Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Red Butt
July 20, 2006

Inspired by this list of top ten most violent children’s games, I was reminded of some games that we used to play on the playground, and one in specific: Red Butt.

In elementary school - 6th grade to be precise - we used to congregate in a small raquetball-like area on our playground. With brick walls on the sides, and a concrete wall opposing the open end, it was a perfect place for a Red Butt game. Matt would bring the blue raquetball in his lunch bag, and we would start the game.

Typically, the game was simply an exercise of throwing the ball at the wall, and catching it on the rebound. Repeat ad-infinitum until recess ended. But that by itself isn’t all that fun. So what’s the attraction?

Thunder and Lightning
July 19, 2006

Ken invited me out to the Elks last night for their monthly men’s night dinner. It was essentially as Ken originally described: A five course meal for $18 plus tip, plus whatever drinks you paid for. But last night was a bit of an adventure.

Just as they started serving the food, the lights began to flicker. After the salad, the lights went completely out, along with the rest of the building’s power. Outside, a storm was kicking up. The winds were blowing fiercely, and the distant lightning’s thunder rolled in with an appreciable delay.

Take an Anniversary Trip
July 16, 2006

As you read this, Berta and I might be thousands of miles away from home, possibly in Disneyland.

I’ve long had this dream of winning the lottery, not telling Berta, and then one day sweeping her off (sans-luggage) to the airport where we would fly to some exotic destination and I would eventually impart the news. Well, being that it’s improbable that we’ve won the lottery (at least, as far as I know we have not), I’ve had to set my sights a little lower. So instead of a spontaneous getaway to an exotic locale, we’re having a planned weekend excursion to somewhere not really extravagant, but costly enough to have people wonder if we’re totally nuts.

And of course, we are.

This particular trip is on the occasion of our wedding anniversary. Mom is watching the kids, so we get to spend the whole weekend away without tending them. Yes, I know that going to Disneyland without the kids seems incongruous, but that’s just the kind of people we are.

Originally, we were going to try for Las Vegas, which would be impossible to do properly with the kids in tow. But the prices for flights and hotel there were looking too high, so I threw a mental dart at the map and punched Disneyland into Expedia. The price looked better. Then we adjusted the times for the flights to better suit our availability and ended up with a higher price than the Vegas trip. By then I was tired and I just pushed the “Buy” button.

One might question why we would go to such lengths on just our 8th year anniversary. What will we do on our 10th if we’ve already blown a big travel weekend on our 8th? Well, perhaps you are not aware of our very first anniversary trip to India?

Go Without Magazines
July 14, 2006

Some time ago, without notice to me, Berta unsubscribed to all of our magazines.

It has taken a while for them all to run out, so we still receive the occasional issue with one of those “This is your last issue” card stock covers, but for the most part, we just don’t get any magazines in the mail these days. I was curious what I’ve been missing, and then I got to thinking about whether I really need the dead tree editions of what information I can probably find online.

One of the bigger offenders lately is Wired. I’ve been a subscriber to Wired Magazine since the first issue, and I’ve always found their articles interesting and timely — until lately.

Still, they’re well on top of the curve, but with the internet I’m so connected into the ideas they publish that I’ll hear about them weeks before I receive their magazine. I used to look forward to their Fetish section, showing the latest gadgets, but they haven’t published anything over the past year that I didn’t already know about. Recent articles are all starting to have this distinctly leftist tilt that unnerves me in what I had previously considered a source of news, even if I tend to agree with the specific ideals that they promote.

You can get a continuous stream of great new product announcments from Engadget (leaning: pleasant and informative) or Gizmodo (leaning: snarky and staccato). The rest of the featured articles eventually show up on Wired Magazine’s own web site! So why subscribe at all?

If I can do without Wired, which is the first magazine I thought I might not be able to do without, then what about some of these others?