Mind Nuggets

We had an eclipse today

2006-03-29T10:04:00.000-08:00

This is the image I captured of today's partial solar eclipse. I took the picture with no specialized equipment using only a 3x optical zoom, which is why it's of such poor quality.

All I can say is thank goodness for the hazy clouds that moved across the sky; otherwise I'd have never gotten the shot since the light from the sun would have been so intense that you couldn't have seen the moon moving across it.

And I did look at it. Briefly. To set up the shot. In case you're having trouble making it out, the sun is the circle in the middle of the picture, with the moon just taking a bite out of it on the lower left hand side.

Leccy's back on

2006-03-28T13:08:00.000-08:00

From Friday evening, we were having serious electrical problems in our house. Our house has five main circuits, with all but two sockets upstairs and the sockets in the main downstairs area of our house on a single circuit, with the two remaining upstairs sockets on another, the kitchen and dining room on another one, the extension on another circuit, and the downstairs electric shower on the fifth circuit.

Whew, that was boring wasn't it? Anyway, the main circuit to the house kept tripping with a loud pop from Friday night onwards. Whenever it tripped, we'd go to the fuse box and flip it and try to find the source of the problem. We found a space heater that reeked of ozone, so we threw it away assuming that it was the source of the problem. It wasn't. We replaced two sockets in the area of the living room where the pops from the circuit tripping were the loudest, assuming that would solve the problem. It didn't. Time to call in an electrician.

I nearly shit myself when I found out what the problem was this morning. We have been having heavy rains here for a few weeks; the Foss broke its banks last week and hasn't receded yet, and the Ouse broke its banks last night. The village where we live has a high water table anyway so drainage has always been an issue, and our patio has flooded three times in the last two weeks. We didn't think anything of it since it does that all the time, it never bridges the damp course, and it always recedes on its own relatively quickly.

Anyway, the electrician came this morning and quickly determined that the two suspect sockets were wired incorrectly to begin with; we suspect that the previous owner of this house did it, since the neighbor says that he was a DIY enthusiast. We didn't install or wire them; we merely replaced the sockets, which weren't faulty to begin with. The wiring in the wall and floor was the problem. The electrician said it was a complete bodge job and we could have burned our house down. The recent rains meant that when the electrician peeled up a floorboard, there were two inches of standing water underneath the floor. This is common in this part of town and is not a problem; everyone in this estate has had that problem at one time or another and it always goes away on its own without flooding the houses or causing damp problems.

In our case, however, we had live wires sitting in water because of the poor wiring job. The wires kept shorting, tripping the circuit and scorching the joists underneath the floor. Any one of the times that the circuit tripped, we could have burned our house down. Very scary shit. Anyway, it's all fixed now. I'm dreading the bill.

I'm finally learning C++

2006-03-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm finally doing it; I'm finally learning C++. I figured it was about damned time, and Transact-SQL simply isn't a challenge anymore. I wrote 20,000 lines of scripting code last week and I'm not even impressed with myself for doing it, probably because I used templates and it feels like cheating even though I wrote the templates. They're rather ingenious if I do say so myself; other people want to use them. They say they're 'real timesavers.' I'm preening here.

So, we're looking at a screen shot of Borland C++ Builder X, which I got free with my C++ book. I'm no longer new to programming, but I got a n00b C++ book anyway because Transact-SQL isn't object-oriented and VBA is basically a toy; I figured starting from scratch wouldn't be such a bad idea. If this were a few years ago, I'd already have thrown the book against the wall several times in frustration because they never explain exactly what every single little word is for. I no longer care; I just take it as a given until it is demonstrated otherwise. Real C++ programmers will look at what I've written and guffaw, and I probably would too if I kicked as much ass at C++ as I do at T-SQL; but hey, we've all got to start somewhere. At least I didn't take a screenshot of the 'Hello World' program.

I suppose the real issue is why I'm bothering with C++ if I'm an 8-year veteran of QA wanting to become a DBA. Well...the QA market in the US is different from that in the UK, where you are essentially never required to learn a programming language. In the US, they pretty much expect people at my level to know C, C++, or Java. I probably won't be able to get DBA gigs straight off the bat since I'm still studying for my OCA (first level of Oracle certification), so I need to beef up my QA resume since I may be stuck doing it for another year or two or three. Plus, it's a good skill to have on the resume, and you never know; I may enjoy it so much that I decide to become a programmer instead. Stranger things have certainly happened.

The state of UK politics

2006-03-08T14:49:00.000-08:00

Y'all should know something. Tony Blair is not popular around here. That sign...it's not a typo. Private Eye is just full of ads for "Bliar" t-shirts with the Labour Party rose logo. The signs pop up like mushrooms at every protest, and believe me there are plenty of those. People here just don't like Tony Blair and most of them seem to want him to go.

"But but..." you sputter. "There was just an election there last year, right? You guys re-elected him, didn't you?" Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am not part of "you guys." I'm not British and I can't vote in this country. I became eligible to apply for citizenship in June 2004, but have refused to do so because I would be required to pledge loyalty to the Queen, and I won't do that on general principle. My husband, on the other hand, CAN vote in UK elections. He voted Labour in May 2005. There are many reasons why he voted Labour, and none of them involve liking Tony Blair. He doesn't like Tony Blair. Not one bit.

In May 2005, the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrat Party were led by Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy, respectively. Michael Howard, at the time the third Tory leader since 2001, led his party to its third consecutive general election defeat. (The others were in 1997 and 2001.) He pledged to resign afterwards, after the party elected a new leader...which they finally did a couple of months ago. Charles Kennedy had led the Liberal Democrats for a long time, but was falling apart spectacularly in public. Rumors of his alcoholism had been rife for years, but we had not had any public confirmation. Still, everyone knew he was an alcoholic. We just didn't know, if you see what I mean. So...faced with the Transylvanian Michael Howard or the ruddy Charles Kennedy, the British did the sensible thing and stuck with what they knew: Tony Blair.

The British political system is in the midst of some fairly interesting shifts. Since Tony Blair took control of the Labour Party it has shifted sharply to the right, with a deep divide between socialist, pro-union 'Old Labour' and the Blairite, capitalist 'New Labour.' The Tories have been in meltdown since the early 1990s and are now moving to the left after a sharp swing hard to the right didn't win them any elections. We would normally call this 'flailing about.' The Liberal Democrats under Charles Kennedy swerved hard to the left, with Kennedy promoting such ideas as an income-based council tax (which would have raised our taxes considerably), heavy taxes for high earners, and scores of socialist programs designed to take back control of public services which were privatized under the Tories and whose privatization continued under Blair.

Now everything has changed. The Tories elected David Cameron as their new leader a couple of months ago and on the back of that, the Tories have seen gains in their polling numbers while Labour has seen sharp falls. Almost immediately after David Cameron took the helm for the Tories, the Liberal Democrats fell apart as only they could have. Charles Kennedy finally confessed to the nation what we already knew: he had a drinking problem and his drinking problem was negatively affecting his ability to lead his party. The Lib Dems had been in near-full revolt for weeks prior to that, and Kennedy had no choice but to step aside when he lost the support of his parliamentary party. Last week, the Lib Dems announced the election of Sir Menzies (pron. 'Ming-us') Campbell, a 64 year-old moderate and former Olympian. During the Lib Dem leadership campaign, not one but two prominent Lib Dems were involved in very public homosexual sex scandals. The Lib Dems really have their work cut out for them.

In the days and weeks since the new leaders were elected, we've seen a shift to the left for the Tories and a shift to the right for the Lib Dems. The political spectrum used to read, from right to left, Labour --> Liberal Democrat --> Conservative. It now reads Liberal Democrat --> Labour --> Conservative. Will Cameron push the Tories to the left of New Labour? Will Menzies be able to inspire the British public with his tepid promises of centrism that doomed the party to permanent minority status?

With choices like these, is there any wonder that the British public chose to put Labour in charge for a third Government? I didn't think so. Just don't assume that it means that Blair is popular here. He isn't.

It snowed

2006-03-04T07:22:00.000-08:00

All the old-timers kept saying it was going to be the harshest winter in years. They were saying this all summer and all fall. It didn't happen. We got some snow right after Christmas and some pretty cold freezing fog, but nothing really huge. I've seen worse since I've been here. We got a nice little surprise the other day, though; the day started off dry and fine...very sunny...then about 3pm it started to snow and dumped it down for 2 straight hours before tapering off and finally dying away around 6pm. I'd say we got a good inch and a half to two inches of snow, and it was still there when I woke up this morning. I shot this out the window of the back bedroom of our house. That big flat area in the foreground is the flat roof of the extension of our house.

I enjoyed the snow yesterday; it was still snowing when I left the office to catch my bus yesterday afternoon and some colleagues of mine and I stood at the bus stop trying to catch snowflakes on our tongues. People looked at us as if we were crazy, but who cares? At least the snow on the ground covered up the vomit and used drug needles; where I work turns pretty rough after dark. We have a nice view of a park across the Ouse, and of the York Minster; it was snowing so hard that the Minster was completely obliterated from view. It was gorgeous, though. Just gorgeous. I just wish I had taken my digital camera to work yesterday so I could have captured it, but on BBC Breakfast yesterday they didn't give good odds for us getting any snow. This may be the last snow we see for a very long time.

Worky jobby things

2006-03-04T07:05:00.000-08:00

I've been at this contract since late November. It's working out pretty well; this week I programmed an Access VBA application as the front end to a bunch of crap on the SQL Server. I had to reprogram a bunch of Access crosstab queries as stored procedures in SQL Server since SQL doesn't have native support for pivot tables. I had to reprogram a bunch of VBA functions into SQL UDFs which wasn't all that hard; it's just time-consuming to test them all.

The DBAs at the company are so greedy with their resources. No recursive functions. No cursors. No calling basically any system stored procedure. They don't want to see any table scans. Etc. They're so fussy about indexing; I can index these tables to make the app run faster, but then my inserts take forever. They only have to be run once a week and I made them pretty efficient using ISNULL(), but still. We're also not allowed to run any DTS packages, so we have to schedule them and get the mainframe extract files to the correct directory before 9:30 am every Monday morning. If we have a bank holiday, we have to call I.T. and actually raise a call to get the DTS package run manually. They're insane there, but hey; they're paying me, so I don't really care.

I don't know when the contract is going to end; they're going to review it at the end of the month. I've reprogrammed all of their Access DBs to run on SQL with an Access front end so I'm not sure what there is for me to do, but they keep saying they've never had a situation where they had to get rid of an MI person.

The contract started off as maternity cover and the person I'm covering for isn't coming back until the end of May so I should be safe until then. She also doesn't have my skills; all she can do is Excel spreadsheets. I can do those plus everything else they need, so I hope they'll keep me around at least a couple more months before we run off back to the USA. If they don't it's not the end of the world; I've saved plenty in the bank in anticipation of the contract ending early, but I'd rather it didn't. I'm actually enjoying it; I like going to work. I like the people I work with and I'm learning so much; I'm being challenged in ways that QA never challenged me and I'm having fun. I told my boss that. Hopefully it'll mean something. :-)

Visa update

2006-03-04T06:57:00.000-08:00

Y'all haven't heard anything because we haven't heard anything. We sent off our 'biographical information' form at the end of October. It's now early March and we should hear from the US Embassy in London basically any second now. I've been getting butterflies every day coming home and checking the post, expecting something from them.

Previously, my husband would have had to arrange for a medical examination prior to his visa interview but the rules changed and they didn't notify us (of course). The deal is that his medical exam comes after his visa interview, which will be anytime between April and when we begin collecting Social Security. His police certificate from the Home Office (demonstrating that he's not a terrorist, felon, communist, or pedophile) hasn't come yet, but those take 40 business days to process, probably because they're using MS SQL Server down in London. (Newtch.)

The IRS is taking too long to update my 2003 return (didn't file a foreign income earned exemption that year because I forgot to) so my parents will be my husband's sponsors. Basically what this means is that if he goes on welfare, they'll get a bill from the government with interest. It's no biggie and they're not really bothered. It'll just be faster to have them do it. Once he gets his visa we'll put the crapshack on the market. If it doesn't sell in four months, we'll just sell it to a broker and take a 20% hit on the value of the whole thing, but even with that kind of hit we should have about $85-$95,000 of profit in cold, hard cash. Buying a house in the UK in the late 1990s-early noughties was an excellent investment. Of course, if someone actually pays asking price we'll be a lot better off. We bought the house for £110,000 in late 2001 and it should sell for between £190,000 and £205,000.

It's only 1000 square feet, but the cost of living here is ridiculous! Of course, since we're moving away that works to our advantage. Eeeeeeeeeee!

Haven't been around in a while

2006-01-27T15:06:00.000-08:00

Lots of stuff has happened since I last posted. I can't lie; I've been busy doing absolutely nothing except working, watching TV, reading books, etc. I really should get back to posting regularly!

First off, the University of Texas at Austin won the Rose Bowl...and with it, the BCS Championship...defeating USC in a down-to-the-wire nailbiter. But you already know that.

Vince Young has gone pro, basically screwing UT's offense for the 2006-07 season, but hey...Vince has to do what Vince has to do, and I wish him well. The kid worked hard and has earned a shot at the pros, and if he thinks he's ready, who am I to say he isn't? Bon voyage, Vince, and I hope you don't end up on one of the shittiest teams in the NFL. That honor should be reserved for Heisman winners like Reggie Bush and crybabies like Matt Leinart.

Very little else is going on. I'm still at my latest contract, programming databases and stuff. It's not particularly interesting, but it's challenging and that's enough for me. I'm learning a lot, adding new skills to the arsenal. It's all good. Plus, I get paid; so I'm happy. The move to Texas is still on, and I can't wait. My husband is still somewhat reluctant, but we hope that when he gets there, he'll love it.

Fox News takes sides in war on Christmas

2005-12-26T01:56:00.000-08:00

Well, looky what we have here. This is a photograph of Fox's morning broadcast (afternoon for us in the UK) on Christmas Eve. You guys are so BUSTED.

First, a word. You may be wondering why someone in the UK can see Fox News, an American network. Glad you asked. We have a Sky subscription. Sky is a satellite service here in the UK. Cable never really caught on. Sky is kind of like DirectTV in the US. We don't get any American networks other than this one. This is because Sky is owned by Rupert Murdoch...the same guy who owns Fox News. We get the channel's national feed instead of a broadcast from a select area, since none of the American advertisers have paid to have their ads distributed in the UK. So, this is what we see when American viewers see commercials:

They show weather for the entire world, including Africa, except for the Indian subcontinent and Canada. I don't know why they eliminated these two areas; you'd have to ask Rupert.

They also play ridiculous elevator muzak or weird porn music during their little "Fox Cast." I don't know what's worse...this or commercials. A few years ago, Fox News didn't show the Fox Cast during the ads; they showed e-mails they got from around the world praising Fox and how 'fair and balanced' it was. This is better, believe me!

All through the month of December, Fox viewers have had to put up with Bill O'Reilly and his ilk blasting 'liberals' for declaring 'war on Christmas.' Bill O'Reilly even went so far as to say that non-Christians are not (really not ALLOWED to be) offended by 'Merry Christmas' but that Christians are offended by 'Happy Holidays' or 'Seasons Greetings.' Then...irony of ironies...Fox goes straight into a station ID that says (guess) 'Happy Holidays.' Watching Fox in the week up to Christmas, I counted several holiday IDs:

Happy Holidays (most often seen over 1 week)
Seasons Greetings (rarely seen)
Happy Chanukah (seen once every other hour)
Ultra-religious Merry Christmas with Bible-y overtones (seen once every other hour)
Wordless ID with CGI snowflakes and a red Christmas ornament with the Fox logo on it (rarely seen)

So...Fox News has been propagandizing a fake culture war for weeks, lionizing fundamentalist Christians who insist on cramming their religion down peoples' throats and demonizing anyone who dares to issue a more secular or inclusive greeting such as 'Happy Holidays' or 'Seasons Greetings.' Then they turn around and show those same words on their news broadcasts. There are no American fundamentalist Christians around here, so I can't ask them what they think about this. However, it strikes me as mildly hypocritical, but what else can you expect from a right-wing propaganda machine like Fox News?

I saved the best one for last. On Christmas Eve, they showed Christmas greetings from American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here's how they introduced each soldier's video Christmas card:

Stuff happens and stuff

2005-12-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a while. I don't have internet access at the office at my new job, and when I come home all I want to do is veg in front of the TV or read, plus my computer was down all week thanks to some moron who gave me a boot sector virus. (Thanks, whoever you are.)

Well, my new job hasn't turned out to be what I expected. I thought we were going to be upsizing Access databases to SQL Server, but we're not. We have to fill in forms to get someone else to do it, and they don't upsize them, they just copy the data across. All the queries have to be rewritten and they're full of Iif() and DLookUp() functions which don't exist in SQL since they're stupid VBA stuff and which have to be painstakingly re-written to work in SQL.

Starting a new contract

2005-11-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

Well, I begin a new contract on Monday. I'll be paid a decent amount of money, though I don't know how long it'll last. The recruiter said 3-6 months, with the possibility of an extension. Knowing the company offering the contract, I'm guessing the work will drag on as long as I want it to; that company hardly ever gets rid of contract employees. They usually hire them on as permanent employees. They also pay over the odds per hour, which must be why they're in such dire straits financially. They've laid off so many permanent employees it's not even funny, but they end up hiring about half of them back under contract anyway. The company in question...which will not be named for obvious reasons...has historical I.T. problems well-known to those within the organization, and they cannot be solved in 3-6 months. Period. So I'm thinking I'll have work as long as I can stand it, or as long as I stay in the UK. Whichever comes first.

I'll be doing database-y stuff...basically, I'll be upsizing Access databases to MS SQL Server. I'm told it shouldn't be too involved or difficult. I hope not, because I am neither a programmer nor am I a DBA, though a contract like this will look good on my resume if I want to become a DBA later, which I think I may want to do. It's one of the highest-paid positions in I.T. and DBAs are needed all over the place, not just in the traditional tech sectors. Basically, anyone who has a database needs a DBA. So, more work for me. Bonus. Plus, they don't have to pull the same ridiculous hours as programmers or testers. I remember the odd 80-hour work weeks very well, and we were compensated with time in lieu but it never matched the overtime we put in. Ever. If it did, we'd have had weeks of nothing but days off!

Sometimes I think I should have chosen a different sector where I could make more money, but there are actually few sectors where you can make as much money as you can in I.T., especially if you don't really feel like going back to school to get an advanced degree. You don't really even need a bachelor's degree to succeed in I.T., though a lot of companies won't hire you nowadays if you don't have one. That market has gotten a bit more competitive, but even if I didn't have one I wouldn't worry since I'm now an 'old hand' with 8 years of experience. Plus, I don't like the extended hours and travel that come with fast-paced business careers, and business just bores the shit out of me. I can't stand it. I.T. is easy for me...ridiculously easy, in fact...and I just zone out all day at work while getting paid well and doing a job that other people think is difficult. Either I fake it well, or everyone else is stupid.

UT ends regular season undefeated 11-0

2005-11-25T15:43:00.000-08:00

Today's game against A&M was a real nailbiter, though. UT's offense was sloppy at best and the number of turnovers was plain embarrassing. The defense didn't do much better, allowing A&M to score 29 points. We beat them 40-29 in the end, but we were led by A&M and the stats were terrible. That's not the kind of playing that's going to win a national championship, that's for damn sure.

UT goes up 10-0

2005-11-13T02:37:00.000-08:00

UT slaughtered Kansas last night, 66-14. Hell, we were up 48-ZIP in the first half.

Not that I saw any of it...NASN played the stupid boring shitty USC vs Cal game, which was agonizingly one-sided. So was the Texas game, but it's different. They're MY team.

So, we've got the Big 12 South title locked up, and we have a week off before we play the last regular game of the season vs A&M the day after Thanksgiving. HOOK 'EM!

Visa update

2005-11-13T02:08:00.000-08:00

We sent our 'biographical information' form off 2 weeks ago. It takes 3-4 months to process. In the meantime, I'm waiting for my old tax returns and stuff. Very boring. *sigh*

Phase II begins

2005-10-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

Well dear readers, phase II of my husband's visa application is upon us.

For those that don't know, a green card application involves two phases. The first, an I-130 petition, is required before you can apply...in effect, you have to apply to apply for a visa. The I-130 was successful and now we're on to the next phase which involves background checks, medical exams, financial records, and finally an interview at the US Embassy in London.

Timeline so far:

03 August 2005: I-130 petition mailed to US Embassy in London

04 August 2005: I-130 petition received by US Embassy in London

15 August 2005: I-130 filed by USCIS at US Embassy in London

01 October 2005: I-130 petition approved by USCIS

24 October 2005: K-class visa application packet received by us

Longhorns demolish Red Raiders

2005-10-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

My Longhorns subjected the Texas Tech Red Raiders to a supremely humiliating 52-17 ass-whipping in Austin today.

It was so so sweet, it just had to be fattening.

The Red Raiders looked strong at the beginning of the game, leading Texas at one point 7-3 and tying the game 10-10 in the second quarter, but Texas quickly pulled ahead and the score was 31-10 by halftime.

The humiliation continued, with Texas scoring three more touchdowns in the second half of the game with Texas Tech only managing one.

Texas Tech also played incredibly sloppy football with ten penalties (with a resulting loss of 78 yards) to Texas's three. Texas Tech simply did not look like a top 10 team out there today. Their defense was pathetic, their offense ineffective. Even with some pretty shitty calls from the referees, we absolutely humiliated them and they fucking deserved it.

Tom DeLay is a naughty boy

2005-10-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

Tom DeLay is a very naughty boy, as evidenced by these mug shots. I don't know if they're real or not; I got them from Bartcop.com and they're not the ones being circulated by the media, but I still think they're quite funny.

I just wish I was in Austin so I could point and laugh every time Tom DeLay has to come and make a court appearance. He is now demanding that the judge hearing his case recuse himself because he donated money to moveon.org last year. By that logic, judges that give money to crime-fighting initiatives shouldn't be allowed to hear burglary, rape, and assault cases, to name a few. DeLay is ridiculous and he is desperate.

There is no guarantee he'll be convicted; Ronnie Earle famously indicted Kay Bailey Hutchison and nothing happened to her; she is now Texas's senior Senator. However, I don't feel that Ronnie Earle is motivated by politics. He just doesn't like corrupt cronyism, as evidenced by his many prosecutions of Republicans and Democrats alike. I hear DeLay is not only asking for the judge to recuse himself, but his lawyers are musing over whether to file a COV. You go right on ahead and try, Tommy boy.

Horns go 6-0 against Colorado!

2005-10-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

Oh baby, another orange tower tonight.

The University of Texas Longhorns are now 6-0. They are UNDEFEATED in 2005.

I remember before this game a lot of the sports commentators were like "UT is going to have a fight on its hands with Colorado, they can't let up any."

YEAH RIGHT.

We kicked their mountain-lovin' BUTTS 42-17. We are 6-0, UNDEFEATED. LOVIN' IT. Absolutely LOVIN' IT.

My biggest regret is that I am not in Texas to witness this season. I can't even watch all the games. I've only gotten to see the Ohio State and the Oklahoma games. I MAY get to see the A&M game. Maybe. If Texas gets fucked over in the BCS, I may not get to see our bowl game this year. We're DEFINITELY getting a bowl game, and NASN better fuckin' show it.

One MILLION dollars!

2005-10-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

Bush has to be getting anxious at this point. His popularity ratings are in the toilet. DeLay has been indicted. Frist is sure to follow. Liddy Dole is running Republican fundraising for the mid-terms into the ground. His response to Katrina has shown him to be aloof and imperialistic at best...cruel, racist, and uncaring at worst. We're getting our asses handed to us in Iraq by an insurgency that they must have known would be a problem. Looks like they read their history books; this is exactly the same kind of guerilla warfare that wore us down year by year in Vietnam.

At least his daughters haven't been arrested lately, but this is most likely because they're over 21 and can no longer be arrested for underage possession. They can still be arrested for public intox, though, like Bush's nephew Jeb Jr. Ha HA! Quality runs in this family, and it runs fast.

I can't wait for the '06 midterms. I really can't. I have a feeling that the Democrats are going to gain a lot of ground, possibly winning back the Senate and sharply reducing the Republican majority in the House. Hell, if more top-ranking Republicans are indicted, we might just take both houses. The Republicans took over Congress in 1994, promising to sweep aside deeply-entrenched Democratic corruption and cronyism that took four decades to build. In the space of 10 years, they have managed to match the Democrats in the corruption stakes and outperform them in the cronyism stakes. Bra-VO, guys. Really. That must have taken a lot of effort.

And to sweeten the pie, the religious right wing of the party is running out of candidates to field in 2008 because they keep getting into trouble. So far, McCain and Giuliani look like strong contenders, but McCain is critical of Bush and Giuliani is a liberal Republican who will not please the religious right. Condoleezza Rice looks like a possibility, but I'll believe neocons will vote for a black woman when I see it. The next few years should be interesting.

Horns shut down OU 45-12

2005-10-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

I got to watch most of the UT/OU game on NASN on Sunday afternoon. They taped a broadcast from ABC in the US and showed it "as live" the next day in the UK.

First, let me voice my strenuous objections to what ABC did. Whatever broadcast affiliate provided the tape to NASN is the guilty party. They cut away from UT/OU in the third quarter after OU faked on a punt and tried to convert a fourth down and went to the Minnesota/Michigan game. Let me say now that I do not care that the Minnesota Golden Gophers had not won that fucking jug since 1986. I do not care that that stupid jug is the oldest trophy in college football. I do not care. I wanted to see my Longhorns kick the shit out of OU for the first time since 1999, but apparently ABC didn't think it was worth showing the rest of UT's ass-kicking. It wasn't entirely NASN's fault, but they should have sourced a better broadcast. Perhaps one from...oh, I don't know...TEXAS? This Big Ten/northern U.S. bias is getting a wee bit tiring.

What I got to see of the game was fantastic, though. An 80-yard touchdown. OU failing time after time to score on their pathetic drives. The Longhorns running rings around their pathetic defense. Peterson limping off the field with a sprained ankle. It was a thing of beauty.

Kitchen floor is a mess

2005-10-07T06:12:00.000-07:00

We had a builder in this morning to screed parts of the kitchen floor to level it out because we're having new linoleum laid on Monday.

The floor looked a lot like this when we removed the carpet that the previous owners had installed. As soon as we took it up we could see why they laid it, but we couldn't keep that carpet; it was filthy. The blue and white tiles you see on the edges are what we put on the floor to cover up the mess. Further back in the kitchen you can just make out where the old linoleum disappears under a layer of concrete. This is how the kitchen's extension was done, and the floor was never properly finished. The bumps and kinks have only been smoothed over this morning, and the extension was built (we're told) in the early 1990s. This house's kitchen was butchered by a cowboy builder, that is for sure. The kitchen has cost the most; in addition to the floor, we've had to replaster the ceiling and the walls. Altogether, just the floor, ceiling, and walls have cost over 1,000 pounds to put right. That's not counting other plastering work elsewhere in the house, refinishing a large wooden floor, laying new carpeting in almost every room, and replacing an entire bathroom suite, not to mention painting every room at least once.

If someone had left my kitchen in this state, I'd have sued them. When we bought the house we were naive about construction and DIY; if we knew then what we know now, we would have knocked a considerable sum off the price of the house or we would have simply not purchased it. This house has needed thousands of pounds of repairs and upgrades, mostly due to the previous owners' ignorance and neglect. At least we're leaving it in a better state than we found it.

The areas where the lino has broken off and there's nothing but bare concrete underneath have to be screeded over so they're smooth when the new lino goes down. This stuff takes hours to dry and since English builders never work on weekends, we have to wait until Monday for the actual flooring. It is costing almost 500 pounds for the labor, the linoleum, and the fitting. We bought cheap lino. At least it'll be better than what's there now.

Next house we buy is going to be BRAND-SPANKING NEW and will not need any work doing to it. I'm so sick of this shit I could SCREAM.

America's top jobs

2005-10-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Not only is my job (software engineer) on the list of top jobs published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it was the highest-paid one that CNN.com listed.

These are apparently jobs where the applicants and employees have the edge, not employers. This is great news, since both my husband and I are I.T. professionals, and he has 15 years of solid experience in the field. Hopefully this will mean that we'll have little-to-no trouble finding work when we arrive in Austin, and we'll make fantastic money to boot. The median salary listed for software engineers was $75,000 a year. That's $150,000 a year between the two of us if we make the median salary. We could make more. Even if we made less, we'd still be pretty damned comfortable.

I don't ask for much out of life. I like spending time with friends and family; I want a nice medium-sized house in a leafy suburb with a nice garden, 2 cars in the driveway, a couple of kids playing in the yard, and a decent career with good job security. So...looks like my career choice has yet again been validated. Hooray!

Full story

APPROVED!!!!!!!!

2005-10-01T02:28:00.000-07:00

My husband's I-130 petition has been approved by USCIS.

We now have to wait to be contacted by the US Consul in London. I don't know what happens now. But we've cleared the first hurdle!

Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate

2005-09-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

America gets a bad rap for silly place names. We have towns named "Intercourse," "Truth or Consequences," "Assawoman," and "Big Bone Lick," to mention a few.

England is full of its own silly place names. One of the shortest streets in the country, Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, is right here in York.

The street crosses The Pavement and The Stonebow. It begins where Colliergate ends and ends where Fossgate begins. The street is a mere 35 meters long, and most of it is a pedestrial crosswalk anyway. It's so short that it takes more space on the map to write it than the street actually occupies.

Why is it there? It's so silly that it is listed on Wikipedia's list of "interesting or unusual place names," but how did it get its name? "Whip" is a clue. It's where the city of York's pillory was once located, where criminals were publicly flogged. In the 16th century, the street was known as "Whitnourwhatnourgate," which means "what a street." Bizarre. It's actually a tourist attraction, which just highlights how little there is to do here.

Bugs and flowers over at Disruptive Hair

2005-09-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

The growing season here is winding down in a big way; it's starting to get pretty cold at night and the days are now shorter than the nights, so the plants aren't getting as much sun as they'd like.

There won't be any new bloomers in my garden this year; what's there now is all that is going to be there until spring...and by that time, we hope to be in the United States. So, this month and next month will be about saying goodbye to the garden I've slaved over for four years. That's part of what photographing it this summer has been all about. I wanted to capture it for posterity, and to show prospective buyers since by the time we put our house on the market, there will be very little to see in the garden but bare soil and twiggy shrubs.

This particular photograph is of a ladybug on an amaranthus that has already set half its seed. The plant is dying, unfortunately; like many of the annuals in the garden. So for those of you who are expecting lots of new photographs on Disruptive Hair, I'm afraid there won't be many more this year...especially not from my tiny garden! I'll do my best, but I'm afraid that we may be stuck with hellebores, pansies, and primroses until we move to the United States!

NASA wants to do stuff with your money

2005-09-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

NASA has biiiiiiiiig plans for your money. I think Bush was starved for ideas, especially since his presidency is going SO well. So, he tried to pull a John F. Kennedy and tried to sell another moon landing to the American people with NASA chomping at the bit for an excuse to ditch the shuttle and go back to safer, cheaper rockets.

Exsqueeze me? Haven't we already done that? Maybe he was so stoned or drunk during the entire 1960s, but that's pretty much what NASA was about back then: putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth, just like JFK said. Y'know...not because it's easy, but because it's hard...and it'd really show those dirty Commie Soviets. The last moon mission took place in 1972, and the United States has not launched people on board a rocket since 1975, when the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project conveniently used NASA's last Saturn 1B rocket. We haven't used rockets for manned space travel since. Nope. We still make and launch rockets, but they're strictly unmanned.

Then came the total fucking waste of time that was the shuttle program. Don't get me wrong...the shuttle is a kickass piece of kit. It's a brick with wings that flies in space when NASA lets it and usually gets people there and back in one piece when the NASA engineers aren't being complete idiots. But really...what is it there for? We didn't really need it to launch the space station; the Soviets launched Salyut and Mir without a shuttle. We launched Skylab without a shuttle. You don't need a shuttle to restock the space station, either; the Russians developed the Progress cargo ship for that, since they scrapped their shuttle program in the early 1990s and never actually had a manned shuttle flight. You don't need a shuttle to ferry people back and forth from a space station; the Russians have been providing transportation to and from the ISS courtesy of their Soyuz capsules since NASA grounded the shuttle fleet, and will have to continue to do so since NASA is just now publicly admitting that the shuttle's design is inherently flawed.

So...I can see the logic in redeveloping manned rockets. Flying the space shuttle to the space station is like driving a Winnebago to the 7-11; it is fit for the purpose, but it's a lot more vehicle than is actually needed. And let's be honest...the shuttle's cargo bay is too small for a lot of commercial satellites, and the shuttle rarely brings satellites back to earth for this reason. Plus, it's usually cheaper to trash a satellite, build a new one, and launch it aboard an unmanned rocket than it is to launch a shuttle full of bullshit experiments that'll repair the satellite in orbit. I agree with redeveloping American manned rockets. Absolutely.

However...I don't see any point in going back to the moon. Bush says it can be used as a staging point for Mars missions, but sending humans to Mars is pure hubris. I mean, it's pretty cool. NASA wants to build a moon base in preparation for sending people to Mars. That's neat in terms of what can be accomplished, but again...why? Why do we need to send people to Mars? NASA is going to have to work hard to sell this one to the American people. Developing the vehicles to travel to the moon is going to be extremely expensive, and of course it will just be another expensive exercise in chest-puffing if we abandon sending humans to Mars. We'll have to be in it for the long haul, which is going to mean that NASA needs not only the support of the American people (which, after killing fourteen astronauts and destroying two shuttles in 25 years, it does not have) but of successive American administrations, both Democrat and Republican, not to mention a Congress with constantly-shifting politics, loyalties, and pissed-off constituents who will certainly balk at the whopping price tag this program carries.

C'mon, NASA. Inspire us. I dare you.

Nanny State Alert!

2005-09-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

This one comes from America this time. America isn't really known for nanny state-ism, but this particular law deserves a special mention.

Apparently, all law-abiding adults are banned from the Rivington Playground on Manhattan's East Side unless they are accompanied by a child, and there is a small sign at the entrance to the park to this effect.

A 47 year-old dance instructor was ticketed for simply sitting on a bench because she did not have a child with her. She claimed she was waiting for an arts festival to start. I don't know if this is true or not, but what difference does it make? She got a ticket that carries a $1,000 fine and a possible 3-month jail stint simply for sitting on a park bench and not having a child with her.

According to New York City's parks department, the law is intended to keep pedophiles out of city parks. I guess pedophiles never have kids, eh? It'd just be inconceivable for...say...a pervert dad or mom to bring their own nippers to the park with them, or to "borrow" a kid or two. Or to even point to someone else's child and say, "Yep, that one's mine." Or for someone to borrow their niece/nephew/younger sibling/etc. What a stupid law.

Full story

Nanny State Alert!

2005-09-27T01:39:00.000-07:00

The Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax (West Yorkshire) has banned people cooing at newborn babies. They think it's a violation of the babies' "human rights."

Oh. My. Effing. GOD.

From the BBC:

'Debbie Lawson, neo-natal manager at the hospital's special care baby unit, said: "Cooing should be a thing of the past because these are little people with the same rights as you or me.'

Full story

Almost there!

2005-09-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

The USCIS is processing applications filed on the 10th of August. Ours was filed on the 15th. Almost there! I'm getting nervous!

Idiots at the BBC

2005-09-24T05:55:00.000-07:00

Why are these idiots at the BBC so stupid? When they're not spelling a state's name wrong, they're confusing one state with another...and when they've got only one state covered in a map, they still mess it up by calling I-45 'I-95' instead. Don't these idiots have access to maps, road atlases, encyclopedias, anything? Don't they check their facts? EVER?

Nanny State Alert!

2005-09-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

Liberal Democrats education spokesman Ed Davey says that all junk food ads...all junk food ads...should be banned in a bid to reduce childhood obesity.

Didn't they advertise junk food on TV in the 1950s and 1960s? I bet they did. Did they have problems with childhood obesity? Nope. The problem is not junk food itself or advertising junk food. The problem is that there are too many kids out there eating too much, not exercising enough, and parents and schools aren't doing a damned thing about it.

It seem that the Liberal Democrats not only want to dictate what we see advertised on television, they want to take over the job of parenting Britain's children. Nanny staters!

Full story

Could you pass the US citizenship test?

2005-09-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I could!

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Almost there!

2005-09-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

Looks like the USCIS is catching up its backlog! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our application was filed on 15 August. Hopefully in two weeks, our application will be processed and we will be one giant step closer to moving.

Texas drops Ohio State 25-22

2005-09-11T08:50:00.000-07:00

My boys came through. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There was a lot of trash-talking on the internet about how the Buckeyes were going to pound us into the ground, but we managed to come from behind and beat them.

It was an incredibly close match, but that made it just that much more exciting. I was all pumped up when Texas led 10-0, but by the third quarter it was 16-22. I was getting really depressed.

Ohio's defense was really good. They stole the ball from us more than once, but we managed to hold them. They kept getting excellent field position and we ended up in no man's land. I thought we were doomed to failure.

Then we scored a touchdown.

Then we intercepted the ball.

Then we scored a safety.

Then they ran out the last 12 seconds on the clock. We won. WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where's Osama four years hence?

2005-09-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

I haven't forgotten. Neither should you. Remember when we were going to catch Osama "dead or alive"? What happened to that? We're farting around in Iraq and bungling the Katrina recovery instead, and Osama's in some dusty cave laughing his ass off.

I want action. I want to see Osama in shackles and a prison jumpsuit being paraded around a la Timothy McVeigh. I want him tried and convicted for the murders of nearly 3,000 civilians and emergency personnel, not to mention the destruction of lower Manhattan. I want him executed. I'm no fan of the death penalty, but I'm willing to make an exception in his case. Hook him up and let's rock and roll.

John Prescott has opinions

2005-09-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

UK politician John Prescott (Deputy Prime Minister) has taken a desperate, ridiculous-sounding swipe at the United States in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

He is basically blasting the Bush administration for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocols on climate change, as if it would have made one tiny bit of difference.

Even if you could prove that Katrina's ferocity was linked to global warming - which you can't - does he honestly think that the US could have done anything in the last few years to reverse climate change? All we could have done realistically would be to slow down the pace of climate change, hoping to level out in several years' time, then perhaps (if we're lucky) start reversing the damage.

I have no doubt in my mind that climate change and global warming are real and that human activity is contributing to both, but I have seen no evidence to indicate that sea level has risen around New Orleans, or that the water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico has increased enough to account for Katrina's strength. I don't suppose it has occurred to John Prescott that August is the hottest time of the year for this region of the world and that the hurricane season is in full swing. Also, this hurricane would not have caused near this amount of devastation if it had made landfall elsewhere. New Orleans lies largely below sea level and even when it is not flooded, pumps are operating 24 hours a day to keep the city dry. Of course a hurricane like Katrina was going to cause enormous damage. How does Mr. Prescott account for the hurricanes that blew New Orleans away...several times...when it was a nascent French port back in the late 18th century? Bah! Force Majeure! Blame Bush for this one!

I'm no fan of Bush, but I have a hard time blaming the hurricane on him. The chaos in the aftermath, yes, but the hurricane itself? Erm...no.

Idiots at The Weather Channel

2005-09-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

I know everyone's upset about Katrina, but how long does it take to use a spellchecker? I mean, come on. This is just lazy. Does the Weather Channel outsource its web work to illiterate high school dropouts? The word "devastated" does not have an I in it.

Superdome going away...

2005-09-10T02:01:00.000-07:00

An anonymous source with the governor's office has told CNN that the Louisiana Superdome will likely have to be torn down.

Large sections of the roof's waterproof membrane was torn off during the storm, and holes were torn in the roof allowing water to leak into the stadium, where thousands of evacuees were staying.

The Louisiana Superdome is the home of the New Orleans Saints football team, currently based in San Antonio, Texas. The stadium was constructed from 1971 to 1975 and is built on an old graveyard, leading residents of New Orleans to blame the Saints' poor record on superstition. The Superdome is also the home of the Sugar Bowl, the Bayou Classic, and has hosted six Super Bowls, the most recent in 2002.

Barbara "Antoinette" Bush

2005-09-10T02:00:00.000-07:00

According to Editor and Publisher.com, Barbara Bush was on NPR's 'Marketplace' radio show yesterday claiming that things are "working very well" for the poor evacuees in Texas as she chuckled to herself.

She thinks it's "scary" that they want to stay in Texas.

Bill Clinton talked about them having a "sense of hope." No laughing or giggling from him.

Listen to the show here. (Real Player required.)

The backlog at USCIS grows

2005-09-07T05:30:00.000-07:00

Processing times have lengthened from 5 weeks last month to 8 weeks currently. I'm wondering if Hurricane Katrina doesn't have something to do with this. It shouldn't, since the visa application was submitted to the US Embassy in London. Maybe the people processing them have rellies in Gulf Coast states. Oh well. At least we've submitted the application and it has been filed. At this rate, it'll be another month before ours is processed, then a few more months until we get an interview and the visa is issued, pushing the interview date from December 2005 to January 2006. SIGH!

We donated money

2005-09-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

We donated money to the American Red Cross. Our donation is a small part of the $400 million that the American public has raised for Katrina victims. I count us in the "American public" because I am an American.

If you haven't donated yet, do it now. They need your help.

Bush: Too little, too late

2005-09-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

The governor of Louisiana knew this was coming. The mayor of New Orleans knew this was coming when he ordered the city evacuated, certainly saving tens of thousands of lives. Engineers and disaster relief planners knew this storm was coming. Hell, everyone from the South knew this storm was coming. It's been coming forever. It's like The Big One for L.A. L.A. knows someday, an earthquake will occur that will level the place. They've been planning for it for years. They've spent billions retrofitting bridges, overpasses, and buildings.

That a hurricane of this size would bring New Orleans to its knees has been known for decades. We knew the levees could fail, flooding a majority of the city. We knew that New Orleans was built mainly below sea level, meaning flood water couldn't simply drain away. It would have to be pumped out, but with the grid in ruins and the pumps underwater, the levees have to be repaired before engineers can even contemplate pumping out the city. We've known this for years. Any acne-studded teenager studying geography or engineering could discuss the disaster scenarios with you in detail. So what's Bush's excuse?

As Katrina gathered strength in the Gulf of Mexico, where was Bush? He was on vacation. As the predictions grew more dire as forecasters realized that Katrina was making a beeline for New Orleans, did Bush cut his vacation short and return to Washington to help plan the relief mission? Did he order helicopters, medical supplies, ambulances, etc to be on standby in nearby states to assist? No. He made a couple of speeches, though, and Pickles Bush delicately criticized victims by reminding them that they had all of their "material needs" met. Bush's glib efforts to imitate Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 tough-guy statesmanship have failed miserably. He just looks like an uncaring ass. I know, I know. "What do you mean, looks like?"

To make matters worse, FEMA was rolled into the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 and disaster preparation has taken a backseat to terrorism. Natural disasters will keep right on happening despite what Osama and his band of hairy thugs are planning in a cave in Peshawar, OK? You plan for terrorist attacks in addition to natural disasters, not instead of. To add insult to injury, Bush and Congress cut the budgets for flood protection and army engineers. That Iraq war is costing a lot of money, and of course has a lot of personnel and matériel tied up. We need it in New Orleans and on the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf coasts, but evening the score with Saddam Hussein is far more important than the needs of the American people, whom Bush was elected to protect. I guess it doesn't help that New Orleans tends to vote Democrat and is 70% black. Yeah, I played the race card.

I made £109 on Amazon.co.uk this week

2005-09-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

Now I'm just wondering what to do with it. I want an iPod, but I also want to donate money to the Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina victims. I'm tempted to donate the lot.

Me as a South Park character

2005-08-31T13:24:00.000-07:00

This is a GREAT site; it allows you to customize a South Park character to look like you. This one is me:

'How many times have you said the f-word today, Simon?'

2005-08-31T01:10:00.000-07:00

I read today on MSNBC.com that a school in Wellingborough (UK) is allowing its pupils to say the f-word up to five times a lesson. Have they gone insane? What kind insane garbage is this????? Let's encourage kids to swear by giving them a free pass to do it five times in one lesson; there are several lessons in a school day. British people are foul-mouthed enough; you certainly don't need to give these people a free pass to swear.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9132814/

I've been to New Orleans

2005-08-31T00:25:00.000-07:00

I've been to New Orleans. This is Jackson Square. Pretty, isn't it?

My college roommate and I went on a road trip of the southeastern US when I was a senior in college. We drove from Dallas to Little Rock to Memphis to Tupelo. We spent several days in Mississippi just looking around; we went back to Memphis to see Graceland and rang in 1997 on Beale Street. I remember we went to a blues bar there and were the only white people in the joint. In the ladies' room, a few black patrons were discussing their New Year's resolutions, and one of them looked straight at me and said her New Year's resolution was "to be more nicer to white people." Eek! I felt a little intimidated, but I had just as much right to be there as she did. And she was nice to me; everyone was. It's a fun story though.

After a few days we headed south through Mississippi and across Lake Ponchartrain into New Orleans. We booked a hotel room in the French Quarter that was almost directly across the street from the Mississippi River. We parked the car in a pay-by-the-day lot, since our hotel didn't have a parking lot. Parking is problematic in the Quarter. We bummed around the Quarter for a couple of days, taking in the sights. We had chicory coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde; we went to a voodoo store; we saw graveyards; we went to Bourbon Street; we hung out in Jackson Square where my roommate had her fortune told; we went to some famous seafood place whose name I can't remember. Anne Rice was having an open house at her home in the Garden District and we tried to go, but by the time we got there there was a line around the block, so we skipped it.

Shopping there was fun; they had those ceremic masks all over the place and you can't say you've been to New Orleans unless you bring one of those ridiculously ugly things back. Plastic masks with large feathers attached to them are also in abundance. There's a La Madeleine there; anyone from Dallas knows the place I'm talking about. There was also a great shop in the Quarter that sold nothing but hot sauce. I bought a hot sauce there that I used for years...ordered more from the address on the label...until they stopped making it. It was great fun. I remember it being very hot; it was January, but we were sweating.

I feel almost like I'm writing an obituary. New Orleans is such a strange place. It has some of the most grinding poverty you'll see in any medium-sized city in the United States, but it also has exuberant wealth. From shacks to marble-stepped mansions; it's all there. The Quarter is full of people trying to get drunk, topless dancing, and general weirdness; it's mainly a crass tourist attraction, but if you scratch the surface you'll see something deeper, something much more interesting than giant Hurricane glasses and Mardi Gras beads. It's worth a visit; or was. My husband and I plan to visit New Orleans next spring when we move to the United States. We figure they'll need the tourist dollars, and I'd love for him to see it because it's obvious we can't take the Big Easy for granted. I just hope it's still there when we get there.

I made £41 on Amazon.co.uk this week

2005-08-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

I've made £41 this week alone by selling used books and CDs on Amazon.co.uk. I've done a brutal thinning of my book and CD collection, partly because I just want to cut down on the junk and I have a lot of books I never read and CDs I never listen to or don't like anymore, and partly because everything I sell now is something I don't have to give away or pay to ship back to the United States.

After I did this the first time in the other direction (US to UK), I was unpacking my stuff and I kept asking myself, "Why did I keep this?" Hopefully I won't have to ask myself that question so often this time.

There's something weird about this, though. I've sold more stuff on Amazon.co.uk in the last week than I have sold in the last year and a half. Maybe people can detect a pathetic "I'm desperate" vibe in my items. Maybe I'm just offering stuff that people actually want to buy. Who knows? I'm not complaining. I'm just hoping that this good streak continues! More money in my pocket, and more stuff out of my house! Hooray!

Retards at the BBC

2005-08-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

What is wrong with this picture? I took this from the BBC's website. Not only have they misspelled "Louisiana," they've unilaterally incorporated Arkansas into Oklahoma!

The story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4192218.stm

Click here to complain to the BBC.

The floor saga continues

2005-08-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

The saga of our hardwood floor continues. This past week it has been too unsettled and rainy to do any work on it. Why does that matter, you ask. To be honest, I don't actually know. I just know what the can of wood stain says, and it says not to use the product when it's colder than 5 degrees outside, or when it's raining or "about to rain." It's been raining or about to rain for the last several days, so our floor has been sitting half-finished.

We can only do four planks of width at a time because the house isn't big enough to move all the furniture out of the room, and if we did the entire floor at once we wouldn't be able to move around the house, so we're doing it in stages. It doesn't make any difference to the finish. We do four planks because that's as many as I can step over when they're still wet; any more and I step in wet wood stain. Any less and we'll never finish.

The stuff stinks and takes 7-8 hours to dry, so in any case we can't hang out in the living room, though we can walk through it. All the windows at the front of the house are open to help it dry and to keep the air circulating. It won't be dry in time for the new Simpsons episode that's going to be on Sky One tonight, but we'll just deal with the smell. That's on in four hours, so the floor should be sort of dry by then.

As you can see in the photograph, the planks at the bottom have already been stained; the ones in the middle are wet, and the ones at the top haven't been stained yet. It'll look fantastic once it's done. I haven't decided whether we'll varnish the entire floor later or whether we'll just wax it. It really needs to be sanded down and re-finished. The boards are over 40 years old and have not been treated particularly well, but they're in good enough condition to just re-stain for now. The finish would look better if the whole thing was re-sanded, but since we're selling this house in a few months we just want it to look pretty. Whoever buys it can do whatever they want to the floor.

Yawn!

2005-08-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

Yawn. It's another boring-as-hell Saturday afternoon. I stayed up until 2am so I didn't wake up until 10:15 this morning. The Golden Girls double bill starts on Living TV at 10am, but luckily we have Living TV +1 (same channel, but everything starts an hour later) so I caught both episodes at 11am. One was a good one; it was the one where Dorothy is dating a doctor who makes a pass at Blanche; Blanche tells Dorothy who doesn't believe her, they fight, but they make up by the end of the episode. They always do. The second one was OK, but I'd seen it so many times that it just didn't make me laugh. It was the one where Blanche's grandson David comes to stay with them. His "punk" friends coming over for a "party" was funny, as well as the "punk" music they listened to...but I've just seen it too many times.

At noon I came upstairs and checked my e-mail; I've sold more stuff on Amazon.co.uk, which is good. I'm making a pathetic profit of maybe £2-3 per sale, but the only other option is to give these books and CDs away. At least this way I'm making something, and I'm saving money since the more we sell, the less we'll have to ship. I've made £35 in the last week, and probably saved myself about £5 in shipping. As they say in the Tesco ads, "every little helps."

We can't continue re-staining our wood floor in the living room due to the weather. I don't know why this is, but the can says that you can't use the product if it's less than 5 degees Celsius outside, or if it's raining or "about to rain." It has been unsettled here for a week, so I haven't been able to do any work on the floor. If the weather had held up, I'd be done by now. However, this is England. England sucks, so naturally I can't ever get anything done when I want to get it done.

There's nothing to do around here on the weekend except go to shitty, low-class clubs; go to the pub; go shopping; or go out to eat. It's like Dallas but on a really small, shitty, cheap-in-that-oh-so-European-way scale. We've been renting movies every Friday from Blockbuster, but the place is the size of a closet and only rents new releases. We've seen most of what we want to see, and they don't get new stuff in as fast as we can watch it, so I bet we won't rent any movies next weekend because there won't be anything we can pay £3.95 for. New releases there cost £3.95 to rent. In US money, that's over $7. To rent one measly DVD. That has to be returned less than 48 hours after you rent it. They had a special this week; you could pick 3 DVDs or video games for £10. £10 is nearly $18, but we saved £1.85 with the deal. Normally it would have cost over $21 to rent three first-run movies. You can get older, shitty "classic" movies 3 for £7. £7 is about $12.50. Boy, it's a good thing we're not poor. We'd just have to stick our heads in a gas oven for entertainment.

Wal-Fart

2005-08-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

Why do people shop at Wal-Mart? Most of the people I talk to say that they don't like it. They don't like what it does to small businesses; they don't like the experience; they don't like the sucking of money out of their wallets that always happens in a place like that. You go in for spark plugs and end up with a stack of DVDs, a bunch of toiletries, panties, socks, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, and no spark plugs.

So why do people do it? They hate Wal-Mart. They hate the mewling, screaming children of the working classes. They hate the fact that nothing ever seems to be in its proper place. They hate the stressful atmosphere, the harsh lighting, the constant monitoring for "loss prevention," the noise, the general feel of the place. So why do they go? Why? WHY?

I myself do not understand it. I don't shop at Wal-Mart. The fact that I live in the UK, a Wal-Mart free zone, may explain it. Wal-Mart does own the Asda chain of supermarkets, though, and I consciously choose to not shop there because of that. Asda feels like a Wal-Mart. It's full of loud and pushy people, harsh lighting, misplaced items, shitty ambiance. It's like a supermarket with a tiny Wal-Mart attached to it. It's horrible. But I didn't shop at Wal-Mart when I lived in the United States, either. I had friends that were Wal-Martians; they thought the place was loaded with bargains and sometimes when they were out, they'd say "Oh, let's go to Wal-Mart real quick so I can pick up -insert inane and unnecessary purchase here-." There's no such thing as going to Wal-Mart real quick. Just finding what you came for is an expedition. I feel like I should carry survival gear with me.

The thing is, Wal-Mart wouldn't exist if nobody shopped there. People are always scared shitless when a Wal-Mart moves into their cute little town. "It'll destroy Main Street," they moan. It doesn't have to. If everyone continues to shop where they've always shopped and don't set foot inside the Wal-Mart, it'll go away. I promise. They're in business to make money and if they're not making any where you are, they'll go away. It's as simple as that. So, to all the people who bitch about Wal-Mart but continue to shop there, I have this to say: STOP IT. It's YOUR fault Wal-Mart exists. You and people LIKE you allow Wal-Mart to make money. You have noone to blame but YOURSELF. If you need me, I'll be anywhere but at Wal-Mart.

More reasonable shipping quote

2005-08-25T02:06:00.000-07:00

Another company came to me with a quote of £2,200 for 316 cubic feet of stuff. This is the same volume I quoted the other company that wanted to charge me £6,000. Am I wrong in thinking that something is dodgy here?

Shipping rip-off

2005-08-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

We were just quoted £6,000 for packing and shipping a small percentage of our possessions from the UK to Texas. This is what I asked them to quote on:

"3 wardrobes of clothes, 1000 CDs, 4 floor to ceiling bookshelves of books and DVDs, 2 4-piece sets of china, cutlery, miscellaneous kitchen tools, 2 sets of crystal glasses, cookware and bakeware, 2 bicycles, 2 computers with peripherals and monitors, 1 king sized bed with mattress, 1 dining set with 1 table and 4 chairs, 5 guitars, and probably 10-20 avg sized boxes of miscellaneous stuff. We'll probably pack most things ourselves as we've done overseas moves but we're not sure if it's worth shipping the bed or dining set, or any of our breakables or most of our kitchen stuff like plates and pots, etc. When I moved overseas all I brought were books, CDs, DVDs, and clothes. I would like quotes minus the furniture and minus the kitchenware save for the crystal as well, or for the quote to be split accordingly so we can decide whether it's worth shipping these items."

First of all, they thought that I meant we would be shipping actual wardrobes and actual bookshelves. Their site didn't give any advice on how to estimate volume on clothing or books, so I used "wardrobe" and "bookshelf" as measures to give them a clue as to how much we'd need to be shipping. I can't believe all that would cost £6,000 to pack and ship. What a fucking rip-off. I straightened out the woman who sent me the estimate and she's going to "re-estimate" what we want to ship. I heard from someone who moved from the UK to Australia a few years ago that it cost her less than that to ship her whole house plus car. I swear, this is getting discouraging.

I like earning money

2005-08-22T02:14:00.000-07:00

I like earning money. Money is cool. I can buy stuff with it. I'm not obsessed with money...well, I am a little bit. I check my bank balance obsessively and I comparison-shop. I don't like buying expensive stuff because I don't see why I should spend £100 on something I can get for £50, or even something I can live without. When my husband and I bought our house, the only new appliance we bought was the fridge. The rest: a chest freezer, a washing machine, a tumble dryer, a cooker, and a dishwasher were all bought used. Altogether, they cost what it would have cost us to buy even one of them new. So, bargain! Though it might have been a false economy; we've had to replace the dryer once and the insurance company had to replace our replacement dryer, and the chest freezer died a couple of years ago and we had to replace it. The chest freezer came free with the house, though, so I think we still came out ahead.

I was thinking of going back to school to get a master's degree. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to study, but I wanted it to be career-related. I thought about getting an MS in CIS (Computer Information Systems) or an MBA with a concentration in MIS. Then I remembered that these degrees would take 2-3 years of 2-day-a-week late-night courses with few breaks, would cost at least $20,000, and would force us to either postpone starting a family or having such a hectic, stressful schedule that I literally got cold just thinking about it. I'm 30 now, so right now starting a family is a higher priority than getting a master's degree. If I was a guy it wouldn't matter, but I'm not...so it does.

I still want to further my education in order to develop my career, though. I know a lot of people think working moms are selfish; these stay-at-home-mom Nazis try to make every working mother feel guilty for going back to work. For us it wouldn't be a necessity; my husband is agonizingly well-qualified in his field, has a master's degree, and can run rings around most people in his field. He could earn close to six figures on his own, and that would support a family. However, I don't think it would support a family well. It would cost us more for me to stop working than it would cost us to pay for daycare, I'm pretty sure; I don't think daycare costs over $3,000 a month, which is less than what I pulled down per month when I was only 24 years old. I'll earn more than that when we get back to the States; the salaries I'm seeing on the job boards bear that out. Together we should earn...conservatively...at least $120,000. If we get paid what we deserve, we'll earn very very close to $200,000 a year. That's a nice comfortable living, I think.

So, I'm going to continue working but I want to have children too, so what to do? I'm looking into the ASQ quality software engineer certification. It's not a Mickey Mouse cert like A+; you have to have 8 years of experience in your field to even qualify to take the exam. Apparently it is a very well-respected cert and should more than pay for itself career-wise, and best of all it won't take years to earn. The ROI is fantastic. So, I'm going to do it. I also want to do a PMI certification, since I'd like to eventually get into project management or business analysis, and this is a critical first step. The master's degree can wait; in fact, with these certs, I may even save money in the long run by qual'ing out of certain MIS/e-Commerce courses.

At the end of the day, it's all about what I need for my career and what would provide the best ROI and allow me to pursue my other goals of having a family and having a life; and I think these certs are the way to go. Like I said, I can always do the master's degree later. Lots of people do.

Visa application "filed"

2005-08-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Our application for my husband's green card has been "filed." I got a postcard from the USCIS that said it was filed on the 15th of August. They received it on the 4th; I guess it takes them 11 days to put it in a filing cabinet! Ha!

What "filed" actually means...probably...is that someone has looked at the application and sees it's all in order, i.e. the forms are filled out correctly and the correct documentation has been provided, as well as the correct payment. Hopefully. The postcard said that they're taking 12 weeks to process these kinds of applications, but the USCIS website is saying 5 weeks; so who knows? I'll keep you posted.

My friend left today

2005-08-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

My friend Whit left us today to start a master's degree course in Austin. We're going to miss him like hell.

He says he can finish the course in a year by going straight through fall, spring, and summer. He'll be in his spring semester by the time we get to Austin, but at least we'll be able to hang with him for a few months before he finishes and moves back to the UK.

It's just not going to be the same without him around. He's the kind of guy you can really depend on for a sympathetic ear. He has been a great friend to us.

We dropped him off at the train station around 9am today. By now, he should be in the air on his way to the United States. By 6am tomorrow our time, he'll be in Austin and we'll still be way back here. That upsets me not just because I want us to be in Austin too, but because I will really really miss my friend. Don't you dare forget us, Whit!

I took a Spanish test

2005-08-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

¡100 % chingón!: You scored 100 %

Either you cheated or your native language is spanish or you really are the master. Show your guns with pride.

Link: The Spanish Test on OKCupid!

Being Brazilian hazardous to your health

2005-08-17T01:34:00.000-07:00

The media and public in this country were all dislocating their shoulders due to excessive self back-patting in the wake of the 07/07 bombings and 07/21 attempted bombings. "We're stoic! We're British! Stiff upper lip! Mustn't grumble!" Give me a break.

On July 22, London police followed lightly-dressed Brazilian immigrant Jean Charles de Menezes from his home in Tulse Hill to the Stockwell tube station, where he picked up a copy of Metro (free daily newspaper) and a tube ticket, then walked calmly down the stairs and trotted to a train to catch it before the doors closed. He sat down and was promptly shot seven times in the head.

This wasn't the official version given to us. We were told he was wearing a heavy winter coat. We were told he ran away from police. We were told he jumped the turnstiles at Stockwell and was a suspected suicide bomber. We were lied to by the Barney Fifes down in London. They held him down and shot him because they can't tell the difference between innocent Brazilian men and guilty Asian ones.

For starters, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair needs to resign, and resign now. This behavior is indefensible and inexcusable. How could any reasonable person think that Jean Charles de Menezes was a suicide bomber? I'm sure they were very nervous and jumpy down in London, but it is a multicultural city with tons of immigrants. There will be brown people down there that are completely innocent of any crime who are just going about their daily business. The police down there really should know the difference. Shame on them.

August's flowers now on Disruptive Hair

2005-08-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

Visit my other blog, http://disruptivehair.blogspot.com, to see this month's flowers.

Jonesing for Taco Cabana

2005-08-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

I am totally jonesing for Taco Cabana. I remember their beef fajita tacos. They were truly a thing of beauty. I'd get like 2 or 3 of them and get about 5-6 pots of pico de gallo or salsa, and just DUMP them all over the tacos and just EAT 'em. They were so spicy and drippy and chewy and YUMMY. Their flour tortillas were scrum-diddly-umptious. Seriously...they were fresh and hot and chewy and floury...not like the greasy, tough crapola you get in this country. There is simply no substitute for a freshly-made tortilla. Supermarket tortillas suck. Taco Cabana is open 24 hours a day, too, so if you're up at 1 in the morning and you've just finished a movie and you get a jones for a quesadilla, you can just drive over to Taco Cabana and get one at the drive-thru. Man oh man, do I MISS that. I can't wait to be able to get beef fajita tacos whenever I want. That is going to seriously rock ass.

Nanny State Alert!

2005-08-12T02:03:00.000-07:00

I just read on the BBC's website how washing capsules are dangerous to children. You know the things I'm talking about...capsules of laundry detergent that you toss into the washing machine with your laundry and the capsule dissolves during the cycle, releasing the detergent. I think they're a case of a solution in search of a problem, but there you go.

Anyway, staff at Children's University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, are calling for "stronger product warnings" from the manufacturers to help prevent children from harming themselves with the capsules. They're not eating them. They're squeezing them until they burst and getting detergent in their precious little eyes. They have seen six...SIX...horrifying cases of children aged 18 months to 3 years damaging their wee little eyes with these things.

Now...pardon me for assuming that parents keep potentially harmful products out of the reach of children. Normally, responsible adults store detergents, bleach, ammonia, and other cleaning products where children can't get to them. Are the doctors criticizing the parents for putting their kids in harm's way? God NO! It's the MANUFACTURERS' fault for not putting a big enough warning on the box. It's not like toddlers can read anyway. What a bunch of retards.

Read all about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4139536.stm

New element found!

2005-08-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

(I can't take credit for this. Wish I could. I don't know who wrote it.)

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Governmentium".

Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.

Governmentium has a normal half life of four years; it does not decay but instead, it undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypocritical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which has half as many peons but radiates just as much energy since it has twice as many morons.

Here's what they think of us...

2005-08-09T06:21:00.000-07:00

This is the cover of UK's Daily Mirror newspaper the day after the 2004 presidential election.

Liberals, take back the flag!

2005-08-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

Fellow liberals, do you love America? Do you love America so much that you want to help it instead of hurting it, like Bush & Co. are doing?

Are you sick of being accused of being a Communist, a terrorist, a left-wing loonie? Are you tired of being told by a bunch of right-wing blowhards that you hate America?

Let's stop doing silly things with Old Glory, and use it like the right-wingers use it. Put American flag stickers on your cars. Put US flag graphics on your websites/blogs. Fly the American flag; not just on holidays, but every day. Have American flag-themed checkbooks, baseball caps, swimsuits, etc. Most people don't question these peoples' love for the United States because they are always wearing it on their sleeves. Two can play at this game, you know.

Who's with me?

Update on our move

2005-08-03T15:34:00.000-07:00

We sent off my husband's green card application today. The woman at the embassy said it could take "3 months to a year" but they're processing applications about 7 weeks after getting them at the moment. So, basically we'll wait 2 months and hopefully they'll send the next batch of documents for him to fill in, then we'll send those off and wait a few months for an interview. Fingers crossed, best case scenario, he'll have his green card by Christmas and we'll be a giant step closer to getting out of here. Then we'll just have to sell the house and LEAVE! HOORAY!

Would I have been a Nazi in 1930s Germany?

2005-08-02T04:08:00.000-07:00

The Expatriate
Achtung! You are 0% brainwashworthy, 22% antitolerant, and 23% blindly patriotic

Congratulations! You are not susceptible to brainwashing, your values and cares extend beyond the borders of your own country, and your Blind Patriotism ("patriotism" for short) does not reach unhealthy levels. In Germany in the 30s, you would've left the country.

One bad scenario -- as I hypothetically project you back in time -- is that you just wouldn't have cared one way or the other about Nazism. Maybe politics don't interest you enough. But the fact that you took this test means they probably do. I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt.

Did you know that many of the smartest Germans departed prior to the beginning of World War II, because they knew some evil shit was brewing? Brain Drain. Many of them were scientists. It is very possible you could be one of them, depending on your age.

Conclusion: Born and raised in Germany in the early 1930's, you would not have been a Nazi.

Would you have been a Nazi? Find out.

Tony Blair to step down...in 4-5 years

2005-08-02T03:30:00.000-07:00

When are we going to be rid of this ass-clown? Pretty much every word that has come out of his crooked cave of a mouth (his mouth looks like what Bush's would if you set a bomb off inside) has been a bullshit lie. Why can't he step down NOW? The British public does NOT want him as PM anymore, despite the fact that they voted in Labour for a third term in the May general election.

Labour's win means that the alternatives were even worse...not that they necessarily wanted more Labour. Who in their right mind would let Michael "Something of the Night" Howard run the country? Ditto for Red Charles Kennedy, the closest thing that the UK has to a mainstream Communist. The Liberal Democrats have certainly gained in popularity, but that's only because they took up where New Labour left off when New Labour hijacked the Conservative agenda. You could say that the Tories are still running things...for all intents and purposes, the New Labour agenda is only a couple of steps to the left of Major's government, which was a half step to the left of Thatcher's government.

We didn't have a revolution in this country in 1997, 2001, or 2005. This country is still dealing with what Thatcher managed to do in 11 years...some good, some bad...and Labour hasn't done anything to improve things. In many cases, they've made them worse. But tell that to Tony Blair. He thinks he has a mandate.

Tony Blair lied this country right into Iraq, even though at no time since 2002 has a majority of British adults, or even a plurality of British adults, supported an invasion of Iraq. The crushing pressure from his government caused Dr. David Kelly to take his own life, and Blair's lies have cost the lives of nearly 100 British servicemen. We haven't heard that "softly, softly" bullshit in a while...basically not since British troops were caught torturing and mistreating Iraqis much like my fellow Americans were. Blair seems to only want to do Bush's bidding. That isn't right. Blair is supposed to be looking out for the UK's interests, not the US's interests. That's Bush's job. Ugh.

People just don't get it

2005-07-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

My sweet younger brother just bought his sweet new wife a car. An SUV. This is the same brother who says that the US needs to be energy independent so we can flip the bird to the Middle East and just stop meddling in their affairs, since we won't need the oil anymore and it won't matter to us what goes on over there anymore.

He bought her an SUV, people. A fucking SUV. I don't get it.

Deferred Success

2005-07-28T03:37:00.000-07:00

This country (the UK) has truly gone insane. There is a teaching group (PAT) here that proposed renaming failures as "deferred successes." Luckily, the Education Secretary Ruth Kelly had two seconds of clarity during which she gave PAT's idea "nought out of ten," but this is another symptom of a nanny state gone mad.

In Scotland, it is illegal to spank your children. A vote to make it illegal throughout the whole of the UK failed last year, but you are not allowed to raise a red mark on a child's skin. This means that white children cannot be spanked as vigorously as black children in practice, since it's harder to raise a red mark on black skin. The government doesn't seem to care about this.

PAT, striking again, has proposed that sex education is a "legal right" and it will require parents to teach their children about sex. My parents didn't talk to me about sex...I learned about it in school. This suggestion apparently arose from the trashy Derby family in which sisters aged 12, 14, and 16 had babies within a year of each other. Their idiot mother blamed the school system for all three pregnancies, even though her children knew damn well sex could cause pregnancy since at least one of her daughters had had an abortion prior to having a baby. Morons.

Grammar schools (selective public schools) are in danger of disappearing in Northern Ireland and have already been phased out in the rest of the UK because of this misguided sense of fairness. I heard a woman on BBC Breakfast this morning complaining that reopening grammar schools would be detrimental because you would spend a couple of years of secondary school consoling the kids who didn't get in. She said it's a bad idea for kids to fail something at age 11. Why? Kids need to learn how to deal with failure. People fail at a lot of things in life. The lesson is picking yourself up and trying again. Some teachers are in favor of bringing back grammar schools across the UK and I'm in favor of it. I don't see why the bright children should be disrupted and held back by stupid students. Let's face it...not everyone is college material.

This is just the ridiculousness that was in today's news. I'm sure next week will bring even more opportunities for derision.

Shuttle fleet grounded AGAIN.

2005-07-28T02:54:00.000-07:00

Instead of trying for the last two years to revive the shuttle program, NASA could have been devoting its energies to a next-generation space vehicle. The problem with their shuttle fleet isn't an engineering problem. It is a fundamental design problem and my years in software engineering and design (while not the same thing as rocket science) have taught me that engineering problems can be overcome but design problems are much more difficult to solve!

I don't know what they were thinking when they designed a space vehicle with four constituent parts and a reusable vehicle that depends on heat-resistant tiles on its underside strapped to a foam-covered tank. In NASA's defense, this isn't what they wanted originally. The current design was a compromise imposed on them during the Nixon administration. Yep, that's how out-of-date this design is, and this is what happens when you let the DOD get into bed with scientists. Fourteen dead astronauts and two destroyed shuttles later, you'd think NASA would push harder for a safer, next-gen vehicle. Strangely, no. They just keep trying to launch shuttles. To NASA's credit, they haven't announced that they will build a replacement for Columbia. They announced they were building Endeavour the year after the Challenger exploded, so you'd think if they were going to replace Columbia they'd have told us by now. Endeavour was built out of spare and leftover parts from the construction of the Discovery and Atlantis shuttles. NASA hasn't tried to build a replacement for Columbia. This may be because they don't have enough spare parts left over (zing!) or because they just plain don't want to. They've threatened to re-fit Enterprise (a test vehicle flown in the late 1970s) for space flight, but they've never done that either and I doubt they'll take it away from the Smithsonian now.

So, what do we have now? We have NASA's oldest shuttle, Discovery, in orbit as we speak. The media is breathlessly recounting all that the astronauts are going to do over the next 12 days to ensure that the shuttle has not been damaged seriously enough to jeopardize its return to Earth. I keep wondering what with the laser scanning and camera eyeballing with the robot arm plus the somersaults in space so satellites and ground telescopes can get a look at the shuttle from all angles, plus the approach photographs from the International Space Station...when are the astronauts going to have any time to do anything useful? By useful I do NOT mean testing the effects of weightlessness on their own bodies. While we're on the subject...I have nothing against space travel, and I think it's admirable that humans continue to travel in space, but let's be honest here. What has NASA's shuttle program done for science over the last 25 years that unmanned missions could not? If we're going to spend the money to put people into space...and shuttle missions are about half a billion dollars a pop...why don't we have fewer missions that accomplish more? We worked all through the 1960s with the ultimate goal of going to the moon, which we did in 1969, and people couldn't be called stupid for assuming that the next stop was Mars. We went from the triumph of Apollo to the short-lived but useful Skylab era, then took this odd detour to the space shuttle. However expensive and short-lived Skylab was, it had a point. The shuttle could never, would never achieve the goals it was meant to achieve.

We went from "one giant leap for mankind" to "lock the doors." How did this happen? And why aren't more people pissed off by it? A shuttle launch is certainly a majestic sight to behold. All that power, all that intelligence, all that engineering prowess. It's certainly impressive. However, it is not now nor was it ever useful. If it is meant to simply be a reusable vehicle for transporting astronauts to a permanent outpost in space, it is far too large. If it is meant to be a "space truck" for bringing satellites back to Earth and relaunching them, it is far too small; most satellites are too large for its cargo bay and are still launched using unmanned rockets, which is cheaper. It's cheaper to write off a satellite and launch a new one than it is to repair a broken one. So, what are we left with? A program that does nothing useful with a vehicle that is too large for one of its primary functions and is too small for its other primary function. This is what government compromise gets us. Catch my eyes before they roll all the way down the street.

What's My Personality Type?

2005-07-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

Your #1 Match: ISTP

The Mechanic

You are calm and collected, even in the most difficult of situations.
A person of action and self-direction, you love being independent.
To outsiders yous eem impulsive, surprising, and unpredictable.
You are good at understanding how all things work, except for people.

You would make an excellent pilot, forensic pathologist, or athlete.

Your #2 Match: ISFP

The Artist

You are a gifted artist or musician (though your talents may be dormant right now).
You enjoy spending your free time in nature, and you are good with animals and children.
Simply put, you enjoy bueaty in all its forms and live for the simple pleasures in life.
Gentle, sensitive, and compassionate - you are good at recognizing people's unspoken needs.

You would make a good veterinarian, pediatrician, or composer.

Your #3 Match: ISTJ

The Duty Fulfiller

You are responsible, reliable, and hardworking - you get the job done.
You prefer productive hobbies, like woodworking or knittings.
Quiet and serious, you are well prepared for whatever life hands you.
Conservative and down-to-earth, you hardly ever do anything crazy.

You would make a great business executive, accountant, or lawyer.

What's Your Personality Type?

How Weird Am I?

2005-07-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

You Are 60% Weird

You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right?
But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

How Weird Are You?

How Liberal/Conservative Am I?

2005-07-21T03:30:00.000-07:00

Your Political Profile

Overall: 45% Conservative, 55% Liberal

Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Ethics: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

What Happened The Year I Was Born?

2005-07-21T03:28:00.000-07:00

In 1975 (the year you were born)

Gerald Ford is president of the US

Evacuation of US civilians from Saigon as Communist forces complete takeover of South Vietnam

FBI agents capture Patty Hearst, who is indicted and convicted of bank robbery

Teamster Jimmy Hoffa disappears without a trace

Marines rescue the crew of the American ship the Mayaguez near Vietnam

First Lady Betty Ford says in an interview that she thinks her children have tried marijuana

Natalie Imbruglia, Drew Barrymore, David Beckham, Enrique Iglesias, Angelina Jolie, and Tiger Woods are born

Cincinnati Reds win the World Series

Pittsburgh Steelers win Superbowl IX

Philadelphia Flyers win the Stanley Cup

Production begins on Star Wars

Jaws and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are the top grossing films

Soul Train premieres on television in the United States

"The Way We Were" (performed by Barbara Streisand) wins the Grammy for best song

Saturday Night Live and Wheel of Fortune premiere

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

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Stay-At-Home-Mom Nazis

2005-07-20T04:04:00.000-07:00

There's this new breed of woman out there calling themselves "SAHMs," or "Stay-At-Home-Moms." They seem to think that if you go back to work after having a baby, you love your children less than a SAHM.

Andrea Yates was a SAHM, too. She killed her children.

After I have kids, I probably will go back to work. These SAHM Nazis are trying to convince me that going back to work is selfish and that having a baby is a "lifestyle choice" and that I'll just have to live without flashy cars, plasma TVs, and vacations abroad after having children.

Do these people think I'm a rock star or something? I don't have those things NOW, and I definitely won't have them after having kids. Kids are wallet-vacuums. Diapers. Braces. College. New clothes. Food. Toys. Etc. They all cost money. Do they honestly think that I'd be working just to "get away" from the kids or because I'm selfish and want someone else to raise them? Hell no...I have to work to pay for all that crap that kids need.

What Flavor Ice Cream Am I?

2005-07-20T03:50:00.000-07:00

You Are Strawberry Ice Cream

A bit shy and sensitive, you are sweet to the core.
You often find yourself on the outside looking in.
Insightful and pensive, you really understand how the world works.
You are most compatible with chocolate chip ice cream.

I Like Online Quizzes

2005-07-19T03:26:00.000-07:00

From Blogthings.com:

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

20% Dixie

10% Yankee

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

How American Are You?

You Are 73% American

Most times you are proud to be an American.
Though sometimes the good ole US of A makes you cringe
Still, you know there's no place better suited to be your home.
You love your freedom and no one's going to take it away from you!

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

American Cities That Best Fit You:

90% Austin

75% Atlanta

75% Las Vegas

75% Miami

65% Denver

What's Your Political Persuasion?

You Are a Liberal Republican

When you tell people that you're Republican, they rarely believe you.

That's because you're socially liberal - likely pro-choice and pro-gay rights.

You're also not so afraid of big goverment, as long as it benefits people and not politicians.

You are the most likely of any Republican type to swing over to the Democrat side sometimes.

This was a SHOCKER. I don't consider myself to be a Republican AT ALL.