A couple pix for Lisa in Chicago

Just seconds before the bus arrived this morning - we made it!



One from the holidays that I noticed on my phone when I was grabbing the other one. They're all so adorable.

I had a dream, Lisa, that you and I were in a bar in Kalamazoo and you were making freinds with some youngish woman who - after finding out we were into unusual buildings and photography - took us to a nearby building that had a super wierd thing in the basement that was like a cross between the holding tanks at the water treatment plant, the wild steadicam-following-the-pipes-through-the-walls-of-the-house shot from Soavi's film The Devil's Daughter (La Setta), and the underwater-in-the-basement scene from Argento's Inferno. We just kind of looked around down there together and I woke up before it got too creepy.

It was fun listening to Chris chat with you this morning while I was running around trying to get ready to get out the door.

Halfmania.com

I just jumped through all the hoops necessary to buy a Wii console from Halfmania for $125.

It took me just over an hour to figure everything out and make my choices of which "offers" to apply for and then fill out all those online forms. As of now - only a half an hour later - I'm still waiting to find out if I'll be verified by all the companies I "applied" to, only one of the 3 needed actually came through with what I would call "instant verification".

I may have bought into a whole bunch of hassle an expense if I can't cancel some of the free or cheap trial offers I applied for - I'll come back with an update on that situation later as things develop.

It looks kind of like a scam, but it's a fairly complicated and detailed scam, so I don't get the feeling that it's a %100 rip-off type scam. Rather I think it is a sort of "if you can't jump through every single hoop we command you to, them you get nothing and we made a few bucks from you" kind of scam. One could also see it as a validation of the "no free lunch" adage - basically you have to work pretty hard, and spend a little money to get your half price thing-that-you-wanted-in-the-first-place (I'm hoping it works out well for me in the end).

Again I'll let you know how things develop.

UPDATE:
two months later...This is a total scam. I got nothing of value from my efforts and $ spent on Halfmania.

Another Political Entry

I was reading this and its attendant comments section, and found it somewhat heartening that some people really do get the awful, misguided nature of this latest episode of Bush Administration stupidity known as the "troop surge."

It just sucks that soldiers - who are actual humans, after all - get used as pawns in a political game over and over again in this.

It also sucks that there is even one single person in the US who is so uneducated that they are able to write this:

"Personally, I believe the US is in Iraq for two reasons: 1. to make the point that we CAN and WILL take down nations uniting with our enemies, and 2. to provide a landing and unloading zone for an eventual push against Iran - the real evil."

I feel like I cound incredulously re-quote each phrase from the above quote and follow them with an exasperated mixture of question marks and exclamation points.

How can one even begin to set someone (and there are many such "someones," I'm afraid) so deluded on the path to knowledge and understanding?

At least I can feel comforted by the fact that I'm preaching to an understanding choir here.

Thanks be to God for the understanding choir. Maybe we'll inherit the earth together someday. Maybe it's already happening.