Category: General

distracted easily by shiny objects

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

now that the coop renovation is nearly complete, kirk and i are trying to get our financial house back in a bit of order. nothing outrageous, but we want to watch it a bit on the large expenses. don’t eat out so much, don’t buy expensive electronics like an iphone.

things like that.

anyway, we did pretty well over the weekend. didn’t spend much at all. helped along by my sickness and i didn’t feel like going anywhere, but that’s a minor point.

but, self-imposed rules be damned, there are times when money must be spent. and when one’s name is drawn from the magic hat, and one is given the opportunity to buy playoff tickets for one’s favorite baseball team, then one must buy tickets.

one must buy four, to be exact, and sell two at cost to a friend. which we are doing. and they are great seats, relatively: game two, loge reserved section 18. nice sightlines. you can preview your seats’ sightlines on the mets website.

assuming, of course, the mets get to the playoffs. given the team’s abysmal play recently, that is by no means assured.

but it’s probable.

probably.

Lessons on the surge from economics 101

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

via daring fireball, an economics professor explains a dollar auction:

Economics professors have a standard game they use to demonstrate how apparently rational decisions can create a disastrous result. They call it a “dollar auction.” The rules are simple. The professor offers a dollar for sale to the highest bidder, with only one wrinkle: the second-highest bidder has to pay up on their losing bid as well. Several students almost always get sucked in. The first bids a penny, looking to make 99 cents. The second bids 2 cents, the third 3 cents, and so on, each feeling they have a chance at something good on the cheap. The early stages are fun, and the bidders wonder what possessed the professor to be willing to lose some money.

The problem surfaces when the bidders get up close to a dollar. After 99 cents the last vestige of profitability disappears, but the bidding continues between the two highest players. They now realize that they stand to lose no matter what, but that they can still buffer their losses by winning the dollar. They just have to outlast the other player. Following this strategy, the two hapless students usually run the bid up several dollars, turning the apparent shot at easy money into a ghastly battle of spiraling disaster.

sound familiar? ghastly battle of spiraling disaster, indeed.

kinda loving the iphone

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

even though it’s kirk’s iphone and not mine, he’s generous and shares, and i get up before he does, so i get some time to monkey around with it. and i know his passcode.

i made a ringtone out of “stigmata” by ministry and kirk’s under strict orders to use it for when i call. actually, of course, i asked nicely.

it’s still tough to type on it, i have to say. but i also don’t use it that much. i’m sure if i had one and used it constantly i’d get used to it.

of course, there’s tons of crap being written about the iphone on the internet. and i’m contributing to that, in a noneffective and useless way. the macalope had the most interesting comment i’ve seen in a while:

Here’s the one thing that makes the horny one think that Apple might announce a 3G phone before the end of the year: the iPhone was still selling briskly at $575…when the company cut the price to sell even more. There’s plenty of room at the top end of the market for more features.

If you were having a hard time imagining what the so-called “iPhone nano” would be like, all the while laughing yourself silly at the idea of a rotary-dial scroll wheel, maybe it’s because the iPhone as we know it is the “iPhone nano”, at least for 2007.

So, iPhone Pro anyone?

that makes sense. i’ll bet you all the iphone buyers thus far did buy the iphone nano. i’ll be damned.

but it matters not. we’re enjoying what we have. you can’t delay a purchase of technology because the gadget might get better. if you did that, you’d never buy anything. you have to pick your point of entry, and jump in. i think that right after the $200 price cut wasn’t such a bad time.

and i know i always swear that i’ll never buy version 1.0 of anything, but this is a bit different, because it’s a gadget that’s infinitely upgradeable via software. the gadget itself might be 1.0, but it’s as polished a 1.0 gadget as you’ll ever see, and it’ll just get better as apple pushes out new uses for it.

and i promise not to get envious when the next, speedier, better version comes out.

i promise.

no, really.

fucked without a kiss

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

i had to laugh at this quote from a ny times story about distraught iphone customers who feel that they overpaid:

“I just felt so used as a consumer,” he said. “They hyped up the iPhone for six months and built up our expectations, and then they grabbed our extra $200 and ran.”

leave it to some random apple fanatic with a blog to “feel so used”. it’s like the hooker stole his wallet while he was in the bathroom or something.

god knows i’d never waste my time obsessively blogging about a company and its products.

and just because kirk and i bought an iphone last night doesn’t mean that i buy into the hype.

and just because we wasted $69 on apple care for it doesn’t make me a mindless fanatic.

and just because we spent the entire evening oohing and aahing over it’s fantastically well-thought-out capabilities doesn’t mean that i have lost my perspective.

and just because the first thing i did this morning when i got up was rush to turn it on, baby, doesn’t mean that i don’t have a well-honed sense of life’s priorities.

it, after all, was a very practical purchase. made perfect sense. no other alternative, you know.

steve jobs is a marketing genius

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

don’t tell me that apple and steve jobs didn’t have this whole thing planned.

» step one: sell hundreds of thousands of iphones at $599 to enthusiastic early adopters.

» step two: lower the price by $200 two months later.

» step three: wait for the outraged early adopters to blather their outrage all over the internet and in the msm.

» step four: a day later, issue $100 store credits to all those early adopters, ensuring that they’ll buy yet another apple product.

» step five: bask in the love from all the early adopters who once again love you unconditionally, and from the bloggers and the msm and the analysts and so on.

apple tweaks the consuming public better than any other company. but with that said, at $399 we’re probably taking the plunge and buying kirk an iphone. his motorola razr is dying a slow death, and it’s as good a time as any.

goodbye snap guy

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

just walked down 6th avenue to the bank, and the snap guy has been replaced by, to all external appearances, grandpa jones.

no one passed out flyers like the snap guy. hopefully he’s moved on to something better. perhaps in an advisory capacity, or training. spreading the snap gospel, as it were.

unsolicited aerogrow recommendation, part two

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

i’ve previously sung the praises of aerogrow, an exceedingly well-run company. and now i have to again.

we bought a second aerogrow. it’s a hydroponic growing system — perfect for a new york apartment. we’re using one to grow tomatoes, and a second one to grow various types of basil. the tomato-laden aerogrow was working fine, but the l.e.d. readout was a bit wonky. it kept telling us to put in water, but it didn’t need it.

now i’m not such a helpless idiot that i can’t grow the tomatoes without the l.e.d. readout. or, more accurately, kirk isn’t, because they are kind of his baby anyway. but we like things to work properly, and we know how wonderful the company has been in the past.

so kirk sent an email, explaining what was happening and asking what to do.

aerogrow tried to call him with the answer. and when he didn’t pick up, they followed up with an immediate email, pinpointing the problem — a cracked water detector thingy inside the aerogrow. who knows how it got cracked? more importantly, they diagnosed the problem accurately with a minimum of information and no fuss whatsoever.

and what’s more, they are sending the replacement part at no charge. and they also supplied us with detailed instructions on how to work around the wonky l.e.d. in the meantime.

i deal with crappy customer service all the time. we all do. and never have i seen a company so responsive, and so proactively out in front of any possible problem. i’d buy a hundred of these things, if i could afford them.

once again, kudos to aerogrow. keep up the good work.

riverdale garden: outstanding cuisine in the bronx

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

Here’s a reprint of a post I put up on chowhound.com:

We gave the Riverdale Garden a test run a couple of weeks ago. We were very happy with the service, atmosphere, and food on the regular menu, so we returned last night to celebrate my partner’s birthday with a 15-course meal with wine pairings (available by advance arrangement with the chef). It’s a really lovely setting inside, but the best seats are outside in the garden, weather permitting. And last night, it permitted.

Here are the courses, along with a few general comments. I didn’t manage to get details for most of the wines, but I know that there was a heavy emphasis on Long Island wines — I know there was a Martha Clara chardonnay that was really nice.

Smoked trout with marinated peaches and onion.
Wine: champagne
— Very cool, trout lightly smoked and not at all overwhelming. Nice balanced start.

Heirloom tomatoes with chives, viniagrette
Wine: sauvignon blanc
— Tiny, thin slices of three different varieties, with light vinaigrette. Really understated and delicious; I could have made a perfect summer meal out of this and the cheese grits which came later.

Corn chowder with marinated olives, hot pepper
Wine: rest of sauvignon blanc
— Served in a tall thin shot glass, with the olives layered in and the hot pepper on the bottom. My partner’s favorite course.

Rosemary bread with Jerusalem artichoke, balsamic vinegar dots
Wine: Martha Clara chardonnay
— Very earthy, good combination of textures. Artichoke a bit stringy in spots.

Smoked duck with chanterelle mushrooms, light sauce dusted with ancho pepper
Wine: pinot noir
— Duck was lightly smoked, and the mushrooms cooled off the balanced heat from the ancho. The wine overpowered the dish a little, but the dish itself was one of my favorites.

Pine Island oyster with finely grated horseradish, pickled shallot mignonette
Wine: champagne
— I love oysters, but these were briny to the point of being slightly malodorous. Personal preference, but this was my least favorite course by far.

Slow roasted red and golden beets with camembert, friseé, toasted hazelnuts
Wine: Rosé
— Best flavor combo of the night for me was the camembert and the beets. The sweetness of the beets melded wonderfully with the creaminess of the slightly warm cheese.

Grilled squid, avocado, scallion, habañero
Wine: Rosé continued
— The sauce was spicy and the avocado cooled it off, continuing a theme. Great textures and taste combo–one of my favorites.

Smoked salmon on brioche with radish, chives, creme fraiche, caperberries
Wine: Rosé continued, I think. This is where I start losing track of the wine ; )
— Gentle, balanced, very nice.

Summer salad of mountain greens, jerusalem artichoke, corn, flat-leaf parsley, fennel, radish, pepper, favas
Wine: something white that continued through the cod
— Refreshing, light break from the action.

Soft shell crab, sauce with corn
— Flavorful but just a bit too tough and chewy for me.

Cod with saffron, eggplant, kale
— We talked with the next table while eating this course; I remember liking it but not the details of it.

Ostrich, pickled cherries, green roasted garlic, snap peas, parsnips
Wine: something red for this course and the next
— The ostrich/pickled cherry combo was awesome. Just enough acidity to give some snap to the meat.

Lamb porterhouse, pickled ramps, house made BBQ sauce, cheese grits
— At this point, three hours in, we were so stuffed that we split one plate and took the other home. I haven’t had cheese grits that good since I don’t know when. Incredible. The pickled ramps and the BBQ sauce gave the same acidity to the lamb that the cherries did for the ostrich — nice echo.

Dessert for me: Lemon tart with blueberry sorbet, hold the blueberry sorbet (I had the blueberry sorbet on the last visit anyway). My third favorite lemon dessert in NYC, behind the lemon tart at Le Madeleine and the lemon cake at Del Frisco.

Dessert for the birthday boy: buttermilk sorbet and coconut sorbet with a coconut tuile. The buttermilk sorbet was for me the best of his dessert lot. But I really love buttermilk, so I’m not a fair judge.

Two espressos
— Very welcome caffeine!

As I reread this, it would seem to a reader that the evening devolved a bit as it progressed, due to the overindulgence. Maybe so, but it was a celebration, and the food and wine were, with a few noted exceptions, absolutely marvelous. I think too that the atmosphere (good service, nice outdoor setting, convivial dining companions, regulars seated next to us) made us relax and enjoy ourselves far more than one might ordinarily, given the expectations of a 15-course meal. I also think that, given the quality, quantity and variety of the courses and the wines, $150 per person (pre-tax and tip) was a good value.

It’s great for us, as it’s two blocks from our house, but I firmly believe that Riverdale Garden is worth the schlep from anywhere in the city.

my television-free life

~ jamie ~ 3 Comments

it’s been several months since kirk and i decided to drop digital cable, and stop watching television. there was some apprehension, and some trepidation (would we miss watching baseball?). it was a financial savings, to be sure — our cable bill went from $120 per month with time warner cable before the move (digital tv + premium channels + dvr + high-speed broadband cable) to $29.95 per month with comcast after the move (much higher-speed broadband cable only).

and the verdict?

don’t miss it a bit.

we thought that no baseball games would be the dealbreaker. turns out that listening to the games on the radio is a much, much better experience. the guys who call the game on wfan radio are brilliant at setting a visual scene through words. in this regard, i feel lucky being a mets fan — the yankees radio announcers on wcbs are boring as all hell, with their vast quantities of dead air. the wfan guys always have something interesting and cogent to say, and even their occasional off-topic wanderings are worth a listen.

so, baseball is fine. what about the news? get it from the paper, and the net.

what about lost? i don’t care who’s on the damn island anymore. if i did, i’d get it from netflix.

and there’s the cheat. if there’s something i really really want to watch, i’ll just get the dvds from netflix. i was a huge deadwood fan, so we watched the entire season over the course of a few days.

i always said the nice thing about having a dvr was that you watched only things you really wanted to watch, rather than having to watch whatever was scheduled. no wasted time, and all. it’s much the same now, only there’s an effort involved to watch something, so it’s even more efficient. i find myself mildly interested in whatever new shows are being flogged in the press, but i’m not driven to watch them. the only one that’s broken through the clutter for me recently was mad men. that’ll probably be something i’ll watch when it comes out on dvd.

so what do i do now that i don’t have tv taking up my time? it’s amazing how busy you can make yourself, when you don’t have the default option of television. since it’s baseball season, we have the games on the radio in the evening. sometimes i lay on the couch and listen, sometimes in bed. sometimes i listen while doing other things, which isn’t really a good option with television. i find projects to do. i cook dinner. i take walks, read books and magazines.

time passes without your help. no need to actively try to passively pass it with something as nonsensical (i now realize) as television.

it’s a drug. don’t believe me? try to do without it for a week. you’ll go through withdrawal. i did. but then, like any addiction, time passes and the weirdness and imagined agonies lessen, then disappear.

nothing wrong with television, mind you.

not much right with it, though, either.

apartment renovation update

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

we’ve made some good progress on the apartment renovation front. and, in true me fashion, i can’t stop being obsessed with ikea and we’re planning more cabinets for the kitchen.

kirk wrote a bit about what we’ve been up to, and posted some pictures, and i posted some pictures on a great site i found — ikeafans.com. that’s the site that really inspired my latest addition to the kitchen. right now we have an island on the left of the kitchen (as you are facing it) and we had an old wooden microwave cart on the right. the cart is gone. in it’s place we’re putting a two-foot wide cabinet with drawers, and a matching wooden countertop with no overhang in the front (only a matching overhang on the side). the countertop will extend to the wall where the window is, to give us a bit of extra counter space, and a cubby underneath the counter (between the wall and the new cabinet) for a garbage can, etc.

i have to say i’m a complete convert to the drawer method of kitchen cabinets. instead of getting down on your knees and digging around for something that’s gotten shoved to the back of a cabinet, you just pull out a drawer. the ikea drawers are fully extending, so you can see the entire contents of the drawer — so no unutilized space. when kirk said he wanted all drawers, i thought he’d lost his mind, but i went along with it. except for one set of cabinets with shelves at the center of the bar.

i’m really glad i listened.

on saturday we put shelves up at the end of the bar, under the overhang for the countertop. eventually we’ll put a matching pair of shelves on the other side, under the matching overhang for the new cabinets on the right side. we’re putting all the cookbooks on those shelves, so that we can get rid of a big bookcase in the living room. getting rid of that bookcase will free up space for a true uncluttered dining area. and the drawers in the new cabinet will hold all of the contents of the recently departed microwave cart, and more.

as kirk mentioned, we also put a second clothing rod in the closet in the bathroom hallway, and we cleaned up and reorganized quite a bit. the new lighting is ready to go into the hallway — we just need the super, rafael, to give us a bit of help with the wiring. in the bathroom, kirk has finished painting, the new lighting fixture is installed, and there’s just a little bit of last-minute cleanup to do.

on this week’s punch list — finish the hallway lighting, finish painting the trim in the bottom of the hallway wall (i taped yesterday and was ready to go, only to discover that we were out of that color of paint), maybe paint some window trim, maybe hang some blinds.

oh did i mention that the in-laws are coming on saturday? kirk’s parents are making the trek from reading, hence the flurry of activity.

it’s really coming together pretty nicely.

My Afternoon in Wal-Mart’s MP3 Download Hell

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

Thank jeebus that the medialoper tried wal-mart’s new download service, so i didn’t have to.

so it’s not really my afternoon, as my post’s title might indicate. it’s the medialoper’s.

a typical snark-filled excerpt:

Eventually I give up searching for music and decide to browse by genre. I start with Rock -> Alternative. I’m happy to find that many alternative rock classics are available from Wal-Mart, including: Ted Nugent’s Greatest Hits, Frampton Comes Alive!, and Meat Loaf Bat Out Of Hell. They even have Jethro Tull. It’s like Wal-Mart has created an online alternative rock superstore.

Since this is only an experiment, I decide to download the Emo classic Do You Feel Like We Do? from Frampton Comes Alive!. That’s when I find out that the song is not sold separately. If I want the song I’ll have to download the whole Frampton Comes Alive! album, and I’m not about to do that. Not even in the name of science.

fun reading, and it’s tasty too.

learning about joybubbles

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

one of the great things about the internet is that by goofing around you can stumble across the most interesting things.

and yesterday, via boing boing, during my lunch hour i learned about joybubbles.

joybubbles was the adopted name of joe engrassia, a blind man who was one of the first phone phreakers. phone phreakers predate computer hackers — they specialized in manipulating the phone system for fun and [sometimes] profit, but mostly for fun.

for instance, did you know that years ago, captain crunch cereal gave away a whistle as a prize in a box of cereal, and the sound produced by the whistle could be used to get free long distance calls? that’s just the beginning of a long, fascinating history of phone phreaking that was recounted in a seminal article in the october 1971 issue of esquire. among the readers of the article were two california guys named jobs and wozniak, who were then inspired to start tinkering in the garage. and we all know how that ended up.

the author, ron rosenbaum, took me on a journey into an underground that i didn’t know existed, and now i can’t get enough of reading about it. set aside an hour and read this. it fulfills my first rule of good writing: take a subject that no one knows about, and could care less about, and make it so engrossing that you can’t stop thinking about it.

why new yorkers last longer

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

great [long] article from new york magazine on how and why new yorkers’ life expectancy has surpassed that of rural and suburban dwellers.

the obvious answer: you have to walk more in new york. around here, you have to get out of your car and off your ass. i, proudly, don’t even own a car.

but buried within this obvious answer are some surprising fine points. for instance, these:

“Walking speed absolutely reflects health status”…New York is literally designed to force people to walk, to climb stairs—and to do it quickly.

A 2002 study by the National Institutes of Health found that people living in buildings built before 1973 were significantly more likely to walk one-mile distances than those living in areas with newer architecture—because their environments were less architecturally ugly.

Interestingly, urban theorists believe it is not just the tightly packed nature of the city but also its social and economic density that has life-giving properties. When you’re jammed, sardinelike, up against your neighbors, it’s not hard to find a community of people who support you—friends or ethnic peers—and this strongly correlates with better health and a longer life.

i won’t ruin the whole article by quoting the entire thing. it’s well worth a few minutes of your time to read it.

preferably while walking somewhere, after having printed it out.

five minutes with the iphone

~ jamie ~ 3 Comments

walked up to the apple store at 58th and 5th during my lunch hour. i figured that today would be a good day to venture there to see the new products, what with the terrible weather.

and it was. the apple store was indeed merely very crowded, and not packed so tightly with people that you could not move. and i saw the new imacs (very attractive — maybe that could replace the hdtv in the living room?) and got a chance to play with an iphone.

i’ve read all about them, but i’ve never actually seen one other than brief flashes. and i’ve never actually held one. my first impression was very good. it felt heavy enough to be substantial without being weighty — it gives one the impression of being a well-constructed singular thing, like it was hand-carved from a solid piece of metal.

and the screen is very impressive. it doesn’t noticeably smudge or get fingerprints on it, and the glare is really no problem indoors, though i don’t know what viewing while outdoors would be like.

i tried surfing the web — it seemed relatively fast, though i’m not sure if it was on wi-fi or the at&t network. i’d guess wi-fi. the iphone version of safari, the browser, was absolutely stunning. the pages were crystal clear, and zooming in and out worked perfectly.

i tapped on the address bar and tried typing “queerspace.com”. i’ve read that you should just keep typing and let the built-in error correction handle things. so i did that. maybe “queerspace.com” isn’t a fair test — what i got was qiwersoveee.com or something similar. it took quite a bit of effort to get “queerspace.com” into the address bar correctly. i’d guess that you’d get better with time, and that it would learn from your mistakes and all. i’ve never used a blackberry, so i don’t know how i’d do with an actual micro-keyboard. but with the iphone touch keyboard, i was all thumbs, and not in a good way.

basically, doing anything that didn’t involve the keyboard was intuitive and flawless. there’s no need for an owner’s manual, i’m sure. you wouldn’t need it. everything just made sense, and just worked.

google maps was cool, but in the end it was google maps. the widgets were cool, but in the end they were widgets.

the ipod worked spectacularly. scrolling through cover view and looking at songs was a breeze, and similarly scrolling through photos was easy and fun. i took a picture of myself with the camera and tried to email it to myself (again struggling with the typing of my email address), but the email wasn’t configured or something, so it wouldn’t leave the outbox. no dice there.

you tube videos played smoothly and were easy to access.

oh, and dialing the phone was easy. i called myself at work, and the sound quality of my voice mail message sounded clear and loud and perfect. much better than my current phone.

so, did i like it? absolutely. were there flaws? except for the keyboard, none that i could see. do i want one? yes, but not enough to shell out $600.

i’m glad i tried one. i’m betting the keyboard would get easier to use over time. someday i’ll have one.

but not yet. the new mac comes first.

things i’m hoping for today

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

» i hope someone else besides me comes to work today. there’s absolutely no one else on my entire row of cubicles.

» i hope that that hysterical tourist who got off the 1 train at 50th street with her husband and left her kid on the train gets her kid back safe. i hope that someone on the train took care of the kid. if the kid was old enough, i hope that mom had made the normal contingency plan for such events–get off at the next stop and wait. i know she was a tourist, by the way, because she had a fanny pack. not a single person who lives in any of the five boroughs wears a fanny pack. they did a study.

» i hope that the food at the riverdale garden is as good as everyone says it is. it’s one of two michelin restaurants in the bronx (the amazing roberto’s is the other), and it’s a couple of blocks away from our new apartment. it would be nice to have an awesome restaurant in the hood.

» i hope for world peace and a cure for aids and an implementable solution to global warming and the full and sensible restoration of new orleans. why the hell not, right?

» i hope leopard ships early. i want a new mac, either an updated mini or an imac — not sure which. but i’ll wait until leopard ships, because then i’ll get it free with the new computer, rather than having to pay $129 for it. i’m cheap, or sensible, that way. since we don’t have cable tv, i want a mac to hook up to the hdtv so we can watch internet content on the tv. so we’ll either get an imac, and hook up the old mini to the hdtv, or we’ll get a new mini and hook it up to the hdtv. not sure which — probably the latter. the old mini still works fine for what we use it for — email, web surfing, light photoshop, and garage band.

» i hope you don’t think i’m too privileged. i worry about that quite a bit. not, i mean, what you think of me, but rather that i’m too comfy with my stuff.

» i hope the mets stay in first place and win the division. the braves have me worried, as do the phillies.

schneier interviews the head of the tsa

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

bruce schneier’s blog on security issues is one of my consistent favorites on the web. i love people who can take a subject about which i know little and care even less, and make it fascinating. schneier is one of those people (and rands is another).

anyway, schneier recently interviewed kip hawley, the head of the transportation security administration. to give you an idea of how it went, here’s the first question posed to hawley:

By today’s rules, I can carry on liquids in quantities of three ounces or less, unless they’re in larger bottles. But I can carry on multiple three-ounce bottles. Or a single larger bottle with a non-prescription medicine label, like contact lens fluid. It all has to fit inside a one-quart plastic bag, except for that large bottle of contact lens fluid. And if you confiscate my liquids, you’re going to toss them into a large pile right next to the screening station—which you would never do if anyone thought they were actually dangerous.

Can you please convince me there’s not an Office for Annoying Air Travelers making this sort of stuff up?

it’s a must read — one of the best-written things i’ve come across recently. thanks to daring fireball for linking to it before i got there myself.

mets fan catches historic barry bonds baseball

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

here are a couple of stories about it.

unfortunately, i’m not the mets fan, as the ball is supposed to be worth upwards of $500,000. but it was nice to see a guy from queens emerge victorious from what i’m sure was quite a battle for that ball, after it went into the stands in san francisco.

good for him.

and, i suppose, good for barry. i promised to ease up on the barry bonds hating, and i have to admit that i smiled a bit as i watched the video online this morning.

history will judge him, blah blah blah. maybe fairly, maybe not. but for now, it is what it is, i’ll live with it, and you can debate about who the true home run king is. you can make a strong argument for babe ruth, after all, who hit 714 in far fewer at bats than either aaron or bonds, having spent a few years as one of the best pitchers in baseball before becoming one of its best hitters.

but in the end, the number is the number. wonder what number will, in the end, be a-rod’s new target? 800? more than that?

we’ll see if barry plays next year, and which team will have the nerve to sign him.

who made steve?

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

“God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

but then who made steve?

here’s the brilliant answer

an excerpt:

This oft-quoted text presents a mystery. If God did not make Steve, then where did this uncreature come from? How did Steve come to be?

God did not make Steve, therefore we must also assume that Steve was never born. If Steve had been born, after all, then he would be “begotten, not made.” Surely we are not meant to conclude that Steve is a little-known fourth member of the Trinity.

short, funny, cogent, and insightful — one of the best things i’ve read in ages.

the pope gets it right

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

pope: creation vs. evolution clash an ‘absurdity’

there’s not many topics on which i can agree with the pope. but, my god (no pun intended) did he nail this one (again, no pun intended).

from the article:

The pontiff, speaking as he was concluding his holiday in northern Italy, also said that while there is much scientific proof to support evolution, the theory could not exclude a role by God.

“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”

and he expands this concept to stewardship of the earth, and environmental issues.

The pope, leader of some 1.1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide, said: “We must respect the interior laws of creation, of this Earth, to learn these laws and obey them if we want to survive.”

“This obedience to the voice of the Earth is more important for our future happiness … than the desires of the moment. Our Earth is talking to us and we must listen to it and decipher its message if we want to survive,” he said.

too bad the jesus camp crowd won’t be listening. they are too busy planning/hurrying the end of days.

never thought i’d say this, but yay pope. go pope. you da man, pope.