Dan I’m sitting outdoors on my deck under our pavilion with my netbook and a frosty beverage. Granted, it’s only grape soda (diet, at that), but only because I didn’t feel like having a beer.
The temperature is about 74 degrees and there’s a nice cool breeze. I’m in the shade. I’m connected to the internet IM’ing with friends, checking email, perusing Twitter, blogging, and surfing the web.
20 years ago, I’d be burned as a witch for this. 😉
For an anniversary present, Lori got me this single-serving coffee maker by Tassimo (made by Bosch) that uses T-Disks to brew up a single cup of coffee.
The brewing process takes about a minute (if that) and, with the Gevalia disks that I have, fills up my travel mug perfectly with great coffee.
Since Lori usually likes her coffee a little weaker than I do (and sometimes likes flavored coffee, which I tend to find nasty for the most part), I rarely drink coffee at home, letting her have control of the main coffee pot and occasionally breaking out my percolator to make my own coffee.
But now she has effectively stopped my whining with this machine. There are dozens of coffee choices, as well as tea, hot chocolate, lattes, espressos, and cappuccinos available for it, so theoretically, I could have a different type of coffee every day of the week.
…at the touch of a button. w00t!
Phil Plait is a Rachel Maddow fanboi and I can’t say I blame him. Though Rachel is fallible and has made mistakes before, more often than not, she hits the proverbial nail on the head, so when she gave her commentary on Climategate, the ACORN “scandal,” and other right-wing nonsense, Phil couldn’t resist linking to her video (and commenting on it…worth a read)… and I couldn’t resist watching it.
Another dead-on hammer-strike.
Phil rightly comments that the far right doesn’t have the copyright on nonsense, but the Republican “unholy alliance” it has formed with fundamentalist religion has led it to its anti-reality stance.
He concludes with this…
Global warming is real. Evolution is real. Vaccines do not cause autism. Homeopathy doesn’t work. These are facts, and they don’t care whether or not denialists spin, fold, and mutilate them. Until we face up to reality, however, they will spin, fold, and mutilate us.
I’ll drink to that.
Amusingly, temperatures in Colorado (home of the National Weather Service Forecast Office) for the past few days have been higher than average, but all those people who were decrying global warming during the snowstorms this winter aren’t piping up about the above average heat.
It seems their lack of understanding about global warming only goes in one direction.
Via the Washington Post:
Rove says the allegation that the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction "is a pernicious political attack launched by cynical and hypocritical individuals."
I wonder if he said that with a straight face.
I’m really ashamed that this woman is even electable in this country.
“The media wants you to believe that tea party patriots are toothless hillbillies,” said Bachmann, who instead cast the tea partiers as intelligent, educated and professional people. “This is a very sophisticated crowd. And then these charges from Democrats that they were spit upon, that there were racial epithets — there’s no one who saw anything.”
– Michele Bachmann
(source)
Sure, “toothless hillbillies” is over the top (and I haven’t seen the media make that accusation, anyway), but to say that they are “intelligent, educated, and professional people” is just as over-the-top as the hillbilly comment.
I’m sure there are some intelligent, well-educated tea partiers (well… I assume there are), but if there are, they are being grossly overshadowed by their ignorant (and sometimes bigoted… and sometimes borderline psychotic) counterparts… and it’s not the fault of the media.
Michele Bachmann fits neatly in the “ignorant” slot, though at the risk of being accused of ad hominem attacks, she’s been said to fit neatly in the “bat-shit crazy” slot, too. Bachmann’s ignorance, lies, and misguided rhetoric combine to demonstrate a perfect example of one of the big problems in our country.
That she actually got elected is equally dire.
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Friday evening, Megan had a sleepover birthday party with 3 friends and I performed a short magic show for them. I set up a video camera to capture it, but some of the show is lost because of the position. However, it went fairly well, I didn’t bork anything up, and the girls seemed to think it was a lot of fun.
Here are the videos (two parts due to Youtube restrictions on time).
Part One:
Part Two:
Megan and I were out running errands last weekend and, when we pulled into a parking lot at Five Below, we saw an older man sleeping in another car in the lot. As I turned off the engine, I pointed at the man and said to Megan, "So do you think he’s sleeping or do you think he’s dead?"
Now, when I relay that story to friends, almost invariably, the reaction has been one of shock. "Oh my god! You actually asked her that?!"
But Megan, who is nine years old, simply gave me her best eye roll, accompanied by a snicker and a withering What a silly question look, and said, "Sleeping. Why would he be dead?"
As we walked to the store, I said, "He could have had a heart attack or it could have been like on television and someone sneaked up on him and killed him."
Megan simply rolled her eyes.
Walking back to the car, we saw another man sleeping, so I asked again, "Do you think he’s sleeping or dead?"
Another eye roll and a laugh. "Sleeping."
At this point, I was pretty much done with the joke, but as luck would have it, I got a perfect setup for a punchline.
As we were waiting to pull out onto a main road, a funeral procession was stopped at a red light… with the hearse in perfect view.
I pointed at it. "Do you think he’s sleeping or dead?"
*ba-dum ching*
===========
Note: For the record, we saw both of the sleeping men move, so it’s fairly certain they weren’t dead. As for the hearse, we saw a casket, but obviously couldn’t see a body, so we don’t know if there even was a body, much less if it was sleeping, dead, male or female. I think it’s a pretty safe bet to go with "dead," though.
Megan is reading the first book in the Warrior Series, a fantasy series about clans of cat warriors, and I asked her if, when she finished the first book, she was going to start the second one right away or if she was going to read one of the new Bella Sara horse books she just got.
She said, “I already started one of the Bella Sara books. I’m dual-wielding books.”
[…]
I’m so proud.
Embrace Life – What a great way to hammer home the message.
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