Month: December 2004

Even though the van missed me by only a couple feet, I walked away from the collision without a scratch. I believe that I now have six lives left.

Minneapolis had around 175 accidents and 3 deaths two days ago in the wake of freezing rain. Between 6 and 8AM the freezing rain put about 1/2 inch of ice on all roads, including highways. You can imagine driving down the road and seeing cars in ditches, trucks jack-knifed, vehicles stuck in medians after 360ing.

My incident occurred on the exit ramp off a main highway going into downtown St. Paul. I was coming around the exit ramp when my Honda CR-V spun out of control. Now, this wasn’t freaking me out, because I have plenty of experience maneuvering cars over ice and snow from my DC days and nights. Sort of. I managed to get the car to careen over the curb and come to a rest just off the exit ramp lane. No big deal, no damage to the car.

About a split-second later I realized that, being a metropolitan area, that other cars may be coming off the highway exit ramp as well.

Sure enough, he comes Mr. Big & Mighty Van, careening directly at me at 25 MPH. Luckily, the broadside collision impacted the rear driver side, missing the driver door by about 3 feet. We both went blasting down the highway exit ramp, which luckily move us to an area that would inevitably render my immovable car out of striking distance from other cars sliding down the exit ramp.

Nothing sucks worse than handling the swap of post-accident consideration and information than doing it in 5 degree weather. Plus, all my musical gear was in the back of the car, and I hauled it a position behind a tree, in the event that other cars ended up slamming into my helpless, smoldering vehicle.

The good news (besides surviving) is that within 3 hours after the accident, the insurance companies determined it wasn’t my fault.

In the “cool gizmos that I like” category today, I bring you self-heating coffee. Yeah, if you’re a Slashdotter, you’ve already seen it, so sue me 🙂 I think this is a very, very cool… erm, warm invention. So much so, I can’t wait for them to do this with other things… apple cider, hot cocoa, etc…

Hey!!

Want to hear some free Christmas tunes (Including some good old Christmas Rap?)

MLC on Timpane.com

For years I’ve been making these silly Christmas CDs with the family. Thought I’d put some of it up to listen. on mp3.

Its just for fun, but its still a hoot.

I regret to inform you that effective immediately, I will no longer be able to serve the Southern United States on Christmas Eve. Due to overwhelming current population of the earth, my contract was renegotiated by North American Fairies and Elves Local 209. I now serve only certain areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan.

As part of the new and better contract I also get longer breaks for milk and cookies so keep that in mind. However, I’m certain that your children will be in good hands with your local replacement who happens to be my third cousin, Bubba Claus. His side of the family is from the South pole. He shares my goal of delivering toys to all the good boys and girls; however, there are a few differences between us. Differences such as:

1. There is no danger of a Grinch stealing your presents from Bubba Claus. He has a gun rack on his sleigh and a bumper sticker that reads: “These toys insured by Smith & Wesson.”

2. Instead of milk and cookies, Bubba Claus prefers that children leave a RC Cola and pork rinds (or a moon pie) on the fireplace. And Bubba doesn’t smoke a pipe. He dips a little snuff though, so please have an empty spit can handy.

3. Bubba Claus’ sleigh is pulled by floppy-eared, flyin’ coon dogs instead of reindeer. I made the mistake of loaning him a couple of my reindeer one time, and Blitzen’s head now overlooks Bubba’s fireplace.

4. You won’t hear “On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen…” when Bubba Claus arrives. Instead you’ll hear, “On Earnhardt, on Wallace, on Martin and LaBonte. On Rudd, on Jarrett, on Elliot and Petty.”

5. “Ho, ho, ho!” has been replaced by “Yee Haw!” And you also are likely to hear Bubba’s elves reply, “I her’d dat!”

6. As required by Southern highway laws, Bubba Claus’ sleigh does have a Yosemite Sam safety triangle on the back with the words, “Back Off!” The last I heard it also had other decorations on the sleigh back as well. One is Ford or Chevy logo with lights that race through the letters and the other is a caricature of me (Santa Claus) peeing on the Tooth Fairy.

7. The usual Christmas movie classics such as “Miracle on 34th Street” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” will not be shown in your negotiated viewing area. Instead, you will see “Boss Hogg Saves Christmas” and “Smokey and the Bandit IV” featuring Burt Reynolds as Bubba Claus and dozens of State Patrol cars crashing into each other.

8. Bubba Claus doesn’t wear a belt. If I were you, I’d make sure you, the wife, and the kids turn the other way when he bends over to put presents under the tree.

9. And finally, lovely Christmas songs have been sung about me like “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” and Bing Crosby’s “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”. This year, songs about Bubba Claus will be played on all the AM radio stations in the South. These song titles will be Mark Chesnutt’s “Bubba Claus shot the jukebox”; Cledus T. Judd’s, “All I want for Christmas is my Woman and a Six-opack”, and Hank Williams Jr’s “If You Don’t Like Bubba Claus, You Shove It.”

Sincerely Yours, Santa Claus

(Member of North American Fairies and Elves Local 209)

I’ve loved Star trek forever. Its no longer my favorite show of all time.

Note – The following is relatively Spoiler Free (lets stay that way)

For years, I listened to fans of a different show that I knew must be childish and infantile. I rejected this show based on my knowledge of a little seen early 90s flick, and swore I would never watch.

Nine months ago, my friend Arthur told me that if I bought the first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and didn’t love it, he’d give me the money I spent. Immediately, I noticed the fresh dialogue and the the wittiness that lived somehwere between Dawson’s Creek, David Mamet, and Quentin Tarantino. Still.. it was just dumb fun.

How things were going to change.

Engaged, I bought the second season, and ripped through it – as one of the genuinely best seasons of TV I had ever seen.

As the months passed, I would watch up to 4 episodes a day (AHH, aint DVD grand) about Buf, Xander, Willow, Giles, Cordy, Tara, Oz, Riley, Spike, Angel, Faith, Dawn, and (my fave) Anya. After the third Season, I began watching the spinoff “Angel” – alternating episodes so as to keep the continuity.

Now, last week, I watched the final episode of Buffy, and for any who have seen it.. it was Remarkable. For anyone who has not yet.. well, I can’t say why, or it won’t be for you.

Objectively, the dialogue is amazing, the action is really very good – especially the fight scenes – the show isn’t afraid to take risks with its characters, or afraid to let them change or die, its genuinely very funny, and once you get past the first season (which is weaker, but still really fun) you’ll be in, hook line and sinker.

Is it like the movie? Only in the good ways. the fresh ideas, the mix of humor and action – but not dumb humor. As a matter of fact, I think its the smartest depiction of teens I’ve seen since the scream movies.

Suffice to say, the complicated storylines, the cryptic clues of what is to come, the laugh out loud humor (“BUNNIES!”), the devestating scene where ***** is on the floor and the EMTs come in and ***** can’t think of how to do CPR, the scene where ***** gets shot, the scene where ***** has to fight ***** and who can forget the musical (especially where she says she was!!)?

What am I talking about? Well, you have to watch if you want to find out.. and as for Trek.. well its like an old shoe, I’ll always love it. But honestly, for the first time I have found a TV universe thats better.

COMING UP IN FUTURE WEEKS: Needin Whedon Part 2: FIREFLY and after I finish it.. Needin Whedon Part 3: ANGEL

We’re rapidly hurtling towards the annual Yule celebration, and I happened across this little gem, a tongue-in-cheek look at the mingling of religious traditions in modern holiday celebrations. Thought you might get a kick out of a little fun-poking at our conglomeration of traditions…

A sample…

The word “yule,” like the word “dog,” is so old that nobody really knows where it came from…

I can always tell when solstice is coming because the newspapers fill up with mopes from Christians about how the heathens have all appropriated Christmas. You know: all that biblical stuff like putting lights on pine trees and making wreaths and celebrating it in December (Latin for “tenth month,” which just goes to show something or other). Basically, the early Christians grabbed the existing holiday, filed off the serial numbers, and started accusing everyone else of stealing it.

I really like how he ends the piece, though, with a deep reflection on why it is we need solace… solstice… in the midst of the grip of the longest dark of the year. Nice piece.

So today I ran across this book: Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence. Just in reading the reviews and the sample first chapter, this book resonated with me deeply. I think I’ll have to buy it.

I’ve noticed this with my own kids: despite a “no guns” rule in our house, my boys (and girl!) find ways to make weapons out of everyday objects. Today, that little decorative hunk of plastic is a wand from Harry Potter, with Elijah pointing it upwards shouting “Expecto Patronum!” Tomorrow, I discover Zach sheepishly changing that same hunk of plastic from a “gun-position”, making “bam bam bam!” noises, to a “musical conductor position” when he sees me glance at him questioningly. Sara smashes that same hunk of plastic against that of a playmate the next day in a sword battle, with occasional epithets shouted in make-believe language.

I have no doubt that young Joshua, when he is of an age to begin acting out make-believe, will join in the fun.

I keep hearing in the media how video games are “corrupting our youth”. News outlets make sure to emphasize how youthful killers were involved in Dungeons & Dragons, violent video games, or other forms of roleplay.

And every time I hear of these correlations, I find myself thinking “they just don’t get it.”

For me, as a kid, violent video games were the catharsis that I needed to avoid taking out my aggressions in real-life on other people. It’s make-believe. It’s pixels on a screen. Pundits against video-game violence, however, say it’s “desensitizing” to real violence.

I don’t believe that for a heartbeat.

I watched a man try to shoot another man to death on an East Los Angeles street. I was shocked and horrified, running for cover, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I had no idea what to do. Yet I’d seen that same scene many times in movies and video games.

I stared, aghast, at video footage of an F-16 bombing a group of insurgents in Iraq the other day. It was hard to believe I was seeing what I was seeing, yet it was real life, not make-believe. I was physically ill at the thought of just having watched several dozen Iraqis die, even though I knew they were armed and running to join a fight against U.S. soldiers.

The audio of Nick Berg being executed played on the radio several months ago, left me speechless and teary. I had to shut it off because I couldn’t take the stress of hearing it, or hearing anything more about it.

The way I see it, violent video games provide a way for children to feel powerful in a safe environment. They allow them to explore and master their “darker side”, preventing it from becoming the dominant force in their personalities. Even as an adult, being able to blow away the bad guys late at night allows me to be more gentle and tolerant with my own family during the day.

A powerless child needs some way to feel powerful and dominant, even if it’s only make-believe.

I think Christy gets this, too. This Christmas, despite the “no playing guns” rule that has been in place around our house since our children were born, we bought them four Lazer Tag guns. And I suspect that my kids are going to feel like, at home beating me in Lazer Tag, they can exercise the power they lack at school.

Recently, the governor of Illinois announced an initiative to ban violent video games. I think such a move would be a recipe for disaster. I can understand that certain types of violence, acted out in a video game, make us squeamish. And yet kids relate to this stuff on an entirely different level than we do, as adults.

Unfortunately, the power of correlation is difficult to oppose for the masses who don’t understand logic and statistics. For instance, let’s say that serial killers frequently mutilated small animals as a child. There’s a correlation. It doesn’t mean that small animals should be banned, or that small animals are the cause of the violent behavior as an adult. The correlation is that people with mental illness of the sort likely to make them into serial killers frequently act this out against small animals. It is something that should be observed, noted, and prevented through medication and therapy to normalize the child before he becomes a violent adult.

Make-believe violence, as much as our culture despises it, is, in my humble opinion, the solution to a lot of real-world violence. I think it’s a powerful argument in favor of “virtual violence” that, since 1993 when ‘Doom’ was released, heralding the beginning of the “ultra-violent video game age”, that crime in the U.S. began a sustained and dramatic decline. Something to think about.

(Note: I’m not advocating sitting your toddlers down in front of slasher flicks. The subsequent weeks of little sleep due to nightmares would be enough to discourage any parent. I am advocating that stories and play which enable a child to feel powerful and explore emotions in a safe environment, like a video game, can help them develop a fully-fleshed, dynamic personality.)

—
Matthew P. Barnson
– – – –

Thought for the moment:

Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United States we really shouldn’t complain — it’s still only two cents a day.

Building upong Matt’s thought of “Who was the first one who thought of strapping boards on their feet and hurtling down a mountain?”, what are some things you wonder who came up with first?

For example, what poor Indian soul was soooo hungry he decided to boil a crab and pick it apart?

And where did the phrase “State Of The Art?” come from?

My $.02 Weed

As part of our anniversary, we went skiing at Brighton. In the past when Matt went skiing, I was either pregnant or nursing and couldn’t go. So this was a big deal for me!

A good friend of mine highly recommended taking lessons before I hit the lift, so I decided to follow her advice. Brighton has a great package deal with a lesson so I was thrilled.

I picked up my equiptment and headed out. By the time the lesson started my feet were numb…my boots were much too tight. So back into the building I went to change to a bigger boot. When I got back out to the next lesson, no one else had shown up. So the instructor and his two side kicks in training gave me personal instructions.

The instructor found that I caught on rather quickly to what he was teaching and flew through his curriculum and started the next class. I was thrilled to be taught to classes with a personal trainer in the time of one class, for the price of a group lesson! He took me down the bunny hill twice and I didn’t fall once….YET.

So then Matt and I met for lunch and warmed up a bit. Shortly thereafter, we were headed up my first real lift. It was only a green, (in the direction I was headed, anyway,) somewhat of a short mountain and boy was I in for a surprise. The mountain was plenty big and there were several rather steep parts. I stopped two or three times just for need of slowing down. I made it to the bottom without falling, but realized I had a terrible headache. I thought about it for a moment and decided it was because I didn’t breathe on my way down the mountain. *note for next run….breathe*

So Matt and I got on the lift again and headed back up, only to discover we were on a different lift taking us much higher than the first lift. This run was mostly blue, and I terrified. But, there’s only one way down, so down I went. I figured out my problem, fear of speed. I got going so fast I decided there was only one thing to do. So I headed for the side and threw myself into some softer snow. I think Matt thought that was pretty funny. So my first fall was intentional.

My next fall was quite unintentional. I was looking at someone else to make sure I wasn’t in his way and down I went. Arms and legs and poles flailing madly. Surprisingly, my skiis stayed on. I did manage to put a huge bruise, about the size of a softball right below my knee on the inside of my calf. I was thrilled that I didn’t break a leg.

On another run, Matt was ahead of me when he went down, not very gracefully, on a rather steep spot and I swerved around him yelling, “HOLY CRAPOLA.” I managed to get to the bottom without falling, but was sure I was going to take out several people trying to slow down and stop at the bottom.

One other time I fell and my skiis came off. It took me forever to get them back on because of the angle of the mountain.

Anyway, I’m no longer sore and I’m ready to go again! We may attempt the next one up in Idaho after Christmas. I must say, that’s the most expensive two pounds I’ve ever lost!

You know, I remember reading this amazing story about how to achieve the lowest-possible SAT testing score some months ago, but thought it was time to share. I never took the SAT; I took the ACT instead.