I put it in scare quotes because I am a member of the global information economy, and apparently what that means is that I have to take some meetings on those holidays that are merely national in scope. Yes, I am a grumpy about this. Well, honestly I’m mostly grumpy about having to be up in time for an 8AM call on a day I thought I was going to get to sleep in. The noon call, and the 10PM call are just rubbing salt in the wound.
Anyway, you don’t care about my struggles to maintain some kind of work/life boundary. You might care about some of these things, though:
- The Vatican, or at least their astronomer, says we can believe in aliens now. Coming after the OK for evolution, among other things, this is another kind of disturbing. On the one hand, it makes the Catholic Church seem less dangerous than the various American literalists, but on the other hand it’s still fostering the kind of muddled thinking that can apparently ignore some pretty shattering inconsistencies.
- Did you read Joss Whedon’s web comic? (Actually these days, being a pretty serious Casanova fan, I would tend to think of this as “Fabio Moon‘s web comic”, but I know there’s a lot more people who would recognize Whedon’s name out there.) You can do so. Or you can read a detailed review–reading the review may actually take longer than reading the entire comic. They provide about equal levels of reader satisfaction.
- Yeah, I enjoy watching Weeds, but I didn’t really believe that the whole “California medical marijuana industry” was as well-developed as it was portrayed on the show. Apparently, I was wrong.
- On my recent Connecticut-Long Island ferry trip I was amused at the various signs about not taking photos of the ferry, or the installations on the shore. Apparently this is yet another anti-terrorist measure. (I am going to try to start STOA as an acronym, meaning “Security Theatre, Once Again”, for use in these cases.) I made a little fun of this to an intelligent, reasonable man, and was surprised to find out that he thought they were reasonable–that this particular podunk ferry was an appealing terrorist target, and that preventing photography of the ferry was a sensible way to lower this risk. That in itself amused me. Until I read this story. At what point is the “home of the brave” going to stop being piss-scared of every shadow (or olive-complected stranger)?
- I spent some time considering the potential lifestyle that would go along with a move into a really nice condo in the city this weekend. There’s no practical way we could afford a nigh-million-dollar condo, much less the “hell, that’s a mortgage” condo fee amounts, but the lifestyle thoughts were appealing. I admit, that at several points while doing this thinking I found myself stuck on the whole “who pays this much money for a place to live??!?” question. Then I read this article. The McMansions are disgusting, but that’s a whole other level of stomach-turning.
- If my daughter had never slept, or napped but had instead been awake 24/7, it is entirely possible that Trish and I would have killed each other. Later in life this could be a cool way to live, if humourous adventure fiction is can be trusted, but for parents of a new child… well, I’m not sure that stress could be measured.
- I had a chance to try some of Dogfish Head’s 120 Minute IPA earlier this week–supposedly the “hoppiest” beer in the world, and my taste buds certainly find that claim plausible. I wonder if it will be a while before we see another bottling of that, given the massive hops shortage that has most craft brewers changing their recipes to require less hops?
- For the record, the people I work with in Australia are in the south–in Melbourne–and not anywhere near Alice Springs.
- “Gumby’s thing was to walk into a book and experience the adventures there. I’d lure him into 1984 and snap pics of him in the rat cage mask.” I swore I’d get involved with Twitter about ten minutes after hell froze over (or about fifteen minutes before I finally would give in to Facebook), but Jhonen Vasquez‘s “tweets” might be enough to break me down… if I couldn’t just read them on the web without needing to sign up. Phew, dodged a bullet there.
