Octopodial Chrome

Today I broke 100 miles on my new bike (bought on the 7th inst.). Not too shabby—the mileage on the old one (which I sold to my younger brother) was only 270–280, and I’d that for a year-and-a-half. Pretty soon I’ll have a thousand!

…and all is well with the world. God’s in His heaven, birds are in the air, and my mace is in my home—its home from now on. Here are a few pictures of the beloved thing:

Isn’t she a beaut? Isn’t it a work of art? Isn’t it simply perfect?

My only problem now is that I really want to start knocking holes in my walls…

Triops are these weird little three-eyed (hence the name) shrimp which are living fossils; they’ve been around for more than a hundred million years. Very cool.

I’ve written previously about Mr. Steven Foster’s superlative bartending site; at its previous location (now taken over by a domain squatter) it served me & my buddy Phil Forshee most ably while we were in college. It is a site to be visited, a site to be archived, a site to remember when need arises (and please be sure to drop Mr. Foster a line—I feel certain that he’d appreciate it).

But that’s not why I write today (well, not totally). Mr. Foster has had the bright idea of posting a page with scans of old sepia-tone photos of his ancestors and relatives: in his words, old pictures of my relatives, look so they are not forgotten. What a piece of Americana! Some happy, some grim; some handsome, some plain, some downright ugly—but each a once living, breathing specimen of our species. Now they all—good, bad, evil & indifferent—rest in the earth which they once walked. My favourite image is the folks lined up by their church (or possibly schoolhouse).

Anyway, visit his site and raise a glass to Foster’s forefathers, and raise another to him. The man has created a true treasure, which deserves to be known, used and lauded.

I’ve posted my recipe for pizza—a receipt certain to delight & amuse. An excellent repast, one I’ve finally mastered (despite my earlier crowing, it was only the last week that I nailed the skill down). The secret is sugar—without the sugar, all is lost. That, and plenty of oil in the dough.

Today I attended the ordination of my friend George, the brother of my friend Dean, to the priesthood; a bit more than three fortnights ago, he had been ordained a deacon. In a twist of ironic fate, I was impressed into service as the videographer—the ironic bit is that I utterly hate the breed. I can tolerate photographers, barely (the finished work is worth it), but the divine services are not meant to be experienced piecemeal, but rather as a whole. I consider the whole thing a sacrilege. The reader may wonder why I performed the job, if I find it so repellent. The answer is simple: God forgives much; the female of the species nothing at all.

Anyway, I did my best, despite the limitations of the medium and my lack of skill (I’d not shot video before this day). There are some good shots, which I feel should edit together into something decent. The only problem is that my instincts at the moment are really for still photography. C'est la vie.

It’s odd to think of George as Fr. George—but so he is, from now on. It’s been a long time coming, but the day has finally arrived. He’s a good guy, and should serve God and His Church well. Axios!

Here are some photos I took afterwards:

The first photo is of Fr. George, his brother Dean and their parents; the second of Fr. & his presvytera Katina; the last of Fr. George & Katina with Fr. Mark and presvytera Anna; Fr. Mark was the Youth Director of the (then) Diocese of Denver a decade ago.

I should note that in real life Fr. George looks nothing like the nerdy neighbour-boy in Better Off Dead; I’m afraid that my camera caught a wrong angle.

My dear brother and his fair fianceé are getting married in less than a month, and of course I’ve received an invitation (and a very well-done one, too; Mrs. & Miss Burgess have impeccable taste in these things)—said invite came with a response card. I’ve not sent the damned thing in yet, and for a very good reason. The thing has lines for my name, and for whether I will attend, and to indicate whether I will be bringing a girl or not. Certainly I’m attending, and just as certainly I have no girl to invite. But responding with that latter fact is just too bitter.

I hate being single.

Christopher Hitchens, perhaps the most intelligent man on today’s Left, tears Michael Moore a new one. He rips apart the loony’s latest film, pointing out the myriad ways it lies, misleads, self-contradicts, panders and is in general worthless.

Moore has polluted our national discourse for far too long. Will no-one rid us of this troublesome pest?

As Andrew McCarthy notes, Iraq and Al Qaeda were involved with each other. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, leftists!

Declan McCullagh notes that Europe has terrible laws, making it unsuited for the Internet in specific, and business in general. Their most recent foolishness is trying to forbid using the Internet to be insulting (say, by passing around an ethnic joke). What a bunch of rubes.

Bob Bemer, one of the creators of ASCII, the man who invented the escape sequence, recently passed away.

Russian organised crime is exploiting flaws in IIS and IE to infect Windows hosts. They infect a Windows web servers running Internet Information Server, and then use it to infect visitors who are running Internet Explorer. Meanwhile, users of real OSes, web servers and web browsers are invulnerable. When will the world learn: Microsoft cannot be trusted to run one’s business, home or anything else.

These folks want fences and/or alarms to be mandatory on pools, simply because kids can drown. Across the nation, 250 kids die a year in pools; in Florida alone, there are more than a million pools. Am I the only one who finds it ridiculous to make millions of people pay lots of money to prevent a non-problem? More kids probably die of head colds.

Never mind that some of us are single, and have no friends with kids, and therefor are not likely to have any children running about anyway. It really gets on my nerves how parents like to imagine that everyone has children. Half of my property taxes go to public schools—schools which I’d never used, even had I children. Who knows how much of my state and federal taxes go to programmes for children I don’t have. Parents pay fewer taxes than I do, and get more services. Now they want to make swimming pools more expensive.

As America sinks further into being a police state, the US Supreme Court has ruled that one may be arrested for having the temerity to refuse to produce ID, even when not driving and not doing anything wrong. Gosh, thanks guys. Perhaps you should authorise mandatory badges indicating one’s religion, sexual orientation and political affiliation. Do any of the justices’ mothers even remember who their fathers were? Bastards.

Those crazy Brits—first they started out calling crosswalks zebra crossings, from the alternating black and red lines. Then the pelican crossing (PEdestrian LIght CONtrolled crossing) came about. Then there was the puffin crossing (Pedestrian User-Friendly INtelligent crossing). Now there is the toucan crossing. One can only wonder what they will come up with next.

The first civilian space flight has ended successfully. Mike Melvill has become the first civilian to earn astronaut’s wings, by flying SpaceShipOne just over 62½ miles above sea level. This is an historic moment: for the first time, men have entered space without help from any state. Who knows what the future may bring? Asteroid mining—maybe even colonies someday. And perhaps, centuries from now, some physicist will figure out how to travel to the stars. Although I have grave reservations about space exploration, this is how it should be done: private citizens financing the adventure, paving the way for mankind.

What a glorious time to be alive!

A month ago I visited my brother Thomas for my birthday; I brought along a fine cigar with a sentimental past (20 years old, once belonging to our grandfather) and my beautiful electric blue Colibri jet lighter, with double cigar cutters and chrome detailing: a true work of art. Foolishly, I packed it in my luggage—and the beasts of the Transportation Security Administration, loathsome and subhuman animals that they are, stole it therefrom. Never mind that not a single æroplane in all of human history has ever been lost due to a lighter. Never mind that it belonged to me. Never mind the Fourth Amendment, which reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Never mind the Seventh Amendment, which reads:

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Never mind that these used to be the United States of America, a bastion of liberty, a beacon illuminating the world. No, my effects were rifled without a warrant; my lighter was stolen without probable cause, without oath or affirmation; I was deprived of $80 without benefit of a jury.

We’ve all read the stories of those children who have had their Christmas presents snatched from their mothers’ bags. A woman cannot travel by air without having her underclothing rifled by thugs. A man cannot cross the country without hazarding his every possession. A child must risk even his lollipops. This is completely intolerable.

This was once a free country. I remember as a boy, how my parents would describe Europe, and how they constantly needed to show identification to travel. That would never happen here, I was told, this is America. Hah! Try boarding a plane without State-issued papers. What happened to our once proud people? What happened to our Constitution? What happened to our freedom?

We shall not be free until every last one of these swine dangles from a gibbet. We shall not enjoy our liberty until their bilious breath ceases to contaminate our once-clean air.

Thomas Jefferson would be ashamed of us. Patrick Henry would be humiliated. George Washington would disavow any relation. We aren’t fit to call ourselves heirs to their legacy. It makes me ill.

The man who streaked the Super Bowl has been found guilty (I didn’t even know that it’d happened, lucky me): among the arguments the prosecutor made is that, As light-hearted about this as I’d like to be, we don’t live in a society anymore where we can excuse this kind of behaviour. Now there’s a sad, miserable, bitter woman. Get a life. Streaking is odd, and foolish—but America was founded by odd, foolish kooks! Some people need to relax. Sheesh.

I recently saw a wonderful quote from the eminent Dr. Johnson: Why, Sir, our tastes greatly alter; the lad does not care for the child’s rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man’s whore. Very straightforward, and quite true: the older one gets, the less the joys of the young appeal to one. One couldn’t talk me onto a teeter-totter for love nor money.

Windows is so insecure that it’s impossible to secure it; in the time between installation on the net and downloading vital patches, it will already have been infected. Friends don’t let friends do Windows.

I am reliably informed that my brother’s fiancée, Lieutenant (j.g.) USN, has passed her boards and received her SWO pin. Or, in her case, my Dad’s SWO pin, which he gave her this past Thanksgiving, the day before Emily was baptised. We’re all terribly proud of her

Well, I’ve set a new distance record for myself (try not to laugh, all ye cyclists): 23½ miles. Saturday morn I’d the idea that a ride would be pleasant, so I set out in a roughly northwestern direction. Then I’d the idea that it might be nice to go downtown, so I set about finding the Cherry Creek Trail. I never quite found it, but I did find myself on Evans just east of I-25. Then I decided it’d be cool to visit my old digs, but before I got there, I thought I might head north on Colorado and help my brother with his Eagle project at Assumption Cathedral (which should be called Dormition Cathedral, but that’s another tale).

So that I did, helping them with setup for their upcoming Greek festival while I was at it. When I was done, I turned about and headed back home. My previous record was 20 miles, but I spent a good bit of that just cruising aimlessly; this time I attempted to go all-out the whole way (keeping my cadence at 90–110 rpm). This was a lot tougher than I thought it might be. I was a mass of soreness last night, but next time it’ll be easier, and the time after that it’ll be easier still, until one fine day I’ll be doing it for warm-up.

One of my goals is to be able to go downtown without a car. Light rail isn’t due down here until ’06; I figure that I should be able to make it there & back in under an hour each way before then.

The rumour that folks in the Middle Ages over-spiced their foods to compensate for spoilage arose in the Victorian period (among folks unfamiliar with cooking); a report debunks this (in PDF, unfortunately), pointing out that this is simply not possible (she even conducts a smell-test with spices and spoilt meats). She also refers to an interesting piece about pies (also a PDF), which apparently can act as primitive tin cans: surround meat with a pastry, cook it and since everything inside is dead, and nought from the outside can get in, it’s preserved for a decent while.

Is there aught more beautiful in this world than Bach’s Air on the G String? I don’t believe so, although Beethoven’s moonlight Sonata comes quite close. Sigh…

New examination of the records of the Inquisition shows that it was pretty mild. Less than one percent of those who were judged were executed—and none were executed by the Roman Church. Heresy was a secular offence; the Inquisition was a means of clearing someone’s name, no condemning it.

Meghan Cox Gurdon has another nice article about the shifting alliances within her family. I’m not certain that in ours we ever had such things: I tend to think of us brothers as having the same relations one to another that we’ve ever had. No doubt this annoys John, who is no longer Our Little Fuzzball, and Stephen, who hasn’t needed a nappie changed in well over a decade.

An interesting timeline of the events of 11 September ’01 was recently released. Man, were we caught with our pants down. It’s a damned good thing no-one ever attacked us in force!

From A.P. Taylor’s English History, 1914–1945:

Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913–14, or rather less than 8 per cent. of the national income. The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries, from working excessive hours. The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment. This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it were that way here in the US today?

Apparently, there is a gruesome video of the torture at Abu Ghraib—no, not the extremely mild recent goings-on (which are still completely unacceptable, and should be punished appropriately): beheadings, tongues torn out, hands sliced off, arms broken in pieces. Will the media which demanded that we see the photos of American misbehaviour also demand that we see photos of what Saddam did? I doubt it sincerely: after all, it is only Americans who can be evil in this modern world.

I recently discovered DenverDrinks.com, a site which lists happy hour specials in the heart of Denver. Very cool resource.

Some folks want to put Reagan on the $10 or $20 bill. I disagree—Hamilton and Jackson both deserve to be remembered as much as he does. Reagan should go on the $50 bill, replacing the accursed Grant. If anyone still wishes to remember Grant, he can print toilet paper with that drunkard’s visage.

I recently found a post my Joe Mariani giving an hyper-abbreviated version of the events in the King Arthur story (he was commenting on the absolutely horrid First Knight), which so good I figured it deserves a repost:

Now, as I recall the story, Arthur became king as a very young man with the help of Merlin and the sword Excalibur. After subduing those who opposed his ascendancy, he sent his best friend and favorite knight, Lancelot (the son of the French king), to bring his promised bride, Guinevere, whom he had never seen. Lancelot and Guinevere fell in love during the trip. For years, Guinevere and Lancelot tried to hide their love, but it was an open secret, and the King forgave them completely until his half-sister, Morgause (or Morgan), caused Agravaine (one of her sons) to catch the two in flagrante delicto, as it were, and force the matter into the open. Lancelot fled, and the Queen was accused of adultery. Lancelot rescued her and held off the rest of Arthur’s knights in his castle…to make it short: Mordred, Arthur’s son by his half-sister, took over the kingdom while Arthur was in France. In a huge battle, begun by accident (a soldier drew his sword to kill a snake while Arthur and Mordred were discussing peace), Mordred mortally wounded Arthur, and was killed by him. After Arthur died, he was taken away in a barge by his half-sister (now a nun). Lancelot became a priest, along with the knights that were left (Bedivere and Percival, I believe). Guinevere became a nun. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the story’s good enough to be filmed as is.

Nope, he’s right: it’s a damned good story, and it’d be nice if someday someone made a film of it.

I just understood the meaning of that phrase—all my life I thought that it meant that pride leads to a fall; really, it means that pride leaves one after one has failed. What a fool I’ve been all these years! I suppose that a perfect SAT verbal doesn’t really mean all that much after all.

Well, the Supreme Court avoided ruling on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance, deciding instead that the father in question lacked standing, as his custody of the girl on whose behalf he brought the case is in doubt. Rather than skirting the issue, the justices should have faced the issue like men and decided it one way or another.

Of course, a close reading of the pledge reveals it to be a rather ridiculous bit of frippery anyway. For one thing, a pledge of allegiance seems to me a pseudo-fascist kind of thing, like a loyalty pledge or temperance pledge. Let’s examine the vaunted pledge for just a moment…

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America… It’s not bad enough that we have to pledge allegiance to a mere polity (as opposed to God, or His Law, or virtue, or something eternal)—we must swear allegiance to a flag, a mere piece of cloth?!? Be proud of what she represents, yes; defend she in extremis, certainly—but pledge to ally oneself with a piece of cloth? Absurd on the face of it. Lord Spode would be proud.

…and to the republic for which it stands… This is perhaps the least objectionable passage. Our fifty states have come together to form a republic, and it’s a pretty damned good one: the best which has ever been or now is. I’ll gladly defend her wherever, whenever and however necessary. Our Constitution is the finest such document yet to exist, and a great thing in its own right; it’s certainly better than what we have now, though…

…one nation… Not really. We’re several different regions, states and polities, each with our views and traditions. Massachusetts is not California is not Colorado is not Vermont is not Oregon is not Texas is not Ohio. For that manner, Hispanics have very little in common with WASPs, although both have more in common with one another than with Orientals. We are not one nation: we are many, joined together in a common purpose for our mutual benefit. E pluribus unum, after all. The United States isn’t; the United States are.

…under God… Hardly. There’s a lot of stuff we permit which is not under God. Any religion save Orthodoxy, for one. That’s a good thing—God gave us free will. Infanticide, for another—that’s a bad thing—I’m fairly certain that it’s okay with him if we punish murderers. The point stands, though: the United States aren’t under God, save in the sense that all of creation is. The Founders for the most part were Deists, believers in a clockmaker god, a god hardly worthy of the title. They certainly didn’t, save for perhaps one or two exceptions, believe in God (not the capital G). That said, it’d be nice for these United States to bear in mind His existence and Will rather more often than we do.

…indivisible… Bullshit: complete, total, utter and unmitigated nonsense. For one thing, we may be divided into regions: the Northeast; the Southwest; the two Coasts. For another, we may be divided into states, each of which vies against the others. For another, we may be divided into counties (or parishes, or boroughs or whatever your state uses). For another, we may be divided into cities. It is not at all uncommon for our divided parts to disagree and argue with one another; in fact, it has come to force of arms more than once. Yes, we have more in common with one another than we do with the rest of the globe, but we are not the same. I’ve more in common with a Texan than with a Yankee (thank God); the Yankee from Connecticut has more in common with his brethren in New Hampshire than they all do with a good ol’ boy from Ohio, who in turn has little to say to a Californian. The glory of our union is precisely that we are divisible, and yet we remain undivided. A hair is indivisible; a steel cable is not—yet I know which I’d rather trust. For all our differences, for all our disagreements, we are united in the face of our foes. To pretend we are all the same is to do a profound disservice to every American.

…with liberty and justice for all… It’s a nice sentiment, but so long as the right to bear arms remains ignored in many locales; so long as a man hasn’t the right to face his accusers; so long as Prohibition remains the law of the land; so long as a man cannot carry a lighter on an æroplane: so long as these evils hold, we have neither liberty nor justice. To pretend otherwise is to engage in an act of elaborate self-deception.

So out of those six glorified clauses, one true, two are commendable and three are false or ridiculous. Big whoop. Zebras have three legs and a pair of wings; grass grows in dirt; two and two are three; people should get along; black is white; and it’d be nice if every guy and gal met his or her match would be just as valid to recite, and possesses the virtue of being a lot more amusing.

I found a cool list of numbers of death per million hours. Living itself comes out 1.53 deaths per million hours; only four activities are more dangerous: scuba diving (1.98 per); on-road motorcycling (8.80 per); general aviation (15.58 per; this is not the same as passenger flights, which are 0.15 per); and skydiving, at a whopping 128.71 deaths per million hours. Interestingly, hunting is less dangerous than riding, flying or driving. The least dangerous thing of all? Residential fires.

The Bicycle Helmet FAQ says it all:

We do not advocate the use of helmets, but neither do we counsel against their use. It is clear from the evidence we present that cycling is not so dangerous an activity that their use is particularly justified. We wear no special protective headgear for other every day activities such as walking and driving a car, even though our heads are exposed to similar risks for far greater lengths of time.

We have reason to believe the helmet debate has little to do with safety, and much more to do with commercial interest and a specific lifestyle advocacy similar to that which would control what we eat, drink and take into our lungs. If the debate was about reducing the already low frequency of cyclist head injuries, then the principal issue would be about whether manufacturing standards should be modified in order to ensure production of helmets which actually provided a reasonable amount of protection. Really effective helmets would be of such a design (i.e. ugly) and construction that few would buy them. Also, there are downsides to helmet use and scientific reasons to believe they exacerbate injuries in certain types of impacts. At the moment, a discussion on helmet problems is not in the interests of helmet manufacturers.

In my opinion, a helmet is only really good at preventing cosmetic damage, from abrasions and the like. A bicycle helmet can’t stop the kind of forces involved in a nasty accident, so won’t save one’s life. So the choice is: wear a helmet and look like a twit every time one rides; or don’t wear a helmet, and possibly get a nasty scar maybe sometime perhaps in a blue moon. A scar, at least, makes for a good story—a bike helmet doesn’t even do that.

I just finished watching Get Over It, a very loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (in which the play-within-a-play is, of course, the very same), and the though occurred to me: what happened to all those light & frothy teen comedies so popular when I was in college? Things like She’s All That, Ten Things I Hate About You (another Shakespeare adaptation, this time of Taming of the Shrew), Josie & the Pussycats, Clueless (an adaptation of Austen’s Emma), Loser, Blow Dry and even American Pie. I suppose that the problem is that 11 September happened, and the world no longer seems a happy & peaceful place. There are wars going on, and there’s no place for lighthearted comedy.

Bah! I cry—lightheartedness is exactly the thing we’re fighting for: the freedom to love & laugh; the freedom to go about one’s life peaceably; the freedom to waste 90 minutes and a few bucks on some silly film. So Hollywood, get out there and make some movies again!

Well, I finally put up pics from the Boulder Cruzer Club which the regular reader may recall me mentioning. Some exceedingly strange folks, but lots of fun.

Well, I bought Mystery of the Abbey, as I’ve wished to do since my friend Shaima recommended it. It is a cool little game—I can’t wait to play it. It looks to be worth every penny.

A possible urban legend:

An elderly lady phoned her telephone company to report that her telephone failed to ring when her friends called but that on the few occasions when it did ring, her dog always moaned right before the phone rang. The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic pet or senile elderly lady.

He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialled the subscriber’s house. The phone didn’t ring right away, but then the dog moaned loudly and the telephone began to ring.

Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:

1. The dog was tied to the telephone system’s ground wire via a steel chain and collar.
2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the phone number was called.
4. After a couple of such jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate on himself and the ground.
5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.

Almost too good to be true, but it could happen.

Piecepack is a free board game system which appears to have a great deal of promise. It is composed of four suits (suns, moons, crowns & arms) and six values (null, ace, 2, 3, 4 & 5) distributed across 24 tiles, 24 coins, 4 dice & four pawns. Very cool seeming.

For about a month or so now—since shortly after my car needed repairs. While the repairs were being done, I biked or walked to & from work, and after I had the car back, I figured that I might as well keep it up.

Well, it has been wonderful! I feel so much better and have so much more energy that it’s like I’m a teenager again. In fact, last Saturday I went to the pool without a shirt on for the first time in a decade. The ride home is wonderful, what with the fresh air (esp. with the perfume of flowers on the breeze). It’s just so much more pleasant than slogging home through traffic. Believe it or not, it takes me the same amount of time to get to work on my bike as in my car, but this way is so much more pleasant.

Biking rules!

For some unfathomable reason, Victoria’s Secret mailed unto me a bra, apron and hot-pant set. It was delivered to the wrong address (mine), but the folks at the listed address have no idea whom it was for—they deny knowledge of this Molly A. King. And so I’m stuck with a set of women’s clothing: were I a transvestite, this would be mana from heaven, but as I’m not, it’s a nuisance. So if anyone would like a 34B bra or apron–hot-pant set, just let me know. Or, what would be even better: introduce me to a gal who’d like them:-)

Eric Solomon has devised a clever pen-and-paper game called Middleman in which players buy and sell tins of some commodity. It looks like a quick play, with but 10 turns (I’d extend it to an even dozen, of course), and an intriguing randomisation system—no dice are needed, and indeed nothing more than pen, paper & players is necessary. The game sheet is short and easy to reproduce from memory. Now if only I could find someone to play with me…

Dave Kopel ably sums up Ronald Reagan’s legacy. Reagan was the first president I remember (Carter was too early in my life), and is still my idea of what a president should be. He achieved great things, and our nation is in his debt. He was not perfect—no man can be—but he was the best choice at that point in time. It’s sad to see him go.

Today, Venus transited across the Sun—the first time in almost 122 years. William Harkness, the Director of the US Naval Observatory, wrote at the time:

There will be no other transits of Venus till the twenty-first century of our era has dawned upon the earth, and the June flowers are blooming in 2004. When the last transit occurred the intellectual world was awakening from the slumber of ages, and that wondrous scientific activity, which has led to our present advanced knowledge, was just beginning. What will be the state of science when the next transit season arrives God only knows. Not even our children's children will live to take part in the astronomy of that day.

How poignant. His World of Tomorrow is our today. There’s one more transit in our lifetimes, in eight years—and then that’s it for all of us.

It was 90° when I got home at 2030 this evening—even my furniture is warm to the touch. Ugh, I hate summer. How I long for grey clouds, and fresh-fallen snow, and for the sun to be blotted from the sky.

From Thomas Jefferson’First Inaugural Address:

Entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honour and confidence from our fellow citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practised in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence…With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one more thing, citizens fellow wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

A wise and frugal government, which restrains men from injuring one another and leaves them alone otherwise, not stealing that which one earns—would that not be a great thing to have?

…that my brandy is pre-warmed. Kinda nice, actually.

Just finished watching a very interesting film, I-60. It’s best described as a post-modern morality play. Not for kids—there’s a particular bit I’m thinking of—but well-worth watching for those in my generation. Quite enjoyable.

Today I laid down a jar of pickled garlics according to the recipe I used for onions. It’ll be ready in two months or so.

The regular reader will notice that I have a great love for pickled foods. Part of it is just the fact that they taste superb: lots of salt and vinegar combine to make a savoury repast. Part of it is the fascination I have with food preservation: it’s so cool to be able to stave off corruption (or take advantage of it, as when making beer, wine or sauerkraut). Man has loved preserved foods for centuries—why should I be any different from my ancestors?

Unfortunately, it appears that pickled, salted and smoked foods cause stomach cancer. But quite honestly, I just don’t care. I’m going to die someday anyway—I might as well enjoy my time here on earth. A life without pickles; a life without bacon; a life without sauerkraut: that wouldn’t be life at all, but a kind of ghastly hollow caricature thereof. It would be an unlife.

Today whilst searching for information on how to preserve apples, I discovered Recipezaar, a cooking site with a unique difference: the recipes can be scaled easily. I found one for pickled apples which wanted a peck (about 20); I was able to scale it down to 4 apples without having to do any math in my head. The site also calculates nutritional information based on its database of ingredients. Absolutely wonderful—this is how recipe sites should work. Let the computer do the scut-work, and let man have fun.

My buddy Adam and his fiancée; are putting a contract down on this house; isn’t it a beaut? Man, it must be nice having two incomes.

Whilst in Boulder this evening, I happened upon an event which seems to be known simply as Happy Thursday. Folks ride around on their bikes, circle about through traffic, shout Happy Thursday! to passers-by and generally make nuisances of themselves. It was mondo fun. There was one guy with a unicycle, and another with a penny-farthing, one hauling a trailer with a stereo, and yet another dressed as a cow. There were small children (indeed, one lad on a one-speed put everyone else to shame with his energy!) and old men. There were guys & gals. Much fun was had by all. I took some photos; if any of them came out, I’ll post them sooner or later.

Inkscape is a nice little vector graphics editor derived from Sodipodi, which was itself derived from gill. Looks very featureful and pleasant to use.

The Graduate Mafia Brotherhood of Princeton is a bunch of fellows who play an interesting game known as mafia. There are three mafiosi, one angel and any number of citizens. The game is divided into day and night: during the night, all players close their eyes and then the mafiosi awake and designate a citizen for assassination; then they go back to sleep and the angel wakes up; he points to one player and is informed by the moderator whether that player is mafia or citizen; in the morning the assassinated player is found dead; then the players all vote to convict and kill a single one of their number. The goal of the mafia is to kill off all citizens; the goal of the citizens is to kill off all the mafia.

The page has a number of variations. One of the more interesting is to combine mafia and werewolf (which is the same game, but with werewolves, a seer and townsfolk): the mafia and werewolves are fighting one another and killing off civilians. Best played with a large number of players, I imagine.

Kate’s (Vegan) Cookery Site has a good variety of decent-sounding food. I’m not vegan, of course—someday I am going to write something about how standard vegetarianism is incompatible with Christianity—but I do fast from meat for over half the year. Sites like this can liven up the Lenten diet considerably.

Today I hath pickled onions according to this recipe (and adding a stub of horseradish to each jar, for added flavour). In a related matter, I tasted one of the pickled lemons I laid down in January. Wow! A thin slice would go wonderfully with cold cuts & cheese on good bread. On its own, it’s a tad overpowering, but still quite tasty.

Next on my list: pickled garlics.

Ever wonder what a Hollywood Car is, or the Engine Equalisation Law might be? Then read Roger Ebert’s Glossary of Movie Terms.