Feel like crying? Here are some stories of The Ambulance Driver.

Regarding Harry Potter again.... If you haven't read them, read them. If you have decided not to because you are sick of the hype, or you think it's just a stupid kids' book, or whatever reason, you are doing yourself a disservice. These are genuinely entertaining reads that easily appeal to all ages, not just kids. The huge amount of hype out there is there for a reason. Millions and millions of people all over the world love these books. It's not because of good marketing, it's because they rock, because people can't put them down. So do yourself a favor and give Harry Potter a try. And the books are far better than the movies.

Tammy Faye Baker died. Normally I wouldn't really care when someone famous dies, especially if they were a Christian evangelist. Here's the thing, though. She was on The Surreal Life during a season that included Vanilla Ice and Ron Jeremy (holds the record for most porn film appearances). The Surreal Life put a bunch of c-list and washed up celebs together in a house for while. Well Tammy Faye turned out to be one of the most caring, tolerant, open-minded people I have ever had the pleasure of watching on TV. She was just a wonderful person, exactly what I would think a "good Christian" would aspire to be. She didn't evangelize or lecture, she tried to help Vanilla Ice with his anger issues stemming from not being able to escape his past notoriety, and she struck up a friendship with porn star Ron Jeremy that was totally unexpected, and seemed very genuine.


So here's to you, Tammy Faye. You are a role model for everyone who thinks that people can have different beliefs and still live in peace and harmony together.

I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I thought it was a fine ending to a wonderful series. I may have to reread the last couple of hundred pages, it was so exciting that I read it way too fast and may have missed some of the details.

I went to the Braves game tonight with a couple of friends from high school and sat in one of the new all-you-can-eat sections, the cheaper one that does not include beer. It was still awesome, I got five hot dogs (did not eat them all), peanuts, popcorn and a whole lot of coke. Satisfaction guaranteed. Thanks again, Keith.

So Richard Armitage admitted to leaking the whole Plame thing. There may or may not have been other leakers, but he definitely leaked it. So if, as many on the left say, the leak was definitely a crime, why isn't he behind bars? They were up in arms about Libby getting pardoned for perjury, but don't seem to care that nothing happened to the guy that committed the larger crime that started the whole mess.

If you are ever discussing Iraq with someone, and they say something about how Al Queda is in Pakistan not Iraq, remind them of two things. One, there are plenty of Al Queda agents in Iraq that keep in touch with the main group, a fact which is backed up by the latest National Intelligence Estimate, NIE. And two... Not a single senator or columnist or protester who brought up this fact about Pakistan is actually talking about redeploying the troops in Iraq to Pakistan, so it's a disingenuous, misleading, non-sequitor. Then ask them what they would do if we did pull out, hundreds of thousands of innocents get slaughtered (yes, many more will die if we pull out than died while we were there, power struggles with terrorist groups and no real military to speak of tend to do that, just look at "Palestine" today), and then the Al Queada in Iraq people launch an attack on the US that kills a couple of thousand people? Because that's a very likely scenario. Ask them if they will feel any guilt over those deaths, or will they just shift the blame to Bush?

Here is an interesting article on urban sprawl. It does bring up some questions, one of which is what is bad about urban sprawl? Sprawl happens because people want to live in less dense areas. If those people can afford to and don't mind the long commutes that may or may not come with it, what's the problem? This is a HUGE country. If you want to enjoy unspoiled wilderness, you can. It's out there all over the country and not going away anytime soon. So what's wrong with sprawl?

Today was sort of exciting. I went to a gym and set several personal records. I overhead squatted 135 lbs, and feel like I can do more, but I'm raising the weight very slowly so my form will stay perfect. Then I did a personal best deadlift of 235, and again the form thing. And I've only deadlifted for like maybe 6 workouts in my life. Then I had a piss-poor bench press session, which isn't surprising since I rarely bench nowadays. It's really just not that important to your overall fitness compared to the other stuff I do. I ended with some kettlebell work. The one I have at home is 20 kg, this place has a couple of 28 kgs. Did a set of swings, and then tried snatching it. Last time I couldn't get it all the way over my head, this time I had no problem... For two reps on each hand anyway. I was pretty satisfied.

There are some amazing stories being told in the Marvel Comic book universe these days, so I thought I'd give a big overview of the Earth stuff. There's some awesome space stuff, too, but I won't get in to that.

So first, Reed Richards (the stretchy guy from the Fantasic Four), Dr. Strange (a sorcerer), Iron Man, and Black Bolt (king of the Inhumans, his merest whisper can destroy mountains), got together and decided it was best for the world and for the Incredible Hulk if they tricked him into getting on a spaceship and then sent him to an empty planet where he could be at peace. But the ship veered off course, and the Hulk ended up overthrowing a planetary emperor, getting married, and bringing a new age of peace to his new world and to himself. One problem, though.... The ship he was sent there in blew up and destroyed the entire planet. With his wife dead, and only a few close friends able to escape with him on another ship, the Hulk headed back to Earth for revenge. A pretty justified revenge.

While all this was going, a group of superpowered heroes called The New Warriors attacked some supervillians. During the fight, one of the bad guys used his explosive power to blow up the whole area, killing 600 innocents that just happened to live in the neighborhood. So Iron Man proposed a new Superhuman Registration Act, which required people with powers to register and work for the government so that they would be properly trained and not allow super bad guys to blow up towns. Supposedly you could just retire and not use your powers if you decided not to sign up, but like most such programs in real life, new politico Iron Man pretty much forced you to join up, or go to a new superhuman jail set up in an alternate dimension (which may or may not have caused the big space excitement I referred to earlier). This set a bunch of superheroes who wanted to remain independent against those that signed up, with Captain America dying as a result.

So in the midst of the fallout from the superhero civil war, the Hulk has returned and is ticked off. He already took out Black Bolt and Iron Man and is working on Reed Richards. Here's what's interesting to me, though. The New Warriors had the best of intentions when they attacked some bad guys. It turned out badly and a lot of people died, and thus the New Warriors were villified by the public and by douchebags like Iron Man. Well it turns Iron Man's idea of sending the Hulk into space had unexpected results. Instead of fighting the Hulk, Iron Man should be begging his forgiveness, the same way he expected the New Warriors to atone for when their good intentions turned awry. I wonder if the comics will actually explore this theme of hypocrisy? Anyway, there's been a lot of compelling storytelling and some super badass fights. So if you ever thought about reading comics again, check out World War Hulk.

Have you noticed that most major media outlets and left wig politicos now refer to "catastrophic climate change" rather than "global warming?" I wonder why. Could it be because they realized they are going to get nowhere talking about warming when there are near record lows being recorded in many places. Somehow the "consensus" has been changed by public and political opinion, not by science. Makes you wonder about the validity of the so-called consensus that global warming is caused by humans and must be stopped immediately... Could it perhaps have been driven by power hungry people, as well? No one would ever mention Al Gore again if not for his jetsetting all over the world hypocritically telling people to reduce their carbon footprints? I wonder if Al Gore has ever acknowledged a finding by scientists that is in no way a consensus because there's no political reason to make it one... That the sun is growing slightly hotter. Seems like that might affect temperatures here.

Wow! This is the jock/nerd theory of economics. Slightly edited, it becomes the popular/nerd theory. Basically the idea is that all through k-12, the jocks and/or socially adept kids basically ran things and that the same thing happens in the real world. Think about all government regulations to promote equality..... They are actually promoting economic/employability equality, the things the high school jocks and popular kids often fall behind the nerds on after high school. But other inequalities, say the ability to have sex with beautiful women, or become a movie star, things based on looks, charm, and social adeptness, are never looked to for regulation or "fairness." So that's the jock/nerd theory of social order. The jocks run the government and the various special interests groups, and they try to negate any advantage the nerds might have.

I'm not so sure I subscribe to this theory, but it does explain some of the holes left by a simple economic class warfare argument.

Also, I should mention the tax producer/tax taker theory. That one says there are just two groups... Those that effectively pay taxes, and those that don't by having their various welfare and government program giveaways outweigh what they paid in taxes. So the first group supports the second group. And the second group is much more susceptible to vote-buying with the creation of a more entitlements, and thus gets pandered to more.

The World Series of Poker ended early this morning with the crowning of Jerry Yang as the new world champion, and a new $8 million man. Yang is a psychiatrist, staunch Christian (prayed to Jesus for good cards many a time at the final table), and a Laotian refugee who spent time living in a refugee camp, and knows what being really poor is all about. He seems like he'll make a good spokesman for the game.

The table was pretty crazy. Yang came in 3rd in chips, and ended up knocking out the two ahead of him and one more guy in the first 30 hands or so. He knocked out two more over the next couple of hours, making bad calls, but in context with his massive chip stack relative to the other players, the calls weren't really bad at all. Once it got down to four handed, things slowed down a LOT. Finally one guy got knocked out by someone not named Yang, and they were three handed. Blah blah blah, he had a 5-1 lead headsup and won on a suckout, but considering his chiplead, he was pretty much bound to get it all in no matter what.

One of the guys he knocked out has an interesting story. Hevad "RainKhan" Khan, out in 6th, was once accused of being a bot. Pokerstars noticed his account playing like 30 sit and go one table tournaments at a time, so they froze his account and banned him. He got his friend to film him playing 26 SNGs at once, and Pokerstars apologized and reopened his account. I heard the story and saw the film when it first happened, and then I got to hear it a million more times as he neared the final table over the last week.

So the Secretary-General of the UN warned of the really bad implications of an early American withdrawal from Iraq. Does this mean that if the Democrats decide to cut and run, we can bash them for a unilateral action that goes against the wishes of the UN? What about all the people that cited UN reports as reasons why we shouldn't have gone there in the first place? Will they be consistent and go with the Sec-Gen, or do they not really care about what is good or bad for Iraq, only what is bad for Bush?

Just curious.

Played late night bar trivia a couple of weeks ago. It's Saturday night at 11:30, and we won. Not just won, but dominated. This particular month they were inviting all the winners to another tourney with a $250 top prize, rather than the normal $50 house cash, so I was pretty pumped. For various reasons, most of the people that were there when we qualified couldn't make it, so it was just four of us. As with many of these events, it all came down to the final bonus question. We missed it, but had we gotten it right, we would have won the whole thing.

Q: What is the best selling candy bar of all time?

We debated between Snickers, obviously the current high seller, and Hershey's, which has been around a lot longer. Ended up making the wrong choice, Hershey's. Boo! So close....

Did I mention how much I love deadlifting? I still haven't joined a gym since mine shut down, but I did get a 7 day guest pass for L.A. Fitness so I could check it out. This one has a pool, which is kinda cool, but it's also not that close, so it's unlikely I will join. Anyway, I did overhead squats, front squats, back squats, then deadlifts, then some overhead work. Some personal trainer dude came over to compliment me on my squat form and tell me about a new gym he and a partner were trying to open in the next year or so. They are going to have bumper plates and platforms and climbing ropes and kettlebells and squat racks and so on. Sounds like fun, so I will definitely try to keep apprised of their progress.