Nerdbilly

Merry Christmas Already

2010-11-15T02:45:00.001-08:00

Don't get me wrong, I like Dizzyland, but with the entire place already decked out with Santa, Christmas trees, wreaths, ornaments, music, and fake snow, it was weird that nothing in the whole park (that I could find) said Merry Christmas. The most glaring spot was on Small World. The closest they came was Feliz Navidad, but it's in Spanish. Even the new section that's supposed to represent the US said Ho Ho Holiday. The Chinese section said Happy New Year.

I know it's a post Christian nation, they keep telling us, but for pete's sake, would the Hindus, Muslims, and the rest really throw such a fit over using "Merry Christmas" once in a while? I don't think they would, and it was offensive to me that they did not. Disney has "Gay Day Celebration," "Happy Hearts Day," for disabled people, and "Deaf Awareness Day," but won't call a horse a horse at Christmas.

The one exception is a Candlelight Processional, where a procession of carolers sings traditional Christmas carols and a celebrity narrates the biblical Christmas story. They do this once a year and it is supposed to be great, and it packs out every time.

The poor corporate decision to not use the term Christmas in the other two months they have the park decorated for *Christmas* is baffling.

Pay it Off

2009-03-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

"I had always thought that Christians were supposed to stop sinning and attend church, so they could then donate money to the pastor so he could lead people into a relationship with God. Some of these radical college students I met actually wanted to be a part of serving others personally rather than paying someone else to do it." Eric Bryant, Peppermint Filled Pinatas.

A little bit cynical maybe, but Eric makes a very good point here. He's talking about when he was in college and met some people who went to Baylor who acted out their faith differently than some people he knew who were cultural Christians who seemed to attend church and live, we can assume, in hypocrisy.

This is one of the most frequent charges I hear against the church and her people. They say one thing on Sunday, and live another way the rest of the week. There are hypocrites everywhere because there are people everywhere. People are human and will always fail you in one sense or another, so finding some hypocrisy in a group of people should not be surprising. Also, it's much easier to dismiss a message that is difficult to hear if it requires changes and action by you, not just criticism. It something that Christians should be very aware of and should work to change if they can.

It's even more challenging once you've accepted the basic tenets of Christianity. This personal charge to change the way you operate is not just one that requires you keep your word to fix your hypocrisy, it goes to every part of your life. God doesn't want to just selectively pluck the obviously diseased leaves, he's ready to give a wholesale pruning. Jesus said it was like being reborn.

Once you're ready for that he'll work on upkeep, too, and present you with new challenges to make you grow. One of the big areas he's given us is with telling others about him, and going out into other cultures to do this. He tells stories of hurt people who are helped and says go and do likewise. He says, "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?"

He tells his followers to "go and make disciples of all nations", but it's easier, as Eric put it, to pay someone else to do it. When you say, "The cost of going there and doing the work myself would be better spent if I just sent them the money," you are saying that you would rather pay someone else to do what God is asking you to do. God would rather have your time and work than your money.

The benefit of doing the work is experience, and the journey, and the change you will make in someone's life. The chance you would have to do that is what God is after, not the chance to click a donate now button. You can alleviate some guilt, I guess, by donating to the cause or paying someone else to "go and do likewise," but you're really cheating yourself. He wants you to help the widows and orphans, and to care for the sick and help those who are unloved. You're his proxy while you're here.

It wasn't easy for him while he was here, and if you are feeling like you've done your job by giving to the shelter, you're only half right.

You are missing the hardest, yet most fulfilling part.

Herbert Bayard Swope

2009-01-05T22:42:00.000-08:00

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor | Illustrated Guide to Familiar American Trees by Charlie Smith: "It's the birthday of journalist Herbert Bayard Swope, (books by this author) born in St. Louis in 1882. He said, 'I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure — which is: Try to please everybody.'"

J.M. Barrie Quote

2008-08-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

"When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on."

This is from the book Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. It was written in 1911, and contrary to the Johnny Depp version in the movie Finding Neverland, Barrie was actually a hot dog vendor on the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, when he wrote that. His inspiration was a not a young boy with a sick mother, but a mean old landlady who berated him for his rent at least three times a day. He ended up spending his life in prison for her murder, when he threw her into Lake Erie with an old fashioned ice hook through the chest.

It must be bedtime.

Garrison Keillor Quote

2008-05-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

That's the thing about Christianity -- it goes right straight to the hard part. Jesus didn't lay out a twelve step program, sort of a gradual step up. He just said love your neighbor as yourself. There are no incremental steps that lead up to this. Love cool people, love young people, love your grandchildren, love people who give you nice gifts, love Cary Grant and Betty Davis, love old blues singers who are dead, love some of your neighbors. It just goes right straight to it -- love your neighbor as yourself, give all you have to the poor and follow me. To Wham! The impossible. You start with the impossible.

Johnny Cash Quote

2008-02-06T10:08:00.000-08:00

I'm still a Christian, as I have been all my life. Beyond that I get complicated.

- Johnny Cash

I don't know if I heart Huckabee, but I am certain about the rest

2007-12-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

Mike Huckabee is getting flak for possibly showing something covertly Christian in the background of one of his pre-Christmas ads for Prez. Of course it's ridiculous, but shouldn't the critics of this one be embarrassed a little, too? From Reuters:

Huckabee, who has come out of nowhere to lead Republican polls in Iowa and challenge Giuliani for the lead in national polls, took criticism from Republican candidate Ron Paul on Tuesday for a "Merry Christmas" advertisement that included a book shelf behind him that looked like a Christian cross.

Hey Ron, he used to be a preacher. What do you expect? Maybe he could preach a
sermon and get Patti Labelle's choir to sing backup.

At least he's more up front about what he believes than Mitt Romney. A message board I occasionally visit had a question about whether or not Romney was a Christian. The answer to me seems obvious -- no -- but that's because I have more than a cursory interest in what it means to be one.

Ron Paul has a lot of internet buzz but I think you'd be hard pressed to get anyone to vote for a guy who is more wooden than Al Gore, hero of American environmentalists.

There's Freddy Thompson, who unfortunately, looks half dead. McCain always sounds like a normal guy until he's pressed on one issue or anther, then sounds like he's a populist. The rest don't seem to have half a chance.

There are the Democrats to consider but let me give you half a dozen reasons why I can't seriously consider one of them for the job:

Anti-Christian. Not only that, but anti-God.
Gun control. I'm agin' it.
Abortion. I'm agin' it, too.
axes. I'm agin' 'em. They ain't.
Socialism and Big Government. I'm agin' it.

That's a short list, and nothing to do with the individuals running. Obama's church attendance has made the news, and that seems better than the psuedo-religion that worships State that most candidates have. If these guys were serious about their faith, and could convince me of it, I would take a look around at different parties, and I've been a Republican since 1980.

Of course, you would think that would mean they would have to change their stance on a few key issues.

Or they could go the RINO route, like Arnie. It worked for him.

What the heck is this for anyway?

2007-06-11T22:54:00.001-07:00

The following is a bit of self indulgent vanity and should be disregarded. For the time being it is kept as personal mockery and negative motivation.

So almost four years ago I started this blog, and of course there were a few people who read it in the beginning. However, those people have wisely ignored it, and now it sits here, rusting away, taking up server space, unfocused as ever.

Recently I thought it would be cool to put my thoughts on books I've read up, but again, since I'm the only person who bothers to look at this little darling, it's more of an archive for nobody. There are a million opinions on books, and I earn nothing for this, along with the fact that nobody reads it anyway makes it a pointless endeavor.

Then recently I was tracking an online argument between a couple of blogs. Phil Johnson basically called my friend Dan out on the carpet about his theology, and his minions at team pyro jumped on the bandwagon. I wrote something about it, cleverly disguised as a meeting between two dog owners. Of course, I thought it was clever, but anyone who wasn't tracking the little spat would just think it useless drivel. Again, it was mostly for my own fun, so it didn't really matter.

I look back at the variety of posts, and some of them were funny to me, but I run into a sort of glass wall with many of the posts here. That is a glass wall made of and invisible audience. Here's what I mean, and I had the same issue when I wrote a column for a daily rag in college. I have definite opinions on things, but I tend to think of every counter argument, and worse, either evade offense or curb the directness of what I want to say. That weakens the impact, and makes a potentially good story come with a very weak ending.

A perfect example, other than probably the majority of the posts on nerdbilly.com, was a story I wrote once on the previously mentioned college newspaper. It was about a time a friend and I were fishing and I caught a seagull. I just cast a long one out toward the ocean and some dumb seagull decided to turn my fishing line into kite string. Instead of the humor that I saw in real life, I ended the story with a mamby-pamby feel good ending about how nice it was to see the bird fly to freedom. I still am embarrassed by that, even though nobody in the world but me remembers it and in all likelihood, wouldn't remember it if it had been written in the New Yorker. The funny part is that's been closer to twenty years ago than ten, and the bird is dead by now anyway.

So what is the point of keeping this little site on life support? Well, it's personal edification, and practice. In my little world, I am a writer. I hear others called writers, and deep inside, I think to myself, "I'm the writer." I know I have the ability to write, but get sidetracked by life. It probably stems from a story I wrote when I was ten about a monster that ravaged Watsonville that I was able to whip single handed. I got an A+++ and a star, and my Granny (an English professor) made copies on the ditto machine and sent me twenty duplicates of it. I was ten, and published. It was all gravy from there, except I seldom bothered writing any more stories, and new stories I kept to myself.

What I want to do, starting with this ridiculous rant, is to write, not for you, the invisible or nonexistent audience, but for me. That should have been the point from day one. I think once or twice I succeeded in doing just that, but as often have written with the notion that some invisible person was ready with a criticism.

There must be an intended audience, I guess, but I am narrowing my audience to one, and I think that will appeal to more people than trying to justify every other sentence. I enjoy writing, and I have my opinions, so I will put my paper firmly against that glass wall and scribble for myself.

So with that in mind, let me venture a few opinions, that if you happen to read, you can agree or disagree with, but you are entitled to your own opinion.

- I love Jesus. He died on the cross for me and I am indebted to Him, because he saved me from myself.
- I love the United States of America.
- I love my wife and my daughter, and I try my best to be a good husband and dad.
- I can't understand why anyone would want to be a hippie, but I know and like a few of them. It's not my bag, though.
- I like cowboys, westerns, and country living.
- I like good American music. You would think that when someone says music they would mean that the people who produce the music would actually know how to play their instrument. Talking doesn't count, even if it is rhythmic. Singing by itself doesn't necessarily count, either. Just because you have a good voice doesn't mean you are a musician, although Frank, Dean, Bobby, and Ella all were. So my top three musicians are Charlie Daniels, Ricky Skaggs and Brian Setzer, in different order depending on the week. They can all play at least three instruments each, and can all sing. So throw in some blues, some Skynyrd, some bluegrass and some jazz and you are getting closer to what is good. "In my humble opinion" is implied.
- I like a good book. Some of the best are by Thomas Hardy, PG Wodehouse, and Cormac McCarthy. Some of the worst are by Nicholas Sparks, Dan Brown, and most of the stuff on posters in Borders. I'm still trying to figure out the Bible and its central character, but at least I have a head start on most of the people I interact with on a daily basis.

There's a snapshot, but is just that. A partial picture, but hopefully a more honest one than I've ventured before. And hopefully not the most honest one yet. It's been said by musicians and writers that unless it's honest, it will come across as false. Whether fact or fiction, I hope these posts, irrelevant as they may be, come across as honest.

Dogmata

2007-04-15T01:19:00.000-07:00

One clear fall morning a woman was walking her dog in the park when she saw another woman approaching, following her own dog on a leash. The first thing she noticed was that dog the stranger led was a pink toy poodle, smaller than her German Shepherd, and perfectly groomed with an expensive collar.

As the woman with the poodle neared, the woman with the larger dog critically eyed the smaller dog.

"Why on earth would you ever own a fancy little thing like that?" the first woman said.

"Excuse me?"

"Obviously, your so-called dog is inferior to mine. German Shepherds are guard dogs and police dogs, and very well behaved." She jerked the leash and said, "Sit, Gunther." The dog immediatly sat, looked at its master, licked its venerable chops, and began to pant.

"Well," said the poodle lady, "This little dog has served me well. She's very friendly, and people seem to like her. She sparks a lot of conversations, and she also brings me my slippers every evening."

"Hmph. Gunther is good at keeping cats out of my house. Just last week he brought me the cutest little cat named Snowball. We buried it in the back yard. Such a good boy," she said, stroking the dog's head. The shepherd closed his eyes in pleasure. "And a few months ago, he cornered a man in the grocery store who brushed against my purse. He has a good eye for criminal activity. I'm not even sure that thing qualifies as a dog." She tilted her head and added, "I haven't seen you at the Kennel, either."

"No, it's a dog alright. Papers and everything," the poodle lady said. "Anyway, I did try out your club, and they almost ate Peaches here. So, I go to a different club, more for people who are just starting to be interested in dogs. It's kind of new."

"A dog must be brown with a black saddle, and bred for strength and intelligence. Tall, too. Your animal is short and pink for crying out loud. It can't be a dog."

"Do you really want to argue about whether or not the poodle is a dog?"

"I've heard that the Chihuahua is actually a breed of rodent. It's probably true for your little rat, too."

The woman went on to list five points that make dogs distinct from other four legged mammals, and the poodle lady gently showed that her poodle indeed met the criteria. The poodle, meanwhile, sniffed a tulip.

Still convinced that the small animal couldn't be a dog, the woman with the German Shepherd tried a new tact.

"I've heard about your club. Everyone there brings in all sorts of animals, and they all claim to have dogs. I read about a man who brought in a pair of conjoined parakeets, and calls it a dog." The German Shepherd growled at the poodle.

"Well, it's an informal club," the poodle lady said, drawing the poodle near her, "and just because someone brings an animal doesn't mean they're bringing a dog. We like to talk about dogs, swap dog stories, and hope potential dog owners will think about adopting a dog."

"Captain Max von Stephanitz never mentioned poodles, and I've got all of his books, notes, and memoirs indexed and alphabetized at home."

While the poodle lady contemplated this, a young mother came up holding the hand of a young girl in a pink dress. The girl was about three and excited at the sight of the dogs, began to pull away from the lady to touch them. The mother tried to restrain the girl, but the determind daughter slipped her hand from her mother's grip and ran up to the closer, and more colorful little poodle. The poodle was excited by the girl, and danced on it's back legs, and started licking the little girls face.

The mother began to apologize and pull the little one away, but the poodle lady insisted that it was alright, and that the girl was in no danger. Meanwhile Gunther and her owner watched with interest.

As the little girl played with the poodle, another man briskly approached. He was tanned, with white hair and thick glasses, wearing a velour warm up suit and velcro tennis shoes. Ignoring the child and the poodle, he broke his stride and stopped in front of the German Sheperd. He held out the back of his hand for the dog to sniff and addressed the owner.

"Beautiful dog. I bet the Kaiser would have loved to have had a dog with this form." The owner stood a little taller, partly from pride in her dog and partly, perhaps subconciously, to match the man's military bearing.

"Thank you," she said. "He's won many awards. Best in show three times running at the state level."

The dog respected the older man, and had warmed up to him quite nicely. The man was running expert hands over his coat and peering in the dog's ear.

"I can see why," he said. "I used to run a kennel with just German Sheperds. They're my favorite dog," he said, rising. "But my wife was a poodle woman, and always loved the little yippers." He nodded toward the poodle with the little girl. "They're great little dogs, too."

The man lifted his sleeve and glanced at a gold wristwatch, nodded at the ladies, and resumed his walk at a good clip.

The Road

2007-04-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

Cormac McCarthy has never been as readable as in The Road, his latest book about a post-apocalyptic world involving a man and his young son.

My first exposure to McCarthy was All the Pretty Horses, and he's one of the few authors I look forward to reading as newer books are released. I bought the hardcover version of No Country For Old Men but held out for a paperback of The Road, which was pushed earlier than expected since Oprah put it as a choice for her book club. I was with a friend in Seattle at a bookstore looking looking for a how-to-deal-with-a-teenager book (for him, thankfully) when I saw The Road propped up on the information desk with an Oprah sticker on it. I am very suspect of stickers and badges that promise great content since trusting a book called American Pastoral by Philip Roth that had a Pulitzer sticker on it. ("Kiss me like you kiss mother" still makes me cringe.) After Lonesome Dove, which deserves a gold sticker, I felt betrayed, but I knew McCarthy and in spite of the endorsement by the O, I snatched up The Road. I peeled the sticker off before I started reading.

Between the years that All the Pretty Horses, the Crossing and Cities on a Plain came out, I tried a few other McCarthy books. He has been consist ant in his crazy run-on style, stripped of punctuation, letting the words themselves keep the cadence of inflection and emphasis, but the earlier works were at times hard to muddle through. I can recall scenes in The Orchard Keeper, but can vaguely remember the plot.

Maybe the simplicity of The Road is part of the appeal. It follows two characters, the man and the boy, on their journey to the sea through a grey world with no life left in it at all. But as with anything McCarthy seems to write, the prose is poetic and vivid. Check out the following:

"By then all the stores of food had given out and murder was everywhere upon the land. The world soon to be largely populated by men who would eat your children in front of your eyes and in the cities themselves held by cores of blackened looters who tunneled among the ruins and crawled from the rubble white of tooth and eye carrying charred and anonymous tins of food in nylon nets like shoppers from the commissaries of hell. The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor and the cold crept down and the dark came early and the scavengers passing down the steep canyon with their torches trod silky holes in the drifted ash that closed behind them as silently as eyes. Out on the roads the pilgrims sank down and fell over and died and the bleak and shrouded earth went trundling past the sun and returned again as trackless and as unremarked as the path of any nameless sisterworld in the ancient dark beyond."

Pretty stark, probably even by Oprah's standards. There's no mistaking McCarthy for a romance novelist, but in the scale of violence that dominates most of his work, the damage in The Road has been done before the story begins. With the starkness of the setting the focus of the book is the relationship between the boy and his father. The boy is scared yet trusts his father completely, and the man does his part to care for the boy as best he can in the situation. There are a few fights and deaths along the way, but in the boy, there is hope. Throughout the story the boy and the man speak of how they are the last to carry the fire, which is never explained or dissected. The boy strives for hope, and seeks reassurance from his dad that they are the good guys.

The story is infused with the humanity of these two, and the humor is as realistic as the setting is nihilistic. In a scene where the they have found some cover and a chance for a soak in a tub, this made me laugh.

"It took a long time but he wanted it to be good and warm. When the tub was almost full, the boy got undressed and stepped shivering into the water and sat. Scrawny and filthy and naked. Holding his shoulders. The only light was from the ring of blue teeth in the burner of the stove. What do you think? the man said.

Warm at last.
Warm at last?
Yes.
Where did you get that?
I don't know.
Okay. Warm at last."

As the story ends there is some discussion of an afterlife, and the man seems to see paradise the closer he nears death. He leaves the boy with hope, and the ending is satisfying in terms of the story as it is presented. This is a story of the last few remaining good people left on earth, and thank goodness it is fiction. The real hope we have in a Savior is not part of this fiction, nor of the characters in the book. They are the playthings of a master puppeteer of words, but the reality of God and Jesus are not something they know about. In a way, it's a two-dimensional representation of a story that reads like a myth, with only a murky view of the spiritual third dimension that would give the story more depth and real hope. Still, it is an important book as literature, and as a view into the minds of those who seek hope with no direction.

Although I approach stickered and badged books with a raised brow and suspicion, The Road deserves a dozen of them, plastered all over the front so other skeptics will give this great book a shot. It is Cormac McCarthy though, so expect the violence, and enjoy the small hopes of a small boy.

9/10

The Gun Seller

2007-04-11T00:43:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've had more time to read and the latest was a book by Hugh Laurie, of House fame, called "The Gun Seller."

The Gun Seller is about an ex-british forces soldier named Thomas Lang who lives in London and gets wrapped up in an arms deal initiated by people with money and connections to the US government. Things escalate, as you'd hope, and several beatings and a motorcycle wreck, Lang ends up turning the situation to his advantage.

This was Laurie's first attempt at novel, and to have it published he first submitted it under a pen name. When the novel was accepted, he allowed them to use his real name, since the material stood on it's own merits and not just as celebrity self gratuity. A classy move on his part, and it does add to the credibility of him as a writer, and maybe surprisingly, he delivers.

A look at his background and it probably shouldn't be surpising that he can write, and write well. He was educated at Cambridge and cites his favorite author as PG Wodehouse. That should not be a surprise, really, either, as he played Bertie Wooster, a Wodehouse character, to perfection in the BBC series Jeeves and Wooster. In The Gun Seller, Laurie has put the literary influence to paper and created a modern version of a Wodehouse-like book. Wodehouse created distinct and funny characters, and through the eyes and words of Thomas Lang, Laurie has done the same, in the form of a page turner of a mock spy novel.

The story clips along quite well, with occasional observations and asides that pace the action.

"She turned towards me and narrowed her eyes. If you know what I mean by that. Narrowed them horizontally, not vertically. I suppose you could say she shortened her eyes, but nobody ever does.

She narrowed her eyes."

There are some funny comparisons of what make men and women different, in a clever car metaphor, but the dialogue is at time prolific in the use of a vulgarities that Wodehouse managed to write without. I understand the argument that this is how real people like this talk, and that it is just part of building a character, but I found it over the top. I don't particularly like it anyway, but in this case restraint would have made it more palatable.

There's an interview in the back of the paperback with Laurie and he says he sold the rights to a screenplay version of the story to United Artists. He says that he would only do a walk on role, but I think that his years as Gregory House, MD have proven his ability to play a serious role with comic undertones -- especially since during a large portion of the story Lang has to fake an American accent.

It's much better fare than a typical airplane reader, and a good alternative to some of the more popular garbage that fills the supermarket paperback racks. If Wodehouse would have collaborated with Clancy, this might have been the result. A great first effort, and I hope Laurie decides to write more.

7/10

It's raining, it's pouring

2006-09-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

And now the explanation. This is Andrew, a sonorous, melodic sleeper with the nasal fortitude of an elephant seal. A recent trip to Mexico involved this man in a dorm room by himself, no doubt dreaming of the sandwiches he prepares for a living. To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub. The rubbing of his nasal flanges against his throat like his face got a flat tire.

Dish Network and Snake Oil

2006-08-29T22:41:00.000-07:00

In the old days, shady characters would set up a wagon and tell wild stories about a miracle cure-all made from snake oil and molasses. They have evolved into phone sales and instead of miracle drugs they peddle satellite receivers and television signals.

My dealings started with a few phone calls from a guy who called a few times offering Dish Network, and I shut him down each time. He was persistent, though, and knew my name and address and said he represented Dish Network, which I figured was a reputable company. I got to know the guy's voice and that his name was Toby, and that he was from the Philippines. The deal sounded pretty good, and eventually, I gave in. That was a mistake I will never make again.

The offer was this, and it's pretty simple: Dish Network would provide a high definition Digital Video Recorder, a receiver for another room, installed free, for $39 a month. That included HD programming, the HD DVR, and the installation.

What happened over the next few weeks was enough to cause rickets and make me wish a real snake oil salesman would stop by the house and sell me a cure for Dish.

The first company that Toby worked for turned out not to be Dish at all but a company supposedly based out of California called Digital Videovision. Through a company called RS&I, Inc., an installation was scheduled. Now RS&I doesn't actually do installations themselves, but they farm it out to local contractors, and in this case the call went to Dish It Out, who did the installation.

Dish It Out came by the house and started the installation, and it turned out the installer did not bring a ladder with him big enough to mount the dish on the second story of my house. He was about to quit, but called his boss who told him to rent a ladder. I found a place nearby that rented ladders, and since the installer didn't have a truck big enough to carry the ladder took him to get one.

Halfway through the installation the installer realized they had brought not an HD DVR, but instead, a DVR and an HD receiver. I'm a TiVo guy, and couldn't imagine watching HD or any TV without the DVR capability, plus I had been promised an HD DVR and a receiver. So we called Digital Videovision who said that they had never authorized an HD DVR and that would cost more money -- $200! I argued, and the person on the phone named Dave said they would review the tapes but there was no such offer for a free HD DVR. I encouraged him to do so, figuring they would see their mistake eventually. Dave finally relented and said they would send me the HD DVR for $100. Not what I had been told, and I felt they had pulled a bait and switch on me but I went ahead with the installation and the promise they would fix it as soon as they could.

The installer didn't have all the tools he would need to peg the cable to the house, so he shoved the cable under the weep screed and pushed it against the house with bark chips. This was not cool, so I called Dish It Out and they said they would fix it.

About a week later, Dish It Out showed up again. They were going to show up in the afternoon, but didn't make it until 6:30, right when our home group from church was supposed to start. This time they brought the right ladder and an installer with some know how. His boss also showed up, who was a nice enough guy, along with another person who was in town from phoenix who knew the installation business. They fixed the installation, put in the HD DVR and told me that for $100 I had a good deal. This took about two hours, and home group that night was a wash, since I had to work with them.

The next day the new HD DVR had a message on it that a phone line had to be plugged into the back of it or it wouldn't run. I stretched a cable across the room and plugged it in to get some basic functionality back, then called Dish. They said they could operate the HD DVR without the phone line for an additional five bucks a month, but I could use a wireless phone jack to get a phone line to the back of the device if I didn't want to pay for one. Radio Shack and Circuit City both sell these items for over $80 apiece, and I told the Dish customer service lady that I wasn't interested in that. She said that Dish sells them for $50, and she would split the cost with me. $25 bucks sounded better, so I said go ahead and send me one. She then said that they wouldn't be able to credit the $25 to my account this month, but if I called back next month they would do it. For some reason, I said go ahead, and they mailed it out. She also said there was a thirty day money back guarantee.

A couple of days later, I installed the wireless phone jack they sent. The interesting thing about this technology is that it works over your electrical system in the house, and it must not be a perfected technology, because every time the phone would ring, a lamp in the front of the house would magically turn on. Annoying, to be sure.

With the new phone line installed there was an option on one of the Dish channels to view your current statement, and see how much money you owed dish for that month's service. The bill was over $120. This was no bargain, and to add insult to injury, the DVR interface was not only cryptic but poorly designed, and compared to TiVo, a pile of hot garbage. I called Dish again to find out what the story was with the bill and they listed out the stacks of hidden charges.

There was the charge for the programming, which was more than they had originally quoted, because the rebate system they had didn't take effect until you printed out and mailed them a form that would deduct $20 a month for ten months. That would kick in eight weeks after they received the paperwork.

There was a per receiver charge of about $5 bucks a month for each receiver in the house. We had two, so that meant about $10 per month.
There was a per DVR charge of $5.98. Since I ended up with two DVRs, that was another $12 a month.
There was a $49 activation fee, which was supposed to be refunded at the first bill. This was from Digital Videovision.

Before I began this mess, we had Charter digital cable, which is really no bargain, but at least worked well with TiVo and was familiar. We didn't have to order a complicated tier to get some basic channels, and to put it succinctly, we liked it better. I had kept my cable and was planning to cancel it but as Dish kept getting more expensive with crummy customer service and poor technology, we decided to cancel the whole shebang. Thirty day money back guarantee was the promise they had made.

I was heavily leaning toward cancellation of Dish, when the phone rang one day and my wife picked it up. I heard her say, "Is this Toby?" She handed me the phone and I talked to Toby again, the person in the Philippines who originally talked me into this nightmare. I told him he had hosed me with this promise of an HD DVR for free and he said that he was sure that was the deal, and that he was sorry but that's what his script said. He thought for sure he was offering a legitimate deal and that the script was right. I told him it wasn't, of course, and then the conversation took an interesting twist. He had been told that I had cancelled the deal, and that he had subsequently switched teams. He was working for the same company, but now he was selling DirecTV, and wanted to know if I was interested in it. I couldn't believe it. I said, "Toby, after all I've been through, do you think I can trust you to sell me DirecTV?" The question was rhetorical, but he laughed and said probably not. That might have been the straw that broke the camel's back, but there were so many things that had gone wrong I couldn't see staying with a company (or four, to be exact) that would be this messed up.

When I called Dish to cancel they told me they would send me some labels and boxes to ship the equipment back to them, which I was glad to do. Two DVRs and three remotes (one of them came with two) is what they expected, plus a device on the dish itself that "looks like a pair of binoculars." That was fine with me, I couldn't do anything with this equipment anyway. I hung up and hoped this would be out of my hair soon.

Yesterday was two weeks later, and I got an envelope in the mail from Digital Videovision with two UPS labels and a note that said if I didn't send the DVRs to them they would charge me something like $579. That's fine, I plan on sending them their junk. Then the thing that prompted this was a phone call I got tonight.

A collection agency called FedChex was on the phone and said they were calling on behalf of Digital Videovision, who said I owed them a payment of "nine ten." When I asked the guy why owed Digital Videovision ten bucks, he corrected me. He said I owed them nine hundred and ten dollars for canceling Dish!

What a frustrating experience. If this ends up on my credit report I hope that they all get fleas and hemorrhoids. Then maybe they'll have use for a snake oil salesman who can sell them an elixir that would cure them for nominal fee.

Meanwhile, I've been scammed.

Fishing Rod

2006-05-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

Several years ago now I was part of a Bible study at the home of a older couple named Rod and Connie whose children had all married and moved on with their lives. At the request of their son-in-law, my pastor and friend Dan, they started this home group for young adults from his church. We spent many hours at their house every Wednesday night where we learned a lot about the Bible and even more about life from both of them. We made and solidified friendships, and I got to know Jana, who became my wife. Some of the best parts of our courtship were spent with Rod and Connie around their kitchen table long after everyone else went home.

At their place, everyone was welcome, funny, musical, and clever.

Rod had been a teacher during his career, and he continued to pass on wisdom and common sense long after he left the classroom. He didn't retire and turn him into a bookworm with soft hands, though. He had dogs, an apple orchard and a tractor, and was continually improving his little farm in the hills of Corralitos by rescuing and caring for plants that most people would have given up on. He had an antique rose bush from the 1920s he kept pruned that would produce beautiful flowers every summer, and his apple trees were ones that had been dug up and left to die from an orchard he passed one day.

One night after sitting around the kitchen table over coffee we started talking about fishing. There are plenty of references to fishing in the bible but this was not metaphorical, this was practical. Besides being a homemade farmer, Rod was also a fisherman.

The Monterey Bay area has lakes and rivers to fish but the most obvious place to go is in the ocean. With so many beaches around, fishing for surf perch and striper is one of the best ways to spend spare time. It's beautiful and open, with the edge of the largest ocean in the world trying to reach and pull you in with every wave. It's teeming with fish and if you know what you're doing you can catch plenty of them. Rod explained to me that fishing from the beach was a lot like fishing from the river. He said you watch for places where the waves and current meet and churn up the sandy bottom, and get your line right in there to have the best shot at catching perch. The more we talked about it and the more interest I showed in the subject, the more excited Rod got. It was late but Rod perked up like he had two cups of caffeinated coffee, which was strictly off-limits, and after hearing how much about my poor fishing skills decided to help me by showing me what kind of tackle I needed.

He took me out to a shed behind his house where he had a collection of all kinds of fishing equipment stacked on shelves. He rummaged around a bit and found an old prescription bottle he used to hold rubber grubs and hooks, dumped it out and began to fill it with what I needed to really catch fish; A couple of sinkers and some of the right sized and colored rubber grubs, a swivel, and some hooks. This has basically turned into a template for what to use when I want to catch fish.

My tackle box isn't much bigger than a lunch pail so space is at a premium. I keep some stuff for lake fishing in there, some fishing line and enough room for my reel. I also keep that prescription bottle in there. The label was peeled away long ago, and judging from the size, it must have been held some big pills. I don't usually open the bottle, but kind of keep it as a reference point, and now as a memento, since Rod passed away a couple of years ago.

The other day I was able to take my family out to the beach and as a last minute addition to the towels, buckets and shovels, I threw my fishing pole and tackle box in the back of the truck. It's a short drive to Sunset State Beach, and it's a shame we don't go more often. It's a huge beach and lives up to it's namesake with incredible views when the sun goes down. As Abby and Jana played in the sand I took my pole out of it's case, attached the reel from my tackle box and dug around for some plastic grubs. At some point I had ordered about a hundred of the grubs that Rod had recommended for catching fish but at some point they had wriggled out and probably found a plastic log to hide under, so I reluctantly reached for the old prescription bottle Rod gave me and used some of his tackle. I tied off my hook and spent the next hour or so casting and reeling in, wading out to my knees in the cold waters of the Pacific.

As the sun started to set my wife and little girl were ready to go home and rinse the sand off their legs and feet, so I threw the line in for one last cast. Miraculously, I was still using the same setup I had started with, and just as I was reeling in my final cast, I felt a couple of tugs on the end of the line. At first I figured it was more seaweed as usual. I'd like to say I caught a whopper and that the struggle kept us there until past dark, but in reality it took about thirty seconds to pull in a surf perch that fit easily into the palm of my hand. No whopper, but it was a fish, and it might as well have been one as glad as I was to catch anything at all. I showed it to Abby, who was at first excited but had no interest in holding it, and would only touch it with the tip of her little index finger. I tossed it back and watched it lazily swim on its side back to its home through the clear water and foam, then turned around toward my own home in the same lazy manner, thankful for sun, sand, family, and an old friend who taught me some things about fishing, the Lord, and people around a kitchen table.

Carousel!

2006-03-28T23:48:00.000-08:00

Over the last two and a half years I have become an excellent miner of carousels. I have this little person, pre-woman, who lives in my house and directs how my weekends will be spent.

What should we do this weekend? "Merry go roun round!" or "Shopping mall, Merry go roun!" is the frequent reply. That little bit of direction combined with a poor imagination on my part can dictate a thirty mile trip to a carousel. It forces me into malls, amusement parks and tourist traps where a two minute ride on a fiberglass or wood horse bobs up and down, going nowhere, sometimes fast.

The ones I've discovered around the Monterey Bay all have different advantages. There's one that was recently stolen or moved from near the aquarium in Monterey, which is too bad. At least we could shop for fish at the aquarium when it was over, and get an idea of what to order for dinner. The shark looks good tonight, and I think some calamari would be a good appetizer.

There's a couple in the mountains toward Gilroy at Bonfante Gardens, but unfortunately, it's seasonal and that means during the winter we're forced to find them indoors. That takes us to Salinas and the mall, which is not as bad as it could be -- a little dangerous sometimes with the stabbings and shootings, but at least you can ride a zebra, seahorse or bunny. A little variety in the selection never hurts.

The most dangerous carousel by far, though, is the closest, and the one I haven't had the nerve to bring the two year old to visit yet. That would be the carousel at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. It's the fastest, most terrifying twirling remuda of graven equine in the West.

This carousel travels at approximately 60 miles per hour in a tight circle, and leaves the proudest horsemen weak at the thought of traveling on it. Not only does it offer the challenge of retaining the greasy corn dogs and cotton candy packed loosely in your stomach difficult, it has a game that involves greasy metal rings and a clown. The object is to grab a metal ring from this arm that juts out and fling, huck or whip this thing at a this demonic looking clown and hit him in the mouth, which, if successful, rings a bell. I have never been able to ring the bell on this ride.

The problem is the speed and the proximity of that ring dispenser arm to your head means one minute of inattentiveness and it could be curtains for you. This actually happened once when I was on it. It was night and apparently this person looked back to wave jovially at his family, when there was a sudden yelp and a howl, and the sound of shattering glass as his bifocals exploded on his face and he tumbled to the ground in a bloody heap. That was the last time I rode that carousel.

That would be bad enough but it's not the worst thing that's happened around that so called Carousel of Delight. You may remember a little movie where Jack Bauer hung around it and ate people, called The Lost Boys. The most graphic thing that I can imagine that could happen on one of these, though, was when the bad guy in the Dirty Harry flick Sudden Impact falls from the roller coaster, crashes through the roof of the carousel and gets impaled on a unicorn on the merry-go-round. Ouch. Same merry-go-round.

We'll probably have to wait until she's three for the one at the Boardwalk. In the meantime, it's the 50 cent Wal-Mart versions and watching Mary Poppins on hers ten times a day, around the racetrack on her jolly holiday.

On Flavored Toothpastes

2006-01-16T16:25:00.000-08:00

We spent the other night out of town with some family, and forgot the toothpaste. It was not a problem really, because as it turns out, our two year old has recently graduated from some Gerber apple flavored toothpaste to a huge container of bubble gum flavored stuff that carried pictures of the Disney Princesses. Yes, it is amazing they have their own toothpaste, but that's just a drop in the bucket. Any kind of merchandise that a girl under the age of ten would use or borrow has a Disney Princess version. There are clothes, of course, but also shoes, sleeping bags, tents, balls, bikes, and chapstick. It's the perfect ploy to get in your wallet, and it works.

While I was brushing my teeth with the pink, foamy, blow-gum-flavored paste, it crossed my mind that maybe there should be more of this for people over the age of ten. Of course, Elvis is well merchandised, but I have to admit I haven't seen much Elvis toothpaste. I would probably give that a try if they made it, curious if it was going to be blue suede or peanut butter and nanner flavored.

I'm also a fan of the Charlie Daniels Band. What if Charlie put out a toothpaste? I think he could get a deal with Copenhagen or Skoal, who could balance out their reputation of ruining teeth by selling nicotine laced toothpaste. Brushing would be fun and addictive.

Pizza might be a good toothpaste flavor, and could be marketed under the Domino's brand. They could have it come out of the tube in little round balls the same shape as their sausage. Coffee toothpaste would be good for those who don't want to lose that flavor in the morning and it could contain caffeine. For bedtime a vanilla ice cream flavored toothpaste might hit the spot.

These oddball flavors could really take off. Who would have thought that bubble gum flavored toothpaste would be a hit? It's not that great of a flavor, but the kids like it. To be honest I was a bit surprised when Snow White on the tube produced the bubble gum flavor, because I don't recall her spitting her gum down the well while she was singing with the birds and the midgets. Given her history, I was kind of hoping for a Poison Apple flavor.

Nerd and Music can be a bad thing

2005-10-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

Buddy Holly was nerdy and musical, but still cool. I like to pretend Nerdbilly is occasionally about cool music and slight nerdiness. The following is story shows why this is a volatile combination. Here nerd and music react like like a proton torpedo shot down the thermal exahaust shaft of the death star, if you know what I mean.

NPR : Filk Music: Odd Voices for a Digital Generation: "What has 30 legs, five laptops, four kazoos and one Yoda? A filk singing circle. Filk is a little-known genre of folk music composed and performed by science-fiction fans, usually revolving around sci-fi and fantasy themes.
These so-called 'filkers' share a lively online culture online -- and in the real world, some entertaining and slightly bizarre get-togethers.
Some songs riff on stories and characters from popular movies, TV shows, or games -- Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Dungeons and Dragons are popular launch pads. Other tunes come from deeply weird depths of the songwriter's psyche."

Check it out. It does get worse. There is audio.

Regarding "How to Tell if The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a Christian Film"

2005-10-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

Time.com

After Edmund Pevensie betrays Aslan and his brother and sisters, the Witch claims his blood in accordance to the laws of "Deep Magic." Aslan concedes this and offers himself up in proxy, announcing glumly, "I have settled the claim on your brother's blood." Miraculously revived, he explains, "the Witch knew the Deep Magic. But if she could have looked a little further back... she would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

This is Christianity in a kid-lit veil. Like any good sermon, its key points can be traced to Biblical citations—here mostly from the Letters of the apostle Paul. Edmund's treachery corresponds to the sins of humanity, which Paul explains is inherently doomed to violate God's Law ("The Deep Magic"). Because of this violation, writes Paul in Romans, humans are literally owned by Satan ("slaves of the one whom you obey"); and "the wages of sin is death." The idea that Aslan, because he is sinless, can voluntarily pay for Edmund's blood with his own, is the powerful Christian doctrine of blood atonement, developed from texts like the First Letter of Peter: "You know that you were ransomed... with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." Like Christ's, Aslan's resurrection is inevitable ("If Christ has not been raised, then ... our faith is in vain," Paul writes in First Corinthians.) And it conquers not just his death (or as Aslan would say, causes it to move backwards) but that of all believers, who will also see resurrection. Paul rejoices: "Death is swallowed up in victory... O death, where is thy sting?" In The Lion, Aslan and Lucy Pevensie celebrate with a "mad" game of tag.

The article goes on to say that if this little line from the book is left out of the movie, the revenues won't be as great for the film had they remained because of Christians who will flock to see it. Not sure that I share that premise for several reasons.

First, I don't know that people will pay close enough attention to the film to notice a line missing from the book, unless the film makers attempt to twist the meaning of the entire film by changing the dialogue to mean something different.

There is so much psuedo-theology in movies and television today that it makes me wonder how much of it people accept. The governator's "End of Days" is a great example of popcorn effects with no biblical substance.

A colleague of mine said they liked Keanu's "Constatine" because of the special effects, which was about the only thing that made that movie interesting. There was really nothing in that film that was biblical.

Narnia will probably be a hit for the same reason. The special effects will be good, and if left unchanged, the story is better than any of Harry Potter's adventures.

The last point is that even if the line is left out of the movie, Aslan does come back to life. Hopefully people who are stirred by this will want to read the book or research why Lewis had that happen. The entire story hinges on the resurrection of the Lion, so to remove that would be like removing the glass slipper from the Cinderella story. Either way, the story is a Christian one.

In the end, it's a reflection of the real story, and in that one, God does defeat death in our place. The movie is just entertainment.

iPod becomes the Nano Mac (or should, anyway!)

2005-09-20T16:49:00.000-07:00

A lot of speculation is out there about the future of the iPod, but the future seems obvious enough. Apple has a been slowly building up to this, and it's only a matter of time before we will be able to purchase it. This is not based on any rumors or insider information, but on common sense and a scoop of speculation. Consider the following as science fiction.

Right now Apple offers the iPod, that cool little number that can carry around up to 60 gigabytes of information. At the same time, they offer the Mac Mini, a headless Mac torso, the cheap version of which has only a 40 GB hard drive.

So here's the next little must have doodad that Apple should tease us with, that everyone will want. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: The Nano Mac. This will look and function like an iPod until you plug it into a dock connected to a keyboard, video and mouse, and it becomes a bonafide Macintosh. Dongle instead of a dock sold separately.

Plug it in, plug it in
The Nano Mac could function as your primary computer, but will really be flexible if you have an existing network. The dock will have extra ports for things like an external DVD burner (the SuperDrive) and printers. There is a huge market for accessories and external components that have Apple style and utility so that doesn't seem far fetched. The old 3.5" floppy drives on the old Mac Plus set the precedent for external attachments as a viable answer to making the computer more useful.

Pocket Portability
You will be able to carry around your computer in your pocket and when you arrive at your destination, you can plug into the dock at that location and use the computer. This means you won't be able to do much more with it in the car or on the train than you can with a traditional iPod, but away from home you'll have the same machine you left with, without the need for a briefcase or a backpack. The advantage for schools could be in the savings of purchasing and upgrading computers every year since the lifespan of KVMs outlast the rest of the hardware on computers by huge margins.

Speaking of KVMs, if your family had a few Nano Macs, they could provide a way to daisy chain these docks together by firewire or USB. When you needed to select which one was active on the keyboard, video and mouse, you could touch a button on the front of the respective dock.

Gutless iMac and iPod 360
Another option for those who commute and are not in charge of steering their vehicle would be a gutless iMac with a port for the Nano Mac. Again, you could safely and quickly shift the brains of your computer from one desktop station or kiosk to another. On this same line of thought, if Microsoft had any desire to break into the iPod market, they could take their removable hard drive from the Xbox 360 and make it play mp3s, or whatever encoding it is they use for making life difficult.

Why not now?
There seems to be no real barriers to the Nano Mac becoming a reality. The technology is available. While it's true that the price of flash keeps falling, the small hard drive prices are dropping as well. Apple has proven itself as a leader in innovative technologies, as practically all of it's products prove.

Steve Jobs says there's no reason to create an iPod that does video since there doesn't seem to be a huge demand for it yet, and truthfully, even if the screen size on the iPod was increased it would still make a crummy TV. We want bigger screens and smaller computers.

Why not a computer that could fit in your pocket?

Home Coffee Roasting

2005-08-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

What makes good coffee? If you can't tell the difference between the office coffee and Folgers, you probably think you're not a candidate for home roasting but I think if you asked around, nobody else could either. And although flavored coffees are interesting and fun in a new flavored Kool-Aid kind of way, the truth is they are probably just masking the harsh flavor of the cheap stuff.

I started out trying to roast my own coffee a couple of years ago, and the difference between that coffee and the $20 bag of Starbucks from Costco was enough to make me continue. The differences are freshness, taste and price. It's not hard or time consuming, either. If you've read at all about coffees on high end retail or roasting sites, you may have seen this home roasting referred to as an art. To me, that's doing a discredit to real art, which takes talent. Roasting coffee is more like a task than art. The guy who fixes your flat at the tire shop is not an artist, and this is similar, only more fun and easier. The above picture is art depicting work, and has nothing much to do with coffee roasting, except to display what art is, in the form of a painting by Charles Russell.

Speaking of cowpunching, do you think the American cowboy carried roasted coffee with him? I think Cookie probably kept green beans on the chuckwagon, because they would keep indefinitely and he could roast them as needed. The beans were probably loaded with sticks and rocks, but I bet it wasn't bad. It reminds me of the Red Badge of Courage by Stephan Crane, where in the Civil War coffee is used as an elixir on a young, damaged, soldier.

He made his patient drink largely from the canteen that contained the coffee. It
was to the youth a delicious draught. He tilted his head afar back and held the
canteen long to his lips. The cool mixture went caressingly down his blistered
throat. Having finished, he sighed with comfortable delight.

So how do you go about it? There is plenty of information about it on the web, but it can be overwhelming. This should help make it easy.

The first thing you need are green coffee beans, available from Sweet Maria's. They are fast and reliable. The downer is that unless you live in San Leandro, California, they will charge for shipping, but with the amount of money you save on coffee, you still come out ahead. Green beans range in price from $4 to $15 bucks a pound, but generally, the good stuff is only about $5 a pound. I have tried some of the more expensive stuff, but I couldn't tell a difference between it and the $5 batch. As you get familiar with beans from different parts of the world, you'll probably nail down a region that produces flavors that you like. I've noticed that African beans taste more exotic and earthy, and Central and South American coffees taste more tropical and fruity.

It takes about about ten minutes to roast coffee, and I usually do enough for about three days, since it will start to stale after about five days.

I've found that old hot air popcorn poppers work great, since they were designed to do this and are cheap. You can buy an expensive roaster but it seems like driving one of those Cadillac Escalades when all you need is a Ford pickup. The main thing is to make sure your popper has vents on the side of the hopper instead of on the bottom of it, so that the chaff doesn't fall into the heating mechanism and cause a fire. My wife had one from college that her grandma gave her and since they've invented microwave popcorn, it was just sitting in a box, so it was a low risk investment for me.

I have roasted a batch on a pan on the stove, but it was a lot of work shaking the pan the whole time so the beans would roast evenly, so the popper is still the best method I've tried.

When you throw this stuff into the popper, you'll hear it crack after about five mintues. It sounds like popcorn popping, but the chaff of the bean blows off, which you can collect in a colander and throw out. It is flavorless, so some of it in the grind won't matter. After another four or five minutes it will crack again. You can use sweet maria's little guide to figure out what roast you're coming up with. Here's what I ended up with recently with a full city roast.

Once your coffee is roasted, cool it quickly by stirring it with a spoon. I use a big wooden one, and that's perfect. The quicker you can cool it the more likely it is to stop roasting itself. If you let it cool itself, it may roast a shade darker in the middle of the batch so this helps keep it even. Put it away in a cool dark place after that, and many people recommend storing it in a paper bag or something that can breathe. I use old Illy's coffee cans, and crack the lid a bit for the first few hours. After about four hours the oils and flavors in the beans will have hit their peak so that's a good time to start grinding a brewing the coffee. It will lose over half of it's flavor in two weeks time but you'll be done with it by then if you have a pot of it every couple of days.

I've read by some coffee companies that as long as they package their coffee a certain way, you'll still get all the benefits of the fresh roast. I am not sure if I buy that 100%. I would say you will get some of them, but not all. I think they have to say this to sell coffee. I would as soon roast it myself, know it's fresh, and save the money they would keep. The markup on roasted coffee is pretty high. If I can buy green beans for $5 a pound they must be able to buy it cheaper by the ton, yet they sell it for over $13 a pound (based on $10 for a 12 oz. bag). You're paying them for the roast, shipping, coffee jerk, facilities and name brand.

Final thoughts on this:

Here's a little discourse on the wine versus coffee comparison.
Coffee has over 800 distinct compounds that contribute to aroma. Here comes the science.
One last thing, as a novelty, which sounds disgusting: coffee wine.

Much of this is recycled from an email to a friend of mine, but I get a lot of people interested in the topic so I thought I would share it with you, whoever you are!

Nappy sparks bomb alert in Germany

2005-08-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

Nappy sparks bomb alert in Germany - Yahoo! News This is weird on so many levels. Electric diapers? Diapers in the mail? Ticking diapers? How often can you put Germans, Diapers, Electric and Ticking in the same sentence?

The German's heart was ticking faster than ever as the electricity ran through his diapers.

See? You can't beat the truth.

BERLIN (Reuters) - An "electronic nappy" used to monitor wetness sparked a bomb alert in a German post office when it arrived in a parcel ticking suspiciously, police in the southwestern city of Heilbronn said on Thursday.

"They suspected it was a bomb so they put the package into an empty room and called the police," said a police spokesman. "It was supposed to respond to wetness with bleeping sounds but this one ticked."

Two squad cars rushed to the scene and immediately contacted the sender. Police gave the all clear after they contacted the woman who told them the intercepted package contained only a malfunctioning diaper.

New blog you should check out

2005-08-17T02:18:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine down Paso Robles way has started a blog that's worth looking at called Quake Town Take. He's a writer, a Raiders fan, a cat person, and as a former cellar rat the closest thing I know to a sommelier with a background in the wine industry.

Give him a read!

Follow up: Spurlock Food Scare a Super Size Scam

2005-08-16T17:11:00.000-07:00

FOXNews.com - Views - Straight Talk - Spurlock Food Scare a Super Size Scam: "Ironically enough, Spurlock began his television career at MTV on a show called 'I Bet You Will,' in which he paid people to eat disgusting things on camera. He once paid a woman $250 to shave her head, then eat a giant ball of her own hair mixed with butter. He paid another man to eat an entire jar of mayonnaise. Still another to swallow dog feces. When asked if he felt his show was exploitive, he replied, 'No way. Everybody knows what they're getting into. Everybody has a good time. If somebody walks by and doesn't enjoy it, hey, it's a free country. Just keep on walking, man.'"

Good article with some more information about the vegan muslim hillbilly and his new ventures in contrived documentaries and now, books.

Original post about this dude is here.

Dyanamic Content and you

2005-08-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you guys, but this dynamic content thing is really something else these days. I've just lately started to get excited about this but man, there is some powerful stuff here. I've figured out how to get dynamic content to display on any webpage like this one, a work in progress. So far the only content on the page that I wrote is the review of the album in the body of the page. Using feedburner and a cool little utility called feed2js, I can paste a little bit of javascript in the body of the html and have the RSS title (of each post) show up as a hyperlink on the page. Google recently added RSS feeds to any search you do in their News, so that's fed automagically as well.

Google also serves up via Javascript a little number called Google Ads, which you see everywhere these days. This has been a good little deal for my other website (which hosts this one) and has already covered the costs of hosting for the year. I dig it.

The other little gnip gnop or knick knack on that page is the link to the album, which is provided (javascript again) by Amazon. Here again another little thing that might pay for the site, if I used it more. It's easy to use but sometimes the shipping on products from Amazon kills any bargains. Even though I am chained to my desk 20x7, I do like to get out occasionally. Didn't shipping used to be free with Amazon when it started? That was nice. I still have a coffee cup they sent me when they started out, too. Those were the days. Everyone had a job, and companies like E-trade and Amazon sent you free t-shirts just for looking at their sites. /streamof conciousness.

Pretty cool stuff. These things write themselves, you know.

Rockabilly Riot

2005-07-26T23:33:00.000-07:00

Here it is the day of the US release of Brian Setzer's new album called Rockabilly Riot and here I am without it. Bummer. Normally I would be in the record store the day it is released, but this time I let it slip by. Suddenly, I'm not in the club. I'm uncool, because some people (besides the euros and Japanese, who had this release early this month) have the thing already and are listening to it right now.

It could be just materialism but I think CS Lewis described it better as need to fit into an Inner Ring, a part of a group of people cooler than I am. He said that as we see these exclusive cliques we want to be a part of because it will somehow make us better than others, with some secret knowledge and feeling of belonging that gives us some sense of superiority over others. However we enter one ring, and soon the pleasure of being in wears off, and then we find ourselves disenchanted and looking for an even more exclusive (cooler) ring to be a part of. He said:

The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.

This of course is something that applies to more than just buying an album or combing my hair a certain way. I find it especially at work at church, which is the last place that there should be an inner ring. In the end, we're all in the big ring of God's grace, and so one home group shouldn't be better than another, and one ministry shouldn't be more exclusive or give an air of superiority over another. Sometimes it happens inadvertently, and we should make every effort to make sure it doesn't happen.

I'll get the album because I love the music, but in the meantime it reminded me to be careful how to treat others. Funny how one little thing like a CD release can lead to these thoughts.

For now, I can read the liner notes!