Harassment gone wild

I tried to explain what usually goes into a blog to my wife the other day. I explained how many blogs are just link farms, where people post links to other blogs that interest them, with a brief comment. I said that others are very focused, talking about political topics or specific interests. Mine ... is more like a diary, unless I feel like using it as one of those other kinds :).

Today I'm going to talk about a news story, found here:

The story talks about a study sponsored by a foundation that gets paid to put Sexual Harassment Education programs in universities, claiming that 62% of all college students have been sexually harassed. Obvious conflict of interest aside, let's look at how they define harassment:

"Most students are experiencing non-contact forms of sexual harassment -- jokes, gestures, remarks, homophobic name-calling, flashing and mooning are examples of that," AAUW Director of Research Elena Silva said.

Now let's step back a little and think about this. What exactly is sexual harassment? From a legal standpoint, it's defined in the US as "any unwelcome sexual advance or conduct on the job, having the effect of making the workplace intimidating or hostile" (thanks, Wikipedia). Are these college students working on campus and being harassed? With a number as high as 62%, I find that unlikely, but possible.

Now, obviously there are looser definitions of the term which allows people to substitute education for the workplace. So that would be, using the same definition, "any unwelcome sexual advance or conduct in school, having the effect of making the school intimidating or hostile." A study on the subject seems to agree with this interpretation.

And here's where I want to question the fine folks at the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation (the link to the actual study is dead right now, so I can't determine this for myself). Are your students claiming harassment at school (as in: in class, or other school-sponsored activities), or are they reporting unwanted sexual conduct by fellow students outside of the school? If I go to a party with fellow students, and someone tells a dirty joke, is this actually sexual harassment? Is this a problem we need to hire a focus group to investigate?

Let's look at the ERIC Digest link I provided earlier. Here's their definition of sexual harassment:

"Generally, any behavior of a sexual nature that provokes undesirable, uncomfortable feelings in a target can be considered harassment."

This is a dangerous precedent. I don't know about you, but as a teenager, I spent a lot of my time stuck with undesirable, uncomfortable feelings. Your brain is like a chemical experiment gone wrong at that point in life. The whole "learning to date" thing is one big mess of undesirable uncomfortable feelings provoked by behavior of a sexual nature.

I'm not saying that kids harassing other kids is a good thing. But young adults, set loose in college, will stretch the bounds of their social conduct. We have a million "girls gone wild" and "jackass" clone videos to prove this. Some of that behavior will make other people uncomfortable, and unfortunately that's a fact of life. Forcing kids to attend sensitivity training in between their all-night beer pong parties is probably not going to change anything ... except tuition bills.

Gore blasts Bush, does anybody notice?

Just passing along a link to Al Gore's recent speech:

An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

...

The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.

Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment's notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march-when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?

It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it is up to us to do the same.

I can't stop

You know, I usually hate the concept of mutual intellectual masturbation: a bunch of like-minded individuals talking about how right they are and how wrong everyone else is.

But I can't stop reading every single Ars Technica news story that involves the clusterfuck that Intelligent Design has turned into. Today's link is on a supposed "Philosophy" class that was a clumsy front for teaching creationism in public school. It's been shut down before the lawsuit even had a chance to gain notoriety -- even the Discovery Institute guys distanced themselves from this one.

Links for the interested:
Ars Discussion
"The Intersection" blog post

My wife thinks I'm a little obsessed on this issue, and she's probably right. I don't know how, over all the other "culture war" issues going on out there, this particular one sets off my alarms so much, but it does.

We have the technology...

Ok, Google, pay attention. This is my next awesome free business idea. People want to be notified of news that interests them, right? So imagine a system where people specify exactly what they want to know, and you tell them that information.

For free.

Along with, of course, very targeted advertising. Someone has to pay the bills.

"Tell me a week before the new Sopranos season starts."
"Let me know next time the Dell 2001 FP is on sale for less than $450."
"I want all news and gossip relating to the cast of the original Star Trek."

I'm not talking about "areas of interest," I'm talking about very specific requests. I don't want to register for "Entertainment News," or even a search string. I want to be able to fully describe all kinds of information and sleep easy knowing that powerful forces are working for me.

This is, of course, the original promise of the Intelligent Agent concept. An AI scours the network for you, and when you wake up it tells you all you need to know. We never got there. Now, with information powerhouses like Google holding all the data and trying to figure out what to do with it, maybe it's possible to approach this problem?

Granted, allowing free-text requests from the entire user base would be disastrous. But you can start with focused specific requests, and generic search strings, and work your way upwards? You begin with trying to model the questions people might ask, and figuring out ways to answer.

The three questions I've put up above are all very feasible with current technology. And once I've registered them, I get periodic ads or targeted email letting me know of things which might interest me. You can't go overboard here, but targeted ads here would probably have a high rate of return. "You asked to be notified when Rush tickets went on sale in your area. While we don't have any news on that, we do think you might want to know about their new DVD set, which you can buy for 40% off by following this link...."

Done poorly, you've just got people signing up for targeted ads.

Done well, you've got a rich subscription service for the entire web. I'd opt-in.

What's more fascinating is the other side of this coin ... the user-modeling approach where Google tracks your blog posts, your searches, your emails ... and takes the initiative. "Hey, Dave, interested in this special offer for this monitor?" "Wow, how'd you know?" "We know. We know everything." People would complain, but ... doesn't it almost appeal to you?

Feeling the pain all the way from Vegas

Sometimes it hurts to be a geek.

CES is one of those times. Over in Vegas, dozens of companies show off their newest toys, and the materialistic little kid in me cries at every gadget I won't own.

For example, I thank my newfound home-buying debt for stopping me from trying to buy Dell's new 3007FPW monitor (while not-so-patiently waiting for the dust to settle and the price cuts to come on the legacy models ... if they ever do).

The real heartbreak is in the TiVo Series 3 unit, however. Here are a couple blog posts for you on the subject.

If you haven't heard me rant about DVRs before, you're lucky. I love my TiVo more than is probably healthy for a piece of consumer electronics, but it just can't compete with the features handed down by the cable company DVR. I hate the cable company software, I hate their interface, and I hate their remote ... but HD-capability, direct connection (no IR blaster to digital cable box), and two tuners wins out over all the nice things TiVo does (season passes that actually work, intelligent prioritized conflict management, TiVo suggestions, better in-progress viewing of recordings, network streaming of media from PC or other TiVos, and much more).

All that should change with the Series 3 TiVo. It'll use CableCard 2.0, which allows your cable company to give you a PCMCIA card instead of a cable box to decode their digital signal. You slap that into your TiVo, and you get the best of all worlds -- no cable company box, awesome TiVo software, and all the dual HD tuner love you can handle. It's got a lot more going for it too -- networked out of the box and ready for additional storage, no hacks needed.

In other words, it's everything I want in a DVR. Prices and release dates haven't been announced, but the rumor mill is suggesting a $500 - $1000 price towards the end of '06.

Can I really justify buying something that costs as much as my TV to help me watch it, considering how little TV I actually watch?

Rumors are also flying that Comcast's partnership with TiVo might extend to this kind of hardware. That would certainly be interesting (especially if, say, Comcast were to buy Charter and get me as a customer).

Hey, a materialistic little boy can dream, can't he?

Album of the Year

So, the votes are in (note: there was only one vote) for album of the year, 2005.

Dean Gray: American Edit

I am a mash-up (aka Bastard Pop) novice, to say the least -- my previous exposure to this musical genre was the much-publicized "The Grey Album" which combined Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' White Album. This album still gets more play on my winamp list than either of the two albums it combines, so I guess I should have expected to find further entertainment from this kind of music, but I was genuinely surprised with American Edit.

When I saw the link to American Edit on some blog or other, I was only interested because of the number of comments who were blown away by the album. So I checked it out. Within minutes, I was sending links to friends and posting it on other sites. This was something special.

From a political standpoint, it's American Idiot with giant fucking teeth bared directly at the administration. I mean, American Idiot wasn't exactly politically neutral, but the remixes just remove all doubt. It's somehow deeply satisfying to listen as George Bush's speech is compared to the dialog of a Dalek from Dr. Who.

From a technical standpoint, it blew me away. Songs which I wouldn't even think were similar are blended together seamlessly. For a geek like me, it's a taunt -- look how little you know about music, punk. Watch how we weave these wildly different songs together due to a common sequence of notes, or a similar beat, or whatever else they have in common. I shake my head in admiration and humility -- I have no rhythm in me, and moments like hearing American Edit for the first time make that painfully clear.

Nearly two months after its release, I'm still grinning ear-to-ear whenever I play this album.

I'm sure if you're interested, you can find this album somewhere under the dark corners of the Internet. It's worth it.

Post-Holiday Movie Commentary

Quick movie "reviews" from the holiday season:

King Kong
I was blown away by this one, in spite of its length and my skepticism (Jack Black?). As a stinking LOTR fanboy, I saw Peter Jackson's footprints all over this movie, but it didn't bother me overly. What really blew me away, though, was how real Kong felt, especially in his interactions with people. That took it from "great action flick" to something higher, which is more than I was expecting. I think the single best scene in the whole movie was when Kong finally finds Ann in NYC, and they go to Central Park. Seeing them together, knowing what was coming next ... it was movie magic. Sure, the fight between Kong and the T-Rexes was amazing, but the real winning moment came much later in the movie.

Hitch
I'll take Mainstream PG-13 Romantic Comedies for $300, Alex. I have nothing against formula movies, but honestly this is a formula that just doesn't do it for me any more. Jess wanted to watch it, and I sat through it the best I could. Sure, it had some genuine laugh-out-loud moments but so does your average 30-minute sitcom, and I don't watch them either. Given the awkwardness with which the two storylines came together, and the inconsistencies in the title character, it's hard to give this movie any kind of respect. Move along, there's nothing to see here.

I Heart Huckabees
Now this is an unusual comedy. This movie, clearly, is not for everyone. As often as I was laughing, it was usually at the absurdity of the story and characters. Think of a movie as weird as Magnolia or Vanilla Sky, but much less "polish" and strict comedy instead of drama, and I think you've sort of described this one. In many ways it reminded me of a slightly-higher-brow Big Lebowski, and not just because of the Nihilists. I can't really explain why. I think maybe a third of the times I laughed watching this movie, it was because I knew how much fun I was having and how little Jess was enjoying it. It was like a little comedic revenge for making me watch Hitch, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

The Ancestor's Tale - comments

Today I finished the Richard Dawkins book The Ancestor's Tale. It was a long journey, taking several months of my time to read through billions of years of history.

It was well worth it.

Do not be fooled. This is not a book you'll rip through in a couple days. It's meaty, it's solid, and it's full of science. Some of it is nearly impossible to follow, and you'll forget half of what you read by the time you're done. But, if you're like me, you'll still be glad you read it. Dawkins brings together the latest thinking in evolutionary biology to create a compelling visualization of how life went from its earliest stages to where it is today.

He does this by starting off on a pilgrimage from humanity back to the common ancestor of all life. Along the way, he pauses to tell the stories of various others who join in. Primates. Mammals. Fish. It just keeps going, and along the way he tells the story of life's incredible ability to adapt and overcome. It's mind-boggling and eye-opening, and it's hard not to smile as you learn something new every page.

It's not all good, however. At times it's dry and inaccessible, but that's not the real flaw. The real flaw is that Dawkins is writing as a soldier in the culture wars, and it's hard not to see it. He takes jabs at organized religion, at creationism, and at superstition as often as he can. It's not that the jabs aren't deserved, and I'm sure he showed restraint in how he did it. But it's still distracting. Some call it preaching to the choir, but I'm more reminded of the phrase "mutual intellectual masturbation." I know he's right and he knows he's right, and frankly nobody who disagrees is wasting a couple months of their life reading his six-hundred-page textbook. So just relax and tell the story you're here to tell. I don't need the propaganda that comes with it.

Read the wikipedia article. Dawkins is a controversial figure, and he can't resist the controversy here. But the book is solid, and well-deserving of the praise it has gotten. On my binary scale, it gets a "yes," with the qualification that it might read differently to someone with no scientific background.

In With The New

2006 is here, and it's natural to take a moment to reflect on what has happened in the past year and what awaits us in the next. I am not a big fan of "New Year's Resolutions" because I think it's an excuse to set goals which can be broken with little consequence. But, especially this year, with so many changes at the end of the year, I think it's fair to reflect on what is coming in the next twelve months.

My main concern, I think, will be balance. I have long known that the chief stressor in my life is feeling out of control, swept up in the tide of competing forces. There are two ways to solve that problem. I can either exercise more control, or I can make a decision to not worry myself over a lack of control. The truth is that the middle road (doing both to varying degrees) is the only plausible path. The extremes in either direction don't lead to a life I would enjoy. But refusing to move along that path, feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, is a self-fulfilling prophecy and a self-perpetuating downward spiral. Progress, awareness, and understanding are vital.

With that in mind, I started writing a long-winded list of my different roles, who I am and what that means, but ... well, if I couldn't stand to write it, I'm sure I wouldn't want to read it. So instead I'll just keep it simple. I know what I have ahead of me. I know who I am, and what that means. I know I'm going to hit some speedbumps this year, but I'm not going to let them derail me.

So, watch this space, to see what I become in 2006. Watch me write about my responsibilities as husband, friend, son, brother, homeowner, engineer, and citizen. Watch me walk, run, write, game, travel, work, and read.

And hopefully, watch me figure out how to balance it all and keep a smile on my face.

Home Ownership Anecdotes

I recently mounted a nice metal candle-holding thingy on our kitchen wall over the table, as well as a giant curtain rod to put a valance up above our bay window in the living room. Both projects sound simple (and were), but involved a little bit of time and elbow grease to do properly. They both involved measurements, use of a (laser) level, drilling pilot holes, putting in fastener supports, and then screwing the items into the wall. So far, so good.

I also bought a replacement wall plate for the cable jack in the study, and put that in. No problems there, except that the hole in the wall jack was too narrow and the cable didn't fit right, and actually bent. I had to straighten it with a pair of pliers, and widen the hole with a nail, but no lasting damage done.

Along the same lines, I replaced the wall jack for the phone in that room, but that didn't actually fix anything. I'm very disappointed, and feel like I'm back to square one there. I need to extend my diagnostic options -- a voltmeter will tell me what's going on with the wires (as they aren't totally dead), and more investigation in the attic might yield more results about how that room even got a phone jack (as only 4 wires come down from the attic and there are five rooms wired with jacks). Besides, every self-respecting geek homeowner needs a voltmeter, right?

And, the tale I saved for last involves exciting use of new power tools. Jess bought some new handles for the cabinet doors under the sink in the bathroom, as the old handles were very cheap looking and didn't match the rest of the room. First step was to take the old handles off, which was trivial on one door but problematic on the second. The handles are not as simple as you'd think -- they are wood, and set into the wood is some sort of metal "sleeve" which is threaded inside and out. The screw actually fits into this sleeve, and not directly into the wood. I have no idea why.

For the first handle, loosening the screws resulted in the screws coming back out of the sleeve, as desired. For the second handle, the sleeve was ... reluctant to release the screw. Instead, the wood flew apart due to the internal twisting of the screw/sleeve assembly (cheap wood!) and broke into pieces, with the sleeve still firmly attached to the screw. I did all that I could to hold the sleeve in place with some pliers, turning the screw to try and loosen it. No dice -- I was wrecking the screw head trying to do this, and gaining no ground.

Wait, I have a dremel! With cutting discs! That I've never used!

I assemble the unit, quickly read the manual (er, well, quickly glance at the manual), put the cutting disc on, put on my safety goggles (seriously, I did), and start trying to cut the head off the screw.

Yeah.

So, evidently I don't know shit about how to do this. The alternatives are that the screw was very mighty, or that the cutting discs were very weak. I'm putting money on the first, though. The cutting disc broke in half after a couple seconds of impressive spark-flying.

I mount a second disc on, and try again.

This time, when the disc broke, a sizable piece flew directly at my face at high speed, and bounced off my safety goggles.

That kind of freaked me out a little. It wasn't so much a "life flash before my eyes" moment as a "vision flashed before my eyes" moment. I put the fucking death-dremel away, to Jess's vast relief.

I then just did it the old fashioned way. I grabbed the pliers, and started trying to bend the screw back and forth to weaken the metal until it broke. And ... that worked. So, yeah, go elbow grease!

Next step? A true geek labor of love -- my basement boiler room has a wall with two giant pieces of pegboard. I have a couple boxes of assorted tools, nails, screws, and other "shop" like stuff. I also (now) have a box of pegboard hooks and organizing accessories.

Oh, yeah. It's gonna be organized, like the mafia, baby.

That and I gotta put up another big curtain rod over the slider to the deck, put up some more pictures, and then start on the real next step -- making a list of all our "want to" and "need to" home projects and deciding what to start on next. Our basement slider needs immediate attention, as do our carpets. Our chimney must be inspected and cleaned out, and the sooner the better, as we take a tiny chance of catastrophic failure every time we light a fire :). The walls need painting, our deck needs redoing ... oh, boy, I could go on and on :).

Meanwhile, I sweat the small stuff. Poking around in my basement, I see a large number of dead ladybugs above the ceiling tiles. Are we going to have ladybug problems come spring?

And Jess wants to host Christmas for her family next year. Better get cracking.

Nintendo DS First Impressions

Saturday morning, I opened up my first portable game system, the Nintendo DS. I have put several hours into it by now, and figured I'd post my first impressions.

First things first -- it's bigger than your cell phone. It isn't tiny. But it will fit in your (loose) jean pockets, and the clamshell design means the LCD screens will be protected.

Overall, the unit feels extremely polished. Nintendo does not mess around when it comes to usability. Initial setup was a breeze, and connecting it to my home wireless LAN was painless. I'll get to that. The one issue with the look&feel is the form factor. It's comfortable, but I think it was designed for just slightly smaller hands than mine. My hands do get a little sore after a while, and the "square" edges of the unit dig into you a bit (we're so spoiled with our roundy console controllers these days). That said, the classic nintendo D-Pad and (4, not 2) buttons are well-placed and bring you back to the days of NES right away. The shoulder buttons are a little less intuitive, but I have that problem with all shoulder buttons, not just these.

The one ergonomic hiccup is the bottom screen, which is touch-sensitive. For precision and to avoid scratches, you're supposed to use the included stylus (like a PDA). The problem is that if you're playing a game, you aren't holding the stylus unless the touchscreen is your only input option (some games can do this). Nintendo includes a wrist-strap that doubles as a thumb-tip stylus substitute (hard to explain), but I have yet to really feel comfortable using it. I end up using the back of my fingernail to gently touch the screen when I need to, and I'm sure that's not the best long-term plan.

So, what about the games? The games are awesome. Someone online said, "I'm not sure I would use a portable game system." The answer? Don't think of this as a portable system -- think of it as a $130 console that's wifi enabled and not tethered to your TV. As Penny Arcade said, the games aren't butchered portable versions of your franchises, they are full-fledged sequels optimized for the portable platform. With the processing power these machines have, you're looking at near N64-quality graphics on a tiny LCD -- the 3D racing in Mario Kart looks -fine- to my eyes. It makes me wish I had a Beetle Adventure Racing port :). Castlevania DS is not just a port of a 2D side-scroller, it's a 2D side scroller with next-generation gameplay. You harvest souls from your enemy, you can equip several souls on you, and you can fuse souls to items. It's just deep enough. The library is growing steadily and also includes all the GBA titles.

I keep hinting at WiFi, so I'll go there next even though I have very little experience with it. You can play wirelessly with others in the same room (or further; 60' is the limit they suggest), and can even play multiple people on a single cartridge with some games (it transmits the needed software to the other handhelds!). Or, you can connect to an existing wireless network, even authenticating over WEP, very smoothly. You can then play online with any Wi-Fi enabled game (Mario Kart DS is the only one I have, and I didn't try it out).

(Note, you can't play multiplayer GBA titles -- the wireless link does not emulate the GBA multiplayer cable.)

I mean, really, that's SOLID for a $130 piece of hardware.

The LCD screens are good -- I have one "stuck" pixel, but it's only visible when the top screen is mostly black. I don't mind it. I hear Nintendo will replace it if you send it to them, even with just one stuck pixel, but I'm not sure I'm going to bother. We'll see.

As far as lighting/brightness, this is my first portable, so I don't have anything to compare it to. I have yet to complain about the appearance of the screen, let's put it that way. The one time I noticed glare was with a bright office light directly overhead.

I haven't talked about the "dual screen" aspect of the DS yet, of course. The big question is, why have two screens? In Mario Kart DS, the top screen is the 3D view, while the bottom screen is a top-down sprite-y representation of the action, letting you see more of the map. In Castlevania DS, the bottom screen is the main action window, while the top screen shows you the map of the world you've explored OR your character sheet. Not amazing, but still stuff that you'd normally have to hit a button to get to. Is it the next big thing? I don't know. I do know that the touch-keyboard that pops up when you need to enter text is NICE, and made setting up wireless connectivity much easier than it would have been otherwise. Silly things like having 3 saved games, each with a hand-written name associated with them instead of 3-initials is kind of cool too :).

The rest of the system specs are just as solid and polished. The battery lasts a long time, the stylus locks into the unit well, the game carts are invisible and protected when inserted, it goes automatically into standby mode when you close the unit, etc. It's an awesome new toy and I'm thrilled to have a chance to fall in love with another Nintendo console :).

Holiday Reflections

It's ten o'clock on the night before Christmas celebrations begin in our family (Jess's family does Christmas Eve as the big family gathering).

We sat by a fire, watched a classic Christmas movie, and wrapped the remainder of our presents. We smiled with satisfaction at a job well done, and tried not to make too many guesses at what might be hiding under the tree for us both.

I know that tomorrow I will witness all that is wonderful about Christmas, as well as some of the unpleasantness it can foster. I will see a family full of love and insanity, understanding and pettiness. It's a crazy set of contradictions which boggles the rational mind but reminds me each year of how fortunate I am to have married into such a wonderfully large and loving family.

And I will hug each of my nephews and nieces all the tighter tomorrow, as I read today of an online acquaintance whose child died today, on her third birthday, from a disease called Transverse Myelitis. And I will treasure the time I spend with each member of our extended family, thinking of a man I play computer games with regularly who travels across the country this week to celebrate the holidays with a terminally ill relative who will not see next Christmas.

The world turns, the seasons change, and our lives fill with inexplicable joy and sorrow. Devour the days you have.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Merry Christmas!

There's nothing wrong with wishing someone a Happy Holidays, or Season's Greetings. I'll often do this, and will do it especially with people who I know either don't celebrate Christmas or are in mixed-faith families.

That said, I hate the idea that someone would be offended by hearing the phrase "Merry Christmas" directed at them.

Every day, around the world, people have statements directed at them which don't necessarily apply. People are offered gifts which they choose not to receive. Food and drink are offered to individuals who don't partake in them. The usual response? "No, thank you." Not, "How dare you?"

And yet the "How dare you?" attitude is the one I hear from numerous people who don't celebrate Christmas, and it's the attitude that is leading the confrontation-weary majority to cater to the easily-offended minority by wishing people blandly pleasant seasonal greetings.

Which of these does not belong?

"Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"No, thank you, I don't drink caffeine," says the Mormon.

"God bless you!"
"Thanks," says the atheist.

"Want a beer while I'm up?"
"No, thanks, I don't drink," says the Moslem.

"Want me to grab you a burger from the grill?"
"No, thanks, I don't eat meat," says the vegan.

"Oh, it's your birthday? Happy Birthday!"
"Thanks," says the Jehovah's Witness, "but I don't celebrate birthdays."

"Merry Christmas!"
"I'm Jewish, you insensitive clod. Wish me a Happy Holidays!"

This is not a strawman I'm putting up here to get cheap indignation. This is an actual reponse which I've received from co-workers and retail employees (wording might be slightly modified for amusement factor).

What I want to tell these people is that I really don't care if you celebrate Christmas or not. Part of how I celebrate is to wish you a Merry Christmas. And it does you absolutely zero harm to accept that wish in the spirit with which it was offered. I'm not saying "Accept Christ you heathen," I'm saying, "I hope on December 25 and the surrounding days, you find some merriment and joy in life."

Let's take it a step further. If my sole reason for not wishing you a Merry Christmas is fear that you don't celebrate the same holiday I do, why should I wish you any holiday greeting? Plenty of people choose to celebrate no holidays during the winter solstice period. If "Merry Christmas" offends a Jewish or Islamic person, then "Happy Holidays" will offend a Jehovah's Witness ... or a grinch, I guess. So let's not wish anybody a Happy Holiday.

I guess we could go with the overly-bland "Season's Greetings," which has no real meaning at all. Kind of hard to get offended when what I've basically said is, "Hello, and did you notice it's winter?"

That noise you can't hear is me rolling my eyes.

Part of being in a "melting pot" culture is accepting the fact that you're going to get some other people's cultures melted onto you at times. Freedom to believe should also include the responsibility to respect other people's beliefs and their desire to observe those beliefs.

If we take the approach of dialing back any cultural tradition which could possibly offend anyone, we'll eventually have a completely bland culture. Instead of melting together the greatest aspects of everyone, we'll try and find a lowest common denominator. The result won't make anybody happy, but at least it won't offend anyone, right? Is that what anyone really wants? I don't. I want a world where I am constantly in awe of the diversity we all supposedly pay lip service to.

Come on. If you can't handle being told "Merry Christmas," I honestly don't know how you function in today's society without being in a constant state of alarm, grief, and indignation. I mean, really, don't we have bigger issues to worry about?

Dear religious right: Christmas isn't yours

I'm a little frustrated by the religious right's siezing one of my little causes as their own. See, I'm a little tired of the de-Christmasification of the holiday season. I have my own reasons for this, which are quite separate from the right's, and it's awfully annoying to try and talk about it these days, without getting all the baggage of the right along with it. And the left, by demonizing the Christ in Christmas, is just making itself look more foolish. Once again, I find myself in the middle of two unreasonable groups yelling at each other, and I want to smack them both.

So, what else is a blog for, but to set up a soap box in an empty auditorium and complain?

Let me get a few things out of the way. First, I was raised in a household where for religious reasons, we did not celebrate Christmas. I am well aware of how it feels to be surrounded by symbols of a holiday you do not celebrate, to be "oppressed" by a majority, and to have thousands of people assume you take part in rituals you actually don't.

Second, I am not only an atheist, but you could say I'm anti-religion. I understand the need that people have for faith, spirituality, and ritual in their lives, but I personally think that organized religion has done more harm while satisfying those needs than good, over the years.

Third? I love Christmas. I love it like a fat kid loves candy.

Why do I love Christmas? Because, to me, it represents something worthy of inspiring awe. At the darkest time of the year, people string up lights to spread joy. Faced with months of cold and hardship, did people lock up their food stores and close their doors? No. They feasted! They shared their meager possessions with their neighbors and families. The weather is awful, the roads might be bad, and you're facing a heating bill that would scare Donald Trump, but you're still going to find time to visit your family, share gifts with friends, and give to the poor. How can you find fault with that?

At its core, I do not believe Christmas is fundamentally different from any of the other celebrations that occur near it. Take a look at the wikipedia entry for the winter solstice for an impressive list of holidays celebrated by different cultures. Read them all, and look at the themes of rebirth, feasting, giving, and light. People through the ages have always felt the need to fight off the advance of darkness and cold with their own celebrations. Obviously these celebrations took on the rich religious symbolism of the faiths which dominated each culture, but to say that the rituals and celebrations are rooted in those faiths is short-sighted.

What about the Christ in Christmas? Really, Christmas is unabashedly pagan in its origins. Serious scholars do not feel Jesus was born anywhere near the Winter Solstice, and early Christians didn't even celebrate the holiday. Neither did the Puritans, nor the modern Jehovah's Witnesses, since the holiday isn't Biblical in its origin. Yule logs, Christmas trees, stockings, the giving of gifts, the lighting of lights -- none of these are Christian. There's almost nothing Christian about Christmas; it's a clumsy grafting of the god-child birth story onto a set of rituals stolen from around the world.

And that's what makes it awesome. Nobody believes that wearing scary costumes during Halloween scares away evil spirits, and don't take my singing of "Oh Holy Night" as a sign that I believe there was a miraculous birth in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. You can honor and celebrate the traditions associated with Christmas without Christ. I do it, and so do many people, whether intentionally or not.

So take your Festivus and your HumanLight and forget about them. You're swimming against an impossible (yule)tide, and you just look like an idiot.

I'll hit on my next pet-peeve of the holiday season later this week: people who get offended when you wish them a Merry Christmas....

Welcome Home

It's been a week, and it's starting to feel more like home. I don't worry that I'm going to trip over something unseen in the hallway, and I know where (most of) my light switches are. It's going to take a while, but we're making progress.

What I'm eager to see is how I feel about Brookfield being my home town. I'm finding myself very quickly feeling comfortable there. The pace and layout of things work for me, so far.

I spent some time Saturday dealing with the folks who make this area home. I had to get a dump sticker for my car, we went grocery shopping, booze shopping, and even got some Christmas stuff from a nearby department store. And in every instance, though I felt a little out of place, I felt comfortable. People were friendly, pleasant, and made polite conversation. It was surprisingly relaxing.

Now, I grew up among plenty of hilltown residents, people in pickups, dirty jeans, and work boots. I've seen all aspects of the stereotypes, the heavy drinkers, the guys who drive around shooting signs with .22s, the kids who use racial slurs you thought died out in the 60s. I've seen it up close, so don't think I've got my rose-colored glasses on here.

But those people are everywhere. And honestly, there are all flavor of assholes in the world. The soccer mom who runs a red light talking on her cell phone is just as annoying as the guy in a trucker cap who passes you in a school zone in his pickup with the giant Chevy sticker on the back. The spoiled suburban teenager in the tricked out Lexus his parents paid for is no worse than the kid in the beat-up Corsica with 12 NASCAR stickers on it. No matter who they are, you have to deal with them the same way: ignore them and try to move on with your life.

At this point, I feel like I'm going to enjoy getting to know the towns near my new home. I think I like the idea of spending a few years here, and adjusting to a slightly different style of living.

On the other hand, there are no movie theaters within a half-hour drive. My heart aches....

The mice have struck

No, this isn't about my new house. This is about work.

I started working for this company in January of '96. For most of those Christmases, I've decorated my cubicle. It started back in another location, with another team, an entirely different culture. We stood on cubicle walls to connect garland strands to the ceiling, and people could see our little "Christmas Village" from far off corners of the cubicle farm. We played Christmas music, bought each other cards and gifts, etc. We were a cozy little team.

Not so much, now. I could insert my rant about how "tolerance" often means the opposite -- becoming so bland out of fear of offending people that there's nothing left to tolerate -- but I won't.

Anyway, now I settle for being the only guy around who decorates. I put up one or two strands of lights and edge my cubicle wall with garland. I listen to Christmas music on my headphones. It's nothing grand, but it injects just a little holiday joy into my daily work and reminds me of the festivities coming up in a couple weeks.

Yesterday, around mid-morning, I decided it was time to crack open the hallowed drawer and start decorating. This is not a drawer I open often; it's in its own file cabinet, which contains some old sentimental notebooks (with pre-dot-com-crash dates on them), old calendars, and decorations. I got out the key and cracked it open for the first time since last January.

(Warning: If you're expecting pics, I apologize. I did not have a camera on me.)

Hmm. What's that on top of my light strand? It almost looks like furniture stuffing.

And shredded paper.

And mouse turds.

Oh, shit. I've just been sifting through this stuff with my bare hands to figure it out. My body employs a "protective step back and shiver around central spine axis" maneuver, and then I lean back in. Yup. Somebody's been sleeping in my drawer, and it ain't Goldilocks.

I take everything out of the drawer and deposit in trash. Eight years of wall calendars, notebooks from 1996 onward, HR stuff from when our company changed ownership, and all my Christmas stuff. All in the trash. Half of it was chewed to shit anyway by the mice in an effort to create a more hospitable bedding ground.

I then went into clean mode -- scrubbed out the inside of the drawer, scrubbed my own hands, and used sanitizer everywhere.

So, here it is, the next day. My office still has no Christmas joy, and now I have a completely empty, sparkling-clean filing cabinet ... that I'll probably never use again *shiver*.

Merry Christmas, rodents.

A moment's rest

I type this to you from my brand spanking new study. Well, it still looks a lot like a little kid's room, but it's my study, damn it. Pay no attention to the glow-in-the-dark stars which are attached to the wall and ceiling. These too will pass.

The move was a success, in that we are no longer where we were, and are now where we are. I am still recovering from the entire ordeal, and expect to be in this state until at least the New Year, so get used to me bitching.

Friday we went and got the truck, and I really wish there was a bigger word for the vehicle we rented. It was Penske's largest truck, and I felt like some kind of criminal driving it without any special training. It's a goddamn miracle nobody died due to my skill with that thing, that's all I'm saying.

Loading it was an ordeal and a story in of itself, but it ended happily enough, with me slamming the door shut to the thing around 9 PM and booking the in-laws in a nearby motel so they wouldn't have to drive home before moving us again in the morning. I was, at that point, about as exhausted physically as I've ever been -- right up there with how I felt after the 10K race. I didn't want a beer, I didn't want to talk, I wanted to curl into the fetal position and sleep for days.

But, no, at 7 PM we were back at work. We gathered the rest of the "loose ends," packed our bed, and I drove the much-heavier truck to Brookfield. Allow me to again state how much I hated driving that monster, especially down the back-country-ish roads near our new place. I nearly wrecked some kind of Saturn or something when I thought I had the right of way and didn't, and had some trouble convincing the truck-full-of-apartment to stop.

The unloading went MUCH quicker than the loading, with the only complication being the previous owners' stuff. As in ... the house was still full of it. As they emptied rooms, we filled them. They had a smaller truck and took three loads, which made for a long day.

But eventually everyone left, and we collapsed into our bed for a twelve hour sleep. Even after that, I wasn't really "right," but we got immediately to work anyway. We spent most of Sunday unpacking and organizing, and made our first run to the store for things we needed. Today was similar, in an unexciting and not-worth-writing-about kind of way.

Complications? Problems? Galore. Oil tank is almost empty; they are coming out tomorrow. They tried to shut off my cable after they turned it on. Johnie and Lee were still moving stuff out today. There's a statue of Mary in my front yard which has been there since they moved in, and isn't exactly easy to get out. Our rugs and flooring need replacement (which we knew), and the place has a weird half-painted look in a few places. Our firewood seems to be fire-resistant.

I could go on.

But overall? It feels awesome. These are our halls, our rooms, our quirks, our house. Our big yard. Our empty shed. Our woods filling up with snow.

Pretty kickass.

And ... it's done

Shortly after we got our phone call this morning, telling us what we owed, we headed out.

Our first stop was the bank, where we got a Bank Check for the amount we owed. That was as simple as it sounds, so we next headed for Jess's favorite lunch spot, Shiraz in Worcester. We were done there with plenty of time to spare, even after stopping to buy cat food. Nearly twenty minutes early, we arrived at the lawyer's office and waited.

About five minutes before 1, the attorney met up with us and took us into a conference room. There, we went over the terms of the mortgage, the breakdown of the closing costs, and everything else. And we signed.

And signed.

And initialed.

And signed.

And then ... it was done. There were no surprises. No "oh, you forgot this form." No "oh, we never got this from your lender." Nothing. It all went smoothly. You hear so many horror stories, but I guess this is part of what you get by hiring your own real estate attorney. They may have been a pain in the ass to deal with for the past couple months, but when it came down to it, everything was in order.

We were out of there before 2.

It was like a huge weight came off my shoulders. It's odd that taking ON a quarter million dollar debt feels less stressful than worrying about whether it would go through, but that's the truth.

As the afternoon ticked by, we checked the Registry of Deeds online. Sure enough, our deed was recorded before they closed.

In other words ... we're homeowners. It's official. Stay tuned for updates as we move in, get settled, and find out what it's like to live in our own house.

Two hours to go

I just got off the phone with the lawyers' office. Our closing at 1 PM is on schedule. She gave us the final amount for our closing costs (a bit over $2,000 -- remember, no down payment here, and we have a $2,000+ credit from the sellers for the condition of the carpets), and told us to bring that much money (in the form of a bank check) and our photo IDs, and be ready to sign papers at 1 PM.

Two hours.

Quarter million dollars in debt, here I come.

24 Hours to Close

It's 1 PM, on November 29.

In 24 hours, we will be sitting in our lawyer's office, signing paperwork. We'll be closing on our new home, our first house.

It seems so incredibly unreal, at this point.

It's going to be hard to leave our current place behind. We fell in love with our apartment the first day we saw it. The carpets were torn out, the fridge was in the middle of the kitchen, but it instantly felt like home.

As we stayed, the town grew to become home, too. We buy books at the annual library sale. We go to the town's art show and vote for the best painting (trust me, competition is fierce among the retirees for this honor). We attend the fall festival, buying apple crisps and entering our names in raffles. We've gone hiking in the town's protected open spaces, I've gone running and biking on the back roads, and we've taken long walks on quiet side streets in the middle of snow storms.

We have a pizza place at the end of our street that gets business from us far more than they should. The Chinese Restaurant delivery guy could probably pick us out of a line up. Our favorite "nice" restaurant is a mile down Route 20. We can get to the movies in 5 minutes, walk to the library, and easily get to every major road.

We've been here seven years, and have the memories to match. Of course I'm glossing over some of the unpleasant aspects of where we live, but overall we've been content here.

And now it'll be time to build new memories, in a new place.

They say you have to be willing to sacrifice the merely good to experience the truly great. I guess we'll see.