Category: Life

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This one goes up to 11

Will turned 11 today, which capped off a fine weekend of birthday oriented activities for the boy. Things got underway in earnest on Sunday with a trip to Zap Zone. Basically, it’s a place where you play laser tag, and, when not involved in combat where you shoot people on the other team with beams of light, you play arcade games. The web site says it is a “family fun center,” but it seems more like a teenage boy who hasn’t quite caught on to the whole girl thing fun center– though to be fair, there were several women/young mom-types playing in one of the rounds. I thought it was kind of fun; Will and his friends thought it was fantastic.

During the day today, Will and I took some time and went on a bike ride/picnic through Gallup park. We went out to this island of sorts in the river that Will and I had “discovered” on a previous ride. The idea was to have some quality time in a quiet place, but the park and the island were both pretty busy on this last day of the summer. Still, a nice time.

And then this evening we went with the DeWapps to Ichiban, a Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi place between Ypsi and Ann Arbor that Will is especially fond of. This is one of those places where they do the whole performance in front of the grill– probably not as good here in Ypsi-Arbor as it might be in the big city or in Japan, but still a lot of fun.

Here’s a minute’s worth of video highlights from the cake scene at the end of the Zap Zone party and from Ichiban:

I didn’t get the singing at Ichiban, but it involved more gong playing. As I think the video shows though, Will was pretty thrilled with the whole thing, so that’s all that matters. That and no one got hurt.

And tomorrow, it’s off to school. Finally.

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John McCain, because he cares so much

The Republicans are having a “subdued” convention start because of Hurricane Gustav, but let’s be clear about this: the reason the GOP is taking this approach is because W. et al screwed up the response to Hurricane Katrina was so completely. We know that during Hurricane Katrina, W. was busy congratulating Brownie for doing a heck of a job.

Happy Birthday, McCainBut what about John McCain? Well, as Salon.com reminds us here, Johnny was sharing a little cake with George while New Orleans was turning into a disaster zone. And as this clip (via boing-boing) makes clear, McCain must have been on some kind of frosting sugar-high when contemplating the seriousness of the mistakes FEMA was making in 2005:

So what have we learned? McCain really likes birthday cake and horses. And apparently he’s okay with unwed mothers, too.

It’s interesting because Republicans would say that the big plus that McCain has over Obama is experience– his wisdom, his statesmanship, his good judgment, etc. But when we actually look back at his judgment about some particular issues like Katrina, like saying we’ll be in Iraq for 1,000 years, like any number of other weird things McCain has done and said, Republicans say we should give him a break for speaking off the cuff.

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Chinese encountering the strange fortune cookie

Via boing-boing; I already knew that fortune cookies were actually an American invention and not a Chinese one, but this video kind of confirms that people on the street in China are not likely to know what to do with those little pieces of paper:

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Badly behaving debaters

Via my google read, I came across this Chronicle of Higher Ed article, “Debate Coach Fired and Team Suspended After Mooning.” Here are the first couple paragraphs of the article:

Fort Hays State University fired a professor and debate coach on Friday, just weeks after video surfaced on YouTube of his dropping his shorts in front of judges at a national tournament. The university also suspended its debate team, one of the best in the country, over concerns that the collegiate-debate circuit had become too uncivilized.

The coach, William Shanahan III, a professor of communication, got into a shouting match with a judge—and at one point briefly dropped his shorts and exposed his underwear—during the national tournament this past spring of the Cross Examination Debate Association.

The New York Times had a similar article. And here’s a pretty good commentary on the piece, “No ifs, ands, butts about civil debate.”

Curiously, both articles lack a couple of key links. First, there is the video– yes, actual video at the debate– of the event in question:

There are a variety of different remixes and such on YouTube too. It wasted my morning, I can tell you that.

The actual mooning event happens quickly (I didn’t see it the first time through) and at about the 36-37 second mark. Though the video goes on for quite a while after that. I watched about three minutes and then scanned through the rest. To be honest, I can’t really tell what the argument/fight here is about– I am guessing a disagreement about a decision. One article I read said it happened after the quarter final round. Note that the screaming match involves people saying “fuck” quite a bit.

And it turns out that Professor Shanahan has a blog, though he hasn’t updated it since June.

To me, it looks like these folks have just gone kind of nuts, cracking under the pressure of a big tournament, and– this is just a guess– sleep deprivation. These late tournament rounds often don’t begin until well into the evening after a full day of competition. And you have to remember that debate at this level is as much of a competitive and intense an event as the game to play into the “final four” at the NCAA basketball tournament. When I was in high school and college debate 20+ years ago, I saw plenty of arguments where an occasional “f bomb” was thrown. So in the broad sense, I don’t think the idea of a near brawl breaking out is that weird.

Still, just as you don’t routinely see basketball coaches throwing chairs across the court, you don’t usually see arguing coaches/debaters dropping their pants, if even briefly.

I also think this video is ample evidence of something that every academic already knows: just because you are a professor and you have a PhD doesn’t mean you are above behaving badly.

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Obama “Seven” ad: This one might have legs

Or so I can hope:

The upshot here is that McCain was asked during a press conference where he said everything was “okie-dokie” with the economy, someone asked him how many houses he owned, and he said he couldn’t remember and to “get back” with him on that. Here’s the video:

To be fair, the Obamas are hardly paupers themselves, though I have to assume that they own only one home. It’d be a pretty bad “don’t throw rocks if you live in glass houses” sort of political move if that weren’t the case. And, as I heard clarified on NPR this evening, the McCains really have “only” four homes they use on a regular basis: one in Virginia, two in Arizona, and one in California. The McCain spokesperson said that there were other “investment properties” in the mix.

Still, this whole thing raises a couple of important points.

First, John McCain is rich— like really freakin’ rich. Well, at least his wife is really rich– she inherited one of the largest beer distributor businesses in the country– but that seems like fair territory to me since so much was made of Kerry’s rich wife by George “my family has more money than God and Satan combined” H.W. Bush. Obama has had his own quasi-shady real estate dealings, but as FactCheck.org suggests, there’s really not a there there.

Second, how full of dementia do you have to be to forget and/or not be able to clearly answer the simple question “how many houses do you own?”

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Speaking of YouTube: who knew the popularity of farting videos?

I was browsing through boing-boing and came across an entry on “the original” farting preacher video:

Okay, it’s kind of funny– probably not four minutes worth of funny, but still.

And then I looked at the “related videos,” and saw that there was something like 40 related videos. It would appear that they all have the same premise: television preachers accompanied by strategically placed farting noises. And then I did a search for “farting,” and it appears this is a cottage industry on YouTube, farting noises accompanying politicians, actors, other celebs, movies, cartoons, you name it. Weird.

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Snow globe terrorism (and Las Vegas fancy eating)

I don’t know if I should be starting my Las Vegas narrative at the end like this, but I will anyway since it’s what is on my mind right now:

Annette and I decided to do carry-on luggage for this trip to keep it simple, and it was working great until we tried to go through security here in Las Vegas. I bought a couple snow globes to add to my collection– yes, I collect snow globes– and thought nothing of them crammed into my luggage. Apparently, TSA had other ideas. They told me that snow globes count in the liquids ban for carry-on luggage, and I was given the choice of either checking my bag or mailing my snow globes back home.

I opted for the checked bag route, and I was escorted around back toward the gate by a TSA person, who was perfectly pleasant about it all. “Snow globes,” I said to this woman. “Really?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” she said. “They tell us we’re supposed to be on the look-out for them, actually.”

“Yes,” I said, “because if we are allowed to pack snow globes in our carry-on luggage, then the terrorists win.” She kinda smiled at that. And a quick google search reveals I’m not the only one who thinks this about the TSA crusade snow globe purge, either.

Happily, that was the biggest hassle of the trip– well, so far, since I am writing this in the Las Vegas airport and not at home. There is that whole “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” spiel, but since I am actually still in Vegas, enjoying the free wifi, and I have some time to kill before the flight, I thought I’d give a run-down of the trip.
Continue reading “Snow globe terrorism (and Las Vegas fancy eating)”

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A Vegas prelude trip

In my experience, when I’ve told people that Annette and I are going to Las Vegas, there are two basic reactions. On the one hand, there’s “Oooh, where are you staying? You should go and see such and such,” and so forth. On the other hand, there’s “Oooh, why in the heck would you do that? Las Vegas is like a level of hell,” and so forth. There isn’t that much in-between.

Obviously, we’re in the first camp, though not because we are that interested in gambling. We went about eight years ago, and I think between the two of us, we lost $150. What Las Vegas was good for then (and hopefully will be good for this time around) is just gawking at all of the excess, all the extremes that are America. Las Vegas is the kind of town where it is perfectly acceptable to be walking down the strip at 3 am in a tuxedo or in your pajamas, where you can spend pretty much as much or as little as you want, where you can buy a Prada purse, look at a pretty convincing fake Eiffel tower, and get handed flyers for porn all in the same block.

But as a prelude to Vegas, we first stopped in Chicago and then Iowa. Chicago was an impromptu event. We ended up with a Priceline deal at the Hyatt Regency on Wacker, which was quite nice. I think we ended up paying more money for parking and a bar tab with our friends Troy and Lisa than we did on the actual room. But before we went out with Troy and Lisa, who I’ve known for like 25 or 30 years and who have given us a lot of good Vegas travel advice, Annette and Will and I went to the Navy Pier. It was pretty good people-watching, walking around, festive and park-like atmosphere. We ended up going through a maze (Will’s idea) that was over-priced but kinda fun, and a stained glass museum that was surprisingly good.  Okay touristy fun in beautiful summer weather.

Now we’re in Iowa with the Krause grandparents. While Annette and I are in Vegas, Will is going to be staying for the biannual “kid camp,”where the grandparents get lots of quality time with the kiddies. He’ll have fun, though sometimes Will’s only child-ness kicks in on visits like this.

Anyway, I was originally planning for a “computer blackout” period during this trip, but since I am teaching an online class right now, those plans have changed.  Just as well; it’ll give me a chance to post some pictures and such from the road.

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Tarantino’s Mind

I came across this via Johndan’s blog. If you are a fan of Quentin Tarantino and are willing to work your way through the subtitles (it was a film done in Brazil), it is well worth 15 minutes.