MonkeySpeak

My Boys

2011-03-27T06:43:00.000-07:00

They may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR PAINT MARKERS!

2011-03-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

Melissa is out of town with the girls, and I am left alone with Jack and the dog. Just us guys.

As I am a responsible father, after breakfast I got Jack all dressed, then got him all set up in the stroller and got the dog ready and then took them both for a morning walk. On our return, I spent a few minutes fixing a bolt that had come loose from the stroller, and tightened up the rest of it so the stroller is fully functional again. This gave me a sense of minor accomplishment. Not only am I taking care of the boy and the dog, but I'm getting stuff done around the house!

Meanwhile, I could see Jack was in the next room, hiding under the dining room table. He does that sometimes. He likes his "alone time".

But it turns out this morning he was doing more than I realized.

(Don't worry. It washed off.)

Re: Counting the Cost of Nuclear ... and Road Traffic Accidents

2011-03-23T05:39:00.000-07:00

(This is meant to be a response to Dominic's blog post Counting the Cost of Nuclear ... and Road Traffic Accidents, but his blog didn't let me post a comment of this length.)

---------------

I hesitate to respond, since I agree with your basic thesis on the hypocrisy around driving, and that hypocrisy stems in part from people's willingness to condemn anything as long as it doesn't require them to change their own behavior. But as The Internet Is For Disagreeing™, I must be a devil's advocate here.

I disagree with the knee-jerk calls to ban nuclear power, but they do stem from fear. You quote compelling statistics that show why we shouldn’t fear nuclear power--or rather, that if we fear nuclear power, it would be consistent to fear cars much more. You do this because you’re a scientist, and the beauty of science is that, through its discipline, we use measurement to set aside our fears (and our hopes) when deciding what is true. This discipline doesn’t always work, but it’s the best way we have to overcome the frailties of the human mind.

In an ideal world, these statistics would (through the rigor of scientific thought) overcome fear in the public mind. But the problem in this case isn’t ignorance of the statistics, it’s the scale of the fear. Fear of nuclear power is deep and profound, and not just because people are hypocritical and wicked.

Most obviously, there's a strong cultural fear of nuclear power because it was first introduced in the form of doomsday weapons. The public knows that our arsenals of nuclear weapons could Totally End Civilization, and yet somehow nuclear power plants are supposed to be safe. The problem is that the “somehow” is unclear for most people. Though the scale and speed of the reactions are different, though the safeguards and control measures are different, though a nuclear reactor will (as I understand it) never fail in the form of a nuclear explosion, the association is still there in people’s minds.

Even once we accept that controlled nuclear fission is a much less scary beast, there remains the problem that the beast is still genuinely dangerous, and on a very large scale, and is only made safe by harnessing it very, very carefully. We can take comfort in the fact that Fukishima has much stronger safety measures than Chernobyl did, but the fact is, if there weren't brave and brilliant people fighting to restore cooling right now, it would (as I understand) continue to heat up, then melt down, then turn into more than just a regional crisis.

Luckily for us, there are brave and brilliant people stabilizing the situation. But the tendency of a nuclear reactor, left unattended, is to get worse rather than better, and catastrophically so. That kind of failure mode is something new in the world, and it speaks to people’s fears more deeply than the (statistically more significant) threat of auto accidents.

Inside each nuclear reactor is a Fury harnessed. To ask people to accept it is to ask them to believe in the safety measures you've imposed. Because most of us are unlikely to ever understand the safety measures in any great technical depth, trusting in them is an act of faith. Ideally, it should not require faith, but just analysis of statistics. But in this case fear trumps statistics for all but the most scientific minds. Thus, when the safety measures fail publicly, and technicians (the Fury Harnessers themselves) scramble to contain the danger, it's no surprise that many people lose faith.

As for car accidents, the fear there is less because it’s diffuse. When one person dies in a car accident, it’s a catastrophe for a family and heart wrenching for a community. This happens over and over again in our society, but it’s scattered. It’s rare that a single car accident affects an entire city, let alone an entire nation. But when an out-of-control reactor seems to threaten a nation and beyond, people’s fears are aligned in space and time and the response is naturally amplified. Cars are more dangerous in the aggregate but less likely to incite a response for this reason.

My point is not that anti-nuclear sentiments are correct, but that they are natural, and to me it’s clear why people would react this way. We may believe nuclear power is worth the risk, and (armed with favorable statistics) we may be comfortable with our hubris in harnessing the Fury for our own ends. But we shouldn’t be surprised that many people are terrified along the way, particularly when thing go wrong. And if that leads to some inconsistency of thought, we should blame at least some of it on the hubris, and not just on frailty of the human mind.

(If you'd like to comment, please do so on Dom's original blog post.)

When You Go

2011-02-23T03:39:00.000-08:00

I've recorded a cover of Jonathan Coulton's wonderful song, When You Go (original). My version is based on a piano arrangement by Jarrett Heather.

Here's my version, with my own piano and vocals:

When You Go by tdl

Alibi

2011-01-07T00:24:00.000-08:00

[by Tom Lokovic, circa 2007.]

Two weeks after his twenty-seventh birthday, Mel framed himself for a murder which he didn't commit. He did this to win the favor of the victim's widow. That is, she became a widow in the process, but she wasn't one at the time, and in any case he didn't even know she was married.

This may take a bit to explain.

Mel lived alone in a rent-controlled apartment in Lower-East Side Manhattan. He'd been unemployed for six months now, having found that Loan Officer was a job ill-suited for a man of his ambition. At least, that's how he thought of it. The real problem had been the ambition of Mel's manager, who had orchestrated a certain amount of fraud through the agency. Mel's coworkers were complicit in this, and Mel was thought to be, though in reality he had trouble following all the winking and whiting-out of numbers. The manager had finally let him go, offering a tiny bribe in exchange for Mel's promise of silence. Mel assured him that he couldn't explain what had been going on if his life depended on it.

After that Mel spent several months "exploring other options". He felt little urgency in this period. Due to a clerical error, his unemployment checks were 12% larger than they should have been. Specifically, he was listed as having three elderly mothers, all as dependents. Mel was almost certain that he hadn't claimed this on the forms, so he decided that it wasn't his job to correct it. And soon, the point would be moot when the paychecks started rolling in from his new job.
The details of his new job were unclear, except that 1) it would let him Work From Home; 2) he would be a founding member of a Network of Entrepreneurs; and 3) the job was Not a Scam. Mel was pretty sure that it was a scam until he received a piece of glossy literature that explained, in no uncertain terms, that it was Not a Scam. The brochure was emphatic on this point. This came as a quite a relief to Mel, who had already invested $150 and three hours at an extremely confusing Seminar.
---
Mel's future wife was named Anya. She wasn't aware of their fated future together, but he was working on that.
Anya worked as a cashier in an auto parts shop. Two months ago Mel had walked in there by mistake--his laundromat was in the same spot one block over. Mel was intimidated by what he perceived as sheer machismo in the atmosphere--a manliness in all the chrome and vulcanized rubber that he could never live up to. He was too embarrassed to admit his mistake, and so he pretended to browse, then bought something at random. It turned out to be a door handle gasket for a 1985-1993 Volkswagen Cabriolet. Ever since then he'd been going back to her shop, buying random things as an excuse to see her. Mel didn't even own a car.
Anya had an accent that Mel couldn't quite place. It was, in fact, distinctly and unambiguously Russian, but Mel wasn't good at that sort of thing. If pressed he would have guessed Italian. He found it enchanting and more than a little exotic.
Mel did his best to imply that he was restoring a car. He never said this explicitly and she never asked, but that was the pretext that he maintained on his visits there. He imagined his project was a classic muscle car of some sort, but he hadn't worked out the details, and preferred not to if at all possible.
On his seventh visit Anya observed idly that he kept buying parts for different car models, and it never seemed to be the same model twice. This thought had not occurred to him. Mel tried to mask his nerves as he paid for an alternator belt (Fiat Strada) and a gearshift knob (Daewoo Leganza), but once he left the store he fell into a panic. He couldn't sleep that night as he tried to rework his fictional automotive interest to match the evidence.
He was torn between two scenarios. In Scenario One, he was a member of an auto repair club that fixed old cars for the community, pro bono. In this scenario he might be an ex-con, doing community work with his former cellmates to atone for unspecified former sins. Mel liked this aspect of intrigue.
In Scenario Two he was an eccentric artist who created wild, dynamic sculptures out of auto parts. Why he would be doing this with newly purchased factory parts was unclear to him, but one thing was for certain: his art was too forward-looking for his contemporaries to appreciate.
Mel knew that both of these scenarios were ridiculous, and just hoped that the subject didn't come up again until he worked out a better cover. Considering that Anya had yet to show any interest in his life at all, he suspected that he had time.
Meanwhile the pile of still-wrapped auto parts on his kitchen counter grew. For the moment Mel had come to accept that a portion of his income went into this stream of incomprehensible doo-dads. He thought of the expenditure as an investment, which sounded cynical to him, but was more or less accurate.
---
After several more visits to Anya, Mel started to become disheartened. She continued to show no interest in him at all, and Mel was convinced that he was being shown up by the much manlier men who frequented the auto parts store, grease under their fingernails, motor oil on their overalls. Mel was determined for Anya to notice him, but was unwilling to interact with actual grease or motor oil in the process.
Mel was convinced that what he needed was an element of danger. Either that or a lot more money.
At home, depressed, he turned on the TV. The local news was chattering about a murder. On Tuesday a man's body was found in a dumpster, in an alley not far from here. Tuesday--that was the night Mel was across town attending another Seminar. Well, "attending" was a bit of a stretch. He had taken a bus, the subway, and two more buses to the Hyatt, arriving early to an empty conference room. He sat in the back, and over the next half hour watched a handful of fellow entrepreneurs file in and settle into their seats. To Mel, they all looked sad and desperate, and he hoped he never ended up like that.
Nobody ever arrived to run the seminar, and as the other attendees started to congregate to grumble and worry, Mel slipped out, hoping to avoid their conversations. He began his bus-bus-subway-bus ride home, knowing he was out another $50 ("Reserve your spot in advance!"), and wondering how he was ever going to pique Anya's interest. His status as a shrewd entrepreneur seemed more tenuous than ever.
Now, Mel's attention was drawn back to the local news. A police spokesman condemned the murder and asked the community to come forward with any information that might lead to the capture of the perpetrator.
And with that, Mel had a wonderful idea.
---
Mel walked several blocks to a payphone. He dialed the number that he had written down from the television.
A tired voice said "Precinct Eight."
Mel masked his voice and said, "I have information about the murder off 12th Street. The TV said to call."
"Hold please." A click. Then the same voice: "Go ahead, sir."
Mel took a deep breath, then said his own name into the handset. Then he hung up.
Mel sprinted home, giddy, and suddenly needing very much to go to the bathroom.
---
Back at home, Mel paced. He waited for a knock at the door, though he had no way of knowing if it would come today, tomorrow, or maybe never. How do these things work? He'd never been a murder suspect before!
Was it enough for them to have a name? It had to be, right? With a murder, they had to follow up, didn't they?
Mel's mind raced, scurrying back and forth among three distinct topics.
1) How exactly he would answer the door: Agressive? Relaxed? Enigmatic? Should he stand tall? Walk with a limp? What about facial tics?
2) The presentation of his alibi: Should he explain about the seminar right away, or should he let them stew a while before he disappointed them with his innocence?
and, most important:
3) How he would explain the whole "misunderstanding" to Anya. He was unclear on this one, but somehow he already knew how she would respond. It would involve wide eyes, admiration mixed with fear, the nervous touching of hands for the first time, and then the auto parts shop closing early...
---
Mel woke up to a knock on his apartment door. It was 10:41 am. He had been up all night pacing, and had only recently fallen asleep.
He opened the door to reveal a surly-looking Hispanic man in jeans and a leather jacket. The man flipped a badge. "Detective Garcia."
Struggling to wake up, Mel was completely unable to remember which affectations he had settled on last night. He had narrowed it down to either Belligerent/Lots-of-hand-movement/Narrow-eyes or Amiable/Fake-Drunk/Bad-Back. But which was it? To his horror, Mel ended up answering the policeman as himself! "Yes, can I help you?"
Garcia said, "I have a few questions, can I have a moment?"
Mel said "Of course," and it sounded far more accommodating than he intended. He scowled after the fact to toughen it up, but Garcia didn't notice. They sat down on the couch.
Garcia cleared his throat. "Could you tell me where you were on Monday at around 6pm?"
"I was uptown at the Hyatt, at a seminar. I remember it clearly because I've only been to two of them, and the seminars seem to only happen on Tuesdays."
Garcia frowned. "Okay, that's Tuesday. But I asked you about Monday at six."
"No, you're asking about Tuesday. That's when the seminar was."
"I understand. That should be easy to confirm, but it's not relevant to my line of questioning. So I'll ask again. Where were you on Monday at 6pm?"
"But... You need to know about Tuesday. It happened on Tuesday."
"What happened on Tuesday?"
"The murder."
The cop's eyes grew wide. "What murder would that be?"
---
With mounting panic, Mel said, "The news, I saw it on the news, they said it happened on Tuesday."
Garcia smiled. "I feel like we're getting ahead of ourselves, but okay. They found Petrov's body on Tuesday, which if you think about it, suggests only that the murder happened sometime before Tuesday. Sir, evasive answers don't seem to be in your best interest. So let me ask one last time: where were you on Monday at 6pm?"
Mel struggled to remember, and then it came to him. "Ah! Okay, Monday! Yes, I was at an auto parts store on 15th Street. I needed some..." Mel glanced at the pile of parts on his counter, and came up blank. "...auto parts."
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere. How long were you there?"
"I don't know... Twenty minutes? I was probably done there around six. Then I came home. I watched Wheel of Fortune."
"With whom did you interact at the store?"
"Just Anya--the cashier. I shopped around, picked out some stuff, and then we chatted for a minute."
"Anya... This would be Anya Petrova?"
"I guess so... Is that her last name? Wow. Petrova. So anyway, we chatted, but it was mainly me talking. She mostly just nodded and counted change. I guess she was distracted by...math. I know how that is. I was going to wait until she was done, so she could talk more, but she kept being busy. So I left."
"I see." Garcia smiled knowlingly. "She's beautiful, is she?"
Mel nodded absently, picturing Anya's face. Like an angel.
"Been going to see her for a while, have you?" Garcia leaned his head toward the pile of auto parts.
Mel nodded again. Her hair... I've never thought much about hair, but hers is so... is "lustrous" the word?
Garcia rifled through his notebook. "So, summing up... Here we're talking about Anya Petrova, yes? Wife of the victim? Sergei Petrov? Who was killed two blocks from your apartment? At 6:10? Ten minutes after you left the Auto Parts store for a ten minute walk back to your apartment? Does that all sound right?"
Nod.
Bone structure... Such a strange term, but she really does have lovely--
"Wait, what?"

Spinola's Bake Shop

2010-10-05T05:06:00.000-07:00

Our friend Stacey has opened a wonderful bakery in our town, Murrysville PA. Spinola's Bake Shop has cakes, cupcakes, cookies, pastries, candies, and (soon) fresh baked bread.

I'm not unbiased, since I created the website for the bakery. But everything I've eaten there is amazing. Highly recommended.

http://www.spinolasbakeshop.com/

Fix my Flat

2010-08-18T23:41:00.000-07:00

Fix my Flat

I'm like George Washington in those old-timey fighter jets he flew
as he fought to shed the imperial yoke of the British in World War Two.
Like me, George knew the painful truth of Power and Oppression
as his musket fire, raining down, taught Tyranny a lesson.
I know today how Georgie felt as he took on the Crown;
I'm stranded in this parking lot so late Starbucks closed down!
Look,
George didn't give his life against those Zeppelins on that fateful day
so I could wait an hour and a half tonight for AAA!

--Tom Lokovic

MIDI for C# / .NET

2009-11-26T11:11:00.000-08:00

I've just released an open source library for MIDI support in C# / .NET. The Google Code page is here:

http://code.google.com/p/midi-dot-net/

This is my first foray into C#, .NET, and Windows programming in general. That's right, I've been programming for twenty years, professionally for twelve, and I've never written any software for Windows until now.

I wanted to do some MIDI programming and assumed that Windows would be the best OS for it. Then I figured I might as well learn one of Microsoft's more recent offerings, so I looked into C#. Then I found out that there is no direct support for MIDI in .NET, and so I proceeded to wrap the Win32 bindings. It turned out to be cleaner and better documented than the alternatives I saw, so I figured I should share it with the world.

Not exactly the most efficient way to get some MIDI programming done, but it's been fun.

A Physical Asymptote

2009-09-16T01:48:00.000-07:00

This is the coolest art piece I've seen since the Wooden Mirror...

From the description:

This machine was inspired by dreaming about gear ratios and considering the unexpected implications of exponential powers.

Each worm/worm gear pair reduces the speed of the motor by 1/50th. Since there are 12 pairs of gears, the final speed reduction is calculated by (1/50)12. The implications are quite large. With the motor turning around 200 revolutions per minute, it will take well over two trillion years before the final gear makes but one turn. Given the truth of this situation, it is possible to do anything at all with the final gear, even embed it in concrete.

Little Haiti

2009-04-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

Little Haiti

Look around--it's paradise!
Exotic spices ride the breeze
through tropic sun and sidewalk
vendors haggling in foreignese.

I'm visiting a far-off land
today. It cost a dollar eighty
on the bus through Chinatown,
past Wal-Mart here to Little Haiti.

A portly tattoo-covered lady
fortune teller draws my eyes
with signs: "I Do Do Voodoo" and
"Large Medium, Small Price."

She scatters shells, a chicken foot,
some roots and seeds, then draws a breath--
"Your future holds adventure! Travel!
Acid reflux! Love, and death!"

Amazed, I ask for more. She looks
around, alert, and draws me in.
"The key to growing wealth is--
do you have a lucky bank card PIN?"

"I hope so--is mine lucky? I
use Fifty-Seven-Eighty-Two."
She frowns. "It's not too bad, but you
should have me charm your bank card too."

She's been away a while--it must
be a complicated spell.
But when she brings it back,
my luck is changing, baby. I can tell.

-- Tom Lokovic

From 1999: Foreshadows of the Economic Crisis

2009-04-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

From Flutterby, a 1999 New York Times article about the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This act removed some of the safeguards put in place after the Great Depression. (Some claim that this was a significant contributor to the current crisis. Others disagree.)

Sen Phil Gramm (R-TX) arguing for the repeal:

We have a new century coming, and we have an opportunity to dominate that century the same way we dominated this century. Glass-Steagall, in the midst of the Great Depression, came at a time when the thinking was that the government was the answer. In this era of economic prosperity, we have decided that freedom is the answer.

Rep Jim Leach (R-IA), in favor of the repeal:

This is a historic day. The landscape for delivery of financial services will now surely shift.

Sen Bob Kerrey (D-NE), in favor:

'The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown.

Now for the dissent:

Sen Dorgan (D-ND), arguing that it removes safeguards that could lead to a financial crisis:

I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010.

Sen Paul Wellstone (D-MN), against:

[Congress] seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.

Wow.

Flower

2009-03-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I discovered an unbelievable game for PS3. It's called Flower. It falls into the category of exploratory, atmospheric non-violent games, which isn't a genre that tends to impress me. This one, though, affected me deeply.

The developers (thatgamecompany.com) call it "a video game version of a poem", but I think it's more accurate to describe it as a meditation. With meditation, you don't get anything out of it unless you're in the right frame of mind, and willingly release yourself to the experience. So it is with Flower. If you play it in a task-oriented state of mind--an achiever's mind--you will quickly barrel through the game and completely miss out on its beauty.

Flower is "easy" in the same sense that watching a sunset is "easy": to talk about its difficulty, to treat it as something to be overcome, is to miss the point entirely.

The premise of Flower sounds ridiculous if you say it out loud: you control a cloud of flower petals, driven by the breeze through a series of lush, immersive outdoor scenes, touching other flowers and bringing life to the environment. Here's a clip:

This clip doesn't do justice to the experience. The environment is incredibly reactive. The lighting, the sound, and the music integrate beautifully. The weather, and particularly the sky, change as you progress through the game, creating very distinct emotional settings. You make your way through the environments by tilting SixAxis controller, which starts out feeling strange but quickly comes to feel as whimsical and buoyant as the petals themselves.

Flower is available for PS3 in the Playstation Store.

Terrible Towel Instructions

2009-03-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

(Click for full-sized image.)

Congratulations!

You are now the proud owner of an authentic Terrible Towel. This is no ordinary towel! This is the beloved symbol of the loyalty and enthusiasm that the people of Pittsburgh have for their NFL team, the Steelers, and more generally for the pride that they have in their city.

The Terrible Towel is not for cleaning. Please refer to the following guidelines for proper Terrible Towel use.

Panel 1: [Man waving towel over his head and cheering] Correct
Panel 2: [Drying hands over a sink with towel] Incorrect
Panel 3: [Wiping up a spill with towel] Incorrect
Panel 4: [Hanging from towel, sliding along a zipline] Incorrect But Awesome*

*We are not responsible for improvised-zipline-related injuries.

Copyright monkeyspeak.com

To the Legion

2009-03-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

To the Legion

The sacrifice we make today
will live in song for future kings,
but first our story was beheld
by Janus in the dawn of things.

Before the ancient cities rose,
before the primal morning light,
the destiny of worlds was writ
for Janus of eternal sight.

The Owl of Minerva knows
the path a mortal man should take,
but where the path will lead is known
to Janus in the Temple Gates.

To Mars I dedicate my sword.
For Rome I go to fight and die.
I end today as I began:
in Janus's immortal eye.

--Tom Lokovic

One of Many

2009-02-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

One of Many

Through thick and smoky air inside a busy bar in Memphis
I settled down to drink beside a tired-looking Elvis.
Absently I asked if I addressed the honest deal;
He snorted, took a swig, and he said "Tell me: what is real?"

"For screaming mobs I sang and rocked my pelvis for a fee;
Their desperate eyes, in tears, perceived a God that wasn't me
And so I came to know that only death would set me free."

"One day I got away--I went to Elba more or less.
I spent my time in unfamiliar quiet happiness.
The music called me back, but now I move about unseen:
I have an army of my counterfeiters as a screen."

"In me the people found a fragile King they couldn't save.
Now they just believe in copies, not the archetype they crave.
And they're right--I'm not the light--I'm just a shadow in a cave."

--Tom Lokovic

Lukemoist

2009-02-05T22:42:00.000-08:00

A while ago I coined the unpleasant term "lukemoist". Here is an example usage of the term:

A: "It rained yesterday. Is the lawn wet?"
B: "Not really."
A: "Is it moist?"
B: "Maybe a little."
A: "Would you say that it is lukemoist?"
B: "Gross. I would not say that."

There are no hits for this word on Google, so I declare this to be the first usage of the term on the web.

I am so proud.

Grid Cat

2009-01-08T01:12:00.000-08:00

Ever since I was a kid, I've had this strange affliction.

Whenever I see a uniform grid, particularly one tilted at a 45 degree angle, I see a cat. A big cat, like a tiger.

Don't see it? Let's color it in a little.

That's pretty much the level of detail that jumps out at me, though I can add some characteristic features to make it more obvious.

See it? Now look back at the top grid, and try to see it there.

I see this everywhere. Chain link fences. Tiled floors. Rubik's Cubes. Graph paper. Anything with at least 3x3 squares. And it's been this way pretty much my whole life.

It wasn't until recently, though, that I ever mentioned it to anybody else, or tried to convey visually what I see.

If he were fancier, he'd look like this:

Spiro Hop

2009-01-01T00:52:00.000-08:00

We got this for Emma and Lucy this Christmas.

Zen Shorts

2008-07-20T22:54:00.000-07:00

Our kids have way too many toys. I worry about this sometimes.

Our kids also have way too many books. But I don't worry about this so much. I approve of books. I know I should take my kids to the library more often (have I ever taken them there?), but failing that, if my kids are going to own too much of something, books are probably the way to go.

I also like to give my kids choice. If they want a particular book, I tend to respect their preference instead of pushing towards something that I would prefer. I figure they'll stay more engaged if it's something that interests them.

Unfortunately, as a result of this latter policy, a lot of our kids' books fall into a certain category. You probably know the one. Let's call it the Regurgitated Corporate Swill category. Pretty much anything with a recognizable TV or movie character falls into this category. I've generally tried to steer my kids away from this category, but not strongly enough to prevent the accumulation of, for example, Dora Does the Same Damn Thing Over and Over Again volumes 1-50, not to mention The Inane Treasury of Disney Princess Stories: Wishing, Dreaming, and Sighing.

So it was that this weekend, on the way to the bookstore, I made a bold, tyrannical declaration: either the kids would walk out of the store with nothing, or they'd walk out with something that I chose. There was less protest than I expected, and after a bit of browsing we walked out with Zen Shorts.

Zen Shorts is a beautiful little book about three kids that meet a panda who lives just down the street. His name is Stillwater, and he's a peaceful soul. As he plays with them, he shares three stories, adaptations of Zen koans, that give some perspective on their own lives.

It's simple, fairly short, and the art is beautiful. The girls love it, and (unlike many of their books) I don't feel like tearing my eyeballs out while reading it to them. Recommended.

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

2008-07-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend I stumbled across Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, a three-part musical miniseries starring Neil Patrick Harris, directed by Joss Whedon. It's a fun little piece, apparently written during the WGA writers' strike. It comes across as low-budget but with good production value, and the music is decent.

And it seems I lucked out: they were streaming the episodes for free this weekend, but have since taken them down, and now you must buy them from iTunes. Their business model is clearly of the "stir up word-of-mouth via short-term free distribution, then switch to paid distribution" ilk. And I guess I can't blame them: I liked it a lot, and so I recommend it.

If I am a pawn in their scheme, at least I am not an unwitting pawn.

Chess Boxing

2008-07-13T03:15:00.000-07:00

This makes me so happy, and I'm not sure why. Chess Boxing.

The matches work like this: competitors alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table. The winner is determined by knockout, checkmate, or referee decision.

I'm captivated by the idea of the transition from beating the hell out of some buys face to playing a board game with him, and then back again.

El Camino Del Rey

2008-06-22T21:25:00.000-07:00

From Flutterby, a wonderful video of a stroll in the mountains.

As I watched it, I kept saying to the screen, "Stop doing that!" If you watch, you'll know which parts I'm talking about.

More info on the walkway.

Training Wheels Begone!

2008-06-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

No, it's Super Unleaded.

2008-06-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

Me: "Emma, what is the name of the language that you speak?"

Emma: "Um... Regular?"

Or possibly a Paleontist.

2008-04-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Emma (age 5):

At school today, they had a thing where you put on goggles, and there was a nail you hit with a hammer, and there were dinosaurs underneath, and it let you be a Scientologist.