I am so amazingly pumped. I get my kitty tomorrow! I’ve picked a name. I’m naming her “Dimmit” which is Amharic for “cat.” However I’m planning on calling her “Dimmie” most of the time because that sounds less like an expletive, and it’s cuter. Many photos will be taken an posted.
UPDATE: The Picture of the Week is now a picture of me and Dimmie. I’ve also uploaded pictures to flickr here. There have been additions to that flickr set since the potw for those of you who already saw those.
This post is a bit of a rant, you’ve been warned.
Today is the two hundred and twenty third anniversary of the adoption1 of the Declaration of Independence. Two hundred and twenty three years ago the United States officially declared themselves separate and independent of the tyranny of the King of England. It’s a day to be remembered, and it is. People everywhere will be going to see fireworks and grilling and celebrating with friends and family. One thing as of late has bugged me about the celebration of Independence Day, the way people acknowledge the day. It has become more and more common to wish someone a “happy 4th” rather than a “happy Independence Day.” It’s a little silly, but this really really bugs me. If we have a holiday in remembrance of something, remember it and say it out loud. You don’t wish people a “Merry 25th” for Christmas, so why wish people a “happy 4th?”
On that note. Have a Happy Independence Day everyone. Celebrate your freedoms, remember those who have fought for it2, and go see some fireworks.
Not the signing, that didn’t happen till August 2nd, 1776. See here for more fun facts ↩
By this I mean everyone, not just those who wear flags on their lapels and uniforms. Here are a few examples of people who aren’t often remembered but should be when remembering freedoms. Not that Veterans and Politicians that fight for what America is aren’t important, but they have their own days.
While digging through Wikipedia for the previous post I did some reading in the article on Isaac Asimov. None of it was particularly new to me however I did find something very enlightening1 in this section. Specifically:
For many years, Asimov called himself an atheist; however, he considered the term somewhat inadequate, as it described what he did not believe rather than what he did.
Now I don’t identify as an athiest but an agnostic. I think the people claiming to know that god doesn’t exist have just as little to stand on as those who do. However as this section states this describes very little of what I believe. Humanism2 has always been something that I’ve felt described my beliefs well and is a movement that I wholeheartedly agree with. Which begs the question, why don’t I identify myself as a Humanist rather than an agnostic? There is no good answer for it and there is very good reason to identify as a Humanist, and so from here forward I will.
So partially to make progress on goal 4, and partially because I absolutely love Pixar I saw WALL•E1 tonight. What can I say, it was fantastic. While watching the movie a thought came to mind, why we2 make movies. Without giving too much away, WALL•E isn’t just a movie about a super incredibly cute robot. The film starts out in the barren landscape of a post-apocalyptic Earth. We find WALL•E working away at his primary mission, clean things up. Now WALL•E’s idea of cleaning things up is pretty similar to a child, or the typical college student, take your crap and make it into piles. Things really are really only a little better then when he started. Instead of junk scattered everywhere, there is junk everywhere in really really neat piles. It’s cute, but quite frankly for a movie partially targeted at children it is really dark.
WALL•E however is science fiction at it’s finest and by the end of the movie thing’s aren’t all better with everything fixed, but they’re better. However this had me thinking about why I love science fiction, something I’ve always known. Science fiction is frequently about hope. This hasn’t always been the case however but thanks to the brilliant mind of Isaac Asimov and his rejection of the Frankenstein complex this is what science fiction has become.3 Star Trek is a perfect example of modern science fiction that takes this and runs with it. Above all other thins Star Trek was a rejection of the typical dystopian science fiction and an example of what can be.
Star Trek was made in the 60’s a time of social and political upheaval. Amongst many other things the airing of the original Star Trek coincided with the height of American involvement in Vietnam, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, some of the most heated moments of the Cold War, and the assassination of American leaders, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. For many Star Trek gave people hope that everything would turn out all right. This was no coincidence as Asimov was a friend and adviser to Gene Roddenberry the creator and produce of Star Trek.
But back to WALL•E. WALL•E represents the same things that Star Trek did, in a time not so dissimilar. People are searching for hope as much now as ever. If you were asked to define Barack Obama’s campaign for president in one word hope would be high on the list of responses.4 WALL•E doesn’t go as far as Star Trek and suggest that everything is going to work out perfectly but it does suggest that we can overcome. Hope has been in short supply lately and WALL•E does it’s very best to add some to the mix. Fortunately WALL•E’s very best the work of Pixar and their very worst is better then what some can ever hope for. Amongst other things, hope is why we make movies.
I don’t know how to make the little circle, I just copy and paste it. ↩
The collective “we,” I don’t make movies. I definitely couldn’t make movies like Pixar does, that’s for sure. ↩
No thanks to abominations of his works ↩
Pfft, you “change” people have it all wrong. ↩
Ian and I took a trip out to see his Aunt in Marshaltown today. This trip had two objectives. He wanted to see his sister off, and I wanted to look at kittens. His Aunt’s cats both just had litters and some of the little ones need homes (the remainder will live on the farm).
Last weekend Mom said that she would probably be ok with keeping a kitten for a few weeks until I move into my new apartment so I figured going out and looking at them was ok. They’re still a tiny bit young for adoption but that didn’t stop me from sizing them up. The two you see me holding were pretty quickly the prime contenders. The one is a long haired all grey kitten. He was very affectionate and far more interested in people then any of his siblings/cousins/whatever. The little orange one (with cute little white socks!) was probably the most mellow. She wasn’t trotting up to me as quickly but she certainly didn’t jump out of my arms when I started petting her either. They also didn’t present any other clear flaws such as: scratching things, scratching people, hissing, running away, and/or alien infestation.
In the end I decided the only possible methods to choose between them were a) call my Mother (her only insight was that a longer haired cat would leave more hair) and b) make them duke it out. The end result of option b is pictured here. Neither were fond of the idea however Bo (the little grey one) retreated far sooner and was declared the loser.
My only problem now is that the name I had picked out (Agathon) really doesn’t work so well and the female equivelant (Agatha) really isn’t sitting too well with me anymore either. I’m now working on a name, suggestions are welcome.
The title of this post probably sounds a little unusual. That’s because it is. For those of you who are fans of off-color humor check out You Look Nice Today: A Journal of Emotional Hygiene. For those of you easily offended and white you should probably still check it out. (This itself is an off color joke ha! A meta joke!) Enough about the title though. I’ve stolen their title and have totally ignored their use.
To say I’ve been a bit of a mess the last few months is a touch of an understatement. If you read this blog you already know part of the reason for this. The next reason is that I haven’t graduated. I was supposed to in May, but didn’t This is partially a result of the first reason, and mostly a result of my own stupidity. I let non-academic things get in the way of school work. Which, if you didn’t know, is a pretty bad move. These two rather dramatic changes in my life have lead to a fairly nasty mess. (For an example of something approximating this mess, see image at right.)
Quite frankly, enough of it. I need to get moving on making an improvement. My single goal for this summer has been just that, but I haven’t really gone about doing much to reach this goal. I’m only working part time this summer (10-4 Monday-Thursday) which is helping a ton (although not helping my wallet), this was a really good move. I need to do more though. So here is my plan, enumerated in quasi-chronological order from planned start date of the item. I’m posting it here as a bit of a check on myself. If people know about it, in theory, I have a little more then myself to move for progress, I also have the guilt of knowing that other people know my plans (negative motivator, bad thing, or good thing shrug).
So there it is. This is going to change. I’m going to be adding things and completing things. The list is a work in progress just like the end goal. Things will be completed, others will be added, it’s a working document and now it’s public.
Maybe I should have added “Sleep” somewhere on that list. Either way, it’s time to get some.
So I went to see the new Indy movie last week (I went twice actually). I liked it. It wasn’t as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade but I think it was better than Temple of Doom. It stuck to the Indy feel fairly well and the blend of fantasy and reality held true to classic Indiana Jones.
My biggest problem with the movie is summed up pretty well by the image at the right (which I posted on the tumbleblog). There were several moments where all I could do was groan and think to myself “Damn it George.” I imagine there were probably several conversations somewhat like this:
George Lucas: Steve, Steve, Steve! I’ve got an idea! We’ll have Shia swing though vines like a monkey! WITH MONKEYS!
Steven Spielberg: George… we had this discussion already. CG animals don’t make things better. We gave you the gophers.
GL: STEVE! Common! We cut half of the gophers–
SS: I KNOW… Geoge… they were terrible, I left them in because you’re my friend. Why would the monkeys be in the trees with Shia anyway?
GL: Because the monkeys will attack the Commies!
SS: …. Why?
GL: Because they’re the bad guys!
SS: I know… but why would they attack the communists? George, no, no monkeys, no Shia in the trees. It’ll be just like Jar-Jar all over again
GL: Common Steve! Jar Jar was great! Kids loved him! The problem with Jar Jar was that there wans’t enough of him! WE NEEDED MORE JAR-JAR! MOAR JAR-JAR!
SS: ….
Yeah… that’s pretty much exactly how I imagine it. George Lucas, as much as I love his old films, needs to just have a happy retirement. Away from my movies.
Along with all the sweeping changes to the layout here I’ve changed the comment system to Disqus, the comment system I’ve been using on my Tumbleblog for a while now. All posts without comments have switched over (including all future posts) to Disqus automatically . Anything with a comment in the old system will stay in the old system in order to keep the old comments intact.
I’ve also changed the RSS feeds. Now all of Tedger.com feeds are integrated into two feeds, one for posts, one for comments. The Comment feed is integrated simply by having all comments go through Disqus (Comments made in the old Wordpress system wont be on this feed). The posts feed was integrated using Yahoo! Pipes and Feedburner as described here. If you read Tedger.com via RSS update your feeds!
I really thought this was going to take longer then it did. I started working on this Wednesday evening and have worked on it while taking breaks from studying since then. I’m not satisfied with how the titles currently are and that will require some tweaking but on the whole I’m pretty happy with the new look. You’ll slowly see this working it’s way into the rest of tedger.com but at the pace this went you can probably expect it sooner rather than later. If you have any suggestions, or notice any visual glitches, by all means let me know.
Not really a huge substantive addition to tedger.com but kind of a fun one. I’ve previously mentioned my recent adoption of some Web 2.0 services and I’ve furthered the integration of those services into tedger.com. You can already get to my Tumblr at http://tumblr.tedger.com and now you can see my Twitter updates left here on Tedger.com! Look to your left in the side bar, it’s alright, I’ll wait….. Kind of cool? Maybe? Ok not that cool, but I generally update twitter and tumblr more frequently then I update here on the main blog so it’s one more update avenue, and that’s the goal of a website. So enjoy.
I'm Trevin Ward, I'm a Political Science Student at Iowa State University in Ames, IA.
I'm intersted in Politics, Law (yeah... they're different, trust me), Computers, and the Internet. I use this space to express myself on these matters and share personal news with friends and family. I also use it to share things I find on the internet others might find amusing. I generally try to be funny, but don't always succeed. Those with a low tolerance for bad humor should likely head back now. You've been warned.