Ride of the Mergansers

My friend Steve/Buckwheat, who I met on a BBS back when they were sort of cool because the inter-link didn't really exist yet (and don't get me started about how it was him who got me interested in programming by giving me a modem script he used to simulate a human on an MMORPG), and I last really talked back when he was just moving into his new cabin. Well, by installing cameras all over the place in order to catch the local ducks at their duckiest, Steve parlayed that cabin time into "Ride of the Mergansers", a documentary that's been making the rounds of the film festival circuit over the last year and recently played in Duluth. His site describes the action:

"The Hooded Merganser is a rare and reclusive duck found only in North America.
Every spring, in the Great Lakes region, the wary hen lays and incubates her eggs in a nest high in the trees. Just 24 hours after hatching, the tiny ducklings must make the perilous leap to the ground below to begin life in the wild. This age-old rite is rarely observed by humans."

Steve assures me they'll be showing the film on PBS sometime in the new future, so watch for it, or, if you're really into ducks/nature, you can buy it at his site for $12 (+$2 SH), a veritable steal.

West Virginia beats out Kentucky as most toothless state

Ah...I know I have a few readers from West Virginia out there - so they should appreciate this important news. Exploding Cigar cites an article on Yahoo:

"A new survey puts West Virginia in first place among states with toothless residents, beating out Kentucky which was number one in 2003. The central Appalachian states lead the nation in toothlessness."

Of course, I only have to look at one of the West Virginians I know to realize the obvious truth of that article...

Bush: Schools Should Teach Intelligent Design

I'm fairly certain that if this is the case (Bush: Schools Should Teach Intelligent Design), then Terry Pratchett's cosmology should be taught right alongside it. After all, you can't entirely prove you're not riding on a giant turtle named The Great A'Tuin who is surmounted by a number of immense elephants, and even if you could, it doesn't mean there isn't a giant turtle out there with a world on his back swimming the depths of space or that the giant turtle has messed with your head to make you think you're on a ball instead of his back. If there are people who think L. Ron was divinely inspired, then it stands to reason that TP might have been divinely inspired when he wrote his books as well.

I note W refers to Intelligent Design, which claims to embrace only the generic idea of a creator, not one (cough...Christian) in particular, so you have to wonder if they're going to model theory day in high school physics on those Myths of Greece and Rome classes you take to get out of a core credit at the U of MN because it's more like story telling at the library than work. There's not going to be a lot of time to study actual physics if you have to address all of the following aspects of creationism (after all, if you're really talking Intelligent Design - you need to provide some background and competing theories):

• Flat Earth Creationism
• Modern Geocentrism
• Young-Earth Creationism
• Old-Earth Creationism (and thus Gap, Day-age or Progressive)
  Evolutionary creationism/Theistic evolutionism
• Straight up ID - Intelligent Design
• Jewish creationism
• Some other Cosmogony or Cosmology/Origin Belief (the link to follow if you're after all sorts of creation myths)

Weevils

I think I have a bug meme going. Anyway, today was a day of great celebration because it was the first day in over two weeks that I didn't find a weevil lounging in my shower. I'm very tired of washing them down the drain and throwing them out the back door. I know other people share my problem as Sean had a weevil at his house when we were playing games and a general discussion about them ensued which came to the conclusion that they were weevils.

Here's the culprit, the Strawberry Root Weevil:

Strawberry root weevil, Otiorhynchus ovatus, is the most common
home-invading weevil in Minnesota. These weevils are about 1/4 inch long, black
or dark brown with rows of pits along their back. Strawberry root weevils do not
fly. Sometimes people confuse strawberry root weevils for ticks; however they
are easily distinguished, as weevils have six legs and ticks have eight.
Strawberry root weevil larvae feed on the roots of strawberries,
evergreens--such as arborvitae, spruce, and Japanese yew--raspberries and other
brambles, grapes and many other plants. Adults start to emerge in early summer.
They feed on the edges of foliage, leaving a characteristic notched appearance.
Residents experience problems with these weevils from the end of June
through August. They are attracted to moisture and are often found in sinks,
bathtubs, water basins and similar places.

McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories

I just finished reading McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (ed. by Michael Chabon). I read McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (ed. by Michael Chabon, locally available via the Dakota County library system) previously, and it had a wonderful fictionalized account of the hanging of Mary the elephant - Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter". Neil Gaiman ("Closing Time") and Stephen King ("The Legend of Gray Dick") were both memorable in the older collection. In this collection, I'd personally recommend China Mieville's "Reports of Certain Events in London" which is perhaps one of the most unique stories I've read and just ever so vaguely related to an aspect of Harry Potter. Joyce Carol Oates "The Fabled Light-house of Vina del Mar" stands out as thoroughly Cthulu-esque, and she notes that it is based upon some fragments from Edgar Allen Poe. Margaret Atwood, in "Lusus Naturae", violates one of the rules I once read about writing fiction on Boing Boing - that is, writing about the seemingly weak creature that is not - but in this case, is - though that (in)human twist doesn't seem to be enough to redeem the story. But Jason Roberts "7C" is absolutely worth reading, even if it's the only thing you read in the collection (actually, read that and Mieville) and even gets a special note in the collection because it won the "August Van Zorn Prize for Weird Fiction" - well deserved in my opinion.

Whathaveyou and Otherstuff

A list post! I feel so Norwegianity-ish. But I had a lot of things I read today that I just thought were amusing.

• Power Liberal notes that the University of Wisconsin may have effectively been banned from dispensing any sort of birth control. Rew notes there's not even any of the usual rationalizing, just "straight-up stick it to the sluts reasoning." Although, if you read the comments, there's some argument about exactly to what extent sluts are truly affected. Pooteewheet left Wisconsin to be a U of MN slut, so even if this had been passed in the liberal 80's, I'd have been ok.
• And, speaking of sluts, The Revealer has an article up about a "Slut for Faith" who has some recommendations about not getting married in a church if you don't feel particularly religious, go to Vegas instead, or maybe that's backward and you should go to Vegas if you feel religious (that would bode well for my friend Adam, although I'm not sure what a replica of Zorro's sword has to do with Jesus). You'll have to read the article to see. However, I'm not sure what "Jew-ISH" means at the end of the article, in the byline. It sounds way too much like when I call my dog a she-it because she got fixed.
• The Revealer also has a post called "Polish Your Headship" where you can learn about "products in the 2005 edition of the Vision Forum Family Catalog" that "have been carefully selected to share our passion for the Christ-centered biblical family" and about a TV pitch for "Patriarchy Made Simple" where "Five thousand men and their families will be chosen from God’s Tongue, which at 36,000 members is Texas’ largest mega-church. Each family will be provided a head ship modeled on the finest designs provided by Star Wars."
• And speaking of religion that's scary - Three Way News notes that the AFA is all about horrific violence in films, as long as it's the kind of violence that comes in Aramaic.
• Finally, pondering religious things in what seems like a different language - go read a few links about Scientology if you never have before (bonus points if you can find a copy of the contract to give away a billion years or so of your spirtual life on Operation Clambake). It's a bit of a trip. There's some great content like: "On other occasions, traumas may have been deliberately inflicted in the form of "implants" used by mostly defunct extraterrestrial civilizations and dictatorships to brainwash and control people. These included such tortures as the Obscene Dog, "a sort of a brass dog in a sitting position and anybody who got around to the front of the dog got caught in some electronic current and passed through the dog to the dog's rear end and spat out" (Hubbard, "Assists," lecture of 3rd October 1968). Scientology doctrine includes a wide variety of beliefs in extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in Earthly events, collectively described by Hubbard as "space opera". For a detailed overview, see Space opera in Scientology doctrine."

Cockchafer

Read Terry Pratchett and you learn brand new words. This is so not what I would have guessed the word cockchafer meant:

Main Entry: cock·cha·fer
Pronunciation: 'käk-"chA-f&r
Function: noun
Etymology: cock + chafer
: a large European beetle (Melolontha melolontha) destructive to vegetation as an adult and to roots as a larva; also : any of various related beetles
- Merriam Webster (Online Dictionary)

The Mother of All Orgies

My last post about domestic terrorism seemed to be a bit of a downer, so I thought I should present the "lighter" (sorry, I can't type it without quotes in this context) side of racism and hate in America. The Southern Poverty Law Center has a new article up about a woman in Alabama disputing the title "Wizardess", although it seems she uses it herself quite a bit. The title of this post refers to her statement that the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march in 1965 was "The Mother of All Orgies".

Note Gen. Forrest's tombstone in the picture - I really hope no one puts the words "Untutored Genius" on my headstone (well, urn) - even though I think I deserve it for learning SQL Reporting Services mostly on my own. As for "The First With the Most" - I'll leave that to my wife's discretion, but I'm pretty sure if it's appropriate for a confederate general, I'm the opposite side of interested.

But hey, while you're reading, also remember, the White Aryan Baby Drive really needs your child-rearing leftovers and Al Qaeda needs absolutely anyone with tan skin to serve as some sort of bait, at least according to Fox News.

Domestic Terrorism

Orcinus has a short piece over at his site, The Other Kind of Terror, that addresses what few of us read much about with the war in Iraq and bombings elsewhere overshadowing the impact in the news - that domestic terrorism is pretty much all over the map in the United States (link to U.S. World News); the sort of homegrown violence your see formulated by far-right supremacists, religious separatists, and antigovernment groups. Since 1995, there have been roughly 60 right-wing terrorist plots involving machine guns, plastic explosives, Amtrack derailments, Ammonium Nitrate, bank robbery, anti-aircraft guns, tax evasion, barrels of jet fuel, and more explosives, chemicals and ammunition than seems possible, in states such as Texas, Tennessee, Idaho, Massachusetts, Kentucky,North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Washington (DC), California, Colorado, Kansas, Arkansas, Alabama, Illinois, West Virginia Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Mississippi, Georgia, Washington, Florida and Oklahoma.

I note two items that caught my attention in the latest Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report:

October 11, 1996 Seven members of the Mountaineer Militia are arrested in a plot to blow up the FBI's national fingerprint records center, where 1,000 people work, in West Virginia. In 1998, leader Floyd "Ray" Looker is sentenced to 18 years in prison. Two other defendants are sentenced on explosives charges and a third draws a year in prison for providing blueprints of the FBI facility to Looker, who then sold them to a government informant who was posing as a terrorist.

April 10, 2003 The FBI raids the Noonday, Texas, home of William Krar and storage facilities he rented in the area, discovering an arsenal that includes more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs and remote-control briefcase bombs, and almost two pounds of deadly sodium cyanide. Also found are components to convert the cyanide into a bomb capable of killing thousands, along with white supremacist and antigovernment material. Investigators soon learn Krar was stopped earlier in 2003 by police in Tennessee, who found in his car several weapons and coded documents that seemed to detail a plot. Krar refuses to cooperate, and details of that alleged plan are never learned. Eventually, he pleads guilty to possession of a chemical weapon and is sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.

I Like a Good George W. Bush Joke

McSweeney's has one of their lists up:

Although I Like a Good George W. Bush Joke as Much as the Next Guy, Some of Them Seem Gratuitous and Mean-Spirited By Matt Alexander

For example...

"Did you hear that Bill Clinton hired a new intern? It turns out that his
old intern had to go home and spend time with her family after her brother was
killed in Iraq."

Four Unrelated Items

1.) I went to sushi for lunch at Byerly's, of all places, with TallBrad. It was surprisingly delicious - not top of the line ingredients, but good enough that it made an exceptionally different lunch. I had a mixture of ginger, cucumber, tuna, and salmon rolled in rice and seaweed, all for about $7 with tax (not including a soda) - yum. I think I now know where a dinner for my family might come from every other week.

2.) I have learned from my father that my grandmother is directly earning money from Halliburton. She sold oil drilling rights to her land in Montana, and she sold them to Halliburton. It pays very well and if she passes away (I hope she spends her money before then) before the rights expire, I personally stand to make some money from Halliburton. Crap. I'd have to give it to the DFL and charity - if I donate it through work, they'll match it - so maybe that's the way to go.

3.) I was listening to the song "I've Never Been to Me" by Charlene (see the movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert for a moving rendition) on Radioblogclub today. Is it just me, or when she breaks into her little rap, does she sound exactly like Zoolander (the male fashion model played by Ben Stiller, from the movie of the same name). Really - listen to it - it must be some weird Canadian accent. And, in case you're not familiar with the words of the rap, please feel free to suffer as I did...

Hey, you know what paradise is?
It's a lie.
A fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be.
But you know what truth is?
It's that little baby you're holding
And it's that man you fought with this morning
The same one you're going to make love to tonight.
That's truth.
That's love.

4.) Finally, I went to Wedding Crashers with some guys from work today. I have to say, the first half was actually exceptional for a crappy comedic buddy movie - really well done. The second half didn't move as fast, wasn't as funny, and felt like they were trying to fit in a whole bunch of humor, all the serious stuff, and extra story line they just didn't have time to fit into a two hour movie, but I sort of got the feeling that if you had been willing to sit for three and a half hours, they might have told you a whole story that was worth listening to. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, and Will Ferrell was funnier in his ten minutes in the movie than he was in the entirety of Anchorman. Rachel McAdams as Owen Wilon's love interest was exceptionally good eye candy, far better than Jessica Alba in Fantastic Four, although I'm not sure I can bring myself to ever watch Mean Girls.

Five Boy Scout Leaders Die in VA Accident

Five Boy Scout Leaders Die in VA Accident

Well, if that isn't just disturbing. I'm an Eagle Scout myself, and although I quit giving them financial support until they get rid of their bias against gays (please...I knew several gay scouts and several gay leaders - I was always more worried about my hetero Scouts sneaking off to see a counselor or the Swedish Boy Scouts across the lake at family camp, who were actually co-ed) I follow what they're up to. The Jamboree in question above is the National Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. It's an immense gathering of Scouts and I went there myself around 1981 (wow, I'm old). The highlight of my time there? sleeping through a live performance of "Elvira" by the Oak Ridge Boys (at the height of its popularlity) because I hadn't closed my eyes in the previous sixty hours.

When I was there, it was not the safest place to be. There were daily (actually a few times a day) explosions -- ground rocking explosions -- as the military disposed of immense pits full of "found" explosives that littered the ground near the testing range. Not just at the beginning of the event either - every day. There were the Scouts who found a grenade and played catch. A live grenade. There were the critters in the lake that prevented us from swimming. Some sort of chiggers/swimmer's itch on acid that pretty much meant falling in the water during boating was out of the question. Not that that stopped other Scouts from ramming your raft and screaming "The South will rise again!" as they tried to flip you. There were the ticks. There were the normal hazards - sharp implements, cooking fires, etc. I spilled a whole pan of sizzling hot bacon grease on my leg and had a blister that stretched from just above my knee to a delta-shaped series of rivulets over my toes - but I felt fortunate that I wasn't the kid next to me at the first aid tent with a hatchet in his thigh (you can bandage around a hatchet until you get to the doc - it's worse to take it out sometimes). There were other immediate dangers, not including getting awakened by the Scottish "foreign exchange" Scouts and their bagpipes at 5 a.m. - but even after I got home, I was getting letters informing me that they had discovered PCBs/Dioxin in the area where the merit badge midway resided - specifically, in the areas where I had played some games.

All said, it didn't seem nearly as dangerous as the time in Scouts when I slipped on egg residue on a cement floor and nearly broke my tailbone during a skit about brown pants (cunningly incorporated into the play), or the time my friend fell off the climbing tower wearing my sneakers and they took him away in an ambulance with my only pair of sneakers, or the time some fellow counselors rolled a van (I was thankfully on leave), or the time I was at a jamboree where 80+ Scouts contracted hypothermia (and I was the Scout in charge of first aid), or just being a counselor for teen Webelos/Scouts period (poison ivy in the underwear anyone? tied to flagpole naked near the nurses' station? all your clothes up the flagpole? spun in a hammock and then whomped? I was much too pleasant to be the victim of these menial crimes, but a few of my close friends were not so fortunate). I never ended up dead, obviously, but it didn't seem to be for a lack of trying.

Drinking Liberally

I thought I should get a post in about Drinking Liberally before a whole week has passed since I attended. I alluded to my participation in an earlier post - but didn't elaborate. Last Wednesday, they moved their digs from their usual Minneapolis locale to The Muddy Pig in St. Paul - that was close enough for me to sneak out after Pooteewheet got home. What I didn't quite understand was that the drinking part of "liberally" really meant "freaking extensively" and involved being careful not to turn your head lest someone top off your beer while you weren't looking. I met some of the people whose blogs I always read, like Robin from over at PowerLiberal (she remembers me!), The Wege over at Norwegianity, who actually came to my site to comment about, of all things, my post about the Teapot worshippers in Malaysia, and Jackpinesavage (well, part of Jackpinesavage) from over at Curly Tales of War Pigs. The later pretty much rode out the evening with me, and I'm not sure if, by the end, I was putting up with him, he was putting up with me, or we were just having a good time. I needed someone to talk to, because Erik (from work) had to leave before he turned into a puddle of incoherentcy (but not before he outed the bartender to me as A.J. so I could personally bother him all evening
for beer like I was his best friend). Erik was having a difficult time not pumping his glass while Scotty Mortenson told him all about his political positions and opinions for what seemed like an hour. Scotty seems like a nice guy with plenty of great ideas, particularly considering he wants to represent my hometown (Monticello) which is smack in the middle of what is becoming, or is, conservative-central Minnesota, but damn, even from three feet away in an unrelated conversation, he's freaking intense. I actually had a pretty good time talking to a new Minnesotan fresh up from St. Louis as well. His discussion about his employer limiting his access to Yahoo personals and the effect on his sex life pretty much left me in stitches. Anyway, I spent quite a while sobering up from Bell's Two-Hearted, Summit EPA (and others) and politics, talking about music instead, but the damage was done. Regardless of how sober I was when I left (and I was fine), I had prepped myself for a good hangover the next morning - which begs the question, why on a Wednesday? But life usually craps in my favor, and Pooteewheet had a dental appointment the next morning for which I'd already taken time off, so I didn't have to explain to anyone why I was rimming an Advil/Tylenol bottle and hooked to a water IV. I topped my absence off with "I should visit with my Dad (from Tucson) as he's leaving town", and just wrote the day off entirely - mostly taking a nap, reading a bit, and vowing to keep my glass where no one can reach it next time.

Vacation Plans - South Dakota is...the Land of Infinite Variety

Pooteewheet and I are making our plans for our upcoming vacation. My grandmother will be turning 90, so we decided that we'd couple a trip to (the near side of) Montana for her party with a tour of the Dakotas. Not the most inspired choice of a vacation, particularly as it's been 95+ around here and it's usually hotter there, but it will be convenient as we have to come back to Minnesota anyway, and driving completely around the Dakotas is so darned inconvenient, and Iowa always gets in the way on the final leg. So far, we've nailed down one thing we're not going to do, and that's visit the South Dakota Hall of Fame. In case you're worried I forgot a word, like Hockey or Amateur Baseball in the middle of that phrase...nope. It's a museum dedicated to famous South Dakotans, like...oh...

Mary Hart - Know nationally for her work in the news media.
Terry Redlin – World wide acclaim for his beautiful artistic work portraying nature and American life.
Tom Brokaw – Nationally recognized for his contribution to media and journalism.
Al Neuharth – Renowned as the founder of USA TODAY, the Freedom Forum, and honored with the Al Neuharth Media Center in Verimillion, S.D.
Sitting Bull - The famous leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux tribe who was a man of vision and well respected by all who knew him.
Crazy Horse - Known as a brave and generous Sioux Indian Warrior, he is honored at the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
And Many Others!

You'd hate to put any of those Native Americans first, even though they're the most interesting and well known of any of those people outside of Tom Brokaw. Maybe it's alphabetical. Or racialbetical. But "and many others!" includes Jerry Olson, Jack Marken, Vern McKee, Martin Busch, et al. (but not Cheryl Ladd, Sparky Anderson, Ted Waitt, and Katherine Bach, at least not until after the remake of Dukes of Hazard), and some of them aren't native American, so maybe that absolves the ordering decision. I'd refer you to the virtual tour, but it seems to be woefully out of commission. As a service, I'd like to give the museum a hand and reconstruct the tour on my site using powerful visual language, so lean back and imagine yourself standing in the middle of South Dakota - dusty, windswept prairie, waves of golden grass, black-hills style, coal-striated scenery, rattle snakes, packrats, ground squirrels, the weighty history of The Sioux Wars and frontier life and justice, the solemn silence of missing herds of bison and extinct flocks of passenger pigeons one of which once darkened the plains, the other the skies...now...quick! add Mary Hart! (or Tom Brokow...as you please). Ah...infinite variety indeed!

Gonzo

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always
worked for me." - Hunter S. Thompson

I needed some beer for gaming today, and noticed at the Cellars a four pack of "Gonzo Imperial Porter", brewed in honor of Hunter S. Thompson, tagged with his quote "Good people drink good beer", and offering the strong selling point that my purchase would help fund The Gonzo Memorial Fist. The beer itself is, as you'd expect an Imperial Porter, very heavy - and not something you want to be drinking either right before bed or on the porch in the 95 degree heat. But it's a delicious Imperial Porter and that's good enough to me.

But wait...there's more. So much more. I followed the link to the Flying Dog Ales site and their page about Gonzo beer where they explain the history and interaction of the brewery and the beer and inform me, via another page, that if I'm proactive, I can procure a $95 collector's bottle that possibly contains a golden ticket (like in Willy Wonka) allowing me to go to a dedication of the Fist with Johnny Depp (like a surreal Willy Wonka) and watch Hunter's ashes get blown out a cannon (not really at all like Willy Wonka). That's cheaper and better than a tank ride, though the outcome is obviously not a given. Still, the odds are better than the raffle ticket I buy from the local elementary every year, and the prize is much more interesting than a DVD player I don't need.

Lance, the Tour and the St. Paul Bike Classic

Rather than regurgitate anything about Lance Armstrong and the Tour, which ends tomorrow, I'd like to point you to After School Snack's nice write up about what will undoubtedly be his seventh win, including links to bike technology, Armstrong's greatest moments, and even his (amusing) tactics. If you haven't been following the Tour at all, you've been missing a chance to watch some well-deserving Americans really showing their moxy.

If you like to bike, and the Tour has you in a mood, might I suggest you take the time to get in your early registration for the St. Paul Bike Classic. There's still a week left to get in at the lower fee. The route is about a 30 mile loop around St. Paul (there's actually a 15 miler up Ramsey Hill if you prefer your rides short and exhausting - in the past you've gotten a button for making it to the top. I'd like to point out, however, that if my very pregnant sister and retired father could make it up last year, so can everyone else) and most of the route is closed to traffic, making it that much more fun. In the past, I've seen no less then one squirrel who rather than be squashed, learned to fly, a woman run over a street sign in front of a policecar and then run away while he shook his head and continued to watch the ride, the biggest dead snake I've ever seen in Minnesota, a guy dressed like a silver condom, and so many happy bikers that you can't help but be happy yourself. (link, once again, for good form)

Bruce Campbell

Mean Mr. Mustard recently posted about Bruce Campbell and his new book and an article on Salon. For him, and any other Bubba Ho-tep fans out there, Bruce will be doing a book signing at the U of MN bookstore (Coffman Memorial Union) on Wednesday, July 27, 6:00 p.m. Get a line number at CMU and have your copy of "Make Love!* *the Bruce Campbell Way" (by Bruce Campbell) personally signed.

TankRide.com

I got my copy of Save on Everything in the mail today, a coupon book that comes every other month and offers me savings on various things like food, squirrel control and siding for my house. I always look through it in the hopes that there will be something worth my while, like the coupons for LaFonda's. This time, there was something new. A coupon offering me three riders for the price of two ($250) at Tankride, at the Westbranch Gun Club in Princeton. The add promises me, "Ride in Real WWII Tanks and Shoot Real Machine Guns" (Gift Certificates Available). I can't quite explain the allure this seems to have as far as I'm concerned (it's probably all those WWII-era board games I play) - loading Kyle and Dan into a T-34 (with a German logo, so presumably a T-34 captured by the German's for Kursk or something, or maybe they're just trying to provide wish-fulfillment for both Russophiles and Germanophiles - ah, never mind, the site has the skinny: "This tank was built in late 1944 by the Russians. It is believed that it was captured by the Viking Division of the German Army during World War II. When we bought the tank from the Polish Government, it was painted in German field gray over the original Russian green. This is why we have retained the German markings on this Russian tank.") and tooling around a gun range while firing a machine gun. If they promised me I could shoot the main armanent once, I'd be seriously considering reservations. This is undoubtedly why Mean Mr. Mustard's wife has her reservations about me - she knows that deep in my liberal heart I could still find some enjoyment driving a tank around for no reason whatsoever and not feel particularly guilty that I was driving a vehicle intended to blow up other vehicles and the people therein (albeit, I'd be more comfortable driving a Sherman or T-34 without the German markings, and when confronted with buying my little girl army men or dinosaurs, I happily grabbed the plastic dinosaurs). But sometimes a 60 year old tank isn't really a symbol of anything anymore, it's just, well, an empty tin can that can safely take you back to a time with a fascinating history that you'd never want to visit in person - and wanting to drive one, well that's just the idiot in me wanting to drive something approximately thirty to fifty times bigger than my Saturn or Ford Focus.

My practical side would never allow me to go on a $125-$250 tank ride. When I think about that money, I think about 6-12 months of Netflix and the 4-6 hours a week I spend watching movies with Pooteewheet, several trips to a nice restaurant for two, perhaps Sushi, a ticket to Tucson to see my parents or part of a trip to England, a large chunk of my Christmas outlay, an iPod, 1% of the flex loan I'm trying to rapidly pay down before home loans sneak back up to 10%, the tile for the bathroom I've been too lazy to finish, a serious donation to the DFL, and $500 in company-matched funds for scholarships and the arts. Taking an expensive tank ride would seem too much like just putting the money in a jar and driving over it with big treads. But if you have money to burn and tank rides are for you - tankride.com. Let me know what I missed.

Welcome Blotters

I see I made blog of the day on the Blotter. I apologize if you were expecting a post more recent than 3 days old, but I spent yesterday recovering from the St. Paul Drinking Liberally. You'll find a weird mixture of content on my blog as I tend to mix the personal and anything I find interesting, with a particular interest in the intersection of religion, politics, and hate crimes (at least lately).

Malaysian Teapot Cult

In the spirit of publishing weird things about Malaysia for Ming, this was on Boing Boing today: "A Malaysian cult devoted to the icon of a large teapot has been attacked. Some local Muslims are said to be angry that the group, which promotes interfaith harmony, is "stealing" converts from mosques." (BBC Link)