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About Category: Rants
I ran.
2010.05.15Prologue…
(feel free to skip)
I was a husky kid. Didn’t take to sports much, ate big meals, and was sort of over sized kid most my childhood – height and weight. So it wasn’t until I was 11 before I ran more than 1 block without stopping. Several years later, I ran more than a mile for the first time to enter the Marine Corp “poolie” program. Bootcamp is where I discovered that I’m not too bad at running, and my time in Arizona pushed me to the furthest limits I’d ever seen on the trail. 6 miles was a normal day, 4 was short. Our farewell PT with SSgt Pulling was 11 miles – and we had no idea which turn or stretch would be our last the entire way.
After the military, I just used running to balance out my beer drinking. Casual smoking made it tougher for 6 years, but that didn’t hold me back during drill weekends with the Naval Reserve in Ft. Meade. Some days I’d light up a cigarette as soon as I stepped off the track.
These days, as an out of shape father and proud overweight American…
…I don’t take much to running with regularity. My time is precious: morning routine, kids, work, dinner, kids, kids, bedtime routine, XBox / beer / DVR, sleep… repeat. The best efficiency experts in the world couldn’t wedge more into this schedule – it’s airtight! However, my hat is off to anyone that maintains a healthy exercise regimen. It’s downright admirable – moderately, but nevertheless worth admiration. Different strokes for different folks, right?
Environmentalism: the debate
2010.02.15It’s been cold lately, and when it’s cold, people pipe up against Al Gore as though he’d said "it will never be cold again."
But, to start from the beginning, it’s pretty well established those fumes pillowing out of coal stacks and tail pipes aren’t great for the environment. If you’re still not sold on this wild idea, take a look at Mexico City.
A serene look at one of the world's largest collections of vehicles.
So, it’s not a far stretch to consider if thousands of factories and millions of cars could turn the skylines of Mexico City, LA, or Shanghai into a brown haze, that the same pollutants could be bad for our climate. Doesn’t take a crack team of scientists to tell you noxious fumes are bad.
Which they did. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - both large groups of internationally recognized scientists – have both ruled human activities are causing surface temperatures to rise globally, and that an overall “global warming” is very likely.
So, if it strikes a chord with common sense, it’s backed by the scientific community, and it’s prevention helps keep our global home looking its greenest, who could possibly want to argue against the ill-effects of carbon pollution?
A yawn and fist shake at mainstream
2010.02.07Anna and I had a “date night” last night, and we decided to see an IMAX 3D screening of Avatar. This is about a month or so after it came out, so it’s already clear how good the movie is – people can’t stop raving about it, and to date has earned over $600 million dollars (that’s the GDP of a small country – in about 5 weeks).
The experience is phenomenal. The 3D is crisp, colors remain unaltered – it’s just incredible. It’s the closest I’ve ever seen to being in the scene itself. Of course the CG of the film is top caliber as well. There’s tons of moments where you lose track of what’s real and what’s animated. Facial expressions are so life like you often mistake the characters for actors in rubber suits.
In a nutshell, I can’t adequately describe how great the movie experience is. It’s two parts awesome to see a movie in that way, and awesome to see it with a movie like Avatar.
So what gets to me is the comment I’ve heard several times from various sources. “Avatar is just Dances with Wolves in Space.”
Tiger’s Transgressions
2009.12.03So Tiger Woods cheated. In itself, it’s a sad story. A man highly revered by the world for his golf prowess, new father, fallen to more base temptations and now fallen in respect by many of his fans.
The problem I have with this sad story is that it’s all too logical.
Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world. Out of 6 Billion people, his name stands at the top. He makes ungodly amounts of money in endorsements, is in incredible physical shape, travels the world year round, and has superstar fame and fandom wherever he goes. This is his life: he leaves home, travels somewhere for 5 or 6 days, stays at the finest of hotels, has an outpouring of cheer and adoration, wins oodles of money, and travels back home.
I don’t think the story here is that he’s been cheating. I think a more surprising story would be that he hasn’t been fooling around while on his routine luxury tour of the world.
This is in no way to excuse the behavior. Marriage is an uncompromising bond, and a person is committing to full fidelity when they enter it. “Transgressions” can’t be watered down or excused because of circumstances when love and family are on the line.
My point is how can you ever expect to be a normal husband and father when you’re Tiger Woods? I understand the instincts to settle down and raise a family, but it’s a huge gamble if it’s your job to be at a different city and golf course 4 days a week, 40 weeks a year. And some point you got to recognize where your life and your plans fit together. It’s why celebrities treat their marriages like car leases. If you see one last more than 5 years, it’s a phenomenon.
In perspective, it’s not that fascinating of a story really, just a typical tale with fascinating people.
And NOW, you can hang Christmas decorations
2009.11.27Why are we in such a damned rush to get the decorations hung about our homes and yards?
The homes around us started right after Halloween. Following quick math, that’s two months of potential Christmas cheer. Two months of inflated Santa Clauses, the before and after nativity scenes, reindeer parts and other Chinese-crafted, LED illuminated, plastic holiday cheer.
I know, Christmas is awesome. I’m sure Chanukah and the other end of year festivals are great too, but in America, it’s mostly Christmas. I’m will not dignify the crap that follows this topic. The folks that spaz out over the greeting “Merry Christmas” need to ease up a few notches, and the folks that spaz out over “Happy Holidays” need a percocet and a copy of the Bill of Rights.
So under the premise that Christmas is awesome, I understand why people would be anxious to celebrate it. I like my Birthday (or at least used to before I turned 30), but I don’t go prodding for Birthday wishes a month before it comes up. Why don’t you see this sort of hysteria over any other holidays?
Frankly for me, Christmas is egg nog, a (realistic) pine tree and Nat King Cole. A glowing altar on my home’s exterior never really attached itself to my fondness of the season. It almost feels like a competition in suburbia – who can really show it up for Christ’s birthday. Maybe it’s part American competitiveness, part kissing up to the king of kings. Not sure. Either way, it’s quite gaudy and in my mind, is close to warranting federal regulation (clearly since that did a great deal of good on Wall Street).
All I’m saying is, let me enjoy Thanksgiving for what it’s worth without stepping outside and momentary loss of bearing. Give the leaves a chance to fall before you start stringing up the garland and fire-hazard lights, mm-kay?
The Merits of Texting
2009.11.24When I first starting seeing people in crowds staring down into their phones and thumbing out messages to their friends, it always struck me as an odd behavior. You’re using a device invented for the most convenient form of communication known to man – immediate speech communication – to awkwardly spell out conversations on a tiny screen with 10 keys using crude abbreviations.
Part of the confusion for me was seeing people opt for a cell phone’s more obscure features over it’s primary function, and the other part was seeing communication reduced to emoticons and terrible new acronyms. LOL! How R U IRL? It all just feels like a major step backward for human communication. In 1806 we’d be hand writing eloquent letters to one another using proper cursive, grammar and punctuation. Two hundred years later, we’re butchering fragmented phrases and incomplete thoughts into tiny devices. It just feels like we’re a century away from grunting and howling at each other.
Call me a cynic, but the structure of English language serves a purpose. If we’re given years of instruction to learn it and maturity produces articulate adults, moving away from this feels like regression.
Shoe on the other foot
Maybe I didn’t hang out in the right circles. Maybe I don’t have “friends”. Whatever you want to nitpick, I’ve never really traded text with someone until recently. Our friend / nanny has had to let us know on a few occasions “Hey, I’ve gotta run to the store with the kids really quickly” or “traffic’s bad – we’ll be there soon.” So, she sent it to our phones, and it finally made sense.
I was so wrapped up with the vapid conversations I saw conducted over text that I’d missed just how convenient it was. No small talk, no filler converation, as direct as humanly possible. “I require X- do you have it available?” “What time will you be ready?” Sharp, pointed communications that cut right to the message or question. I like it.
Of course, if I wasn’t using my work Blackberry, there’d be no way I’d be willing to thumb it out on an 10 digit pad. That’s nuts in my mind.
Kids TV
2009.08.23I know a few parents who are strict with their children’s TV viewing habits, even a few who’ve blocked it out all together. It’s a big concern for new parents – at what point is my kid watching too much TV? Is it gonna make them a couch potato, slow their mental development, make them want to go to Disney World, etc.?
Of course, I write this as my own 1 year old is planted in front of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. That’s the immediate benefit for parents – it’s a distractor. They want to watch, you want to fix coffee and breakfast. Win win, right?
Deal is, there’s a ton of programming out there, from the moment they’re out of the womb all the way up through their segway to college. Specifically children’s programming has exploded over the last several years. It used to be a handful of public television shows that we relied on – Sesame Street probably the king of them all. Every kid growing up in the last 20 years should know Sesame Street well, and with good reason. It was creative, and it worked.
That’s the surprising part – it was fiercely researched and scientifically engineered to have to biggest impact on the youth audience. Reading Malcom Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, he explains the painstaking research that went into making the show what it was. Sesame Street is probably the most researched show of all time, because it broke all conventional wisdom about kids and tv. It proved children can learn from a television show, and that everything about a show’s effectiveness centered on how much a child could grasp. That’s where the puppets came in. They made adult concepts relatable to young children.
These days, the new cadre of shows has come in such large numbers that one can only imagine how few get the Sesame Street detailed approach. A great example of that in my mind is the Baby Einsteins series. It was targeted at new moms who thought it’d give their babies a leg up on vocabulary, early concepts and new languages. If you never saw a Baby Einsteins video, it’s pretty much a montage of 30 second clips that show various colorful demonstrations with narrations in different languages doing a voice over for each. After about 15 minutes, it cuts to about 25 more minutes of advertising for the rest of the Baby Einsteins series.
I’m not going to say it’s total garbage, but there’s no proof it adds anything to early child development (article). You can tell by the way they’re marketed, and the premise they’re built on: any arrangement of distracting pictures set to Beethoven will make your kid smart.
Clearly, there’s no substitute for one-on-one interaction with a child, but at the same time, not all TV shows are a complete hindrance to a child’s development. Of course there’s also the factor of parental tolerance: I will not sit through Dora the Explorer. It could teach kids Calculus, I’m avoiding that show like the plague. Her insipid voice just grates my nerves.
There’s a ton of children’s TV shows out there. I’d say there’s nothing wrong with a little TV, as long as it’s in moderation and you’re selective about the materials.
What gun issue?
2009.08.01As many Americans, I’m rather intelligent and vaguely informed, though find it near impossible to follow current legislation. I just know what affects me. You know, because it’s affecting me.
So, when I’m driving and I see the altar to causes that are people’s automobile bumpers and the many stickers of propaganda posted on each, I get curious (as is their intention – mission accomplished Peace Frogs). In particular, the guns related ones. The “Guns are as American as Freedom” and other half-baked similar sentiments. The “I’ll shoot any Liberal who tries to take my guns” stickers. The “Charlton Heston is my President… still” stickers. These have me baffled.
I’ll start by saying, I have no strong feelings on guns. Guns exist, and people have them. Laws won’t change this. I like shooting them when I can, but only into paper targets and endangered wildlife. Whether or not my city of residence allows me to pack heat in Church or at Applebees is totally out of my concern, as is whether or not the half-drunk idiot next is holstering a .38. I don’t need a Glock to feel safe eating hot wings. Some people do, and I honor that, though feel perhaps medication is more appropriate.
But this notion that somehow firearms are under a prolific attack by the government seems on all accounts to be abject non-sense.
Let’s run down the list of what the government controls, and where it stands:
Handguns
Handguns seem to be the freshest debate around, but it seems to be at the local level. Good. Leave it there. You don’t like the views of your hometown on carry regulations on public golf courses? MOVE!!
From everything I’ve read, a law abiding, adult citizen can own a handgun in every state. Apparently, it’s everything else the NRA quibbles over. Well, what good is a handgun if you can’t show it off a little? Maybe do some cowboy tricks with it? What if you’re ordering a salad at Wendy’s and Osama Bin Laden tries to rob the joint? You can’t spray mustard packets into his face and expect the same results as a handgun, do you?
To that, I say Osama would focus on higher transaction institutions, and that your local police department 9 times out of 9 has better training, personnel and facilities than you do to deal with the situation. But again, should you feel the need to go Charles Bronson, there’s a good list of cities that afford you that chance.
Rifles
I would hope no one thinks folks are after rifles. Similarly, to the left I say, I would hope no one is truly concerned about rifles. I can somewhat understand concern about small, concealable handguns in metropolitan areas, but rifles are about as much utility as is a shovel or bottle of Jack Daniels. Mix all three, and your evening is probably heading somewhere great, or somewhere terrible.
Rifles, like shotguns, are hunting tools. Sure, Lee Harvey Oswald took the idea too far, as did a handful of other deranged men in American history, but at the very least they never got their hands on the next item.
Assault Weapons
There’s is no good G-D reason any citizen should own an AK-47 or AR-15. Unless that reason is to get liquored up and shoot up some barrels or an abandoned car. Other than that, and although seemingly facetious, that is the only use any Assault Weapon has for the average American citizen. Frankly, as cool as it is to light up an old Ford Fiesta with a bunch of drunk buddies, I say confiscate the guns, givem’ a gift card to Cabela’s and sit them in front of an XBox 360. For Chrissakes, that’s why EA spent so much time souping up them graphics engines – cant you appreciate a digital explosion renderd on a 42″ LCD HDTV?
NRA bobbleheads quote the archaic Second Amendment notion that our forefathers meant us to have everything our military has in order to thwart tyranny. To that I say, “In God We Trust“. We have a selective memory when it comes to the Bill of Rights, and Freedom of Religion means America shouldn’t be one nation “under God” – but your folks lobbied to get that phrase in during the 1950’s. Congrats, you made Jefferson turn in his grave. Now you want to act like purists on the Amendment right after the one you trample on? Nuh unh.
Assault weapons in the home are like pipe bombs in the home – you don’t see either at Wal-Mart for a reason. They’re used to kill many many people at once. And unless you fear Red Dawn is a prophetic film or think a zombie apocalypse is eminent, you have no reason to own what we issue to soldiers and Marines.
In short, if you don’t like legislation around purchasing a weapon that can kill a crowd of people under 1 minute, shut up and take your pills. You are the fringe. And don’t let Dr.Lazslo know that the ghost of General Patton is communicating with you through your dog again.
In short,…
What gun issue do we have? You like guns? Buy them. Use them recklessly, you go to jail… or the morgue. You don’t like guns? Don’t buy them. Afraid of guns? Stay the hell away from them. Still afraid of guns? Freeze yourself cryogenically until we fix humanity’s hostility issues. It’s on Obama’s agenda in 2011.
Yeah, it’s people who kill other people instead of the guns, but guns do make it a whole lot easier. Of course, so do 3 ton SUVs and several glasses of Merlot. Life’s full of risks. We can rule out the needless ones, but ultimately it’s a balance of the reasonable against the unreasonable. I don’t mind if any idiot with a credit score above 500 can get a Ford Explorer, but it’d worry me if those same idiots could drive a 16 wheel tractor trailer.