Excession Event

This morning, as I walked around the maze that is the company office layout to reach the coffee machine, I passed by the office of our head salesguy. On top of his filing cabinet was an award, won from some networking show. It was an acrylic pyramid, about six inches on its square base, and in the middle there was a floating blue ball. If there was writing on it, I couldn't see it.

I saw it just out of the corner of my eye. My head whipped around to focus on it clearly. "Hey," I said to myself, "If I grab that, I can turn invisible!"

And then I realized I'd been playing waaaay too much Halo recently.

Reading Speeds...

I dropped Omaha off at her classes and headed over to Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up a few things. Our humidifier had died as a result of overuse and a general ignorance about how to maintain the things, and we had burned out yet another Braun Multiquick blender-stick, and that's one of those things our household can't live without.

I got to the store and found that the price for a Multiquick with all the accessories was $30, which was only $4 more than the cheapest on-line store wanted for just the power unit after shipping and handling were calculated in. Given that Omaha had accidentally melted the chopping bowl one day putting it on the lower rack of the dishwasher, replacing that bowl seemed like a good idea. I noticed that the blender stick itself was a bit stiff, so I swapped that around as well.

Kouryou-chan and I played a few games of Ker-Plunk, had ice cream cones, and then we got ready for bed. She was actually pretty good about getting ready for bed. She read to me from Dr. Seuss's I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, and she read to me at a very good reading speed. It was almost conversational in tone, too. She's mastering the art of reading to other people, which is very, very cool. I read to her a bit from Charlotte's Webcam and then I put her to bed.

She wouldn't leave me alone. On the drive back from dropping Omaha off she'd fallen asleep and had about a 40-minute nap; that was just enough to convince her brain that she didn't need to go to sleep. Since I had half an hour between her bedtime and mine, I was hoping to get in watching some anime that isn't kid appropriate (At first I couldn't decide between DearS and Gunslinger Girls, but I decided on DearS), but she kept coming downstairs. *Sigh*. So ultimately I had to let her sleep in my bed and went to sleep myself anyway.

Doctrinally correct, strategically moronic!

Parents in Pasadena, California, are apparently ready to string a priest at the St. Pius X School up by his testicles. No, he didn't molest anyone, at least not physically, and he didn't deny the authority of the church. No, he just told the children something that was doctrinally correct, but the parents are outraged that he would take it upon himself to tell a classroom full of kindergarteners that, well, there is no Santa Claus.

Next thing you know, he'll be debunking other mythical characters. And who knows where that'll lead?

What we already know...

The Journal of Adolescent Health tells us what we already knew: girls who ate four family meals a week were only 1/3rd as likely to have an eating disorder, and girls who ate five times a week were 1/4th as likely to have an eating disorder as their peers. Combine this with the fact that boys who sit down to five or more family meals per week were significantly less likely to smoke or try drugs, were better-adjusted to the pressures of school, and had fewer motivational problems doing their homework.

Darymple's observation of an enclave of India natives in the middle of his poor district is spot on: "And the willingness of Indians to take trouble over what they eat and to treat meals as important social occasions that impose obligations and at times require the subordination of personal desire is indicative of an entire attitude to life that often permits them, despite their current low incomes, to advance up the social scale." [Emphasis mine.]