English To Become "Official" European Language

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vordskontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru...

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Giddy With Delight - part 3

Caps 4, Pens 3. Ovechkin and Crosby both score hat tricks! Epic.

Giddy With Delight - part 2

Just heard from Rachael. She's just returned from her defense, and has been awarded "Distinction" for her costume design work for Medea. She also aced her final semester - 4.0 - which was enough to give her Magna Cum Laude.

Giddy With Delight - part 1

A box o' Amazon goodies showed up today. Inside was a copy of my favorite (and long-lost) book from childhood, "The Mad Scientists' Club" by Bertrand Brinley. Excellent stuff, especially if you have a young man in your life. This will be devoured immediately and then placed on my new "grandkids" bookshelf.

Also in the box was Victor Davis Hanson's "A War Like No Other", a look at the Peloponnesian War. Perfect for a history buff like moi.

I'll mention in passing how disappointed I am in Blogger that "Peloponnesian" is flagged as misspelled. Heathens.

Contrasts

Liz and I enjoyed a nice evening of baseball last night. Rain threatened, but the umbrellas were only out during pre-game activities. Our guys won rather convincingly, and used quite a few tools to do it. In the eighth, a walk, stolen base, sacrifice bunt and suicide squeeze scored one run, followed up by a towering homer. Little ball and big ball. Big fun.

The folks sitting next to me came down from Frederick (we were playing the Keys, a Baltimore Oriole farm club), and it was cool to talk to them. They're just as committed to "their boys" as the regulars are for our guys. One of the Keys coaches came by before the game and shook hands and said hello, he recognized them from the dugout. I love minor league baseball for things like that.

The night before last, the Washington National's closer was assigned to Potomac to pitch an inning as rehab before being activated from the disabled list. He came in, threw nothing but fastballs and was rocked for five runs in one inning. By single-A players. The Keys went through the whole lineup on him. He'll probably be back with the parent team tomorrow.

The folks who sit behind us have had season tickets for years and years. They host a couple of players each year in their home and have all the inside news. One of the pitchers was released (a 12.something ERA isn't going to cut it at any level). He was a Canadian kid and headed home immediately to find a job. As soon as he got home, he signed with the Toronto organization and did a u-turn back to the Florida instructional league. Good for him, I wish him luck. Honestly though, by next year he'll probably be out of baseball for good, unless he hooks up with a college as a coach somewhere.

Last year's manager was Randy Knorr and he was friendly and outgoing. This year it's Trent Jewett and he's the exact opposite. Maybe he'll lighten up as the season progresses.

Grand

The Potomac Nationals minor league baseball team has a new manager this year. His 16-year record as a minor league manager was 999-999 and they had a double header thanks to a previous rainout. They split the double header, so now he's 1000-1000.

Quote Of The Whenever I Feel Like It

I can sympathize, but I still laughed.

Oh and ladies, just so you know, one day that lower back tattoo you all seem to have is going to be known as the “old lady tattoo.” Not so sexy, is it?

Found by following links over at Dustbury.

Moving Beyond The Blogroll

It's now been upgraded to become my... uh... Linkroll? ...ick... Placelist? Damn, that sucks... "bookmarks" already taken...

Over on the right, a whole bunch of places I regularly visit on the internet.

Suckage Defined

E ticket in Haight-Ashbury, for sure.

1:10 Scale Saturn V

All systems were go, and the launch last weekend was beautiful!

Check out this page for photos.

A few details: Altitude 4,441', max velocity 450mph, 7 G's, something like 181,000Ns? and about 187lbs of propellant. That was a P motor surrounded by eight N motors, making for a total thrust equivalent to an R!

Thanks to the Rocket Dungeon for the pointers. Check out his blog for more photos and links.

Make Your Very Own "Quotes Of The Whenever You Feel Like It"

Stolen from LeeAnn:

Still Not Impressed

IBM has concocted a supercomputer and software that they think might be ready to take on real people on Jeopardy. They're not fully confident though, because of things like this:

The complexity of the challenge is underscored by the subtlety involved in capturing the exact meaning of a spoken sentence. For example, the sentence “I never said she stole my money” can have seven different meanings depending on which word is stressed.

When they invent a computer that thinks like a woman, *then* I'll be impressed.

Towards Development Of Thick Skin (updated! as if you care)

All right, I mentioned that I was going to start painting again after a 20 year break.

Here's my very first attempt using watercolor.



Forgive the scan, it's small and fuzzy, but good enough for this. I'll tell you what I'm happy with. The treeline in the middle ground came out nicely and although you can't easily see it, the water and reflections also turned out well. The trunk of the tall pine is also pretty good. Other than that, it shows that I have a lot of very relaxing practice to do.

Bored yet? The paper is plain ol' 3.5"x5" Strathmore sketchbook stock. Made with recycled content, it's heavy enough for light watercolor work, barely. The paints are tube watercolors I got from Dick Blick, and I used the medium waterbrush from this set. I've never done any serious watercolor work before and the waterbrushes are also a first for me, so every bit of this is brand new and experimental.

One reason that I decided to start painting again is because I thought it would be cool to do some painting while out hiking and camping. That's why I decided on small sketchbooks, waterbrushes and watercolors. How portable is it? Check this out (photos courtesy of Instructables.com, which I used as a model)!



That's right, my paint pallet is an Altoids mint tin. Here's the entire basic setup (once again, mine is very similar).



So there you go, extremely portable and light enough to toss into your bag or daypack. I'm going to have fun with this.

Update: As much for my memory as for your entertainment, my pallet contains Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Phthalo Green, Hooker's Green Dark, Phthalo Blue, French Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Alizarin Crimson, and Payne's Gray.

Movie Review - Hard Candy

Hard Candy starts with an online conversation. Your unease grows as it becomes apparent that the two sides are an adult man and an underage girl. They agree to meet.

At the coffee shop, we first meet the two main characters. Hayley is indeed underage, she's a very precocious 14 years old. The guy is Jeff, a nice guy in his 30's who makes a good living doing fashion photography.

Eventually they wind up back at his house, and he breaks out the vodka and orange juice, and Hayley has "talked" Jeff into photographing her. Just when you think the uncomfortable-meter has been pegged, you get this kick in the gut:

Hayley: They teach kids our age not to accept drinks unless you watch it being mixed.

Jeff: That's good advice.

Hayley: Everyone should follow it. Even adults.

Jeff has been drugged and wakes up tied to a chair. From here, the movie goes into high simmer. The tension is thick and doesn't let up. Sometimes Hayley has the upper hand and sometimes Jeff manages to turn the tables on her. It's strictly one-on-one because neither want the police involved.

There's no gore and very little blood (a few cuts and scrapes), but there is one long, drawn-out sequence that will curdle your blood.

What's memorable about this movie is that both main characters are fully three dimensional. Jeff isn't "just" a perv trolling the net, he's truly likable and you do occasionally find yourself sympathizing with the pedophile. Hayley isn't "just" a hyper-competent kid, there's a frighteningly psychotic side to that mentally agile mind. They both have pasts and deep emotions that the other picks at and manipulates, trying to survive to the outcome they each want.

The acting is outstanding. There's no nudity, and despite the premise there's no sexual contact other than (if I remember correctly) a peckish kiss. There are a few curse words scattered about, but not many.

Hard Candy is not light entertainment, but I do highly recommend this one.

Logical Assault

A co-worker and I were walking down the street when we were confronted by a guy with a clipboard. He was earnestly collecting signatures for something or other having to do with stopping climate change.

(spiel ends with request to sign his clipboard)

Me: Earth's climate is always changing.

Him: Dude, if we don't stop it, the whole ecosystem could collapse!

Me: So you want to alter the natural process to save the ecosystem.

Him: There's nothing natural about it. There's too many people. Changing the climate.

Me: If you really cared about the planet, you'd step off this curb right in front of a bus.

Coworker: That would really screw up traffic.

Me: -you'd walk a few blocks and jump off the bridge. You know, to save the planet.

Him: Dude, you're crazy!

Me: What a coincidence.

Understandable

So Hillary Clinton doesn't think that VP Dick Cheney is a credible source?

After spending eight years in the White House with Al Gore as VP, I'd probably feel the same way.

Rocket's Red Glare, Amen

Check out this video.

In a bizarre but long-cherished local tradition to celebrate the Orthodox Easter holiday, two churches in the town of Vrodandos fire rockets at each other's churches - while services are held.

Thanks to Dick's Rocket Dungeon for the pointer.

Universally Correct Reply

So I'm on the phone with daughter Robyn (mother of granddaughter Lorelei).

Me: What's yellow, smooth and deadly?

Robyn: Lorelei's poop.

Me: No. Shark-infested custard.

Robyn: *giggles* (because I'm a funny guy)

Me: What's green and dangerous?

Robyn: Lorelei's poop.

Me. No. A frog with a hand grenade.

Robyn: *giggles* (juvenile, but funny)

Me: But thinking about it, your answers were correct too.

Robyn: You got that right.

New Technology

You can only pre-order this new Light For Life flashlight because it's due out in June. It's expensive, and I'm not sure that the price will drop much in the next few years because the military and law enforcement will be buying these things by the thousands.

So what's so great about it? Instead of batteries, it uses a new kind of capacitor. Putting out 90 lumens (pretty doggone bright) for 90 minutes, then the electronics throttle it back twice over the next 45 minutes before it goes dark. There's a strobe feature too.

It recharges in 90 seconds.

Unlike rechargeable batteries, which are good for maybe 500 or so cycles, the capacitor is good for 50,000 cycles. Put another way, you can recharge this thing every day for 130 years!

This technology isn't brand spanking new, but we're starting to see it in more and more consumer products. As it improves, it could all but replace batteries.

Photos from Medea

Rachael finally sent photos of her costumes from Medea. You can read the original post here if you don't know what I'm talking about.

This one's gonna be photo intensive, so be patient and let it load. The first few will be her concept sketch, followed by the actual costume. Then I'll just load some photos of her other costumes.

Medea, granddaughter to the Sun God, Helios

This character was a solid mass of burning rage. No smiles for you!

One of the chorus. The eight unique costumes were all cookie-cutter variations of color, style, sleeve, etc.


Another chorus member.


Servant and Teacher, in earth tones.



Jason, one of the kids (pre-room temperature) and more chorus members.





You can see in the chorus costumes how they share common elements, rearranged and done in different colors.

So that's it. Proud Papa signing off.