Inedible Ink

Floyd Landis has passed the buck on the most recent spate of slander against the newest American Tour de France Champion, in a press conference today he claimed total innocence and blamed the whole affair on his own pituitary gland.

“It’s always done this.” said a biology teacher to an eighth grade class while discussing the hormone producing function of the gland in general, but not the Landis poisoning case in particular.

The level of testosterone considered normal by French standards was not available to the blogger at press time.
The gland could not be reached for comment.

In case you’ve never done it for yourself, going to a Foreigner concert with John Bruce is like taking out a full-page ad to tell the whole world that you don’t have a date. That’d be different if you were John Bruce’s date, but I’m not that kind of a guy.
Sometimes that is just the right message. Night Ranger, the warm-up act, was hardly warmed up and I found myself dancing with a lovely young blonde woman. Next thing I knew the show, including a boring-as-hell version of Jukebox Hero, was over and I was suddenly in desperate need of a pen with which to capture the phone number I’d just been given.

John Bruce was confident to the point of smugness. He asked her to tell him, he said he’d memorize it and tell me the next day.  I was reluctant to relinquish my new most treasured possession to the unknown depths of JB’s skull, I wanted it folded up and in my pocket or written on my hand, but she told him, he said “got it.” she said “bye” and split.

Then John looked at me and said the most forgettable-sounding thing I’d ever heard: “Nine times ten to the first power, nine times ten to the zero power, nine squared, nine times two”  I coulda smacked him.

Twenty years later I remember that phone number. 909-8118

My family and I were occupying a park bench during a recent vacation when a leather-clad skinhead approached.  I watched his face contort from distant and nearly doofy to curled lips and furrowed brows as he assesed us.

After he passed us, I watched him walk away. In an abrupt gesture, both of his middle fingers flashed at his sides towards us.

“That,” I thought as I watched this young man flipping off my innocent children in apparent anger, “is a man that needs people to pray for him.”

“Maybe,” I continued thinking, “he’d get some of that prayer from somebody if I took a section of pipe to his kneecaps.”

“Now I have Guilt!”

I’m quoting Rex, the toy rex dinosaur from Toy Story, voiced by Wallace Shawn who also played Vizzini in The Princess Bride:

He’s about as cute as Tyrannosaurii get.
Just after the previous post, in which I assert that my blog is fine like it is, Darren Rowse writes to remind us that Readers are People Too. It’s a good piece, and worth your time, if you blog too.

Well, the gist of it is that the blogger should keep his readers needs in mind and to do otherwise is disrespectful and rude. So, now I have guilt.

ProBlogger Darren Rowse over at, uhm, ProBlogger overlooked Inedible Ink when he picked 14 bloggers to ask: What would you do differently if you had to start your blog over again:

If I had to Start My Blog Again

Over the past two weeks I’ve asked 14 of my favorite bloggers what they’d do differently if they were starting their blog again today. Their responses were varied and left us with plenty of food for thought (see their responses here).

I’m sure that was just an oversight, right Darren? or was it more of a total unawareness of this most obviously not an A-list blog?

I’ll answer him anyway:

By ProBlogger standards, this blog is a total do-over. Happily, I’m not a ProBlogger, otherwise I’d have serious work to do.

The ProBloggerMe would have a simple, meaningful URL. I’d have lotsa space for ads and Google would love me. I’d be Search Engine Optimized. I’d blog about defined topics continuously and voraciously, and whenever I wanted to blog about something new, I’d start a new blog with a new look and a new simple meaningful URL and the search engines would love the new ones too.

Under that plan there would be 11 blogs by now:

• Anti-anti-Catholic unapologetic apologetics
• Letters to no editor in particular
• Harsher than necessary Book Reviews
• Seasonal Bible Study
• Muppets in the Wild
• My kids are so durned cute
• The only Republican listening to NPR strikes back
• Things that would go in my memoirs, if I were writing them, which I’m not.
• I don’t know about you, but my Grandpa wasn’t a monkey.
• The Thundering Third. DarkSide Battalion. The 3/4 Marines. (you guys rock.)
• How to take better pictures when you have no time, talent or money, and you want to believe that there is an instant substitute for these things.

There would certainly be more forthcoming too.
While the whole not-being-about-something-strategy worked well for Seinfeld, it’s a poor way to get Google to understand when to send folks your way. It’s also a poor way to retain hordes of readers.

But this blog isn’t about hordes of readers (neither was Ulysses from what I can tell). No, this blog is more like Dumbledore’s pensieve, which, in addition to being a brilliant narrative plot device for Rowling, was a place for the thoughtfilled old wizard to store and sort his thoughts and memories.

I understand that I am on thin ice comparing myself to Harry Potter’s Professor Albus Dumbledore, but I don’t intend it to go any farther than this: He and I both have a fondness for lemondrops and a great lot to think about. That is all, (except for that one really long hair in my left eyebrow, It is Dumbledorian.)

The pensieve serves as a place to put some of those swirling thoughts aside for awhile and be sure they’ll still be there when you next need them. The pensieve also serves, quite cleverly, as a way for Dumbledore to share thoughts with Harry intentionally or otherwise and entirely without that painful Vulcan mind-meld thing. So you and Harry may have stumbled into the pensieve quite by accident but you are welcomed all the same, just try to forgive me if I skip around a bit.

So, Darren, I might be a ProBlogger someday when I grow up, but for now, I’ll pass.

Image of Dumbledore’s pensieve, swiped from snitchseeker.com who, swiped it somewhere else, I presume.

Yet another example of the comments section being more helpful and up to date…

USRowing
The U.S. women’s eight won the gold medal, while the lightweight men’s quadruple sculls won silver, to highlight the final day of competition at the 2006 World Rowing Under 23 Championships in Hazewinkel, Belgium.

The women’s eight of coxswain Katelin Snyder (Winter Park, Fla.), Genevra Stone (Newton, Mass.), Devan Darby (Virginia Beach, Va.), Esther Lofgren (Newport Beach, Calif.), Megan Smith (Templeton, Calif.), Kate Davison (Bedford, N.H.), Kady Glessner (Seattle, Wash.), Kerry Birk (Scottsdale, Ariz.), and Anne Kennedy (Mt. Vision, N.Y.) clocked a 6:06.68 to cruise to a 2.3-second victory. The crew established its lead during the first 500 meters and continued to walk away from the field during the middle half of the race, building an open-water advantage with 600 meters to go. Belarus made a late push during the final quarter of the race but could not mount a serious challenge. Belarus finished second in a 6:08.98, while Germany claimed the bronze medal in a 6:09.97.

Cooperstown grad earns spot on U.S. rowing team
Dartmouth University senior Kennedy was among 24 rowers across the nation invited to try out this summer at Berkeley, Calif., for the United States Women’s Eight Under 23 team. She earned one of 11 spots for the World Rowing Under 23 Championships, which started Thursday at Hazewinkel, Belgium.

“I think Anne was a bit surprised to be invited to the Under 23 selection camp this summer and she went to California without any real expectations,” Dartmouth coach Wendy Lavash said. “Her confidence, especially in her effectiveness on the water, has grown tremendously from this experience.”

Kennedy, 21, rowed from the first seat Thursday, helping the United States to the fastest time in heats and a spot in Sunday’s final.

Also on the team were coxswain Katelin Snyder, Genevra Stone, Devan Darby, Esther Lofgren, Megan Smith, Kate Davison, Kady Glessner and Kerry Birk.

Racing in the first of two four-country heats Thursday, the U.S. crew was second behind Belarus for the first 1,000 meters before surging to a 6-second victory. The U.S. crossed in 6:13.81. Belarus finished second, in 6:19.97.*

Romania won the second heat in 6:16.90 and also advanced to the final. Brett Johnson, the communications director for U.S. Rowing, described Kennedy’s first seat position as more of a technical spot.

“The first and second seats, you have to be very proficient,” he said. “They have to make sure the boat is balanced, so you have to be technically strong.”

Though she didn’t take up rowing until her freshman year at Dartmouth, Lavash said Kennedy was a quick study.

“Anne’s combination of tenacity and patience on the water has allowed her to make big leaps without getting bogged down by the occasional setback,” Lavash said.

Kennedy, who’ll be Dartmouth’s captain for the upcoming season, has positioned herself for a possible run at the 2008 Olympics.

*I can’t make heads nor tails outta that fifth paragraph, it’s like time itself was broken at the time of the finish.
I know a grand total of two things about rowing: 1.) VO₂ max. 2.) Anne rocks.

It sounds like the answer is ‘yes’.

This article has some stunningly simple math laid out to show that we all have ancestors in common.

Roots of human family tree are shallow - Yahoo! News
It’s simple math. Every person has two parents, four grandparents and eight great-grandparents. Keep doubling back through the generations — 16, 32, 64, 128 — and within a few hundred years you have thousands of ancestors.

It’s nothing more than exponential growth combined with the facts of life. By the 15th century you’ve got a million ancestors. By the 13th you’ve got a billion. Sometime around the 9th century — just 40 generations ago — the number tops a trillion.

It means when Muslims, Jews or Christians claim to be children of Abraham, they are all bound to be right.

Perhaps this is obvious, but the mathematics involved are not so complex that they account for some people being more geographically isolated than others. Perhaps there are people in New Guinea or on Hawaii who are related to me only by way of the original migrants who populated or came from those places millenea ago.
Liking this story doesn’t make me a Bible literalist, I like it that big numbers make that which feels unlikely not only possible but probable. I also like it that this math story underscores the Judeo-Christian story that we are all brothers.

Thanks to Mutti @ Portia Rediscovered

Bobby drove a baby blue ‘72-ish Cadillac Eldorado convertible.

The hood needed it’s own zip code.  It was like taking a comfortable sectional couch out for a spin.  The top stayed down all summer.  When you got to where ever you were going it always seemed a kind of shame.
About like this one Jay posted on flickr:

1972 Cadillac EldoradoOriginally uploaded by jay el.

I think of Bobby sometimes too.

Ambrosia: An ancient greek term that actually means “Fresh sweet corn”. Frequently mistranslated.