This definitely crosses the line

Okay – I know I was planning on using this for more “serious” posts and not so much to link to others. But this is, in my opinion, has a degree of seriousness. When I first saw this linked from J-Walk’s Blog, I thought it was a joke but apparently it isn’t. To quote from the article:

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission – both a religious mission and a military mission — to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state – especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is “to conduct physical and spiritual warfare”; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.

The game, slated for release by October 2006 in advance of the Christmas shopping rush, has been previewed at video game exhibitions, and reviewed by major newspapers and magazines. But until now, no fan or critic has pointed out the controversial game’s connection to Mr. Warren or his dominionist agenda.

What crazy people think this way?

You can find the rest of the (extremely creepy) article here.

Where do we go from here?

I’ve been mulling over what to do with this site for some time now and still haven’t come to a conclusion. Part of me feels vague inspiration to go forward with some sort of new and as yet completely undefined creative project. Another part of me thinks I should just continue to leave it alone. I guess I’m somewhat at a loss at this point what exactly I want this site to be.

Part of my plans include doing something with the yurt years content. I am not sure if I’ll continue with the podcast of the full journal through those years. This is partly due to its feeling like gratuitous content recycling, and partly because not all of it is particularly interesting. And of course I’d like to move forward as well. One of the things I liked about some of my yurt years entries is that there were a lot more entries with serious content talking about my thoughts and opinions about my own life. I think in the latest incarnation of my journal I made a mistake in getting away from that in favour of easy content such as a great online documentary, the latest outrageous thing that the US government did, or a restaurant that I really liked. I enjoy doing those posts but they’re not exactly what I see myself putting here. Perhaps that’s a good use for the myspace page. On the one hand I like that idea and on the other hand it makes me a bit nervous that I won’t write here since this is now a place for “serious” writing and I might be overly self-critical. Perhaps a better way to describe the difference then is that my introspective writing will end up here and my quick blurbs along the lines of “did you see that Hastert is under investigation” will end up over there. Fair enough?

Cracking Down

It has happened.  As of last weekend I have officially become tired of having the kitchen being mostly a mess.  And so, in a fit of pique I enacted the One-Fork Rule – Each of us now has one cup, one bowl, one plate, one fork, one knife, and one spoon and are responsible for cleaning our own eating utensils (the person who doesn’t cook still cleans up after dinner prep though often I have been cleaning as I go so that isn’t much to do).

The evening I first started it, Sage hated the idea.  By lunch the next day, though, she called me at work to say she totally loved the idea.  And now I highly recommend it.  It has helped me become more inspired to cook since as soon as I am ready to cook I can get out there and do it without any preparation where before there would often be a whole cleaning process (9 times out of ten it would be Sage who did it as per our deal where she cleans the kitchen and I cook) that took easily 15-20 minutes. 

Sage did have a momentary time of trying to get around the spirit of the rule by using my stuff when hers was dirty.  Fortunately, though, I can reach cabinets she can’t. *grin*

Useful post for new parents

Just in time for those of you expecting a baby soon I offer you the list of fictional expletives. Sage and I try not to use profanity around Paul and in past years have had to get a bit creative. In our years at the yurt, the expletive of choice – particularly when accidentally running the bow saw across your knuckles again was ‘farn’ which came from Sage’s trying to summon ‘darn’ from something rather less appropriate for young ears.

In other news – Kim was evil and got me started over at myspace. So I just recently set up a page there. I know, I should be (and am) a bit embarrassed about it but there’s something strangely appealing to it. It’s like artificial grape flavouring. Not particularly good for you but you enjoy it anyway.

The saddest SNL opening ever

I realize that things would not be perfect by any means had Al Gore have actually ended up as president in 2001, but still, this opening for SNL in which Al Gore speaks as if he were president is more sad than funny. Until I watched that I hadn’t really thought of what could have been – which certainly would have been better than what is.

On the brighter side, what with all of the various scandals plaguing both the executive and legislative branches, there’s at least some hope for at least the beginnings of change to come starting this fall.

Halloween Boy moves on!

We just heard from Halloween Boy again. Apparently he’s in Bradford, Ontario now. For the Ontario geographically challenged, that’s a distance of about 33.9 miles. Watch his progress here or see a map of his progress in google earth.

Meanwhile, in other news, the Dave and Gary dolls appear to have arrived in Toronto. We got a notification that the package has arrived in town. Now all Sage has to do is crochet their shoes, then we’ll be taking a photo of them before sending them on their way to the next stop on their tour. With any luck it will be timed right so they can be brought to the Podcasters Across Borders gathering in June.

Another innovator

Since I found the web back in 1994, I have watched with sadness its commercialization. I remember the first time I saw a banner ad on Altavista and I remember seeing the outrage online as people speculated about how advertising would never catch on here because people would just avoid those sites. Instead, almost completely went downhill in so many ways. Not long after the first banner ad arrived, the spam started flowing into my inbox, and from there it was a continuing downward spiral.

Yes, I know, there are some great commercial innovations out there. And having the ability to shop online really helped when we lived far from particular stores. (I’m specifically recalling the times I ordered Indian groceries from an online vendor back when we lived at the yurt). But it was rare to see people actually trying anything different. I am glad, though, to see that at least for the time being that is starting to change. Online broadcasters and podcasters are getting support online from sources outside of advertising and being fairly successful at it. And now, even more mainstream folks are getting into the innovation.

Take Jane Siberry, for instance. Most known for her song, “Calling All Angels” (though, in my mind she is most known for “Everything Reminds me of my Dog”), she has started an online music store. However, unlike many similar stores, there is no DRM. Furthermore, there are no fixed prices in the store. According to this article over at eff.org, there are a number of pricing options including:

• free (“gift from Jane”)
• a standard price (CAN$0.99);
• self-determined price – pay now or
• self-determined price – pay later

And while I’m not a huge fan of the music (sorry, Jane!), I am very glad to see this sort of shift away from the worship of the almighty dollar to a transaction where the music (or whatever product) is the priority and the money is secondary. Sure, there will be people leeching from the system. I have little doubt that there are people who go there and download everything just because they can. But those people wouldn’t have purchased the music anyway, in my opinion. And I’m also sure that there are a few fans who did the same sort of thing who might have purchased CDs. However, I can also guess that there are other devoted fans who chose to pay more for their purchases just because they loved the music so much.

I guess the other thing I really like about this trend is that it shows something of a growing trust in the idea that you should do what you love and let the money figure itself out later. We did this when we moved to the yurt, and while it was not always 100% successful (notice we’re not there anymore, for instance), that attitude kept us happy and well-fed for 2 years in a yurt, and another two in a rented house in town. It shows a degree of optimism much needed in these “not so optimistic” times.

Anyway – to ge to the store, go here: Sheeba