Simian Farmer

Comic timing

Just after 9 PM last night, my wife Amy and I were watching Discovery Channel.  From my perspective, one of the last redeeming things about television.  At that time of the evening one of my favourite shows comes on, Daily Planet.  A one-hour science news show.  I eat it up and my wife sighs.  She has no recourse though since she watches soaps during the day.

The beginning of each show has one of the two hosts interviewing a science-type person about something generally quite sciencey.  Last night, Jay Ingram, one of the hosts, was interviewing a linguistics PhD student from MIT who was doing research on the effect that a person's name has on their perceived attractiveness by others.

As Jay was making this introduction, the screen cut to a shot of the interviewee.  Never one to keep her opinion to herself, my wife quickly piped up with the comment, "Wow, she must have a really ugly name."

The interview commenced with Jay Ingram asking:

(wait for it)

"So, Amy, how many test photos did you use in your initial investigation?"

My wife and I turned to each other on the sofa and burst out loud with laughter.  My darling wife a little red in the face at the same time.  What a great way to end the evening.

Little late for June

New page banner for the month is finally up, a week late.  But my excuse here is that I was on holidays for the latter half of May and didn't get back to wasting time at work until yesterday.  Uh, never mind about that last bit.

And I have all the old ones stored for your viewing pleasure here.

Still not a fan...

...of his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.

In his 'first clear pronouncement on gay marriage since his election', Benny has certainly asserted his stance on certain contentious issues within the Catholic Church.

The Pope also condemned divorce, artificial birth control and trial marriages, saying all of these practices were dangerous for the family.

"Today's various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages, as well as the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are instead expressions of anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man," he said.

I don't agree that the expressions of anarchic freedom to which he refers are attempts at the true liberation of man.  I see them as more of an unfettering from the restrictive chains with which the church would like to confine its members.

People are thinking for themselves a little bit more these days.  There is a ever-increasing disinclination of the huddles masses to gobble up the answers, swallow the Truth and follow the Way as set forth by church doctrine.  Keeping in mind, of course, that this ever-increasing mass is still in the vast minority.  There is an incredibly strong marriage between the church's desire to guide its flock and a populace craving to be led.  The problem being that both the leaders and the bleaters have their eyes closed.  Or at the very least are really quite squinty.

What would happen, I ask, inside of an institution where the leaders were open to change and the members were allowed, even encouraged, to question the establishment without the threat of recrimination or castigation from those in authority?

Obi-Wan Kenobi once said, "Who's the more foolish, the fool, or the fool that follows him?"

Damn, I wish I had more time to expound on this...

Misery

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas.

~Aldous Huxley

Aspirations

I'll be a little while yet putting together all the pics from our recent vacation.  In the meantime, here's my new favourite picture of the boy:

A little of this and that with a pinch of the other thing

First day back at work after two blissful weeks of holidays.  Must flex blogging muscles to get back into the swing of things.  A whole bunch of miscellany before returning to my preferred personally aggrandising introspections:

Want to find out what your own personal political leanings are?  Take the test over at Political Compass.  The link for the test is on the left hand side bar, aptly titled: Take the Test.  Apparently, I'm a Leftist Libertarian, sharing the same quadrant of the graph with such auspicious personages as Nelson Mandela and Gandhi.

Some weeks back, I posted a link to a website that purported to be the personal diary of Darth Vader, leading up to his climactic confrontation with Luke and Palpatine.  It was a great read.  With that in mind, the same fella who 'penned' it has started a sci-fi blog novel titled Simon of Space.  The first couple posts are just as well written as his previous Darth Side blog.  Check it out.  (Yes, of course I love the title of the blog!!)

The Fraser Family holiday was a rousing success, with all members of both my and my wife's families becoming completely enchanted with our son.  The huge slew of pics that have been acquired will be winnowed and posted here in the fairly near future.  A holiday synopsis too, probably.  See the first paragraph re: 'personally aggrandising introspections'.

My son, darling little 13 month-old devil that he is, has been keeping secrets.  Turns out that he has a fifth tooth, and has for a couple weeks now!  (Top jaw, to the right of first two front teeth, if you're interested in the details.)  And it still hurts when he bites your fingers.

I spent this morning, from 6 - 10 AM, clearing my inbox of Email messages.  Now I must get to work on the ones that require a little bit of response.  I SO preferred being on holidays to this.

More later...

Back from holly-days

My darling family and I arrived back home on Tuesday afternoon after spending almost two weeks cavorting with extended family members in the humid climes of southern Ontario.

Now comes the rather daunting task of filtering through the 300 or so pictures to decide which are most worthy of posting up here to share.  Between the ones I took, the ones my mother took and the amateur guy hired for my grandmother's 80th birthday party, there's a whole schwack of photos from which the best must be gleaned.

I'll also have a few things to say about the whole trip in general.  Being raised my whole life away from all those aunts, uncles and cousins gives me a different perspective on life which is brought into much sharper focus upon being suddenly surrounded by them.  Especially considering the fact that I have a son who is similarly being raised well away from them all...