles on the Middle East lately, in my continued efforts to educate myself on the elaborate intertwined history of the people and region. While I didn’t start at the very beginning, I am beginning to establish a factual historical picture that I believe is opinion-free and fact-based. With all the shifting borders, disputed territories, and artificial partitions - it’s a tangled nightmare to try and understand the geographical boundaries let alone the religious, tribal, and political ones. I do feel, though, that I’m getting a little better at it. I understand the implications of Israel’s declaration of independence and the resultant Gaza Strip and West Bank. I’m fairly up to snuff on Hezbollah’s motivations in the capture of Israeli soldiers as a bargaining chip for prisoner release, and how that kicked the situation into its current tailspin. For this knowledge, I love Wikipedia; I really do. Too bad it can’t make people stop dying.

Speaking of the Middle East, I had a thought in church this morning that was interesting. Set a reminder on my cellphone to write about it. I thought it might be interesting to think about the current Israel/Hezbollah/Lebanon conflict as a fundamentalist who favors signs and portents. From that angle, what might the outcome of this fracas tell us? Let’s think about it.

What does the eventual outcome here mean? On the surface, and from a simplified point of view, we have humans fighting other humans over religious beliefs. Sure there are politics and property rights and cultural aspects, but boiled down most of these things can be said to stem from religion. So, above two groups of humans who are fighting we have the God of each of those groups who, in no small way, defines each group. It only makes sense, based on what the sacred texts of each group tell them, that each firmly believes their God has an active hand in the events of their lives, and that whatever happens, it was God’s divine will. This notion becomes extremely interesting (to me) when you think about the current Israel/Hezbollah/Lebanon conflict.

Even though the outcome of this particular conflict is still unknown, could a look at some of the potential outcomes possibly tell us something about the very nature of God? If the assumption is that some higher power is indeed directing or supporting his followers, can an outcome here give humanity in general some insight into the divine?

Will the God of Judaism let his chosen people be once again pushed from the land He promised them? Or will the God of Islam see Jerusalem and Temple Mount once again under Muslim control? Whose God loves His adherents the most? Going one more step: whose God is listening, whose God is rewarding the faith of His people… whose God exists?

Certainly some modern-day Christians would see collapse of the Jewish state as a step backwards in the march to the Second Coming. Without their promised land, the Jews certainly can’t rebuild the temple - another misstep for the unfolding of Biblical end-times prophesy. Three faiths for which the outcome of this conflict could be interpreted as telling of the nature, plans, and, for some, potentially even the relevance or existence of their God. Sure, that may be a hyper-sensitive, reading-into-it, way to look at it - but I’m sure some of the more extreme of adherents are relying on God to see this conflict to what they consider the only just end. Being that it can’t have a just end for both, some will be left questioning God’s plans. Nothing new, to be sure, but interesting nonetheless.

Finally, a qualifying afterthought: I realize that this is most certainly not the first, and is not likely to be the last, time that religious differences have come to a head in the form of humans fighting. I also acknowledge that analyzing a point-view of instances like this on the timeline of humankind and then using that analysis to try and pick a “winning” God may seems stupid. Sure, I’ll admit that Gods and/or their powers likely won’t be proven or disproven by the outcome of one small skirmish along the road from the beginning of times to the end of times, I’ll give you that. But, I still maintain that it’s worth a look, and a good coal for discussion. And, what’s more, maybe the way to look at it isn’t from a point-view, maybe we should consider the longer-term “trending” that’s happening (although, without have an endpoint in sight, trending could be argued worthless in terms of how “far” we’ve come). Anyway, what about those trends? Who’s trends look good, who’s don’t? What would sports bookmakers and odds-men have to say about the world’s religions at this point? Which one is the dark horse, which the frontrunner?

Maybe that would make a good entry someday, trying to get a semi-quantitative count of bad and good things that’ve happened to the major religions since their inception. Maybe a tally of purported prophecy fulfillment, new converts graphed against time, y’know, things that are quasi-measurable. Map all that out to see where they all lie, who’s “winning?” Yeah… maybe someday, but not tonight. Tonight I’m done.

And that’s it, decided to limit Monday’s post to this topic only… binning the other random weekend-writing for mid-week filler. Goodnight folks, love you like money.

Friday at last! Hallelujah!!

I honestly don’t have much today: an entire paragraph built around one funny thought, some other junk here and here, and two paragraphs built around links. Not much original, I fear. We’ll try to make the best of it though, eh?

Man, stem cells are good for blog comments, huh? I should write about divisive poll-splitting issues all the time. Next week I’m going to write about my opinions on using affirmative action to select condemned pregnant lesbian white women prisoners (with committed illegal immigrant christian life partners) for first an abortion and then subsequent death penalty. Yeah, that should get the comments flowing. Grease up your keyboards, you opinionated mofos… I love to hear from ya.

I know it was BoingBoingized yesterday, but it’s worth posting in my ongoing coverage of the I/L/H (my new shorthand for Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah) conflict. Some people out there are actually rooting for escalating violence in the Middle East. I imagine these folks sitting in front of CNN cheering on the Israeli rockets with big foam-finger #1 things on their left hand and a bible opened to Revelation in their right. The more natural disasters, stem cell research, rock and roll music, and Middle East violence - the better. C’mon Lord, you’re really planning on taking these idiots?

Way to go Thom Yorke! Thom’s ‘headless solo debut crowned at #2 on its initial Billboard splash, being just barely edged out by some new Now! compilation of greatest hits. When I used to manage a record store in the mall, we sold tons of those Now! albums - people eat it up. Yeah, people love hits. Hits and crappy reality TV talent shows. Anyway, Coolfer had this to say about Thom’s good works:

Yorke’s first solo album, Eraser, is less commercial than would be a Radiohead release, and it was released by XL Recordings (distributed by Warner Music Group’s ADA). So we have a less-than-totally commercial album released by an indie, and it still sold 90,000 in its first week. Digital sales accounted for a sizeable 16% of total sales.

Somebody out there likes them quirky beats and loopy basslines! Go Thom.

Goodnight

Friday Friday Friday! Dave love the Friday. Burned the better part of the post-work daylight today working in the front yard: mowing, fertilizing, trimming hedges, checking sprinklers and weeding. Yard looks much better for it and I feel like I did something constructive.

While I don’t usually do celebrity gossip stuff, I am willing to link a funny story if it’s related to something I care about. So, continuing the Scientology bashing theme from yesterday, here’s the comical tale about some famous folks’ heated run-in with a dude wearing a “Scientology is gay” t-shirt. Good story, and, where can I get that shirt? Come to think of it, it’s eerily similar to a shirt I still want to make, but don’t have the artistic prowess to illustrate. Anyone who has some basic drawing skills and wants to help me realize my multi-religion-bashing concept tee, hit me up and we’ll do lunch.

As July approaches, and August after, my mind begins to drift to this year’s Halloween prop. Last year, Kristi made a great suggestion to do a backlit scene on the lawn with a large glowing moon and animated wolves in silhouette, complete with scary baying sound effects. I simply adored the idea, and the concept seemed relatively easy to realize: 2D wooden wolf coutouts with hinged parts for movement, some kind of illuminated orb shaped from pipe/wood, and a simple motor to animate the thing (I have an ice-cream churn we never use which I can adapt). Now, don’t get me wrong, I think this is an excellent project - but it sounded relatively “low touch” in terms of effort (of course, I’m probably wrong about that) and that prompted me to start daydreaming about a second, more involved, prop. Two props in one year, can it be done?! As my mind drifted on the 2nd prop idea, I centered most of my concepts around air-power, which I switched first experimented with (quite successfully, I might add) on last year’s “pneumatic coffin-popper” project. Air power is so clean and easy, no electricity to deal with, no AC-to-DC rectifying, no relays or geared motors to wear out - just a compressor hidden away in the garage, a hose, and some cylinders.

So, air-power on the brain, I began to revisit an idea I’d had a while ago which was based on a “twitching, hanging-from-the-gallows” prop I’d seen somewhere on the net (and has since disappeared, I think). The hanging man always intrigued me, I think mostly because I imagined the hinged limbs moving in a slow-but-frantic, almost electrocution-like, way. Powered the way I imagine it, the whole thing would be quite random, the movements not based on repetitive motorized actions - instead only being “motivated” some force, the actual movements themselves being completely spontaneous and organic. I love the concept, but was kind of turned off by how macabre I imagined the final result. While I love Halloween, I’d like my display to at least remain kid-friendly scary… and besides, in these politically-correct times I’m actually a bit leery to actually place a “lynched” dummy on my lawn.

So, keep the concept but scrap the noose and gallows… what could I do? Then it hit me, a scarecrow. Scarecrows are very Halloween to me, and the scarecrow in my concept is a lot gruffer than your goofy Wizard of Oz variety, I imagine him with a twisted sneer or something. A scarecrow writhing to get off his pole, kicking and flailing… yeah, I love it! Here’s a brief concept description and sketch I made today with all my enthusiasm:

“Flailing Scarycrow”

• PVC frame with dual-action push/pull air cylinder mounted vertically mid-torso
• PVC body “jointed” (springs or otherwise) at hips, shoulders, knees and elbows for organic motion
• Wire attached to each cylinder plunger, and attached to PVC arms/legs near elbow/knee joints
• Push/pull action of cylinder alternately tugs wires attached to knees/elbows, resulting in a jerky, flailing motion in limbs
• Cylinder should fire randomly, or perhaps be motion-activated, and be at a lower pressure to sell the effect

Here’s a sketch I did, it was in color, but I don’t have a scanner and the only one I have access to only does black and white. You can probably figure it out anyway.

One thing I do want to do is begin documenting my projects better. I’ve even considered a page devoted to them, with details and through processes like in this entry. Ambitious, I know, but a guy can dream. Anyway… I’m not saying it’s ready to design, maybe a few more weeks o’ thinkin’, but it’s got potential!

Changing subjects… did you see the strange comment yesterday on the “satanic flier” entry? (Remember, the “satanic flier” post is consistently my most read post, averaging 30+ reads per day.) I originally pegged it for a random-letter spam filter test, but was intrigued when a Google search for “zwaml” turned up a ton of hits. Though none of them in English, most of the results were in French, some German, and some still appeared to be a phonetic version of Arabic or some other script. Intrigued, I looked up the IP address of the poster, which turned out to via a system based in Mauritius (it’s OK, I had to look it up too). AfriNIC, the Internet Numbers Registry for Africa, is based in Mauritius - leading me to believe the commenter was commenting from somewhere in Africa. Some more digging, and a few other searches seem to indicate a link between the word “zwaml” and the Kabyle region of Algeria, where they speak their own language: Kabyle, which is a Berber language.

Look, people, I researched this for hours last night. My conclusion? “Zwaml” is a slang word in some Berber-based language, it refers to a type or class of people and is derogatory. I also think it is a semi-localized term, being used primarily in the Berber-speaking regions of North Africa, and can be alternately spelled in English as “zwamel,” don’t ask me why.

Bottom line? I think I’m being called a name.

In other other news, I recently found out that the blog that started it all for me is now back online - and has been active again since sometime late last year. Glad to see it back, it really was my inspiration (oh, and please forgive the linked entry… it was only my 23rd of blogdom - cut me some slack).

Goodnight.

Hey friends. No blog yesterday, had a packed night with some old friends - a long-needed reunion of sorts. Now it’s Wednesday night, and I worked from home again today while Sharaun taught a guest art lesson to her old class. It was good being with Keaton again, and, despite having to tend to her baby-type needs, I was able to get a tone of workish junk done. Was gonna mow, decided against it, and that pretty much sums up the day.

I wonder if CNN knows how much humor I derive from their webpage sometimes. It can’t be intentional on their part, but I’ll be danged if some of the stuff they write isn’t hilarious. Take for instance this quote from their lead article sometime Wednesday morning:

A couple of Massachusetts construction workers picked up some bathroom cabinetry and discovered some illegal extras with their purchases. One contractor found ganja ‘bricks,’ and a plumber found a stash of cocaine.

Ganja bricks?

OK, who gave “the man” the weed-slang dictionary? What’s next, Fox News reports on the chronic found at Lowes? MSNBC runs a headline about the sticky-icky-icky discovered at Ace Hardware? It’s cool though, because CNN will probably run a follow-up about how the Home Depot doja was seeds ‘n stems shwag anyway; just weak shake - not hydro, buddah, or nugs.

If you’ve been reading this page for a while, you’ll know that I have a fascination with religion - more specifically with some of the amazing things humans will believe when it comes to religion. Without getting into my religious notions, I just wanted to share this awesomely concise “illustrated history of Scientology” with you. A series of animated GIFs which originated from the ‘net-famous “you’re the man now dog” site, it tells the story of Scientology from Xenu to today in a slideshow of cartoons. Well worth the time if you’re unfamiliar with the “religion” and what they believe, and likely won’t be up long since Scientology employs a stable of notoriously oppressive lawyers who make it their life’s work to remove any content from the world which might portray their sacred beliefs in a negative light. So, check it out, and get a god chuckle. This stuff is better than magic glasses and reformed Egyptian: An Illustrated History of Scientology.

Sorry for the short entry, got all creative feeling and made a new index page again - I never did like that “on the plains” one with the growing trees all that much, I think this one is much nicer. Thought about actually taking my 96 Tears page of the index links, like I did a while back with my music pages, since it’s such a terribly designed page (but, I’ll admit, it’s a neato window into my premillenial HTML skillz). But, it’s still there…

Goodnight folks.