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So Much for That Optimism

Posted June 8, 2007 By Dave Thomer

The Phillies have apparently decided to reinforce their bullpen by bringing back Jose Mesa, their former closer who fell down on the job a few seasons back and whose ERA is currently over 12. So he’s incompetent and he conjures bad memories for Philadelphia fans. Of COURSE you would sign this guy to a contract.

It’s enough to make me think Pat Gillick wants to be fired. Tonight’s shellacking at the hands of the Kansas City Royals doesn’t help matters. Sheesh.

Filed in Special Order Speeches

A Job High in Fat?

Posted June 7, 2007 By Dave Thomer

You know, I probably could have stuck this under philosophy of language, but what the heck. McDonald’s and other service companies are lobbying the Oxford English Dictionary to change the definition of McJob to be less negative.

There’s a socioeconomic point to be made about how McDonald’s has lowered standards for many things in the name of profits, but I’m gonna put that to the side for a minute.

Lobbying a dictionary to change the definition of a word? For crying out loud, why not just buy your own dictionary company and start making up your own new language?

Filed in Culture and Media

One Swell Foop

Posted June 6, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Some time over the next few weeks, there may be some alterations to the comment system in order to try to cut down on spam. I’m in the process of wiping out 770 comments that accumulated in the moderation queue since yesterday, and it ain’t my idea of fun. So if I accidentally killed something that wasn’t an ad for discounted pharmaceuticals, my apologies. There may be some kind of verification system added soon, and I’m adding some words to the kill file.

Filed in Site Comments

Voluntary Rations

Posted June 5, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Last year I completely gave up caffeinated beverages for three months. I stopped when I hit dissertation crunch time and couldn’t afford to be drifting to sleep early in the evening. But going cold turkey wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be – I just started buying Sprite instead of Coke and walked right past the Snapple displays.

Now instead of going cold turkey I’m trying to limit my intake of certain things, and it almost seems harder. I have several cases of Snapple that I bought on sale, but I’m trying to hold myself to one a day. (This would be easier if I could keep up with my new lemonade habit. But of course citrus prices are through the roof, and it’ll cost me six bucks or more to get enough lemons for one pitcher. Which I can go through in about a day and a half. It’s good lemonade.) But when there are several bottles on hand, the temptation is much stronger.

I’ve also taken to eating meat at only one meal per day, partially for health reasons, partially to stretch the food budget, and partially to reduce the environmental impact of my diet. I go through a lot of protein, whether that’s in tuna, cheese, or livestock, but I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that it’s unreasonable for me to pig out two or three times a day on a food product that’s expensive and resource-intensive. I’m reading stories about public officials trying to live on food stamps for a week, surviving on pasta and peanut butter, and I have no idea how they do it.

The major problem for me here is that this puts a crimp in my leftovers usage. If I have leftover meat from tonight’s dinner, I can’t just polish that off for tomorrow’s lunch. But for now I’m still generating that level of leftovers based on the way food is packaged and/or sold. So I’m still working this one out. But it’s been an interesting experiment so far.

Filed in Life in Practice

Knocked Off Their Feet

Posted June 4, 2007 By Dave Thomer

OK, time to play Crabby Old Guy. I’ve been watching those sneakers-with-wheels get more popular, judging by the number of rolling kids I have to dodge when I’m out at malls or stores. And I know it’s a matter of time before klutzy me can not get the heck out of the way. I assume I will be carrying eggs at the time.

Anyway, here’s an AP article via the Philadelphia Inquirer about a study that suggests that thee shoes are definitely causing an increase in wrist and hand injuries to kids when they lose their balance. According to the article “The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, based in Rosemont, Ill., this week is issuing new safety advice that recommends helmets, wrist protectors and knee and elbow pads for kids who wear wheeled shoes.”

I barely see kids on bikes wearing all that gear – who thinks they’re gonna be part of the everyday hanging out wardrobe?

I can’t wait until I have to tell my daughter she’s not getting these shoes. Yikes.

OK, now you kids, get off my lawn.

Filed in Life in Practice

Dirty Business

Posted June 3, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Over the last week, I have been ripping up old grass in my back yard and using a tiller to loosen up the soil so that I can spread it around and make it more even. This has involved a lot of me picking up a small clump of grass from a pile of such clumps and trying to shake the loose dirt back onto the ground. (I have filled dozens of bags with these sod clumps, and tried to figure out a way to make an effective “Kneel Before Sod” joke. I have not been successful.) During this process, it occurred to me that I didn’t necessarily have a full grasp of what made dirt dirt, as opposed to dust or sand or what have you. After some fiddling around on Wikipedia and the rest of the web, I found soil-net.com. I have, er, just started digging in to the site, but there’s a lot of interesting information there to help remind us that when we’re shoveling that soil around, we’re sticking our hands right into decomposed organic matter combined with mineral particles.

Filed in Special Order Speeches

The Name of the Place . . .

Posted June 2, 2007 By Dave Thomer

You know, I’ve been keeping my enthusiasm in check for the most part. But when I saw the trailer for the upcoming Babylon 5 direct-to-DVD story at the revamped official site, I decided to be optimistic about the whole thing. In large part I credit that to hearing Christopher Franke’s theme music again.

There are also more behind the scenes videos available at ISN News. I found the clips from Bruce Boxleitner interesting, as he acknowledges that he felt pretty frustrated when the series wrapped up. Not really news to anyone who followed the behind the scenes stuff, or listened to the DVD commentaries, but still worth a look.

Filed in Culture and Media

Dummy Copy Earns Its Name

Posted June 1, 2007 By Dave Thomer

I admit, when I worked on newspapers putting sarcastic joke headlines as placeholders was one of the things I enjoyed. But I started to cut back toward the end of my college journalism career, because I was always paranoid that something like this would happen:

A press rep for Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado was working on a press release that would include a quote from Allard saying nice things about first responders. Except that Allard didn’t actually come up with the quote – that was the press rep’s job. (We’ll have the discussion about the wisdom of making up quotes in press releases later. I’ve been having that one since I was on my high school yearbook staff and it’s pretty clear I’m on the losing side.) And the press rep was having trouble coming up with nice things to say about first responders, and decided to ask for help. In the quote. And the press rep then sent out the version of the release with the request for help. With the result being that Allard was quoted as saying

Since I don’t think first responders have really done anything significant in comparison to their counterparts who have dealt with real natural disasters, I have no idea what else to say here…

Well, if you can’t think of anything nice to say . . .

Filed in Culture and Media

A Matter of Resolve

Posted May 31, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Pattie and I had hoped to keep our air conditioner off during the month of May. Despite temperatures hitting the 90s this week, so far we’ve hung in there. But I would not be surprised if things change at 12:01.

Truth be told, I’ve just been thankful that my desk is in the basement. It’s far cooler here than in the rest of the house. Now if you’ll excuse me, my brain cells have to get back to melting.

Filed in Life in Practice

The Vote’s In the Mail?

Posted May 30, 2007 By Dave Thomer

Wow, the Inquirer must have known I was in a mood to write about voting, because they have an article about a state representative who wants to hold hearings on instituting a vote-by-mail system.

I’ve written before about why I think the current one-day-of-voting plan doesn’t work so well. But I will note that in the Inquirer article, a task force claimed that there was a communal value in having in-person voting on a particular day.

You gotta be kidding me. If you’re lucky, you walk up to a polling place, fend off a bunch of people trying to give you endorsement ballots, vote, and get out. If you’re unlucky, you have to wait in line because there aren’t enough machines, the machines are broken, the ballot’s too confusing, there are too many questions, etc. etc. Some people enjoy this communal value so much that they don’t vote at all! What fun!

Filed in Public Policy
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