Saturday, July 22, 2006

Email: Online dating ads [EH]

Women should not picture their own children [online]; it's not only dangerous but against international child protection laws.

Men with misplaced priorities will brag about their income because, well, they probably don't have enough inner personal traits to attract a partner, so they push the external ones. If I were a millionaire, I certainly wouldn't say so; you want others to approach you for who you are, not what you have. A real relationship involves partners, not a sugar daddy and a sugar sop. I think the smart man or woman avoids persons who can only deal with externals. I once told [MO], "Men who throw their money around tend not to have much of an inner life."

Press: Labyrinths offer retreat for prayer and meditation - HC

Chron.com | Labyrinths offer retreat for prayer and meditation: "ON a quiet morning this week, Elaine Pyle was a solitary figure walking the labyrinth at the University of St. Thomas.

Shoes off, she slowly worked her way around the pink-hued paths that ultimately lead to the center, where a rose pattern symbolizes the Virgin Mary. Sitting in a lotus-type position, she spent 10 minutes in prayer and meditation before beginning her outward journey."

Friday, July 21, 2006

Neologisms: tweep

Twerpy people (peeps).

Peeves: Cartoon Network

The tweeps on Cartoon Network aired a new show tonight called Squirrel Boy in which the squirrel character Rodney J. Squirrel (remember Rocky J. Squirrel?) dresses up like a moose (remember Bullwinkle?) and whose companion is a boy who looks suspiciously like Sherman from Tennessee Tuxedo. What a ripoff! Even worse, the tweeps are pimping a performance by a band called, of all things, Morning Wood. We can now watch Cartoon Network devolve into a squalid, brainless sector of the boob tube world.

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: Ally McBeal

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Press: Homeless alcoholics in Seattle find a home - NPR

"Bill Hobson is a homeless advocate in Seattle who runs a government program that one critic calls 'bunks for drunks.' It's a facility that offers a home for alcoholics in exchange for nothing. They can even continue drinking while living there."

(Here is a story about true compassion: Getting the worst drunks off the streets before they die there, providing them shelter with the acknowledgment that they will not stop drinking but the certainty that some help is better than no help. This story shows that the homeless really do want to get off the streets, but they don't when required to clean up their lives before or as a condition of accepting shelter. What would Mother Teresa do? Go to the homeless and unconditionally help them as they are, not as society prefers them to be.)

Press: China advances on all fronts - NPR

"The Chinese government has made two announcements. First, it's giving every vegetable a unique identity number and file. The Beijing News reports this is to ensure food safety during the 2008 Olympics."

(I have long said computers are essentially a means to store and control information, and we have yet to see the abuses which technology will be made to deliver. If China can do it with vegetables, they can do it with people. Eventually, I suspect, everything will be bar-coded or ID-tagged.)

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Musings: Why I never read Spiderman

I glanced at the Spiderman comic strip for today. The storyline was where I would have put it a day or two after the last time I saw it -- a month ago. It hasn't said anything new in a month! It used to not say anything new in a week -- just recap and recap. What age level is that strip written for anyway? Age 8 or age 98?

Press: Pair form unlikely team to fight prejudice (LAT)

"Timothy Zaal is a former neo-Nazi skinhead who served time behind bars on hate crime charges for assaulting an Iranian couple.

Matthew Boger is a gay man Zaal once beat unconscious [by Zaal] on a street corner in Hollywood.

More than two decades later, Zaal, 42, and Boger, 39, were brought together by their work at the Museum of Tolerance to fight hatred.

After their initial shock, the two men have become friends, even turning to each other for advice and consolation. On Sunday, they sat next to each other on a museum stage and shared their story of reconciliation."

Monday, July 17, 2006

Words: Twaddle

degree Twaddle (°Tw) -- a unit measuring the specific gravity of liquids denser than water. 1 °Tw represents a difference in specific gravity of 0.005 or 1/200, so a liquid of specific gravity S is measured at 200(S - 1) °Tw.

Peeves: Lipschitz

I'm sorry, but if my name were any form, variant, or spelling of Lipschitz, I would change it.

Musings: The Middle East is so f---ed up

Here is a clue to the so-called martyrs: It is only martyrdom when you allow yourself to be killed by others in a just cause. It is only sacrifice when you personally and willingly surrender your own life or liberty for a just cause. It is not martyrdom when you take your own life, not to mention the lives of others. It is not sacrifice when you take the life or liberty of others.

Questions: Get the joke or get the person

Would you prefer a partner who laughs at all of your jokes but doesn't understand you so well, or a partner who understands you very well but doesn't laugh at all of your jokes?