Another one done.

I found out on Monday that my paperwork for admission to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit came through. I'll be going down to D.C. in August for my swearing in. That makes a total of 4 bars passed (Patents, PA, NY, & DC). Go me!

Gender roles

[WARNING: this thread makes many references to the World of Warcraft, if you have any questions about specifics, post a comment and I'll try to address them.]   Me: You have not had anyone use the "/flirt" or "/kiss" emotes on any of your avatars??? It's happened to me three times already and all to the same character N: No, I have not. Me: *shrug* I'm not doing anything to encourage it N: I have had one random person give my newbie gnome some linen bags. but there was no flirting and my warrior has never been flirted with Me: huh N: and shes level 58 Me: wow maybe Lindera is just a looker N: heh is it people you're grouped with? or just people passing by? Me: well one (the third time) was one was as described in the blog: I was heading to Ironforge to do the fire feast quest and this guy just wanted to tag along and next thing I know we're fighting orcs in Wetlands to get through but it wasn't like I needed to group with anyone to get through, but I appreciated the help because the Orcs were at level 20ish and I was still only level 17. Well the point is that this 3rd guy was completely random too. He was a level 27 paladin. ok so I flirted back with him - he was at least nicer than the first NE guy in the newbie area The first time was just as completely random in the Night Elf starting area - the guy wouldn't leave me alone N: ah, you are flirting too :-) Me: well *blush* just with the 3rd guy the first guy was obnoxious so I didn't really respond the 2nd guy had to deal with my residual distrust after the 1st guy so I wasn't very receptive but I gave the 3rd guy the benefit of the doubt of course I didn't tell him I was a guy and it was kinda fun am I a bad girl? N: no, but you are going to end up flirted with more *grin* Me: well if its by someone completely different that it'll just start getting weird well it is weird now - it'll just be weirder I'm shocked that you haven't been hit on but I have by 3 completely different guys N: I did once get hit on in Redridge. on my paladin Me: oh? N: never on my warrior, never on my priest, never on my shaman, never on my druid, never on my hunter... Me: human female paladin? N: yes. one character out of 12 *grin* every character I have is female elf, dwarf, human, troll, undead, gnome... Me: this is just completely weird what am I doing differently? What happened to you in Redridge? N: some guy /flirted with me. i didn't respond he did a few times, and left. *shrug* oh, and he whispered me to complement my character's ass I put him on my ignore list. Me: ah N: no idea if he said anything more after that *grin* I have a "no sexual harassment" policy *grin* Me: it wasn't that bad with me they all started out fine and except for the first guy who was just an ass, the other two were quite nice N: nobody I've grouped with has ever flirted with me. You must come across more like a "real girl" than I do. Me: this is all new to me I've never been the target of flirting in quite this way before its weird N: so they initiated conversations? Me: yeah N: or invited you to groups? and how do you respond? Me: the first guy invited me to a group this was on my first day playing, I didn't know better so I accepted. the other two chatted me up first Maybe I'm just naive as a woman N: there must be some key difference in how we respond, i'm thinking. What do they "chat you up" about? Me: well, like I said the 3rd guy asked me where I was headed when I was on my way to Ironforge it was an empty stretch of road and he asked me if I minded some company I figured I was going through territory that was over my head so I didn't mind he followed me most of the way until we got to the orcs N: ok Me: he must have been checking out my ass the entire time bastard N: *grin* Me: *sigh* I probably would have too in his shoes i don't remember what happened with the 2nd guy N: animated ass doesn't do it for me *grin* Me: men are weird like that N: give me that real-life booty :-) Me: sure sure but suggestions of bodies are often enough for many gyus N: I wonder if this will occur less as you get to higher level areas. Me: *shrug* but it has been an interesting experience N: i wonder if it's because i tend to take leadership in the groups i'm in. people tend to view that as less feminine Me: well I pretty much solo for the most part N:so do i but in groups i know what i'm grouping for, where i'm going, and i tend to initiate. Me: sure, so do I, and when i'm in quest groups, its all business except for these 3 times and I think I was I was in transit in all three cases not in active combat at least for the 1st and 3rd anyway i don't remember much about the 2nd N: hmm i've never grouped for transit. Me: again, the 1st one was a mistake the 3rd because of the situation N: *grin* I'm just wondering if that's why I've never been flirted with! maybe there's a whole slew of people out there looking to "help" new female characters travel Me: Lindera is a great character to play Hunter's are fun I suppose if it helps get her levelled I'll take all the help I can get *shrug* it's just slightly disturbing N: hmmm... maybe it is just that we "real girls" learn early how to discourage that sort of thing in real life and it translate into WoW on a subconcious level. Me: that's possible N: i do find it really interesting that it's happened to you so often. and so rarely for me, in all the time I've played. Me: and only one character N: but I can only guess as to why. Me: yeah

To N:

Maybe it's something like this:

http://www.worldofwar.net/comics/heroesofwow/chapter13/index.php

The Dangers of WoW

[Depending on your browswer setting, this may be easier to read if you saved it to your desktop first then opened it from there.]

Gender Identity (follow up)

I was playing WoW the other day as Lindera, my female Night Elf avatar. I had to make a run to the three major cities in the Allliance and had to go through some territories that are way beyond my character's level to get to them. On my way to one city Lindera was hailed by a male human paladin avatar at a higher level than Lindera. He asked me where I was headed too and asked if I would mind the company. I didn't and acquieseced to the company. We ended up going through several rough patches that Lindera wouldn't have survived on her own. What was interesting was that he kept flirting with Lindera. I did nothing to suggest either way what gender I was, but it was fairly obvious from our conversations he was a male. Either way, it seems to me that Lindera gets chatted much more than my Benzoin, my main avatar who's a human male paladin. Benzoin has to actually initiate conversations. Lindera gets them without trying. I actually found myself falling prey to a similar bias. The guild leader of the Guild the Benzoin is a member has a female avatar and I thought she was a woman before she confirmed that she was (unless she's lying to me). I've always treated her differently than the male avatars I've come across. I have no idea how old she is, but we had a conversation last night in which she came across as being a teenager. But I still treated her differently.

Gender Identity

This keeps coming up in conversations I've been having so I figure I may as well post it. I guess it makes sense. At first I didn't agree with the result and if anything I was a littel embarrassed about it. But the more I think about it, the more true I think it is. I guess its all part of finding out who you are.

Tickle: Tests, Matchmaking and Social Networking: "you're 59% feminine

This is based on how you scored on a variety of traits that, founded on classic research and our own studies, are typically associated with women.

You're also 41% masculine, which is based on how you scored on traits that are typically associated with men. When we compare your results with other men it shows that you are somewhat more feminine than other men.

But what is gender identity exactly? A person's gender identity is defined by the extent to which they see themselves as masculine or feminine. Every person possesses both masculine and feminine qualities to some degree, however the extent to which each person has these qualities differs widely. While you were taking the test, we calculated your scores in 6 areas typically defined as masculine and 6 areas typically defined as feminine."

Fear

"...Maybe sometime we don't do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don't want to look scared so we go and do the wrong thing just because it's dangerous. We're more concerned with not looking scared than judging right..." - Will Parry in The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman.

reading to kids follow-up

The child I was assigned to didn't show up on Firday so I had the same substitute child I was given the last time the kid I was assigned to didn't show. He was much more interested in being read to. We went through 4 books in half an hour. Admittedly they were short books, but he was happy to go through them.

Kamikaze Briefing by Douglas Adams

http://www.vs.uni-kassel.de/~fromm/Files/Kamikaze_Briefing.txt

Speaking

I represented the local bar association at the Naturalization ceremony held today at the local Federal Courthuose. I wasn't given much notice and having gone throught he process myself, I didn't expect there to be much for me to do. Well, apparently they do things her a bit differently than where I got naturalized. I had to make a statement on behalf of the bar association. Needless to say, I completely flubbed it. I will do this again at some point, and I will be better prepared next time. Maybe I'll actually write something down in case I get completely flustered again and forget everything I was going to say. Ah well. One of the judges did tell me to come again next time because my story was something that new citizen would like to hear - new citizen lawyer and all that. I think I will. I am so not a public speaker!

Today is also the last day that I will be reading to the child assigned to me. Maybe that will be better.

reading to kids

I started doing this one week voluteering activity where I read to kids during my lunch hour. It's only for this week. The kid I was assigned to isn't very communicative and I don't think I'm doing all that great a job of reading to her. My wife commented that I'm not very animated when I read to my kids so it doesn't entirely surprise her that the kid I was assigned to was yawning whie I was reading to her. While I agree that my animation is all mental (my mind is wild with imagery with anything I read) and may not be the best person to read to a child, my son loves books and I think him watching me read by myself has influenced that. But the point is its not just me! The kid I was assigned to didn't show up yesterday and I got a substitute kid, if you will. English was not his first language - it was his third (following Turkish and Russian - an interesting coincidence as I'm on the board of the local refugee settlement group) and he was much more animated that the kid I was assigned to. We'll see if she shows up today or if I go back to the refugee.

Friends or lack thereof...

My wife and I don't have any friends here and its starting to be felt. We don't have anyone who wants to hang hang out with us. Maybe there might be a few who do, but they already have circles of friends and family that we can't break into. All we ever do is spend time with the kids and that's all well and good, but not quite the same thing. The last time we got to hang out was on my birthday when we got a sitter to watch the kids and we went to dinner and because we spent too much time at the meal we skipped the movie and just wandered about town spending time together and that was much more fun that I've had doing most anything else in a long time. We didn't do anything - we just went to a bookstore and walked around. So other than each other, we havent met anyone who just wants to spend time with us doing absolutelty nothing without the need to schedule and plan something. Of course if its just us, we usually have the kids with us and then it isn't really hanging out - its keeping an eye on the kids and interacting with them and its not the same thing. Its damn frustrating. When friends do come over from out of town its just so relaxing to not have to do anything with them. Actually planning a reason to get together is tiring work and I'd rather just spend time being int he presence of people I like than having to feel forced to think of something to do.

Lakeweed

For the need to get out of the house, we took the kids to the beach yesterday. All jokes aside about there not really being beaches on a lake - and I'm usually the one to make them - there's no other word to call the beaches on Presque Isle. They've done an amazingly great job with them there. And because you can't see the Canadian shore, the illusion is quite good. There's the whole lack of sea salt smell and the fact that the water isn't salty but I can live without it for these purposes. The kids love it and its fun to wathc them just enjoy being kids. The point of this particular topic was that while I was standing there looking at the gorgeous sunset and taking the sights and the view, I noticed algae washed up on the shore. The first thing that came to my head completely naturally and without any hint of disconnection from reality was that I needed to "loot" the " Stranglekelp" to add it to my "Blackmouth Oil" for my "Elixir of Water Breathing ".  ("Ummm, it just might allow you to breathe under water for a period of time, but I'm just guessing so don't hold me to that .") *sigh* can anyone say "Obessession"?

Science and Miracles

Science and Miracles

A great sermon by Rev. Victoria Weinstein (just to put some of her comments in reference, I think she's Canadian) on December 11, 2005 that you need to take the time to read. Some quotes:

"For some people, Truth is a material thing you can find by working hard in a lab or studying the stars, and truth is something you can eventually find and prove. For others, truth is more of a moral reality; something you find by an interior process of seeking and reflecting on, for instance, the teachings of spiritual leaders. In my experience, most religious people accept that you can never have a final report that proves the reality of this kind of Truth once and for all. Religion gets into trouble when it tries to pretend it is science, and science get into trouble when it tries to pretend that moral, spiritual truths aren' t just as important to the human endeavor as provable, scientific truths.

When Einstein said, "science without religion is blind, and religion without science is lame," he may have been kidding. But facetious or not, I think he was suggesting an important idea. Although he was not a traditionally religious man, Einstein was a reverent man, and I like to think of reverence as the bridge that can connect the aims and methods of science and religion. I don' t think Einstein meant it at all sarcastically when he said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." When we think of what Einstein comprehended – cosmic equations that no one else had ever fully grasped before – it' s easy to see how he felt that something miraculous was being revealed through the laws of science. He probably didn' t believe in a supernatural origin for the realities he was uncovering, but he was deeply awe-struck by them nonetheless. Belief in supernatural causation is not a prerequisite for reverence. A person can be both reverent and religious without believing in a supernatural being. For some people, the merely natural is miraculous enough. It was for Einstein. It was for Walt Whitman.

Both science and religion have their prophets, both have rituals, both have fanatics, both have skeptics. They are often in such tension, I think, because they mistakenly believe that their worldviews are inherently opposed. To me, science and religion are no more naturally opposed than cooking and poetry. Cooking is about earthy transformation, alchemy and practical application, but still requires vision and creativity. Poetry is imaginal and emotional, intangible in the ways it connects human beings, and nourishes the human organism in a different way, but no less valuable, than cooking."

"...science handles the ‘how' questions of nature, and religion handles the ‘why' questions of existence..."

"Until this past few weeks, I have never understood why the teaching of evolution so upsets people even as late as the year 2005. It can' t just be that the Bible tells us that God created the world in six days and that science flatly denies this: there are plenty of things taught in the Bible that are contradicted in the textbooks of the average public school kid. What is it about evolution that so particularly upsets these people?

I think what most upsets them, frankly, is the possibility that human life arose out of a random accident of genetic mutation and natural selection, and not out of a divine plan, where we are the fulfillment of God' s dream. Not only is this a scary thing for some people to contemplate, as they believe it leaves the whole human species floating alone in the cosmos, utterly alone in creation, but it' s ego-smashing -- and human beings are nothing if not creatures of great ego. Darwin' s work, and the work of all evolutionary biologists, asks us to consider that humans are not the apex of all creation and are, in fact, just a group of primates with really advanced consciousness who are truly sisters and brothers with all other living organisms. For some people, that' s a beautiful invitation. For others, it' s an insult, and perhaps worse than that, it' s just not miraculous enough.

It' s not miraculous enough that we should have this extraordinary mechanism called a brain, and an opposable thumb, and the ability to ponder our own existence and to yearn from our souls for someone and something to love, that we can' t live without Love even though it has nothing to do with our physical survival. It' s not miraculous enough that we should have survived lo these millions of years, moving our way up from blobby sea things to weird bird things to hairy primate things to upright human things who fly around the world, and even to other planets, in enormous machines contrived by our own unquenchable curiosity.

That' s not miraculous enough, and I don' t know why. I don' t know why, especially at this time of year, why it' s not miraculous enough for one of us – one of those very advanced primates—to come along and try to totally re-order society based on the values of justice, radical hospitality and love -- instead of the values of power-over and competition and suspicion that we still live by today -- and to risk his life doing so, and to heal and inspire people just by his presence.

That' s not miraculous enough, so we' ve got to have his mother be a virgin and we' ve got to have angels singing in the skies at his birth, and we' ve got to give him a halo and put him on a throne in heaven instead of here among us. It' s not miraculous enough that this advanced primate felt close enough to the great "I Am" to call it Father, to pray to it as a beloved parent, to trust that this immortal, invisible, eternal presence he knew as YHWH wanted us only to love one another, to share what we have, to put away our swords, and to live by an ethic of love and brother and sisterhood. That' s not miraculous enough?"

"'How do you know God didn' t ‘spake' to Charles Darwin?'
I don' t. And the whole thing is still pretty miraculous to me, either way."

OKCupid! The Personality Defect Test

Hee hee! This was amusing...

OKCupid! The Personality Defect Test: "

Hand-Raiser You are 85% Rational, 71% Extroverted, 28% Brutal, and 28% Arrogant.

You are the Hand-Raiser, that annoying kid in class who always had an answer for everything. No doubt, as a child you probably sat in the front of the class, anxiously waving your hand back and forth in the air while your teacher desperately tried to avoid calling on you because you were the ONLY fucking kid that answered her questions. Clearly, the key traits of your personality are your rationality and your extroversion. You are like a little talkative calculator, in other words. You also tend to be rather gentle and less arrogant than most people. Your presence is a bane to everyone's existence, because you are too nice for your own good and you absolutely will not shut up. So what is your defect, then? Well, you're boring, and when you're not boring, you are just plain annoying with your ultra-logical responses and constant need to talk to others. So keep waving that hand in the air, son. I'm still not calling on you. You are too logical, you talk too much, and your humility and gentleness only makes me hate you more, because they make me feel like I almost SHOULDN'T hate you. But I do. Big time. And by the way, the more you wave your hand in class--your extended hand becoming nothing more than a blur as you insanely wave it, thinking we can't see it--the more smug satisfaction the teacher takes in watching the look of excrutiating pain cross your face as you agonize over not being called on, and the longer we'll wait to call on you, just because we absolutely love torturing you so. To put it less negatively: 1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive. 2. You are more EXTROVERTED than introverted. 3. You are more GENTLE than brutal. 4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant. Compatibility: Your exact opposite is the Brute. "

If you've got 45 minutes to spare...

...watch this video clip:
Robert Newman History of oil
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7374585792978336967

Introspection

I wonder if I had WoW when my family was away whether this blog would have as much in it as it does now. Probably not. I'd probably have been too busy playing to think about it.

Wisdom

"'...You have a strange way about you, Dr. Grumman. You ever spend any time among the witches?'
'Yes,' said Grumman. 'And among academicians, and among spirits. I found folly everywhere, but there were some grains of wisdom in every stream of it. No doubt there was much more wisdom that I failed to recognize. Life is hard, Mr. Scoresby, but we cling to it all the same.'"
- from The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

Birthday celebrations

We got a babysitter and went to dinner and were supposed to go to a movie, but dinner took longer than we expected so we went shopping instead. Well not really shopping, but we did buy some things. Then we spent several hours in Borders just browsing the books. We stopped in the art section and were just engrossed in what we were reading. We bought this really thick book that's really fascinating that I will probably blog about some point. We just spent the evening enjoying each other's company which was much better than going to see a movie I wasn't really interested in seeing anyway. After we got home and put the kids to bed, I played WoW until 5am. :-)  So yes, a good birthday overall!

life

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." - Albert Einstein.

Dreams

"But where is it written that all our dreams must be small ones?" Byron in Babylon 5

life

"We are star stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out. " Delenn in Babylon 5

Belief

"We all believe in something... greater than ourselves, even if it's just the blind forces of chance. " G'Kar in Babylon 5

Politics

"Physics tells us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. They hate us, we hate them, they hate us back. And so, here we are, victims of mathematics! " Londo Mollari in Babylon 5

God

"If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth... for understanding. Too often, we assume that the light on the wall is God, but the light is not the goal of the search, it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it. Similarly, someone who does not search - who does not bring a lantern - sees nothing. What we perceive as God is the by-product of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light... pure and unblemished... not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe - God looks astonishingly like we do - or we turn to look at our shadow and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose, which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty and in all its flaws; and in so doing, better understand the world around us. " - Citizen G'Kar Babylon 5

Fairness

"I used to think it was a terrible thing that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'what if life *were* fair, and all of the terrible things that happen to us came because we really deserved them?' Now I take great comfort in the general unfairness and hostility of the universe. " Marcus Cole in Babylon 5

Gaming, Godhood, Life, Death and The Doctor

MC: Anything exciting going on/‎?

Me: umm

I've been playing WoW

not much else is new

MC: Ah

Is it as addictive as it seems to be?

Me: it is

there's an OCD aspect in levelling the chacters

MC: OCD?

Me: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

ooh ooh if i spend another 10 minutes I can get my fishing skill up to an even number!

but when I do that I can go get more training from the expert fisherman

but on my way to the fisherman I'll just stop off at the Auction House and sell all this extra stuff I have

and while I'm at it, I'll just stop off at the mail slot to mail all this fish I caught to my other character who's a better cook than this one

oh and I need to stop off at the alchemist to pick up more vials for more potions

MC: Is it important to be a skilled fisherman, then?

Me: well not necessarily important

its just another aspect of the game

its an easy skill to learn and it can be profitable

there are also a number of quests associated with them if you're willing to put in the time to get your skills up

MC: What you were just describing sounds eerily like a day out running errands in real life.

Me: well I think there's an element of exporting yourself into your characters

I would do the same thing too - i.e. consolidate trips

MC: Hmm ... I always thought the attraction was to create a character that was everything you wanted to be but weren't.

Me: umm I have no idea

it''s not exactly an unlimited forum

MC: Like in Starcraft -- you never play the humans, you always make yourself into the super-advanced alien race with superior technology and mysterious secrets.

:)

Me: me?

or a general "you"?

MC: You you.

Me: well I think that's more playing style than anything.

I really like playing Humans or Protoss against the computer

but against a live opponent i prefer protoss's defensive capabilities

I don't care for playing the Zerg because I find them difficult to defend

and I like a more balanced gameplay than just all out attack

but again, not an unlimited forum

MC: Hmm ... are you sure it's not just a manifestation of latent desires of godhood? Your explanation is far too mundane.

Me: I have no "desire" for godhood. I know I am a god.

so there's nothing to desire

lol

speaking of which, its been a while since we've played Starcraft

MC: It has.

Want to play sometime?

Me: of course

not sure when though

WoW is likely to keep me occupied for a while
MC: Forever -- isn't that the idea? :)
Just set aside a bit of time for Starcraft.
Me: well so long as their servers are running anyway
MC: Servers don't die, do they?
Me: projects that run on them do
everything dies eventually

MC: "Everything has its time and everything dies."
To quote.
Me: whom?
duh
that's Doctor Who
isn't it?

MC: Oh, you recognized it? Well done.

Judge to lawyers: Play the game - Jun. 7, 2006

Judge to lawyers: Play the game - Jun. 7, 2006: "Judge orders lawyers to play game
Acrimonious attorneys told to settle dispute by playing a round of 'rock, paper, scissors.'"

WoW update

Did I mention what kind of a HUGE time suck World of Warcraft is? I've been playing the game since last Wednesday I stayed up till 3 am then. On Thursday it was 3 again, then 4 on Friday and 5 on Saturday. It was 3 on Sunday and I only skipped Monday because I feel asleep putting my son to bed. Last night I was up till 5am this morning. I am such a geek.

The Dilbert Blog: Relativity

The Dilbert Blog: Relativity

More on this later...

Spousal Add-on's

MC: Doing anything to celebrate tonight?

Me: we're going to dinner at a Japanese restaurant

and then going to see X-Men 3

MC: Very good

You have my approval.

Me: :-) thanks

MC: And be sure to let them know at the restaurant that it's your birthday; if you're lucky, the entire staff may gather around your table to sing you something in Japanese and then present you with a frosting-coated sushi roll with a candle stuck in it.

If you're even luckier, they won't.

Me: well at the Japanese restaurant that we used to go to in buffalo they would give you a fake robe and a fake headdress and take your picture

MC: A fake robe like the emperor's new clothes? That could be ... interesting.

Me: well just enough of a robe so it looked like you were wearing one in the picture

MC: Oh.

I suppose they could force you into a karaoke performance.

Me: I've never been to this particular restaurant so that could be a possibility

MC: There's got to be something humiliating! That's what makes birthday parties fun if you don't have games.

Me: well it'll just be me and my wife

MC: She might enjoy seeing that.

Me: I'm sure she would

MC: Then be sure to mention the idea.

No need to say it was from me, though, you can take the credit.

Me: I think she will probably figure it out on her own

although she probably won't be willing to step out on a limb to actually tell anyone

MC: That's the basic flaw in this celebration: you're missing a loud, raucous individual.

Me: minor difficulty

and a point i fail to see the drawback in

MC: It's one of those things where you don't see all the advantages until you've actually obtained and installed one.

Me: that would require a major overhaul of the Wife system I have in place right now and frankly I'm quite satisfied with its current features

I don't think I'm ready for a change that dramatic

MC: Oh no, not at all. This would merely be a buddy unit for special celebrations -- for those times when she would like to see you singing show tunes on a public stage, but just can't bring herself to say the magic words.

Me: an add-on, if you will?

MC: Sure, something along those lines.

Me: heh, well we live in Erie, so that's not going to happen any time soon

unless someone moves here

or we move out

MC: Never say never. Keep searching! While you're having dinner, look for unusually loud people at the surrounding tables, or someone in the rows behind you in the theater who annoyingly speaks every line of the film at the same time the characters on-screen do. Those are the people you're looking for.

Me: this coming from the guy who we have trouble hearing over the softness of his voice :-)

MC: Exactly! I have an expert knowledge of the field and understnad the need.

Me: the need, but not the application

You're talking ivory tower speech

all theory no action!!!!

We need deeds not words!

Except in this case - we'll skip my b-day for any actual implementation

MC: I don't have the same need that you do, though: loud addition to embarrass you in public. Me, I embarrass myself quite adequately. No, what I need is a nimble-footed acrobat to catch things I knock over.

So keep your eyes open for any talented waiters tonight. Shove your sake cup off the table or something.

Hee hee! BBC NEWS | Europe | Dalai Lama awards Tintin and Tutu

BBC NEWS Europe Dalai Lama awards Tintin and Tutu: "'I give great thanks to God that he has created a Dalai Lama. Do you really think, as some have argued, that God will be saying: 'You know, that guy, the Dalai Lama, is not bad. What a pity he's not a Christian'? I don't think that is the case - because, you see, God is not a Christian.' " - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Gaming and Addiction: BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Just one more

BBC NEWS UK Magazine Just one more

WoW Update

This game is everything I hoped it would be. I've stayed up until 3am the last two nights playing it!!! I've been good and have only started playing until after the kids are in bed (10:30ish) and I've been doing my chores.

 

I was playing Lindera last night and someone started hitting on her. I'm not sure if he was hitting on my avatar or on me - I'm not on a role playing realm and he was speaking in plain English which made him seem like a noob so I just ignored his "advances" on my character and kept it "professional". He blew "me" a kiss and promised to keep up on Lindera's whereabouts. What can I say? Night Elf females dance well :-)