patrickrhett

I got incredibly angry on the way home from work today.

I was listining to NPR, and there was an interview with Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer who was sent to the U.S. by Canada, then we sent him to Syria. In Syria he was imprisioned in a small underground cell and periodically tortured for a year. All of this took place because of allegations that he had terrorist ties, which turned out to be untrue.

You hear about secret prisons, you see our government trying to “clarify” the Geneva Convention (What exactly does “shall in all circumstances be treated humanely” mean? It’s so vague.), and then you hear the first hand account of a man who was taken from his wife and children, thrown in a hole and tortured for a year. What have you been doing for the past 12 months? Your country has turned into a police state, what are you doing now?

Well, what I did was come home, grumble to the Lovely Wife a bit, have a couple of beers and watch the two hour season premiere of America’s Next Top Model. My favorite so far is Michelle.

I have seen many things on the internet that I saw and thought, I need that.

This wins.

And it comes with instructions on how to build it.

You in?

On a completely unrelated note, here’s the list of the top 9 jobs where bacteria thrive. Top 9? Not 10? I also have some issues with how this was put together, but I mention it because the Lovely Wife is a teacher and I am, more or less, an accountant. That’s right. #1 and #2.

I got out of the habit of posting here last month, August being my crazy busy work month. I kept looking at the site, and starting things, but couldn’t bring myself to get out a finished post. I felt completely blocked. My subject matter either seemed too big to tackle (trying to write a coherent post about Ann Richards) or too small to bother with (look at this cool link I found).

I’ve also been distracted by this greater, overarching idea I’ve had about creating a set of web pages all of which feed into a main page for a total, integrated web presence. Which is kinda like planning a hotel in the middle of the Siberian permafrost – it may be cool when it’s done, but why bother if you and your 5 friends are the only ones who’ll ever see it? I guess the journey is the reward, or some such crap.

Anyway, I decided the best way out of this was to just write something, as long as I was getting something on the page. I am committing to at least one post a day for the rest of this week, to see if I can get my rhythm back.

So here we are…

Hi.

Oh, hey, look at this cool link I found.

66 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena.

Back from Houston last night and a good time was had by all. We saw Body Worlds and the Houston Zoo, both of which were great. I might write about them in more detail later, but right now I’m tired, so click on the pic for a zoo gallery.

Off to Houston for the weekend, I’ll post pics and such later…

So I’m 8 months through 2006 and adding to my Movies 2006 page is getting a little unwieldy. It currently has 29 entries and I’ve been avoiding adding a couple of movies I’ve seen recently just because it’s a pain to work with.

That’s when I had an epiphany.

Q: What do I want from the Movies 2006 page?
A: A sequential list of all the movies I see in 2006, with my comments on each.

Q: What type of website is good at sequential journal entries?
A: A blog.

You see where this is going.

It occured to me that each movie could have it’s own entry, and I could just create a category named “Movies 2006”. Instead of clicking on the page you would click on the category, and there they’d be, all lined up, with the added bonus that you, my 5 loyal readers, could comment on a specific movie if you so desired. I AM A GENIUS!

Anyway, I’m in the process of moving all the existing content into date and movie specific posts, then I’ll probably take the page down.

Just a quick post for my 5 readers to let them know I’m not gone and this site has not been abandoned, it’s just that August is my busiest time of year at work. As in, today will be my 23rd consecutive day without a day off level of busy. I’m hoping, within the next couple of weeks, to be back to 5 days and 40 hours, at which time I will be able to resume all my hobbies, like blogging, talking to my wife and sleeping.

So I destroyed my gallery yesterday while trying to update it, which is why you see the ominous “Fatal Error” message over to the right instead of the random picture. I’ll be trying to fix it this weekend. Wish me luck.

And, if you’re displeased with that, then here’s how to destroy the Earth.

29. Underworld:Evolution

Perfectly acceptable popcorn movie. There were a couple of times I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but then something would blow up and distract me. Kate Beckinsale is quite good, Bill Nighy is excellent at everything he does, and Scott Speedman, well, ok, he’s pretty bad. And, in this movie at least, he looks like the lead singer of Creed, who is a giant tool. Overall, though, fun and mindless.