Plain View #83 - March 6, 2008

King of Kong

The Crucible

Peak by Roland Smith

Evolution

Science vs. Ignorance

Internet Cartoon

Lent

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I'd like to take a quick poll. Please leave a comment with your answers to these questions:

1. Who is your first choice of McCain, Clinton and Obama?
2. If it's Obama vs McCain, who will you vote for?
3. If it's Clinton vs McCain, who will you vote for?

Feel free to elaborate, but try to also give a simple answer to those three questions. If your answer is "I won't bother to vote," then say so.

My hypothesis is that Obama can get almost all of Clinton's supporters if he gets the nomination, but Clinton will get a much smaller percentage of Obama supporters if she somehow wins the nomination. My answers are

1. Obama
2. Obama
3. Clinton, but with much less enthusiasm

The Wards are back state side after a week across the pond in Ireland. To come: a series of posts chronicling our trip, complete with pictures, commentary, unwarranted opinions, and a glimpse into the Irish cuisine (black pudding included).

In other exciting news, our dog Wembley is a graduate! He has earned his first diploma in basic obedience. Sure, it was by the skin of his teeth and maybe a bit of luck and a glance the other way by the instructor, but he passed 4 out of 5 tests--even the 2 minute down stay. To celebrate, we put him in a kennel for a week while we went abroad. We will make this up to him by the purchase of a new stuffed toy for him to demolish. It is pretty pathetic watching him drag around empty shells of what used to be a penguin, dog, and whale.

We have also been a bit neglectful in posts detailing our progress on the house. I'll be working on remedying that in the near future--we are down to the final 2 rooms, friends. It has been a long haul, and I can't wait to be done!

To end--does anyone with a yard have any tips on controlling clovers and vine-like things that take over your grass? Our current solution has been hand-pull as much as possible, then mow it down so it just looks like short grass. We also have a slight problem with ants that just seem to move instead of die when the ant poison hits them. I think we are making them stronger...

~Kelly

Hi everyone!

I hope all of you had a good Easter Weekend. Mine was a bit out of the ordinary. Dominic was here from out of town to promote Gunplay, so he spent a few extra days and hung out with the gang. Thursday night, we all had a good meal at the Corner Bakery and then crossed the street to have a few sips at The Wine Stop. It was so great to see the whole gang gathered around the table, chatting as if years hadn't passed since we were all together like that. It's always great to have a big hug from Dom, and it was so great to hear about what's going on in his life.

I woke up Friday and spent some time reading Satisfy My Thirsty Soul, which I am reading through with Wendy and Sherida. It was a good time to spend focusing on God, since the rest of the day was all planned out already. In the afternoon, I caught at meal at Flame Broiler (yum!) and went to see Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day with my mom and my sister. Friday night, the boys were playing poker together for the first time in a long time. All the boys were there except Dan, but never fear, the internet hooked him up via webcam, and all were reunited. The girls were rather spread out that day, so I spent some of the evening running errands. I met up with my sister at my parents' place later on, and we headed over to Fullerton to drop off a couple things at the poker night. We ended up going to the Cheesecake Factory around 11 o'clock, and shared a nice spinach/cheese dip appetizer and a perfect lemoncello cream tart. It was a quiet girls' night, but we had a nice time dining outdoors into the late night.

Saturday, only a few hours after Ryan dropped off Ric, we got up early and started disassembling our kitchen things. The microwave was removed from the cabinets, the gas range detached, and Ric uninstalled the dishwasher. We got to rest a couple of hours before the delivery guys arrived. Unfortunately for them, it was a hot weekend, and our kitchen and laundry are located upstairs, so they had to work hard for their money. One of them was also allergic to cats. Oops. Anyway, our stuff got delivered safely. Ric rested a while before tackling installation, and I went out and did some grocery shopping and errand running. He spent all day working, and I spent most of the day reading up on how to use all of our new and technologically advanced appliances. We had a late dinner at Pick Up Stix and then drove to Fullerton to pick up Ric's car from Jon's house.

Oh, and before I forget - Saturday, we got the AWESOME news that Colin has returned home safely from Iraq! This was his third deployment, a voluntary one, and I can't say enough how proud I am to be his friend and how grateful I am for his service and for God's protection of him. It's so amazing to know that he is home with his wife and baby girl. What a wonderful Easter gift for the family!

On Easter Sunday, we went to church at the late service. It was a good service. I always appreciate our pastor so much. Unfortunately, that was the only thing Easter-related we did on Sunday. My family was rather lackluster about getting something together, and Ric's parents were sick, so we had nothing to do except enjoy the church service we attended. After church, we went to Lowe's to buy more supplies (I think some of their employees recognize us now) for installing the appliances, and then spent the afternoon working. Ric worked on the dishwasher while I unloaded all of our boxes of books. It was a productive day, and we got to relax with some tv towards the end.

Up this week: re-scheduled dinner with Judi, movies with the Agadonis, a screening of Expelled with Ben Stein in person or a hockey game on Thursday, and Phantom of the Opera (just me and Jenny). Hopefully I'll have some time to get things done at home!

Warren Ellis » Moved

My last conversation with Dreamhost having convinced me once and for all that they're a gang of chimps. Note for the future, guys - when you send someone a nastygram telling them they're overusing system resources, and that person writes back to ask what system resources, replying with the equivalent of "I dunno. Stuff" really just makes you look like wankers.

It appears that beloved comic scribe Warren Ellis received the same treatment that we did from the Dreamhost folks. We never did quite figure out what was wrong on our end but I think we're much better off these days.

CBS Cancels JERICHO!! Again!! -- Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

Producers created two endings for Jericho's second-season finale: a cliffhanger and a not-cliffhanger, and it looks like they'll be using the not-cliffhanger on Tuesday.

Ratings for season two are even lower than the season one ratings that precipitated the show's first cancellation.

I think it's for real this time. I really enjoyed this brief second season and I'm glad we got it. I think it would have been much worse for the show to end on the Season One cliffhanger. I'm sad that folks didn't embrace the show when it came back. I think this will have a negative impact on the idea of resurrecting a show, which is a bummer.

Robots: Man Designs a Robot to Kill Him -- And Succeeds

It begins....

An elderly man in Australia who didn't want to be placed in a home for assisted living built a robot to end his misery. He downloaded the specs for a robot that could point and shoot a gun, built it himself, then took it out to his driveway. There, the robot shot him down and killed him.

This is something right out of I, Robot. I'm almost more freaked out that someone actually designed a robot that could point and shoot a gun for personal, non -military use.