Late Starts

 
Town clock

Every Wednesday, the Irvine high schools have a late start — 9 a.m. instead of 8. Also: a few times a year, like today, they have something called a Super Late Start day, where classes don’t start till 9:50.

My wife brings up a good point: Why don’t they ever have Super Early Start, where we drop the kids off at 6 a.m.?

April Fools

 
Key Metrics

Every month, I present web site metrics to our Web Steering committee. Since this month’s meeting fell on April 1, I took the opportunity to mock up and present a set of fake charts showing all of our key metrics falling off a cliff.

LOL!

OK I know what you’re thinking — not as funny as cling wrap on a toilet seat. You’re right but chart pranks are more cerebral . . .

Hot Enough for You?

 
Neon light on a freezing night

All of us tend to think of our own circumstances in terms of a narrow range and to feel that other pastures are greener. . . . My suspicion is that in Heaven the Blessed are of the opinion that the advantages of that locale have been overrated by theologians who were never actually there. Perhaps even in Hell the damned are not always satisfied.

— Jorge Luis Borges, “The Duel”

Don’t Underestimate Me

 

Now, each of us has his own special gift
And you know this was meant to be true,
And if you don’t underestimate me,
I won’t underestimate you.

— Bob Dylan, “Dear Landlord”
At the Dog Park

My owner and I took a walk tonight and we saw a woman we’ve seen many times before. She is about 40 years old in human years and a little bit chubby.

Tonight she was playing with a volleyball in front of her house with her kids and another girl. She was very good! She was bumping and setting with aplomb!

“I underestimated her,” my owner said. “She looks like a chubby housewife but she’s also a good volleyball player.”

That happens to me a lot too. As you can see in the photo, I’m not very big compared to some other dogs but I have the heart of a much larger animal.

— Lightning paw

The Census is Unfair to Dogs

 
Lightning Epps

My owner filled out the census form for our whole family except me. He said he was sorry but there are no questions on the census about pets.

I think that’s not fair because dogs bring a lot of love and joy to peoples’ lives. If they don’t count us, how will they make sure that we have adequate access to veterinary services and rawhide treats?

— Lightning paw

The Erasers

 
The Erasers

The Erasers is a combination detective story and Greek tragedy, about a murder investigation in which the victim, unbeknownst to (almost) anyone, is not really dead.

It’s also about multiple perceptions of the same events, all of them perfectly reasonable and all of them wrong.

And it’s about the inevitablility of fate, which despite your best efforts can lead you to an unimaginable deed (cf. Oedipus).

Highly recommended!

Thomas Jefferson on the Health Care Bill

 
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
— TJ
Thomas Jefferson

My fellow Americans —

This is a glorious day in our great nation! No, I’m not referring to that tragedy of a health care bill, which I’ll get to in a moment. I’m talking about Free Pastry Day at Starbucks! Who doesn’t enjoy a tasty scone with his morning coffee?

Now, on a more somber note . . .

Goodbye, representative democracy! Farewell, consent of the governed!

President Obama today signed into law a far-reaching measure that will affect everyone living in these United States, now and in the future. It is opposed by most of the country and it is now law.

I would never have believed that the government I helped to establish would one day engage in this kind of forced sodomy against its own people.

We know what is right and we will do it, regardless of whether you want it done to you or not.

If Karl Marx were here, he would no doubt make a case for trading off liberty in favor of whatever it’s called when a centralized authority redistributes your income in the interest of “equality.” If you know even a little bit about American history, I guess you know which side of that fence old Tom Jefferson is on.

Switching from politics to economics: People with insurance use more health care resources than people without. Put another stitch in my head, doc! I’ve got insurance!

If more people have insurance, it will increase the demand for health care, which in turn will increase the price.

Now imagine that everyone has insurance. I got your health care reform right here: We’re going to drive the price of health care through the roof, then spend a titanic amount of money helping poor people afford it.

I have no (proven) living descendants and for that I say — Thank God! The next generation of Americans is going to be crushed under the burden of paying for this misguided vision of government.

Yours in sadness and in hope,

Tom

Don’t Touch My Stuff

 
Remote

“Anyone who knows me as well as you do,” I say to my son, “knows that one thing I really hate is when I put something in one place and somebody moves it to a different place, so the next time I need that thing I can’t find it. Which brings me to the topic of the DVD remote . . .”

“I put it to the left of the TV,” he says.

“Are you sure you didn’t put it behind the TV where no one would be likely to find it?”

“Did you find it?” he asks.

“No — Mom found it, and when I asked her where she found it she pointed behind the TV.”

“Hmmm . . . I would say it was to the left of the TV.”

“Let me ask you this: Why did you move it at all?”

“It was in my chair.”

“That’s not ‘your chair.’ You don’t have a chair.”

The Importance of Doing Meaningful Work

 
The Road to Ribblesdale

Over the course of each academic term, he asks undergraduate and graduate business students three questions:

  1. A year out of this program what do you expect your job will be?
  2. What kind of job contributes the most to general well-being?
  3. Practicality aside, if you could be doing anything 10 years from now, what would it be?

What’s striking is that there is almost no overlap among the students’ answers to these questions. . . .

The question then becomes: Why are students studying so hard and paying so much to reach objectives that are neither what they dream of nor what they think of as especially responsible?