You can read it.
My brother blew a tire this morning swerving to miss some ducks in the road.
I went to pick him up only to find out road debris had literally screwed me on the way to our offices.
That’s the final straw. We’re moving our business off the Indian burial ground.
Okay, no surprise on the Wii. I’ve jumped around like a maniac playing my brother’s Wii boxing game. But PS3 and Xbox? Here’s the blurb from Wired magazine.
“Game Gut Begone - Put down those weights! With gyroscopes, force feedback, and active add-ons, videogames are now all you need to become a lean, mean, button-mashing machine.” - Patrick Di Justo (Wired, May 2007, page 57)
The following stats are from the same article:
Gross visions of body builders here…
Instead of… 1.5 hours of weightlifting (842 calories)
Play… 1.0 hour of Dance Dance Revolution (900 calories)
*I* can vouch for this one personally! 
Instead of… 30 minutes of aerobics (242 calories)
Play… 30 minutes of Wii Boxing (250 calories)
BIG SURPRISE TO ME ON THIS ONE!
Instead of… 20 minutes of jogging (198 calories)
Play… 1 hour of PS3/Xbox on the couch (204 calories)
Not tonight, honey, I’ve got tennis elbow!
Instead of… 15 minutes of sex (33 calories)
Play… 7 minutes of Wii Tennis (46 calories)
It was like somebody punched me in the gut. All the anticipation and all the build-up from the first two films - that were the best comic adaptations ever - and the most pleasure I got on Spidey 3 night was finally getting to pee after the movie finished. I’ve slept on it since then and there were some good things in the movie. Sandman was well played, well mostly. The actions scenes were pretty cool, well, mostly - when they happened. Venom looked kind of cool, well, from the little we saw of him. Sam Raimi has become my fallen idol.
For some well rounded reviews - that jive with a lot of what I feel but still give the film some credit, check out these links. Well worth the read whether you have seen the film or not.
These fellows kick butt on reviews. I only wish Mr. Raimi would have consulted *someone* like these folks - rabid fans but still fair - before phoning in this sequel.
Should you see it? Well, it’s better than Highlander 2. Read the reviews, go in with low expectations (and perhaps a bit drunk), and you might be moderately amused.
I heard a blurb on the news this morning about how much a stay at home mom should earn if it was a “paying job”.
Research estimates mom should be making $140,000 per year - a 3% jump from last year (for you statisticians).
Moms are working a 92 hour work week, including some 10 different jobs (housekeeper, cook, and psychologist to name a few).
First off, I want to say I totally agree - stay at home parents (moms AND dads) are undervalued. Here’s my two cents to go with it, though.
1 cent - The non stay at home parent has additional non-paid jobs dealing with children and home also. Maintenance man, auto mechanic, accountant. The jobs aren’t cut and dry. Both partners in a marriage share jobs and lines blur. The stay at home *IS* worth $140,000 but remember the non stay at home is worth their working day salary + more - in the same vein as the unpaid stay at home (see first cent above). I didn’t hear the research address this (to be fair it was a fluff piece on the morning news so it’s not like it was a balanced report).
2 cents - Remember that *professionally* - in the real paying world - we undervalue educators that take care of entire classrooms of our children every day. They share many of the same jobs as moms and make nowhere near $140,000 per year either.
I referenced Star Trek twice in the last half hour at work.
Both times work related and fitting to the situation.
I feel like I’ve crossed over into the dirty side of geekdom.
Poopyheads.
All the posts about Starbucks lately reminded me of a pic I took there a while back.
Seems the cult of Starbucks extends to Dementors. This was taken just outside the window while I was standing in line for a Chai. I guess the allure of overpriced java extends far beyond our earthly plane. Creepy.
Starbucks Dementor
For comparison, here’s a Dementor pic from the world of Harry Potter…
If you’re going to be stranded somewhere when your car doesn’t work, you could do a lot worse than a Starbucks. Drink. Food. Music. Comfy chair. Internet access (well, okay, only if you pay for it - $5 for a drink and the cheap b*stards won’t give free access *grr*). Truthfully, aside from the lack of Internet (and I think I might have been able to pick up the next door McDonald’s access) I would have rather stayed there than go to work this morning!
On the more serious side… perhaps setting up the work environment a little more “friendly” would make a big difference. It’d be cool to walk into my own offices and see everyone working in a laid back, comfortable, aesthetically pleasing environment. Ever notice how the president of the company’s office looks more like a home den? I’m guessing if the whole building looked more like that, though, then he wouldn’t feel special or like he was in power over the masses… Oh well, for the rest of us we still have broken cars in front of Starbucks.
I purchased a music CD today.
Felt weird.
Starbucks has the right idea, though. Compile a reasonably priced CD of songs by newer artists, older or lesser known artists, or that make a unique mix. If you counter the ability to find or easily download the artists or make it time intensive to find all the songs for the mix then the pendulum swings back toward time/cost-effectiveness for the consumer (me!) to actually buy the CD (I did!). Unless, of course, someone starts ripping the Starbucks compilations and proliferating them online…
I saw a news story tonight on a local school increasing ISTEP scores (Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress-Plus). “Wow,” I thought, “That’s great!” Then they showed some children talking about how if they “just didn’t get it” they just kept going over their questions over and over again until they got it. The rest of the report showed kids drilling on problems. Rinse lather repeat - over and over on the same problems. Something clicked. We’re teaching kids ISTEP. Not *educating* them. Teaching them ISTEP. Watch out other countries - the next generation of Americans (somehow I’m betting it’s not just my glorious state of Indiana) will *STOMP* you in ISTEP. Forget about knowledge or life skills. Give us a memorized standardized test and we’ll kick your foreign free-thinking masses.
Here’s an ISTEP question for everybody.
ISTEP
Goosestep
Which one of these things is just like the other?