The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Best. Website. Ever.
MSN had a link on the front page that said, “Should Online Courses Go on Your Résumé?” Inasmuch as I am in an online degree program, I clicked on it and thought, “And why the hell not?”
Oh. Because there are no grades. No accountability in the courses they describe.
But what is this? Academic Earth? Never heard of it. Click.
It is a library full of lectures. Some are one-shots, and some are complete courses. Complete meaning there are the 27 lectures, there is the reading list, there is the syllabus, there are the assignments. Free for anyone with a laptop to use.
I watched the intro lecture to a course on the Civil War, by a Yale history professor. I love him. I love him! And look at all the books he assigns!
And look at this! The American Novel since 1945!
This website is only six months old and I have already found five courses I want to take. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why they invented the Internet.
Ozzie
When did the one-named “Ozzie” become Guillen and not Osbourne? When he started talking like this (excuse me for printing a Chicago Tribune article in its entirety):
Looks like Ozzie is being Ozzie again.
After Cubs manager Lou Piniella pointed out the spike in attendance from 22,000 when the Dodgers faced the White Sox last week to a full house when the Cubs visited U.S. Cellular Field this weekend, Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was asked why attendance was so low for the Dodgers series.”Because our fans are not stupid like Cubs fans,” Guillen said. “They know we’re [expletive].”
Guillen said Cubs fans will watch any game at Wrigley Field because “Wrigley Field is just a bar.”
We are generally Cubs fans in my family, but we like the Sox well enough. I guess that makes us odd. This weekend, my brother Scott was teaching his son Alex the rules for rooting for the Sox:
We can root for the Sox anytime they are not playing the Cubs.
Wait, I guess he only has on rule. I think my mother would say:
We root for the Sox anytime they are not playing the Cubs. But if they are playing the Cubs and it is important for the Sox to win, and the Cubs are in last place anyway, then we can root for the Sox. Or maybe if the Cubs are in first place by a whole lot and the Sox need the morale booster, we can root for the Sox. Or sometimes, if the Cubs just deserve to lose, we can root for the Sox.
Seriously, you need a flow chart to follow her sports logic sometimes.
Anyway, with all of the headlines that Ozzie gives the Trib, you’d think they were paying his salary.
The Downside of the Charity Resale Shop
I have been vaguely looking for something nightstand-like for several years. Actually, something bigger than a nightstand and smaller than a dresser to replace the canvas thing I bought from Bed Bath & Beyond 10 years ago. I didn’t want something crappy, but I have a hard time spending real money of a piece like that, that I am bound to destroy in some manner.
Thursday afternoon, I was early for my dentist appointment so I wandered into the new charity resale shop next door. I had about made the full loop of the store when I saw this:
It does this:
And this:
$42 and it is real wood. The little drawer sticks terribly, but whatever. Bought it. When I brought it home, I opened the cabinet and found the catch – smells like cat pee.
That cabinet is not big enough to have held a litter box!
I was going to take my time, do some research and try to rearrange some stuff in my room before taking the leap and bringing it upstairs. Then my brother was over today, all helpful and stuff, and put it in my room while I wasn’t looking.
OK, then. I will deal with it tonight! What does the Internet say I can do about this right now, without using bleach or ordering something that will take five days to get here? I Googled Cat Urine and Wood and found Nature’s Miracle is the one product that everyone mentions. Hm. I went around my house, thinking I might have an old bottle from when we had two elderly cocker spaniels in the house. Didn’t find it, but I did find what the Internet suggested was the next best thing: Kids and Pets.
I find the name a bit offensive. I mean, we spilled our share of Kool Aid as kids, but I do not recall that we smelled bad.
Anyway, the directions say to not even wipe it up, but let it soak in to the surface. Fine. But it dripped on the floor and don’t tell my mother, but I didn’t see it in time and it has ruined the laminate in two places.
Ugh. This had better work.
That’s My Congressman
The Chicago Tribune is reporting on how some Republican Congresspeople helped pass The American Clean Energy and Security Act. I know very little about it, but my guy, Mark Kirk, was one of those Republicans.
Kirk has had a rough time the past couple of elections, with the Democratic machine painting him as a lap dog of George W. Bush.
Not true.
Kirk runs more conservative than I, but I pretty well trust him to be thoughtful and edumacated on stuff. He says that he read the entire 1,200 page bill.
The March, by E.L. Doctorow
Stupid Aspergillus
Last month, when we had the painting done downstairs, the painter said there was some mold behind the wallpaper in Kiwi’s Room, formerly know as the dining room.
Crap.
Birds in general, and African Greys in particular, are really sensitive to mold. Aspergillosis, an infection caused by the aspergillus fungus, can be fatal.
Kiwi is no no way symptomatic, but two weeks ago, when she was at the vet for her annual exam, I mentioned the mold in that room. It was dead mold, and she had only been living in that area for a few months, but I was paranoid. The vet checked her out and she looks great. He checked her white blood count, which was perfectly normal. But because she is a Grey, we ran the labs.
$200 labs that has to ben sent off to the University of Miami. BTW.
It came back positive.
The bad news is this is scary stuff with long term treatment. And Kiwi is decidedly displeased with taking medicine. The good news is that we seem to be pretty far ahead of the game in diagnosis. My lame Internet research suggests that often, the reason aspergillosis kills the birds is that the symptoms come so late. In fact, now that I am thinking about it, I don’t remember if Dr. Sakas said she actually has aspergillosis, or just that the aspergillus spores were present in her system.
Whatever. It is war on the fungus now. I happen to be allergic to aspergillus, so we are having an inspector come out to the house so that we can obliterate it.
In the meantime, Kiwi is going to have to learn to take her meds.
The Other MJ
I was in the car on the way to the library. I flipped radio stations and The Mix was playing Billie Jean.
Weird, but cool. So there I am with the windows down and the sun roof open in the 95 degree heat and all summertime happy playing Billie Jean in the car.
Of course, you know by now what happened next. The song ended and Brian the Whipping Boy informed me that Michael Jackson was dead.
Damn.
Of course, Jackson had gotten so weird and I hadn’t listened to his music in so long. I remember buying the HIStory cds in college. I played them once and didn’t look at them again until I went on my digital storage binge a few months back.
So I parked across the street from the library and headed into the building. There was a Jeep stopped at the light. Windows down, roof open, blaring Beat It.
I had a little moment. Maybe it was just the Gen X time warp back to 1983 when MTV was MTV.
My dad asked me not long ago whether I thought Michael Jackson was a child molester. My answer was something like, “I believe that he believes he is innocent. But clearly, something is not right.”
I think of that now because before I start reading all of the Internet gossip (I admit, when I heard that he was in L.A. at the time, my first thought was a botched plastic surgery), I would like to say that I hope when the drama is over we will all just remember that the music was good, the videos were great and that Michael Jackson was once a very talented young man.
And this is how I would like to remember him (of the things online that will still embed):
You Guys Aren’t Going to Believe This
Kiwi the Grey was just sitting right there, on that perch, in my bedroom, looking out the window. I was on my bed, fooling around online. She said, “Shadow go outside?”
I got up and walked over to her. The dog was in the backyard.
I have heard Kiwi say these words before, but always when I could attribute them to mimicking somone. This was an unprovoked and in context statement.
How much does that rock?
Cooking with Alex
The weekend before last, Scott brought his family over for lunch. We had originally planned on going out, then figured it was easier with the baby and the goofy weather to stay in and make something. Because I happen to eat like a four year old boy, I happened to have stuff to make pizza. And because I sometimes pretend to be a grown up, I had the stuff to make a chef salad. I thought I might talk Alex, age four, into helping me. And if not, it was easy enough to throw together myself.
He totally went for it. All “good listener” and everything. Once the pizzas were in the oven, he even helped put together the salad. When they were finished, he was all proud of himself. Then Scott and I debated using a cookie sheet versus dropping the pizza on aluminum foil for extra crispyness.
Ha. Aunt Anne wins.
Alex’s sister Ainslie is seven months old and Scott is finally taking his wife out for a date or whatever. They are bringing the kids back for the afternoon on Sunday.
Normally, I would throw Alex into the car and go to Noodles, because he loves it as much as I do. But two of them are not so easy to take out. Then I think I should do Cooking with Alex again. Eh. It is never going to work twice. But let’s ask The Internet:
Cookingwithkids.com had this:
Chinese “Barbecued” Pork
A Cooking with Kids Original Recipe
Preparation time: 10 minutes or less 2 hours or overnight, refrigerated Cooking time: 30 minutes Yield: 10 servings as a small main course; more when used as a seasoning
Seriously? Alex wouldn’t even eat that, let alone prepare it and wait two hours for it two marinate or whatever.
Childrensrecipes.com:
Make your own sno cone syrup.
Happy faced sandwiches.
Teddy bear sundaes.
I don’t think so.
Screw it. I’ll Tivo Backyardigans and make popcorn and he will be perfectly happy.
Public Service Announcement – Airline Fees
MSN Money pointed me to an awesome USA Today piece on airline fees. Bookmark this, please. It took the USA Today staffer, aided by airline PR people, a full week to compile this chart of airline fees so that we all know what we are really paying.
Unfortunately, United has about the worst fees. You know how tricksy they are? I didn’t even notice the change because I am all online. But if I don’t check in online, there is an extra $5 to be paid for checking a bag. Why is that necessary?
I must say that I complained long and loud about the fee for checking bags. My thought was that people were already animals fighting for overhead space, and this would only make it worse. The truth is that I haven’t noticed that it is worse. I suspect that the gate agents are getting better at gauging the need for “gate checking” bags and getting ahead of it.
From the article:
“The airlines justify fees as letting customers choose the level of service they’re willing to pay for and say passengers are getting used to them. And ultimately, as aviation consultant Michael Boyd says, “It’s business, and they (airlines) have the right to charge for whatever they want.””
I guess. But the first U.S. airline that tries to charge for using the bathrooms that they can’t even keep clean – well they deserve whatever they get.
The Next Dark Age 