The scientist finally found it!
Ah. Now I know, I didn’t have a choice. I was born this way….. 🙂
Categories
Author: peteDog
Categories
Theology of a 5-year old
Both the wife and I are really trying to get our kids to speak and understand all three languages we speak. So, we make the effort to at least try to read books in all of them each night. Normally, we only have time for one or two books, depending on how tired the kids are. Yesterday, I grabbed a children’s Bible that we have in Polish, trying to be the good Catholic father. It’s actually pretty good and the stories are super simplified so the kids can understand. They’re also easy enough for me to read without constantly getting stuck on harder words, as my polish reading isn’t what it should be.
Lately, our daughter has developed this habit of pulling random books off the shelf and walking around the house pretending to read. Sometimes she even sits down and “teaches” a class with her stuffed animals as the students. Yesterday she schooled her purple bear Gentleman on French existentialism.
So today, I heard she was talking about how Jesus is the son of God while “reading” Catcher in the Rye and the Communist Manifesto. I’m thinking the girl must have some things seriously confused. Isn’t talking about God while reading Marx the equivalent of shouting profanities in church?
I’m sure Marx is turning in his grave.
Categories
Elliot Smith and the Big Nothing
Just ran across this article about Elliot Smith and it made me feel a little sad, yet again, that this talented guy left us way before his time. Gotta give it to the guy though, his way to go out was like something straight out of a Shakespeare play. Self inflicted knife wound to the chest. Tragic, but hardcore.
Five years ago today, on October 21, 2003, Elliott Smith died. The intentions behind his death still not been confirmed, but some time that day, Elliott met the Big Nothing.
Read the rest of the article here.
Categories
Credit crisis explained
… with drawings, so we regular folks can understand. I was picturing it more as an expedition to Middle-earth, but whatever works I guess.
Categories
Kill all the trees
I’m a little frustrated right now. Everyone is used to paying bills, but for some unexplained reason, bills in this country contain an ungodly amount of crap. People not living in this country might not know what I’m talking about.
A normal, let’s say, phone bill, in Sweden contains: the phone bill. The end.
A normail phone bill in the US contains: the phone bill, 1 envelope (since a lot of people still use checks to pay bills, so they need an envelope to put the check and the bill in to send back to the phone company), some advertisement letting you know about how absolutely wonderful this phone company is and possibly some more advertisement about some other deal explaining how you can call your loved ones in Burundi for only $2 a minute.
Categories
TV junkies unite
Remember how I previously wrote about how to watch Hulu from outside the US? Now I’d like to do a little follow-up post. This one isn’t about Hulu, but about a piece of software that has proven to be very useful to me.
The software I’m talking about is Miro. Miro is basically, a media player with a built in RSS feed reader. No big deal, right? Well, I guess, except that it’s really awesome. What it does, is that it turns your PC into a DVR. Kinda. Miro comes with a bunch of already pre-installed free channels you can download and watch, but should you want to maybe explore other (wink wink) options, there’s a great website called tvRSS, has feeds of pretty any show out there. All you have to do is look up the feed, and subscribe to it in Miro. This way you will have new shows downloaded directly to your PC almost instantly after they air on TV over here the US. No more looking all over various torrent sites for it.
All of this is 100% illegal, so it goes without saying that you should probably never use it. Ever.
Categories
Bandwagon jumper
I am one. I like trying out new stuff. It’s really a compultion at this point. Any new service online that comes out, I have to try. If you can sign up right away, I do it. If not, I’ll ask for an invite.
Most of the stuff I sign up for, is pretty useless and unnecessary. At least for me, but being who I am, I still want to check it out. Once in a while however, I run into something that really saves my life. Ok, not literally, of course.
Gmail for me was one of those things. Another thing, has been pod casting. I got my iPod about 3 years ago and discovered podcasts around that time and haven’t been able to live without them since. My commute to work without them would have been unbearable.
For some it’s Myspace or Facebook or Twitter. Although I’ve tested all three (of course), I haven’t really loved any of them. I use Facebook, mostly by just updating my status. All the random Facebook apps drive me crazy. I feel old and cranky when people throw a zombie at me or Vampire bite me and I ignore them. Just never really understood what the point was. No bad feelings, folks. I’m just too busy bandwagon jumping to have the energy to understand the meaning of all the weird Facebook apps out there.
You gotta admire his dedication….
Categories
The Octobox
Politics for me is something of a love/hate thing. I really want the election to be over, but at the same time, it’s fodder for so much bullshit, some of it occasionally amusing. Especially news. Most of the people don’t know what they’re talking about anyway, just repeating other people’s opinions and talking points (just like me actually), but somehow they end up on the news expressing those opinions, talking and shouting over each other.
That’s why I love shows like The Daily Show, that calls people out on their bullshit. Below is a clip where one of the news channels had eight people, in eight different boxes on the screen at the same time, hence the name Octobox (at least that’s what The Daily Show calls it). They have since aired a newscast with 10 people simultaneously. Where does it end and how is this useful to me as a viewer when all I hear is noise? Maybe I’m just particularly bad at multitasking, but I usually understand best when listening to one person talking at a time.
For the last year or so we’ve been waiting for the right moment to introduce Star Wars to our kids. About a month or so ago, we decided it was time. Both my wife and I prepped them a lot, talking about all the characters, before we attempted watching the first movie. My wife even went ahead and told Linnea the plot of the entire first film. And by the first, I mean the fourth, A New Hope.
I came home from work one day and our daughter was retelling the story to me, now wanting to watch the movie. We figured that she, being younger than our son, needed more prep to understand the story.
We made our way through the original trilogy and the kids wanted more. They were totally into it. Talking about all the characters, occasionally confusing Han Solo with Luke Skywalker, but ok, no big deal. They were, to both of our surprise, really consumed by story. Our daughter even more than our son. There was of course frequent pausing of the movies to explain key plot points that might have gone over their heads, which wasn’t too surprising considering their age.
I recall seeing Return of the Jedi myself, in a movie theater in Warsaw sometime in the mid to late 80’s. And I remember being completely mesmerized. I’m hoping our kids will have similar experience with watching the movies as well.