What comes around, goes around.

Thanks to a link by cay I remembered what was the big story of 2006 that I think still affects us all deeply. I haven't said much about it, so here's my thoughts on the matter.

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How they used to be all nine.
And we'd smile, and we'd often say
We'd be there ourselves one day
And, maybe, everyone would be feeling fine.

But August made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn't take one more step.

I still remember all the hate
When I read we now had eight,
But something touched me deep inside
The day Pluto died.

So bye-bye, astronomical sky.
Took a look at Mars,
But the canals were dry.
In a lone eccentric orbit Pluto's asking us "why"?
Singing "this'll be the day that I die.
"this'll be the day that I die."

Did you really think it'd melt?
If it left the Kuniper belt?
The IAU tells you so.
What do you think Clyde Tombaugh would say,
If he were here and alive today?
He'd say we talk but we just don't know.

Having gravity just 'aint enough
when Neil Tyson likes to be tough
You left us way too soon.
We'll all remember you've got your own damn moon!

I was a lonely teenage astronomer
With a Celestron FS80WA and a lot of pluck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day Pluto died.

I started singing,
Bye-bye, astronomical sky.
Took a look at Mars,
But the canals were dry.
In a lone eccentric orbit Pluto's asking us "why"?
Singing "this'll be the day that I die.
"this'll be the day that I die."

Now for two years we've grown used to fate
And shrug and say "well now there's eight,"
But that's not how it used to be.
When Alan Stern sang for the geeky scene,
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me,

Oh, and while Alan Boss was looking down,
Owen Gingerich stole his thorny crown.
The committee was adjourned;
No verdict was returned.
And while Bendedict took the reign of Pope,
And a man named Barak first spoke of hope,
We sang for minor planet 134340
The day Pluto died.

We were singing,
Bye-bye, astronomical sky.
Took a look at Mars,
But the canals were dry.
In a lone eccentric orbit Pluto's asking us "why"?
Singing "this'll be the day that I die.
"this'll be the day that I die."

Oh, and there we were all in one place,
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again.
So come on: jack be nimble, jack be quick!
Jack flash sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the IAU's only friend.

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage.
No angel born in hell
Could break Mike Brown's dammed spell.
And while the charts rewrote our night
And our friend passed without a fight,
I saw creationists laughing with delight
The day Pluto died

They were singing,
Bye-bye, astronomical sky.
Took a look at Mars,
But the canals were dry.
In a lone eccentric orbit Pluto's asking us "why"?
Singing "this'll be the day that I die.
"this'll be the day that I die."

... is one we do not live in. Friends Only, comment to be added.

Staying home sick today. The bronchitis kicked up a notch, and now I'm on some serious-level antibiotics that make me feel a little dopey. The frustrating thing is, I'm dying to be active. It's warming up (70 degrees tomorrow!) and I've got the itch to get out to TKD, to lift and run, to hit the bike trail. But I've got to rest for a couple days at least to kick this thing.

Once this clerkship is over, I surely *won't* miss working in a condemned building. I'm starting to forget what it's like to not get respiratory infections every couple weeks. Paradise!

I've never actually watched Let's Make a Deal, but I might make an exception in two weeks.
http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-News-Blog/Todays-News/Exclusive-Force-Deal/800036897
A Star Wars theme with Darth Vader as the banker? Yes, please.

I've read through McCain's autobiography and now I'm working my way through Obama's. My goal this cycle is to be informed while staying objective until the debates. The problem is avoiding all the minefields of partisan hate. Every statement of each candidate is being analyzed by multiple teams, cross-referenced with all previous statements, and evaluated to see if it can be spun or quoted in such a way as to cause a stir. Those partisan websites are then quoted by readers who follow them into the more general population in order to sway the people who might actually not have their vote set in stone already. On the friendsfriends list I see this function being performed by at least one person by the name of badlydrawnjeff, while I've no doubt that many similar attacks, especially on the liberal side, are being pushed on forumopolis. It's not what you say, it's about how it can be spun, with or without context. Given that candidates necessarily give speeches at least once a day while campaigning, and there's plenty of fodder to go around.

Examples. Obama makes a comment about how a bad economy disenfranchises people into special interest groups they might not otherwise be in. This gets spun as a condemnation of blue collar workers. McCain makes a single and quickly corrected misstatement about Al-Queda and it gets spun as ignorance about middle east foreign policy. Both are being nailed for comments made by associated pastors- Pastor Hagee for McCain and Pastor Wright for Obama- like the ideology between pastor and candidate are inseparable. Please!

The only way to avoid this is to stick to the larger and relatively unbiased news sources (I especially like The Economist for this) while staying away from those people who claim to have storehouses of inside knowledge of why one candidate is constantly screwing up while the other is being treated unfairly by the media. As the old prayer goes, lead me not into temptation.

Testing went well, although as always I won't know until Friday how I did. If I get the brown belt, I'm going to need a tougher sounding name to go with it. "Chris" just doesn't cut it. I'm thinking of going "Rothgar," depending on how much they're charging for name change petitions. As Rothgar I intend to bump up the upper body weight lifting, walk around without a shirt and growl a lot.

That's the one thing that did go well this weekend. Temps dropped down to the 30's with a fair amount of snow. Even for Iowa, that's pretty late in the year for snow. With it came yet another respiratory infection (they just keep coming). Thanks to some antibiotics I'm feeling better, but I wouldn't call myself 100% yet. This has got to be the LAST TIME, both for snow and for aggravated bronchitis. Winter is over! Rothgar has spoken!

This week the metal detector at the south entrance has been off-line, so they're funneling everyone into the west entrance until it can be replaced. This was a real problem on Monday, when the potential jurors came in.

"Please step back through sir, do you have anything metal on you? Try taking off your belt. Step back through, do you have metal toed shoes?"

I never realized how many people wear metal toed shoes. Is it some kind of fashion trend I'm missing out on?

Yesterday we had a tornado drill. For our section, about 15 of us squeezed into a janitor closet (after removing the trash) for the length of the drill.

On April 29 Polk County is holding a referendum for a new Courthouse.

( the details )

Man, what an incredible finals game last night! (Sorry Kage.)

That puts my final standing at 51 out 418 in my Prep alumni pool, and 2nd out of 43 in the Forumopolis pool. Once Duke upset early I knew I wouldn't win- but I'll settle for respectability.

For the past few months I haven't really been back to the forums, except to enter the march madness bracket and check that thread. After some initial withdrawal symptoms I haven't really got the urge anymore, and I think I'm probably better off given the condition the forums have fallen to the past few years. But that sure won't stop me from entering a bracket and appreciating the annual experience that is March Madness. See you next year.

After a rough Friday I recovered enough to pull out a decent weekend. Met with some guys Friday night for brats and the BSG season premiere. Then Saturday night I tried sushi, which is something I've been meaning to do. I'll never try sushi again (wow!), but I'm happy I gave it a shot once in my life. Fortunately I was able to get home that night just in time to order a pizza before the place closed.

I tried and failed to set up the odometer on my bike saturday. The "instructions" consist of poorly copied pictures of black objects attaching to other black objects. The actual words don't touch on installation at all, just a list of stupid warnings "do not watch odometer for extended periods as you may crash into objects on road" printed in ten different languages. You can find room to print this stuff for the Netherlands but you can't find the space to tell me what these 10 different plastic doohickeys are?

Busy week ahead. Tae Kwon Do tonight, Bible Study on Tuesday (Starting Acts of the Apostles), Theology on Tap Wednesday, more TKD on Thursday, hosting for the next BSG episode on Friday, and then on Saturday I test for the brown belt. Fortunately I'm caught up at work right now, so I think I can handle this kind of week.

On the game front, I've been going through UFO: Extraterrestrials again. Generally it's been better this time, since I'm more experienced at the squad management. It can be frustrating, though. Situation: I took my squad in to take over an enemy base. All the decent guys who aren't currently recovering in the hospital went in to clear this very difficult mission, but with these veterans it went fine. Problem: the enemy then came in for a retaliatory strike while my transport was on its way back. So all I've got to defend my base is 7 unleveled rookies against an alien force that has tanks (over six shots to kill a single tank), floating things that fire an instant-kill AOE across half a room, AND mind control abilities. The first attempt did not go well. I see additional reloading in my future.

The new UFO is easier than the original in the sense that you can resurrect fallen soldiers under certain circumstances, with improved control schemes. But damn if it doesn't compensate with much harder opponents.

I keep telling myself that *today* is the last day we'll see snow. I said it again yesterday. Same thing with Bronchitis. Everybody should get T-Shirts saying "I survived the Great Winter of 2008."

She was not there at YCAF happy hour last night, but should be- hopefully- there at Theology on Tap Wednesday. That does mean that Saturday night is free again. Andy, Kelly, one more for Taki?

Assuming the lung problems comes under control (let's hear it for Xopenex), I'm meeting a group tonight for the return of BSG. I had actually forgotten about it until I saw the premiere invites. What's it been what, a year? Well, let's see what madness comes from the mind of Ronald Moore this year.

Poll #1164294 You can choose to bring back one cancelled TV show.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

Which DOA show would you bring back?

View Answers

Arrested Development
1 (6.7%)
Firefly
6 (40.0%)
Futurama
4 (26.7%)
Veronica Mars
4 (26.7%)
Other
0 (0.0%)