Archives for the Month of July 2005 on Yellow Journal
From the campaign trail
Greetings from Cincinnati! It has been two full days of canvassing (going door to door) and rallys down here in Ohio's second congressional district. I'm sunburned, exhausted and ready for more. Any leanings I have about the result of the election are highly speculative since I'm not a local and don't know much about the political currents or players down here. I'm getting excited for the next set of midterm elections.
Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
-Lombardi
C-Span
Mr. Speaker I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I'm sitting here, watching some C-Span and I've noticed something, Darrell Issa (the Republican representative from California who initiated the recall against former Governor Gray Davis) is either having a real bad day or the guy simply can't read. Stopping, starting, going back, re-doing words, I feel embarrassed for him. Then representative Danny Davis (with whom Issa is voicing support for a bill) will speak on the same subject in an eloquent, beautiful and perhaps most important, competant way.
To his credit the bill Issa is speaking for is a worthwhile piece of legislation, one to recognize the hardwork and dedication of the suffragetts and other women's rights activists. This is why it was so disappointing when Issa referred to Sonya Truth and Elizabeth Cody Stanton. Is this middling? Maybe, but no one else who spoke screwed that up (nor did anyone else giggle over the word 'Kentuckians' in a later discussion).
People rail against the 'politics of personal destruction' but sometimes people are just asking for it.
Mr. Speaker I yield back.
Brief Notes on John Roberts.
Briefly I think John Roberts is a fine nominee and will make a good jusitice. I say will because I suspect he will be confirmed in the coming months. I just watched David Brooks and more importantly Mark Shields discuss Roberts's prospects for confirmation and his qualifications as a nominee. Shields presented a convincing argument that Roberts's greatest conviction is that of the majesty of the law. His interest as an advocate was not to further his own political agenda but simply do his job, to advocate.
It's unfortunate that Roberts doesn't have a longer (around three years I understand) or higher profile (DC appeals left him with the purview of largely DC administrative disputes) track record to examine but, uncertainty is often the spice of life tenure.
Unfortunately as Brooks pointed out, the fact that he's probably going to be confirmed means his actual confirmation is going to be boring. Brooks pointed out (although he provided no examples) that, for the most part, nominees that stray off into discussions about legal theory or philosophy find themselves headed home without so much as a parting gift. It seems likely Roberts knows this and will skillfully stonewall himself to a seat on the court.
New books and some long thoughs about the 9/11 compensation fund and how it relates to malpractice and slavery reparations, whooo.
I bought four books yesterday. I had already read three of them but I find myself wanting to reread and reference them often they are, in order of consumption: War is a Force that Gives us Meaning by Chris Hedges which I've found to be one of the best accounts of living in a time of war (partcularly the lives of civilians). Next I read The Lessons of Terror by Caleb Carr which was a well written and researched "History of Warfare Against Civilians Why It Has Always Failed and Why It Will Fail Again". Finally I listened (while driving back and forth from school and home) to Intelligence in War by John Keegan. Keegan, for those unfamiliar, is easily the preeminent military historian alive today. Intelligence in war is a 'thicker' book than The Lessons of Terror, providing significant detail about the movements of ships and troops in various battles spanning Napoleon to recent excursions in Afghanistan. The best story he tells is of the cracking of the German Enigma cipher machine, a complex but rewarding story.
While this was their order, none of these were really read recently (the Hedges book was at least two years ago). The last book I purchased is a new(er) release from this year. What is Life Worth? the Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11 by Kenneth Feinberg. I've had it for only a day and am over half way done with the easy to read 191 page book. I've found it informative in a number of ways. Certainly there are many stories about the grief and loss of the thousands of families directly effected by the attacks. However halfway through I'm still struck by something he discussed early in the work about the purpose behind the law that established the victims compensation fund.
Guacamole
A few days ago I ran to my local grocery and picked myself up some avocados to make Guacamole. I looked for some recipes and discovered something I suspected, there is none. Guacamole is very much like salad in that it can contain what ever you would like it to. I chose 1 & 1/2 onions, 1/2 green pepper, 2 cloves garlic, around 1/4 cup cilantro, 1/2 tsp dried chili peppers, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 3 roasted jalapeno peppers (aka chipotle peppers), the juice of 1 lemon, some salt and, of course, 2 avocados.
Eaten immediately after completion it was very, very good. When my sister and I had eaten enough I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and left it in the fridge. The next day some water had accumulated in the bottom of the bowl which when stirred seemed to reinvigorate the darkened color. Unfortunately the flavor was gone. It was still good mind you, but the definate flavor of the avocados was missing. Now I'm using the last bits of it as toppings for veggie burgers and will likely end up just dumping maybe half a cup of it as the mixture reaches its demise.
So I've got some tips for Guacamole.
When you're making it be fearless. Put whatever you want into it, next time I make it I'm going to look at roasted and regular jalapenos, poblanos, black olives, green onions, lime juice etc. Nothing too out there, but each brings something unique.
Next tip would be to only make as much as you can eat really quickly. My experience this time was that two avocados (the biggest player in this mix) is too much for two hungry people. It is easy for your eyes (and nose) to be much larger than your stomach with Guacamole.
Finally recognize that Avocados, while healthier than many things(!), are also pretty fatty (30.8 grams of fat and 324 calories according to here. So don't make it the cornerstone of your diet but certainly don't miss out on some great Guacamole.
video games, what else?
I tell you what. That playstation 2 is a nice little device. My sister and I got it around a month ago and we've been on channel 3 ever since. My sister mainly plays Dance Dance Revolution and I enjoy it a lot myself. I've been surprised at the replay value on the game, once you've beaten a song on light mode you still have normal and 'The Devil' to play. Good scores on some songs unlock more of them and the cycle continues, enjoyable.
I've also been playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City which are always enjoyable. I also came across a game called 'Freedom Fighters' which I had seen breifly before but never got much press. I really enjoyed it, the system they devised for directing AI teammates was pretty good, it needed just a little more robustness to be perfect.
I've been playing Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven which, like the last one ("Birth of the Stealth Assassins", second in the series), is quite difficult. The main difficulty is the poor camera controls and difficulty of fighting. Fighting in the first Tenchu was very simple and because of that very easy. Fighting in the second game was similar to the first. I think my biggest complaint about Wrath of Heaven is the inability to block and move at the same time. They tried to off set this with the ability to quickly dodge. I'm still having difficulty with the whole system but I'll get it eventually.
Finally I've just picked up Socom II which as usual, has its ups and downs. The biggest up is the online play, free and fun, lots of players online. I don't really want to buy the headset but I might as I suspect the communication adds quite a bit to the game (penny arcade recently discussed this 7/4/05). The controls are pretty well done but the AI for your team mates often leaves something to be desired. Even after giving them instructions I find they often do stupid things in executing those directions. Occasionally running into walls until I move to a point where they can follow a straight line to me. Additionally sometimes they'll get so far behind in following me (because they randomly go prone and look around at points) that to catch up they have to run, making lots of noise and getting us lots of shot at.
I've been wondering about this kind of path finding and how its done for a little while now. There were similar problems (although not as bad) in Freedom Fighters. I think I may have devised a simple way to alleviate the problem. In general when playing these games I want my team mates to follow the same path that I did and in the same way. So why not just make that an option? An instruction that says 'proceed to me as I did'. The techno guts under it could just be a simple log of route points and the method used between them. No more running into walls, in fact, no more running, except where established as necessary by the team leader.
I love games.
I love gaming.