Media and Things

So here I am again - I know, but don't ask. I noticed today that The View took the really strange step of inviting Bill O'Reilly on to the show today.  Apparently there were enough fireworks to cause Whoopi & Joy to actually leave the stage during the interview.  Here it is, in case you missed it -- Yikes - but first a disclaimer... for starters, I am not a regular viewer of the program.  Usually I'm too busy in classes or meetings during the time the show airs but even if I had more free time then, I like to think I'd be doing something better than watching the show.  What brought this event to my attention was Facebook - two of my so-called friends posted the clip with the requisite snarky comments, and a post from Media Matters also made it on my feed... so I checked it out. A couple of obvious observations - 1)  I, for one, actually think what Whoopi and Joy did was a good thing and I don't blame them for doing it.  Looking at their react...

Nothing like a month a half layoff from posting.  If I was one of my students I'd have failed myself by now. I'm wondering why it is so difficult to post to a blog (for me anyway).  I think part of it is just flat out remembering I have one; part of it is finding the time; and part of it is that I think I just have better things to do.  And I also think people have better things to do than read my brain droppings online But, here I am.  A lot has happened since my last post.  The spring break trip to Alabama went well.  It was a long drive (over 2,600 miles round trip) and it was even longer when I came back - it was raining most of the way and my driver-side windshield wiper was acting all screwy.  But a half gallon of Rain-X on the windshield seemed to do the trick. I helped install flooring for three days while in Alabama.  My knees are finally feeling better.  Got to see my grandparents for a day while I was there as well, which was...

Good luck finding a new computer with a floppy disk drive these days.  I can remember when the floppy was the end-all, be-all of storage.  My first computer was a Commodore 64 , which I received as a Christmas gift in 1984.  It was basically a keyboard that attached to an old television set my parents threw away.  I still think it was a way to get me out of their way for awhile, since it was all set up in the basement.  Yep, there I was - in the basement.  With the old 1970s orange couch, a table with an old 15 inch color set attached to my C-64.  On the other side of the basement was another TV hooked up to the Intellivision .  Oh yeah... Anyway, the C-64 had no permanent storage of any kind.  A person would have to type in BASIC code from a program book (or experiment with it on their own) and just hope there were no typos and that the damn thing worked when you were finished.  If if didn't, that usually meant hunting for a bit of mi...

I'm old enough and I've thought about it enough... Anyone who has visited my office at work - and anyone who has visited my Fortress of Solitude at home - knows that I have a lot of books.  A lot of books.  I have a good 8-foot tall bookcase at home that is completely stuffed and two bookcases about the same size that are almost stuffed at work.  I think at one point I had over 300 books at home - Last summer I did some paring down at home and I think I'm somewhere around 200 or so now.  Combine that with the unknown number in my office and I probably have enough books for the rest of my life.  If you really want to get kooky, combine all of those books with all of the journals and photocopied articles from journals and book chapters... man, I probably have enough for two lifetimes. Well, I'm tired of it.  I've decided that I am going to take the minimalist route and start really cleaning it all out.  And by "really cleaning it all out", I mean d...

Don't ask me how it happened, but I've been pulled into spending my spring break in Mobile, Alabama , supervising/advising/chaperoning the SU chapter of Habitat for Humanity for the 2010 Collegiate Challenge or some such thing.  Its cool with me - I guess I'm filling at the last minute so the students can go on the trip.  Apparently all I'll have to do is be on site while everyone is working on building stuff.  That's ok - I'm pretty bad with a hammer and saw anyway.  I'm not griping or anything - what's getting me is that this happened kind of quickly and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.  I'm glad to be helping out and I hope I can do some good.  But for right now I'm still waiting on some detailed info to help... ah... seal ah the deal ah   View Directions to mobile, al in a larger map I'm driving myself down while the others will fend for themselves.  I'll try to keep updates rolling here as time goes by.  I'm...

The Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 2 - World's Most Wanted, Book 1 I guess if you're going to start off, then you might as well start easy.  This is a book I've read several times already and for some reason it keeps getting better - I see or find something new practically every time I read the book (I won't say how many times I've read it, but lets just leave it at "several"). This sort-of-latest IM tale takes place after Tony Stark undergoes the Extremis process (an excellent mini-series, BTW), the attacks by Ezekiel Stane on Stark Industries (a very good storyline, but kind of awkward in parts if you ask me), and after the Skrull invasion .  I haven't had the chance to read the Invasion storyline yet, but from what I gather, during the invasion the Skrulls unleashes some kind of virus that basically made every piece of Stark technology malfunction.  This in turn led to chaos & confusion, as well as a void which the nefarious Norman Osborn fille...

Gonna try it again - no promises this time.