The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Pretending to Be Springtime
The weather was absolutely beautiful today. We broke 50 degrees and while I know this is just the Halftime Show of Winter, I don’t care.
When I arrived home from Alex’s birthday party – at 4:30 or so, I opened the garage door and let Shadow out in the front yard with me while I went to the mailbox. He wandered around for awhile, when I was expecting him to have to pee.
Finally, he stepped up onto what was left of a snow bank and did his business. As if he no longer understands the purpose of the lawn!
Grade School Suicide?
Story broke yesterday in Evanston, Illinois about a 10-year old boy that was found unresponsive in his school bathroom. Hanging from a hook. He was found by someone on the maintenance staff that immediately started CPR. The boy died at the hospital.
When the story first broke, there were no details about who might have seen him or talked to him or what might have happened at school that day. My gut feeling was that it had been a prank gone bad. A bunch of kids copying something they had seen on television. But really – no one heard him call for help?
This morning, we learned that it appeared to have been a suicide. The boy, with previous “psychological” history, was scolded by a teacher for something or other. He literally told the teacher he was going to hang himself.
At first, I was actually relieved. It wasn’t stupid kids, wasn’t some horrible bullying story. Then I remembered that it was a 10-year old boy.
I don’t pretend to understand the path of despair that suicidal people travel before making the attempt. But a 10-year old? How does a 10-year old get there?
You can read more about the incident here.
The Camera Phone
Google has been linking to articles from “WikiHow”, the Wikipedia of “How to” stuff. Today they had “How to Take a Good Picture on Your Camera Phone”, which I clearly need. So here is my biggest problem:
“Keep your hand steady as you press the shutter button. After you take the picture, keep the phone in position to allow the picture to be recorded. If you move immediately after pressing the shutter button, often times you will just get a blur!”
Keeping the phone steady is near impossible for me. Then factor in the movement of my most frequent subjects: dogs and parrots. Then you have to hold still while it records – and it is completely hopeless.
There were some good tips in here, particularly about the lighting.
They say to keep your space free by downloading immediately. Personally, I e-mail it to myself and then delete. There were also a couple of hints about lame pictures – like self-portraits in the mirror.
Like Wikipedia itself, the articles in WikiHow are somewhat Hit or Miss. But I liked this one.
Page a Day for Book Lovers
In my stash of fabulous Christmas loot was one of those Page a Day calendars from a colleague. It is for “Book Lovers” and each day has a suggested read. They are all relatively recent publications and cross genres very nicely. I have been making two piles – you might call them “Yes” and “No”. By the 17th of January, there were four books in the “Yes” pile.
As if.
I started to worry. I have enough books to read. I am in school. I volunteer at the library and Half Price Books is my favorite store. What the hell am I doing taking more book recs?
Luckily, the rest of the month was a bust. Today’s pick was World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Apparently a sequel to The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Hm. I was going to make fun of it, then thought better. Utter_scoundrel may be into it.
P.S. File Under “Things I hate about Windows Vista”: You have to change menus to find the hyperlink button. I had no idea how often I use hyperlinks!
Post Impeachment
Friday, after the impeachment was finished, the news cameras were all at the former governor’s Chicago home. His security detail was packing up and leaving. Apparently there is no provision for security once a governor leaves office – insert joke about going to prison here.
Something about the abruptness of that bothered me a bit. I don’t expect that anyone is going to physically harm the family. But I wouldn’t be surprised if a brick went through a window. It made me think of some other things we hadn’t considered before.
Like the fact that there was no way to stop a presumably corrupt governor from appointing someone to the Senate even after he was indicted for trying to sell the seat. There is also no provision in the Illinois Constitution for electing or appointing an interim Lt. Governor.
As I was mulling this over, my mother reminded me that I voted (rather adamantly) against calling a state constitutional convention last fall. This was a routine measure, not a campaign for reform. I had two reasons:
First, former governor Jim Edgar noted that having the same old politicians craft a new constitution isn’t going to fix what we don’t like about the old one. Second, Illinois doesn’t have the money for it right now.
While I am not quite so adamant about it these days, (because clearly the Illinois Constitution needs some work) I do not regret my vote.
The second reason – the cost – is also the reason why I wasn’t particularly interested in a mid-term election for President Obama’s Senate seat. An election would take more money and more time than I think we want. Roland Burris would not have been my candidate, but I hardly think he is going to do a lot of damage for the two years remaining in the term.
I hope I am done talking about this now. Illinois is embarrassed. I hope we are embarrassed enough to start making changes. Until then, the cartoons are pretty funny.
Important Discovery
Eloise, Shadow and the Pizza
In case you didn’t believe me, about Eloise the Foster Grey and Shadow.
Incidentally, the pizza was some “rustic” packaged thing from Costco. It comes with three crusts and the sauce. You provide your own toppings. I just used cheese and turkey pepperoni. The reason there are two half pizzas on the counter is that I thought I could eat one all by myself. Not so much.
http://www.youtube.com/get_player
The Carwash
It hit 40 degrees today, for the first time since December. Apparently, 1985 was the last time that Chicago saw a January without hitting 40 degrees. And it was partly sunny, so we all went to get our cars washed.
By “we all” I mean everyone in the six county area in possession of a vehicle on four wheels.
Last winter, on a similar day, the wait was 45 minutes to get into an automatic car wash. Does that sound ridiculous to you? Well take a look:
This is not “dirty”. This is “eroding”. It is worth the wait.
Today, I went to one in Northbrook that has a human operator set up the cars before sending us through. You know – the ones where you drive your car on to the little tracks and put in into neutral. The machine pulls you through the wash.
It makes the dog insane.
Anyway. It is a universal truth that the back end of the car never gets as clean as the front end in an automatic car wash. But if you tip the guy, he takes the power spray to the salt before the car is pulled in. Obviously, my car really needed it. This place also had an undercarriage wash, which I think is equally important to be rid of the salt.
Check the “after” pic:
The salt is still not gone! But I think it is clean enough to get my license plate sticker to stick.
Edit: WGN says it didn’t actually hit 40 degrees.
Horrible Star Wars Thing
My friend Holly sent me this and I am only posting it here so that I can find it again when I need to make someone throw up. Like my brother.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2809991&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.
Post Modern Ridiculous
My mother is going to have a fit that I am taking pictures in the bathroom again, but I have a point:
This is the sink in the ladies’ room of the new Crate & Barrel in Old Orchard. Never mind why I was there.
The picture doesn’t do it justice. The stone sink descends at an angle to that dark line, which is actually the drain. Motion sensor faucets on either side of that tres chic little soap dispenser.
With the same cheap pink soap that can be found in any rest stop in the state of Illinois.
I realize that Living the Brand or whatever extends to the facilities. But I am rolling my eyes at whomever thought this was a good idea. Wait until the 7th graders find it – they’ll never be able to clean up the mess.
The Next Dark Age 
