Zeus has been angered

I don't think anything needs to be said about this little incident.

What are 1 million mummies doing buried in the dessert?

That is a very good question.

Party!

Next Saturday is the big party. Working like a madman to get stuff done. Hope people shop up and have a good time.

Bundle of joy

"The Lawn, it's laughing at me." I said, looking out the window in a manner I hoped was reminiscent of Macarthur.

"What did you say dear?" my wife asked, not looking up from the sewing machine.

"Can't you hear it? Thousands of squeaky voiced blades of grass. They mock me. I must mow the lawn."

"Of course."

I went to put of work clothes and when I returned Rossana was glues to the window the way our cats are when birds stop at the feeder.

"Come here, quick!" she whispered.

I looked out the windows just in time to see a wobbly baby dear start to settle itself in a patch of low plants near the remains of our deck. In a moment, there was nothing visible but a pair of painted ears that swiveled around occasionally, scanning the area.

"It's adorable!" she searched the yard. "Where's the mama?"

"Off doing mother-dear things no doubt."

Her brow furrowed. "What is the baby wandered off and she can't find him?"

I could see that in the short time it had taken to put on pants two problems had suddenly manifested themselves.

"I can't mow today, can I? It might spook him. Or the mother." The grass was already abnormally high due to neglect.

"Should I call someone?" Rossana asked, looking worried.

Those of you who think that my wife does not possess maternal instincts due to her severe allergic reaction to human babies has never seen her around small furry animals. I could tell that she was ready to go the the store to get baby formula and knit it a sweater in case it was cold.

"We just have to leave it alone. It'll stay hunkered down until mom comes or dark. You can't go over there"

I have lived in Ohio most of my life and know something of the flora and fauna here. But I could tell my works were a kind of buzzing in my wife's ear.

"No touchy!" I said, firmer. She scowled at me.

I managed to mow some of the back 40, coming in for breaks now and then. The dear, whom I began to call 'junior' seemed happy to remain in the weeds. At one point the cats managed to wiggle their way out, causing alarm.  We got one back in quickly but Little One wandered off lite a 2 year old, staying just of of Rossana's reach until she finally grabbed her on top of the house.

When I finished up in the early evening Rossana emerged from her office and proceeded to tell me all about baby does and the associated do's and don'ts. The was consisted of all the things I had told her earlier but I nodded dutifully. Junior hung around until dark and was gone the next morning.

All was well until last week when I used the back door of the garage to get something from the shop. I opened the door and started through in the direct way I am know to walk and was met with the carefully folded bundle of junior right in the doorway. I flailed wildly trying to stop myself from tripping over him, smacking into the door, the frame and shelving units as the tyke also clumsily got up and made a break for the woods.

The second appearance prompted fresh concern from Rossana but I am happy to report that I saw mother and child today and I noted they looked just fine after I narrowly avoided hitting them with the lawnmower.

I'll take what I can get

Last weekend Rossana went off and did the Virginia Renfair solo while Lindsey and I went to Marcon. While Lindsey and I enjoyed an air conditioned hotel Rossana worked through 93 degree days. That is the kind of temperature that can KILL me. I literally stop thinking in that kind of heat. What's more, she kicked our asses on Saturday.  I started to feel like I'd lost my touch.

It's not like we were slacking off. I barely got out of the booth. Lots of interest but no buyers. It struck me that attendance was way down this year. There are several ways of telling. How crowded the bar is and how long you have to wait to get food in the food court are two fairly good indicators of attendance and they weren't good.

Compounding our suck was a lack of wifi in the dealers room. The hotel tried to extort $100 a DAY for it and I steadfastly refused. This meant doing a dance using my iphone to charge credit cards.

When Sunday hit things seemed to turn around for us. The biggest deal was the sale of Rossana's 'Courtesan' dress for $2,000. That sale felt great. In fact I was upbeat the rest of the day until load out (which meant going out into the heat). The sale of the dress helped our numbers. Without it Marcon would have been a fairly miserable show. I still love the con. They treat vendors great, helping with load in and giving us free pop and cookies. They also help with loadout. I just hope they can get attendance back up.

Oh, and I may have bought a death ray...

Why science matters.

I don't have kids, but you might. You might care about things like 'facts' and 'science'. If you do I beg you to have a quick look at this series of cartoons that explain the anti-vaccine Dr. Wakefield and why he is is so very wrong about vaccines and how he is quite possibly a criminal.

There's always a down side.

I took the plunge and bought an iPad. I talked myself into the expense by telling myself it will be able to be a second credit card machine using the cool new square device. But there can be no doubt that I was tempted by the promise of a device I've been dreaming about for a loooong time. Something like 6 years ago there was a neat little tablet device called the eePc. It was WinCE powered. I was able to install and read Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 days" on it. I've kept track of sales at shoes using simelar WinCE devices for years. I knew back then that a tablet PC was a viable product.  Netbooks are good but they still aren't a great surfing device despite the better battery life.

 So now I have the iPad and it is very good. Quick boot or instant on with amazing battery life. Stunning screen. Apps that work to remove the need for a mouse and a virtual keyboard that is actually very easy to use. So what's the down side? It has nothing to do with the device and everything to do with where it comes from. Shenzen China and a company called FoxConn. They make lots of electronics, including my iPad. So it sucks to read about the work conditions at the factory, where there have been 7 suicides this year.

FoxConn has now hired almost 100 Councillors and even brought in Buddhist monks to drive evil spirits out of the machines. Really? Evil spirits? Maybe it has nothing to do with spirits and everything to do with the absurd hours these kids are working. The lack of social contact. The depression of living in a kind of indentured servitude.  The factories are bright and clean. The employees aren't chained to the assembly line. They are free to leave...but to do what?

I don't have any real answers. I like my shiny toy, but I don't want someone to work themselves to death for it. I could wait an extra week or two if it let them slow down. I'd happily pay a little more if it went to the line workers. But the wheels of capitalism must turn and nothing can get in their way.

What happens to disarmed nuclear weapons?

A short but cool article with a killer pic.

Scientific proof

Did you even notice that incompetent people always seem really confident? I have. Hell, look at the 8 years of Bush. That man was certain we was smart and doing all the right things. He and his cronies thought they couldn't possibly be cocking things up.  Well, there actually a term for that. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. Here is some science for you.

Look at this dog!

I love Star Trek

But I fear this monstrocity would go to places in my colon where no sausage has gone before.

We're off on the road to....

Are YOU looking for adventure? Do you like to travel to strange foreign lands to meet exotic people and eat sausages? They do I have a deal for you!.

This summer (June 30- July 12) Rossana and I are going to Poland. The tour looks absolutely fantastic. The company that runs it only takes 15 people so it's very personalized. Right now they are looking for 3-4 more people. If you are interested check out their PDF flyer or call Eryk (who runs the tour) at 603-563-8054

Honestly, this thing sounds great. At one point we'll be dressing up to attend a battle re-enactment near Warsaw followed by a Sarmatian feast! What do Sarmatians eat? I have no idea, but I'm keen to find out.

Who is hamad?

That's a good question. After all, he is carving his name into an island off the coast of Abu Dhabi in letters 500 meters long.

No really, he is. Why? Because he is filthy rich and a bit of an eccentric. You can check out his brief wikipedia entry here and a video of his unusual truck:

I don't think I'm going anywhere

Not long after the earthquake hit Haiti we got an email from Hands On Relief, the group we worked with in Biloxi after Katrina. They were doing scouting and working with NGO's to see how they could best help out.

I just went to their web site to see how things were progressing and they have a hell of a good start. There are doing demolition/debris clearing, helping with temporary shelters and working to increase their volunteer capacity. They've fotten a lot of help from the Canadian Army which is more than I can say for FEMA when we were in the 9th ward.

Part of me wants to go. Even though things are far worse than they were in Biloxi. There is a far greater risk from diseases, medical care is very basic and accommodations are pretty damn spartan. To say nothing of the fluctuating security situation.

But I still wanted to go.

But working outside the past week had let me to an unpleasant realization. I don't think I am in good enough shape to do the work needed there. It's just that simple. I'm 42 and Rossana has a few years on me. Demo work is backbreaking. And I do not do well in hot weather. They need young, strong, healthy people or people with greater technical skills than I posses. I just don't know how helpful I would be even if I did go.

So I guess I'll be donating to Hands On directly, and if you have a few spare bucks, I'd appreciate if you'd consider doing so too. Or you could donate to the Red Cross or the charity of your choice. Let's not forget these people now that the camera's have gone and they are no longer leading the news.

Thanks

I don't feel good...

The recent events concerning pedophile priests had given me pause. Haven't we been here before? Indeed we have. Hundreds of children abused in the US. A massive scandal. Millions in fines against the Church. And then things died down.

Then came the report about the workhouses in Ireland, more pedophiles come to light, then the Ferns Report, revelations about a secret document used to suppress accusers under threat of excommunication, more child abusers in Germany and now the revelation that the man who was supposed to oversee and handle this kind of thing is none other than former Cardinal Ratzinger aka The Pope.

The accusations are coming fast and hard now and the media smell blood in the water. The church is of course, trying to cover this up. Issuing denials and carefully worded statements and apologies. Fall guys are taking the blame. It's starting to sound very familiar. You might not be old enough to have experienced it first hand, I was only a child, but things are starting to play out like Watergate. And as Nixon observed, "it's not the crime that gets you, it's the cover up"

Ratzinger will have a very hard time squirming out of this because (by papal decree) ALL abuse cases are supposed to be handled by the Vatican and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (a very pretty name for what historically has been called The Inquisition). He was supposed to be the TOP man. I'm sure the office was responsible for many different tasks, but surely child rape and abuse cases were a high priority. Right? Right?

Then I watched this short documentary:

aaaaaaaaand, now I'm pissed. Very pissed. I like to think that I am fairly even handed. I believe firmly that there are almost always two sides to every story. I like to play the (no pun intended) Devils Advocate. Despite my distaste of organized religion I accept and admit that it can have a positive affect of many peoples lives. And when you consider that there may be somewhere around 50 million children worldwide who are being raised as Catholics it may be inevitable that some of the hundreds of thousands of priests would be pedophiles. Any group with these numbers would likely have this problem. But it's how the Church handles the problem that really gets me.

Despite the recent events the Church continues to plod along like it's the 12th century. It is an entity unto itself. Beholden to no one. It ignores secular laws. It pays hush money. And worse, it continues the same behavior of shifting priests around, blocking police inquiries and above all failing to help the victims.

By the way, did you know that when a diocese pays off sexual abuse victims millions of dollars not one cent of it comes from the Vatican? Nope. They're like McDonald's franchises. So the money comes from the diocese and that money comes from parishioners. Tadaa! Members of the flock pay to have their children raped.

I don't want to pick on the Catholic Church, but it's a top-down organization and it's very large and it KNOWS what the fuck is going on. The Pope could change how the church deals with pedophiles tomorrow. It could initiate sweeping change. But it won't.

It will pray for the victims. Sure. Fat lot that will do. But but it won't change. Why? Because at it's very core, at it's very heart it believes that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

The thing that might force change (whether the Church wants it or not) is that there is very little secrecy anymore. For good or ill we are very much a confession culture these days. What used to remain a deep secret is now shared much more easily. People no longer believe that such atrocities are impossible. And now the media and lawyers want a piece of the pie. Good luck keeping them at bay Mr. Ratzinger.