How I feel about eggs

Here are my thoughts on different types of eggs. Please let me know if I forgot any.

Scrambled: the best, especially on toast
Fried: Tasty, as long as they're not overly runny
Omelettes: Mmmm.
Poached: don't think I've ever had one, but they sound gross. Really, do we need to illegally hunt eggs? Sounds a bit excessive to me.
Hard boiled: No, no, no. Texture, smell...yikes.
Deviled: Never tried one, but the mere thought of a hard boiled egg mixed with mayo...yeah. No.

There you have it. In case you were wondering.

The Bun update

The Bun looks to be progressing nicely. The doctor moved the due date back to the original date, May 18th, which means either the doctor or the ultrasound machine is way off. Either way, it doesn't inspire much confidence.

So fatherhood has been delayed for a bit. It's probably a good thing because we still haven't bought anything for the nursery.

Amazing Grace

What an inspiring movie. Less about the song than I thought it would be, it focuses on the life of William Wilberforce (gotta say, that's an awesome name) and his dedication to the abolition of the slave trade in England.

The story is truly remarkable. William believed he had a calling from God to bring to pass abolition. It was the driving force in his life and it nearly killed him. The pain he felt for the people he tried so desperately to help but, for so long, could not made him physically ill much of his adult life.

It was incredible that this man had the determination and dedication in the face of so much opposition to do what he knew was right. This movie, as they say, is a must-see. And it's only rated PG.

Unfortunately, I haven't noticed much press about this movie so spread the word. With all the smut and garbage out there it's all the more important to promote a movie like this. Here's the link to the trailer.

What's the big deal with Anna Nicole?

An immoral woman (my wife wouldn't let me say "whore") dies and for some reason it's all over the news. Why? All the attention it's getting reflects very poorly, yet accurately, on society's values.

Overheard in New York

Found this site recently and it has some pretty funny stuff. My favorite quote so far:

Dude 1: I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Dude 2: Ummmm...hmmm.

Typical

"Maybe this year we can enjoy an early, mild Spring," I told myself over and over. But deep inside I knew it wasn't true.

In typical Utah fashion, yesterday's high was a beautiful, sunny 61 degrees. Today we woke up to this:
30 degrees and four inches of very wet snow. Figures.

Hugh's desperate plea

Applebee's Dessert

Sean at work was kind enough to treat Matt and I to lunch today. We went to Applebee's. They were a little slow in getting me my dessert so I asked for it to go. I ordered this:
The menu describes this particular dessert as, "Blondie baked with pecans and topped with a scoop of ice cream and chopped walnuts. Served warm with maple butter sauce." Mmmmm. Sounds tasty.

When I got back to my office I opened up my little styrofoam box to reveal this:

So. Applebee's. Forget a few things? This is almost as bad as my McDonald's experience.

7 ways to save for a down payment

Other helpful tips to "save" include:

• Sell or borrow against an asset
• Obtain a low or zero point loan
• Ask the seller to pay your closing costs

Thanks Prudential, for looking out for your customer instead of trying to get them into irreparable debt. It shows you really care about them.

Merits and demerits

This morning I would like to award my dad 10 merits, five for having his cell phone with him and turned on and five for actually answering it. In my family we consider this a small miracle and will likely celebrate this day throughout the years to come.

Unfortunately, Dad also gets 15 demerits because he dropped my mom off at the air port at LEAST two and a half hours before her flight. This was because (and I quote), "I wasn't sure how bad traffic was going to be and she has kind of a heavy bag. Turned out traffic wasn't bad."

No kidding Dad? Really?

Even if traffic was bad, horribly bad, it wouldn't have taken an hour and a half to get to the air port (normal commute time: 30-45 minutes). Now, I don't expect my dad to look on the Internets for traffic reports. I realize the mere idea of this could cause him to have some kind of coronary seizure. But there's this thing that's been around since he was a kid. It's called a "radio". Often, many of the stations on the radio will give updates on traffic conditions. I know they do this because I hear them do it.

The problem is this isn't an anomaly. He does it all the time. It's the same thing when we fly home for holidays. We end up sitting in the air port longer than we do on the air plane. Same thing goes for attending events. For example, he insists we get to plays 30-45 minutes before curtain.

Ah, the quirks of our parents.

The type-o seen 'round the world

As a copywriter I totally get the "oops" moment when you find you've misspelled a word and sent it to the client or worse, to press. It happened this morning in fact. So normally I am not one to point out other's type-o's. However, when the type-o is on the face of the search engine that handles 70% of the world's Internet searches an exception has to be made.

UPDATE: OK. Google says the "L" is in the stem of the strawberry. Hmmmm. Naw. I get what they're saying but I don't buy it.

The Bun update

Here's the latest and greatest picture of The Bun. If you aren't ultrasound-savvy, you're looking at his head. He's lying on his left side looking toward you. He's got a huge noggin and his mouth is open. Hope that helps.

The big news is that the cysts they found in his head went away. The slightly less big news is that our due date has been moved up THREE WEEKS to April 29th. Guess we should start shopping for stuff. Like a place for him to sleep. And maybe a car seat to bring him home in. Stuff like that.

Bumper sticker: Why is there always money for war, but not for education?

My wife taught a math class to 37 kids at a public middle school. I can vouch for the need for more money in our educational system. I don't think a lot of people dispute that. However, finding money always seems to be an issue.

Yet, as this bumper sticker pointed out (yes, apparently I am gaining insight into our political situation via bumper stickers) we can readily find billions in to fund the war in Iraq. To clarify, I support our troops and the cause of liberation (whether that's the only "cause" is up for debate in my mind) but am baffled at 1. how much we spend on defense and 2. how little makes it to our troops. (Driving around in unarmored vehicles??)

Some would argue that it's a matter of "national security" and "don't you want to protect the men and women fighting for freedom?" Yes I do. (See above.) I would respond with the question, "Isn't educating the future of America a critical need as well?"

I tell ya what. Bush is really starting to get on my bad side. The whole covering up evidence of global warming isn't helping matters either. Three years ago I wouldn't have thought I'd say this but I'm looking forward to a refresh in the White House.

Commenting: a goal

I just decided to make it a goal to respond to every comment posted to this blog. I also set a goal to actively comment on other's blogs because, hey, I like it when people leave comments and what goes around comes around, right?

It should be noted that I can picture Matt taking his entire lunch break and leaving several dozen pointless comments on each post, just to tick me off. Matt, if you're willing to leave the comment, I'm willing to respond.

My condition: hypergraphia

"Many suffer from the incurable disease of writing, and it becomes chronic in their sick minds."

Such an apt description of myself!

Who'd have thought? There's actually a medical explanation for my excessive desires to write. While it's not considered a "disorder", it is associated with epilepsy, mania and schizophrenics.

Figures.

Of course, I don't really have hypergraphia. (Only mild tendencies at best.) I've never felt the need to write so urgently that I scribbled down a thought on toilet paper if nothing else was available. Conversely, when I get an itch to write it's not easily ignored and, if I must confess, not something I want to ignore.

It's somewhat encouraging to know authors of the caliber of Tennyson, Poe, and Dostoevsky all experienced hypergraphia. But it's quite discouraging to think I have the drive but not the talent. Kind of a Rudy situation, but with much less skill, no coach and no hope of a movie being made about me someday.

After reading to this point in the post, my wife asked, "Would you rather be loony with more talent?"

I considered her question.

No. I'm fine being mildly loony and even less talented. I'll continue pecking away at the keyboard and scratching away in my journal, grateful for the desire to write and grateful that desire isn't to write about chopping people up in the bathtub and hiding their limbs under my floorboards. There are always methods of improving talent but there aren't always ways of decreasing looniness. Savvy, Poe?

Steve Jobs: "Thoughts on Music"

Stevie J. put an interesting article up on Apple's website about his take on DRM (Digital Rights Management) and music sold through the iTunes store.

DRM music restricts where you can play your music. For example, you can't play music purchased from iTunes on a Zune and you can't play music purchased from Sony's music store on an iPod. The idea behind DRM is to prevent the piracy of music. The music labels require DRM before they'll let their music be distributed online. Senior Steve wants to get rid of it all together.

His argument is, essentially, that a small fraction of the music on people's MP3 players is actually protected by DRM. What about the other 98%? Where do people get this unprotected, easy-to-be-copied-and-distributed-on-the-internet music? From CDs. Distributed by music labels.

El Jobso is calling for the music labels to remove DRM completely and make the music you download off iTunes compatible with any MP3 player out there.

Removing DRM from iTunes-purchased music isn't going to inspire a new wave of piracy. If people are going to pirate music, they're going to pirate music. What it will do is encourage more people to use the iTunes store for legal purchases because they won't be deterred by DRM as they've previously been.

While I think Stevie J. has a solid point, I am curious to see how, or if, the labels respond. I would be shocked if they said, "Good point. You're right. Don't worry about DRM anymore." For one thing, there's too much ego involved. However, the buck-a-song model has proved effective and much more lucrative for the labels than CD sales (they make more per song downloaded off iTunes than they do per song on a CD). If there is any hope of stemming piracy I think unprotected, legal online distribution is going to be the best way to do it because you're removing one more excuse to pirate music.

Riding the train: international envelopes

A young woman was sitting near me on the train. In her purse was something intriguing: international envelopes. Who did she know in another country? Family? Friends? How had they met? Was she from another country? Was she here alone? Why had she come? How did she end up on my train in Salt Lake?

It's so choicely excellent that she's a letter writer. How tempting it must be to resort to e-mail for correspondence when those you're writing are so far away.

Something about an international envelope, with its red and blue slanted stripes along the top, is perfectly romantic. The miles traveled are a testament to the importance of the words contained in the heavily stamped envelope.

The keen anticipation of receiving an letter is unparalleled, but tragically forgotten by most. There's satisfaction in carefully opening the envelope and reading and re-reading the message inside. (When was the last time you pulled up an e-mail and re-read it?) Letters are like journals and photo albums: the records of our existence which are, unfortunately, being overlooked in our fast paced lives.

Hopefully someday I'll have someone to send international letters to. And hopefully someday (sooner than later) I'll send more letters and fewer e-mails.

Four things

I just got back from watching Stranger Than Fiction again. It's an excellent movie. If you haven't seen it, go see it. It's even at the dollar theater. Now you don't have any excuses. But I digress.

During the movie four things occurred to me to write down.

The first was that if you do a lot of extra work to get ready for a vacation, go on vacation, and then come back to a pile of work you need to get caught up on...well...that's not much of a vacation. If you're doing twice the work before and after, you're working the same amount of hours you would if you hadn't taken the vacation.

I can't remember the second thought.

I wished I'd had my notebook with me so I wouldn't have forgotten my second thought. That was my third thought.

My final thought centered around a conversation I had with a friend of mine lately. Recalling the conversation made me wonder: what is my first impression? That is to say, what are people's impressions of me when they first meet me? I think I'll write more about that but it'll be in my journal.

Go see Stranger Than Fiction. And bring your notebook.

Updates to the Quote Board

In lieu of my illness-inspired lack of writing, I'll direct you to the recently updated Quote Board (see "Sites" in the right column). Enjoy.