Author: cosmo

“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.”

— Thomas Jefferson

Last night I was over at Myles’ house for an evening of poker. It was a lot of fun, but perhaps the funniest part of the entire thing was sitting with a group of grown men– all of whom probably make $50k or more a year– and watching them fold a hand because the bet was raised from a nickel to a dime.

“Whoa, too rich for my blood!”

We played with nice Vegas-style casino chips though, so it wasn’t so much the fact that a white chip was worth five cents. It could have been worth a hundred bucks instead. Still a lot of fun.

And by the time all was said and done and we headed home around one in the morning, I had made a dollar. A whole dollar. I suppose I should put that into a college fund or something, and when Alex turns eighteen I can present him with the dollar plus the fourteen cents of interest. Woo hoo!

Laralee and I just finished watching “Troy”. We decided the movie basically broke down into two likeable characters…

Hector — cool guy, smart, honorable, a good warrior.
Hector’s wife — smart, pretty.

…and several thousand idiots.

Achilles — Mr. Ego, vain, prideful, completely lacking in honor.
Agamemnon — mean-spirited, selfish, heartless, just plain evil.
Paris — starry-eyed wimpy dork.
Helen — dumb blond, not pretty enough to start a war over.
King of Troy — didn’t listen to either of his sons.
Achilles’ girlfriend — much too forgiving, or just too easily seduced.

So while the movie itself had good action and special effects and so on, it was basically a long lesson about how pride will be your downfall. Oh, and be sure not to get shot in the heel with an arrow.

So Congress opened hearings about the use of steroids in Major League Baseball. I guess they’re trying to figure out whether professional baseball players use steroids at all (duh), and whether there’s a correlation with the use of steroids amongst the high-school crowd.

For me, two questions immediately come to mind:

1) Doesn’t Congress have better things to do than subpoena a dozen baseball players and put them on camera?

2) Steroid use isn’t actually illegal, right? If not, why is the legislative branch of our government involved?

O Joyous Day!

Webster’s recently decided to add a new word to the dictionary:

wedgie: noun. a prank in which the victim’s undershorts are jerked upward so as to become wedged between the buttocks.

Oh, what a crazy world in which we live. In Vancouver, the police and government have decided to give away heroin. From a Fox News story:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Just over the United States northwest border, addicts will soon be able to get their fix from the Canadian government in the form of free heroin administered by nurses and doctors on the taxpayer’s dime. “They’re using heroin. They’ll continue to use heroin. What we’re trying to do is prevent them from getting something irreversible like HIV, hepatitis C and overdose death,” said Dr. Martin Schechter, the director of the heroin program.

Wow. Will Vancouver see a surge in deadbeat population? Steve’s commentary on this:

Nice!  First it was free condoms to high school and junior high students, then it was free needles to junkies, now free heroin to junkies.  What’s next?  

Free hookers to high schoolers?
“Well, they’re gonna have sex anyway.  This will keep the teenage pregnancy rate down by giving them our state employed hookers who have been AIDS tested and are assured to be on the pill”

Free guns to gang-bangers?
“Well, they’re gonna get and use their guns anyway.  This will reduce gun-stealing and weapons-dealing.  Also, the guns we give will be checked out to make sure that they are not going to backfire on the user.”

Free bombs to terrorists?
“Well, they’re gonna bomb anyway.  Why don’t we get rid of the risky bomb transporting market and arms dealers.  This would also remove much of the border skirmish issues and allow us to make sure that the terrorists know what they are doing.  A terrorist who doesn’t have adequate training on bomb handling and care could have a bad accident and cause problems for the surrounding neighbors, etc.”

Sheesh.

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”

— Ernest Benn

Tonight Zack conked out around 6:30 (he was sooo tired) and after dinner the rest of us decided to play some games. Laralee and Kyra played The Magnificent Race while Alex and I sat down for some Stratego.

It was a lot of fun for everyone, and as we were packing up the games I noticed the amazing 1950’s-era artwork on the Stratego box. Ahh, those memorable days of yore when dad always wore a suit, mom wore a skirt, and little Billy had enough grease in his hair to affect global petroleum prices…

Well, it’s the end of the first week working with Craig. Despite a rather tight fit in the ol’ basement office (see photo) things seem to be going really well. He’s picking up the code very quickly (no surprise there) and has already been a huge help. Plus, he’s fun to have around and even tolerates my eclectic tastes in music.

(I have to say nice things about him, since he occasionally takes a gander at this journal…)

Yesterday I cleaned out my office in preparation for shuffling the furniture to make room for my first real employee. In the process I was sorting through an entire bookshelf of old manuals and such, and came across…

the manual for my very first PC — a 386-33 beast!

That’s right, fifteen years ago I bought a $2,000+ system for college, and thank heavens I still had the manual for how to operate the motherboard. Hoo boy, that sure came in handy over the years.

In the end, I filled an entire trash can with stuff like that, including the definitive guide to Microsoft Access version 2 (!) and the first version of Quattro Pro (that’s right, the text-based DOS version).