"Do you want to know more?"

At the local cafe'

Now, it's not particularly unusual of me to take pictures of random strangers while out in public, but I thought this picture was quite nice. These three women were chatting in high-speed Cantonese at the local cafe' (okay, it was a Starbucks, which resembles a cafe' to the same degree that MacDonalds resembles a steak house), which is also not particularly unusual. What's interesting about her, though, is the book under her right arm; the woman with her back to the camera also had a copy. It's Sabias Que (lit: "Do you know?"), a textbook in beginning Spanish. Now that's cosmopolitan.

Oh, well, another lifetime regimen to adopt...

The girls are old enough now that I feel safe leaving them alone in the house for short periods-- while I walk up the street to get the mail, or two blocks to get milk from the corner grocery. I trust Kouryou-chan to be more knowledgeable and reactive to crises than Yamaraashi-chan, which is an odd thing to say; then again, I also expect Kouryou-chan to get into more crises than Yamaraashi-chan. Still, if they're stunned with Guitar Hero for a few minutes, they're fine on their own.

Last night, though, I ran out of Prilosec. I had forgotten to buy more and had lost track of how much I had left. I proposed to Kouryou-chan that I go get some, and she said she didn't want to be all alone in the house after dark. Thinking about it, I decided she was right, that the nighttime was different somehow from daytime, and it wouldn't be fair. So I skipped a dose.

Bad move. Although I slept well, in the morning my throat burned again. I may have to be on this stuff for the rest of my life. After getting Kouryou-chan out the door to school, I went down to the grocery and bought more, so I'll be okay.

Oh, and file under stupid warnings for stupid people: "Do not take this medicine if you are allergic to it." Well, uh... "Duh!"

A big fat hermaphrodite with a Flock of Seagulls haircut and only one nostril!

The National Science Board released its Science and Engineering Indicators, 2008, and absolutely everything I've been saying about America's coming third world status is backed up:

• U.S. grade school students continue to lag behind other developed countries in science and math.
• In 2000, the United States held about one quarter of the world's 194 million tertiary degrees. Twenty years earlier, the U.S. share was closer to one third.
• From 1994 to 2004, U.S. firms increased the number of people they employed in R&D jobs outside the United States by 76%. Foreign firms increased their investment in US R&D by only 18%.
• Federal obligations for all academic research, basic and applied, declined in real terms between 2004 and 2005 and are expected to drop further in 2006 and 2007.
• Several Asian countries, led by China, experienced more rapid growth in knowledge-based industries than did the United States in 2004 and 2005.
• The U.S. comparative advantage in exports of high-technology products has eroded: the U.S. trade balance in advanced technology products shifted from surplus to deficit starting in 2002.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is nothing wrong with the minds of the citizens of Asia, India, or Africa. The only way the United States can stay competitive against other nations is to create acadamic and industrial environments so attractive those minds want to come and produce their research and developmental miracles here. We are not doing that. Intelligent design is my bugaboo, but it's just one of the thousands of ways our country manages to look idiotic to the rest of the world.

Silly ad!

So, there's this ad in The Stranger. It's for a dating service and it shows a hot, somewhat trashy-looking blond in a cocktail dress. Below the picture it says: "1:2 She's married. 1:5 She's already 'meeting someone'. 1:25 She's a dude. Don't like your odds? Use us!"

I'm like, okay, the second one sorta takes her out of the picture, and the first one may or may not complicate matters, but why is the third one a problem?

Maybe the ads not aimed in my direction.