Yearbooks and "Best" Friends

Nostalgia is a funny thing. As far as I can tell, the human brain does not store the memory of negative emotions very well. Sure, the really traumatic stuff gets indelibly etched up there, making us terrified of clowns forever (Why can't they stop smiling!?!), but the day to day stuff gets leeched of all the low grade stuff. The anxieties, the doubts, the minor shames and humiliations all fade with time, leaving memories that are all Good Times. Oh, and how we yearn for the days of yesteryear, not getting hassled, not getting hustled, keeping our heads above water, making a wave when we can...

Wait a minute, I think that is the theme song to Good Times. What we talking about again?

Ah yes -- Memory. All times are good times as long as they were long enough ago. Even if they were horrible times, we look back on the tidbits that were not so bad with a strong sense of nostalgia. It is exactly this sort of selective memory that drives bad couples back together again and again. They want to recapture that nostalgic memory high, like some poor junkie.

Yes, nostalgia is a dangerous drug, don't be fooled. You can't go home again, you can't go back to college, and you can't experience what it was like to experience everything for the first time again. Trying to recapture stuff like that just leaves you feeling frustrated and uncomfortably out of place. Now before you say, "Jesus, Seamus, you are all doom and gloom with this we are all gonna die someday crap", there is a pretty damn nice alternative to looking back. There is no way any of us can exhaust more than a tiny percentage of the possible experiences this world and life have to offer us. You just can't be afraid to move on to the next thing. Raising kids is completely different than getting so drunk you wander the UCSD campus on your own self-devised scavenger hunt (one mildly damaged EXIT sign, check), but it is awesome and amazing in its own, different way.

Not to say strolls down memory lane aren't fun. Researching my previous post, I cracked open all my old yearbooks, really for the first substantial read through since I graduated. A normal person would have done this before their 20th reunion, but I did it after. Go figure. Anyway, it was a blast taking a return peek into the weird world of pre-adult absurdity. In particular, I was amused by messages scrawled there by barely literate apes and those of my supposed "best friend", Brian Deacon. I thought it might be fun to give you folk a sample by reprinting all of his yearbook signings, year by year.

Please note these comments are not appropriate for children, those with delicate sensibilities, pregnant women, the Dutch, or anyone who believes in the pure and indomitable spirit of man.

1985: This was my seventh grade year and first one at Prep. It was my first yearbook ever and I believe I caught on slowly to the idea of having people sign it. Altogether I got 13 signatures, plus one that looks suspiciously like it might be me writing to myself. I didn't notice any obvious Seamus-meme or common gross reduction of my character and/or personality down to one or two common pieces of knowledge. This changes in later yearbooks. There are a couple of references to jokes and dumb comments in class, so a wise ass I have always been. As I was known to say, “Have sex, will travel” – Huh?

Dear Homosexual Bleep*

Drop Dead
The Deak

*Asshole Mother fucking dick sucking two balled bitch

1986: Eighth grade and I seem more dumbfounded by this yearbook signing process than before. I mean, seriously, is anyone gonna ever read these? I reach through time and slap the 13-year old me. There are 5 signatures, plus at least one person (Nicole) pretending to be another one (Joanie) writing that they are in love with me. Really not enough signatures to try and piece together a meme.

Seamus “The Gaylord Moron Idiot” Colbert,
You are an asshole. You are a mother fucker.
You are unbelievably short. You are ugly.
Deacon

1987: Freshman year and the class size doubled, but I still have only 11 signatures plus a double giant two page scrawl claiming “Seamus Sucks Dicks A lot”. Very classy.

There are several references to something about me being Greg Ahn’s bodyguard. I have the dimmest recollection of threatening people to stay away from Greg Ahn as a gag, maybe related to him becoming a Fine Young Cannibal? Cursed brain cells! I think I accidentally stored Seinfeld quotes on top of this information. Here there is an early mentioning of my T-shirts. For everyone who knows me there is probably a certain amount of nodding. There are also several references to how strong I was. I missed my calling as a pocket strongman, apparently.

By the way, the photo above is me playing Malachi Stack in Thorton Wilder's The Matchmaker. I actually played this part in my Junior year, but there is a real dearth of yearbook pictures previous to 1988. It was a great part. I had a soliloquy and then got consistently drunker throughout the rest of the play.

Seamus,
Fuck You!!
Have a summer. I really don’t care how it is.
Deacon

1988: Sophmore year and I am holding steady at 11 signatures. These includes a recap of my first three acting lines ever. -- Aldonza, I brought something for you. She won’t deliver. Why so hot about it? -- There are also multiple references to DEATH in capital letters, something from English class I assume. There are more references to my awesome shirts.

Here we start the Where's Waldo segment of yearbook pictures, starting with Ms. Cerri's Spanish Club. Quick side note: There was a television show that was popular at roughly this time called American Gladiators, where average people would have to engage in mortal combat with professional gladiators. That is, if by "mortal combat" you mean slapping each other with wet foam on a stick and if by "professional" you mean people on lots and lots of steroids. The Gladiators all had comic book hero names, like Zap or Lance or Thunder. My younger brother really liked the show and announced to the entire family that one day he would be a gladiator and his name would be Thor. After some mild guffawing, I was asked what my name would be. My brother answered for me, saying "Waldo". After people stopped crying and peeing themselves, I had a nickname that was tough to shake. So anyway, I suppose it really is a Where's Waldo puzzle.

Jim Billy IV,
Life is a terminal
Disease, there is no
Cure. So don’t enjoy
it too much. I have
decided to take
up too much
room while
writing.

HOW’S THIS?
I AM CLAIMING THIS
ENTIRE
PAGE. ENJOY
YOUR SUMMER IF
YOU WANT TO. I’M
GOING TO WRITE IN THE
UPPER RIGHT CORNER NOW.

Here I have included the actual Upper-Right Corner as Brian clearly labeled it. This scrawled masterpiece also included a cartoon of a rolling eye Dr. Cowett that you will find at the bottom of this post.

Catnip 4-Ever refers to an incident where a "friend" gave us a "joint" at a "party". Ok, I think it was actually a party. Anyway, the so-called illegal substance was really just catnip. Fortunately for Brian and myself, John Sprafka (the "friend") could not contain himself and started having paroxysms of laughter before we had done more than take a tiny puff each. So we were spared getting really high on nothing more than the idea of taking an illicit substance and thereby looking like complete fools. The story was still entertaining, however, and became widely known in certain circles, increasingly embellished with each telling.

The Marquis thing comes from a family myth that we are directly descended from the Marquis Jean Baptiste Colbert, one of the most important advisers to Louis XIV, the Sun King. I am the oldest son of the oldest son going back as far as we have records, clearly making me the heir to the Colbert fortune, whatever that might be at this late date. Pure fantasy (we are Irish, not French) but that is where this Marquis reference and the one scrawled over my Sophomore year picture at the top of the page came from.

1989: Junior year and I now have 43 signatures (Booyah!) and a piece of masking tape marked “Seamus Is My Babe” which I vaguely recall came from Kirsten Cochran, who was often alphabetically close to me. There was more talk about the T-shirts. Clearly it was my thing. Check out the AFS Club photo below (I went to Colombia one summer) and you will see the classic "Beer?" shirt that shows a bear with deer antlers. Hoo Ha. Classic shirt.

To my chagrin this book is also filled with Mr 1420 SAT references. Yes, I did well on my SATs. I guess when a single standardized test carries so much weight people obsess about them, but it drove me crazy that everyone locked on to it. I think it slightly surprised people I was so smart, despite taking every honors class, etc. I had a poor high school work ethic, what can you do? Next year when I retook the test to fix my Math score I became Mr. 1530 and wanted to crawl under a rock.

In other Junior year news, apparently Pre-Calc was hard for a lot of people. Armenia (the girl I knew from high school, not the country) writes that she would write crookedly just to piss me off, and you know what, 20 years later… it does a little bit. I find a very tiny, tiny bit of satisfaction that she was the victim of some Deacon graffiti a year earlier (see top of post): she had a slight English accent, so when she said banana it was funny.

Finally, someone had realized Shamus meant private detective… and told others. Sigh.

SHAYMASTER,
What can I say? I could baffle you
With my eloquence, but no, you’re not
Worthy. I hope your trip to Colombia
Fixes your problem. If you already know
What your problem is, then that’s a
Good first step. Look both ways when
You cross the street and don’t come
Back with more than 2 brain cells.
The Big ‘D’

1990: Senior year. There is nothing. Blank. I think I forgot to bring it on the Senior outing everyone else did signing on. I also was probably in a "F- all these people, I am out of here" mood. There are some nice photos of my triumphant performance as Elwood P. Dowd from Harvey. I really like the shot of me sitting on the edge of the stage like I own the place. Senior year. Nothing but Good Times.

Still, it is disappointing to have no signatures at all. Maybe I can still get Brian to write go fuck yourself in it.

All Apologies to Ken, Wherever You May Be

Most people like to think of themselves as basically good people. We all have flaws and moments of weakness and loss of self control, but over all every person thinks that come the day when the jackal-headed Anubis rips their heart from their chest and places it on the scales opposite the feather of truth, that Thoth will write down in his ledger that their heart did rise. [I suppose traditionalists would probably have preferred a St. Peter and the heavenly gates metaphor here, but you can not beat the Egyptian Book of the Dead for evocative imagery. If you fail the test you will get eaten by a monstrous crocodile-hippo-lion beast called Ammit, meaning "she who gobbles down". So eat your veggies kids.]



And while I do genuinely believe in the basic good intentions of mankind -- I attribute most evil to ignorance and fear -- clearly this world has more bad people in it than people who think they are bad people. That is, we all lie to ourselves. It makes sense. When it comes to oneself, it is a little hard to maintain an unbiased opinion. If you have two pieces of information that contradict each other and one says that you are good person and another says you are bad person, which one are you likely to go with? And who hasn't taken the side of a close friend in a dispute, reassuring them even though you knew them to be in the wrong. Being a good friend wins out over cold honesty most times, but it is this sort of thing that tends to skew a person's perspective.

It not my intention to come to a final evaluation of myself as a human being today (Interim Evaluation: Lazy Awesome), but instead to discuss a particularly dessicated bag of bones that is rattling around in my mental closet. We have all done things that we regret, things where we hurt people. Sometimes unintentionally and other times, well... When I look back on my life one major incident keeps ricocheting around in my skull.

This will probably come as a shock to most people, but as young lad I was just a wee bit nerdy.

No it's true.

I liked to read science fiction and fantasy books. I had big thick glasses. After reading came a love of computers and computer games. And then there was Dungeons and Dragons. I think you see where I am going with this. Like many young men, I entered my junior high years not exactly looking my best. I went from a diminutive, but adorable leprechaun of my elementary years, to a still not particularly tall but all stretched out and gangly teenager. Never the most outgoing of kids -- shy would be one way of putting it -- my realization that girls might be more interesting than I had previously thought did me little good. I switched from a public school to a tiny private school, so the pool of fish became very tiny indeed. And I was not one of the sharks, I knew that much.

It was here that I met one of my best friends junior high through most of high school: Ken. Ken loved all the same geeky stuff I did and we shared a similarly perverse sense of humor. He was ridiculously thin and of normal height, but walked with a bit of a permanent slouch. Along with my big buddy from elementary school, Brian, we made quite the funny looking threesome, I am sure. Geeks small, thin, and large. Pick your favorite nerd to pick on. Although actually, I don't recall dealing with anything particularly venomous that would even register on the grand scale of teenage cruelty. Helps to be a nerd at a prep school. Probably helps more to have a giant best friend (Brian).


It wasn't long before I began spending more and more time at Ken's place. It was where I was truly introduced to the dark arts of the comic book, a medium for which I still have a passion to this day. Ken lent me every single book he had, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the Dark Knight Returns. Many a Friday and Saturday night had me crashing on his bed or his floor. I became friends with his friends, like the always fascinating but difficult to pin down Ray (was he an American Indian? Did he have an inheritance coming at age 25?). And, of course, Ken turned 16 nearly a year before Brian and I did, making him the designated driver for all sorts of shenanigans that I probably still can't discuss, as I am not certain the statute of limitations have all expired. For instance, we shot bottle rockets off his car rooftop, while standing on his back bumper going 50 mph. We are so lucky to still be alive.

There was drinking and there was vomiting. We were stupid kids. I chipped a tooth when Ken jammed a gallon wine jug into my mouth as I was trying to take a swallow. Didn't hurt much at the time. Hurt a lot more later. We discovered Guns 'n Roses and KROQ. We set up electronic bulletin boards, which were like internet chat boards back in the dim and hard to recall pre-internet days. There was some petty piracy using 5.25" floppies. My tag at the time was Mad Dog. I think I made my signature blink and reverse to say God Dam. I am sure I felt that was very clever. Even earlier I remember trolling and flaming on the Compuserve chat boards. Such behavior didn't even have a name back then.

In general we had a damn good time, wished we had girlfriends, got good at computers, and managed to barely stay out of both jail and the morgue. Standard, if slightly nerdish, teenage fare.

Then something happened. I am going to say it took place during the summer between junior and senior year, but it could have been slightly earlier. There began to be a significant schism in our threesome, with Brian and myself on one side and Ken on the other. There were some other friends involved, but that was the main break. For whatever reason, Ken was getting to be less and less fun to hang out with.

Now I want to take a quick time-out here to warn that there has been over twenty years and a lot of water under the bridge since these events, so while I may now have a much better perspective, the details are certainly fuzzy.

At the time, the common refrain was that Ken was growing annoying because he seemed to be stuck at a level of immaturity that we were growing past. That seems like some unadulterated bullshit now. I do think he was increasingly bitter, sarcastic, unpleasant and abrasive. His mood was often down or dour, and his jokes seemed increasingly leaning toward the infantile or cruel or thoughtless. Worse, he began radiating a strong sense of self-loathing. He also became very clingy, showing up at our houses unannounced, wanting to hang out longer and not picking up on signals that we didn't want to do everything with him any more. That is what sticks out in my memory, anway. Talking recently with Brian, I was reminded that there was also a strong sense that Ken was becoming unhinged and maybe a bit dangerous. Brian recalled one incident:

The big memory for me, I think you gotta remember this one too, was the weird blowup he had [with a friend of ours named] Damien. I think Ken got overenthusiastic with some rough housing, Damien got annoyed and pushed him away or something (maybe hit him or cussed at him or something) and then Ken lost his shit and used some phrase like "I know you all just fucking hate me."... I think it sticks in my head because I remember my reaction being not just that it was a nutty thing to say even if there were tension, but that there wasn't even any tension to overblow into us "fucking hating" him. So I sort of took two mental steps back and thought to myself, 'Wow, that's something a crazy person says.'"

Our relationship to Ken didn't change out of thin air. Ken had some serious stuff going on in his life. I want to tread carefully here, because I am not Ken. I don't know all the stuff that happened and how it really effected him. And I don't want to tell too many tales out of school. But around this time period his home was falling apart, his parents separating. His father clearly had issues of his own which certainly leaked out into his relationship with his son. I will describe one incident that must have taken place our Junior year:

We had all gotten up at dawn to go paintballing and we borrowed Ken's dad's car. The paintballfest took place somewhere out in Corona, which was far enough away that I had no idea where exactly that was. On the way there we exited the freeway and hit a sandy patch on the off ramp. We were probably going a little too fast, but basically we slid into the railing. We piled out, but saw no major damage, and continued onwards. After a full day and hundreds of dollars in fees, gun rentals, and paintballs, we were tired, filthy, and several of us had significant injuries (cuts, bruises, turned ankles). Great sport Painball: putting 16-year olds up against Vietnam vets, I kid you not.

Coming back home, we could hear something rubbing in that wheel well. We must have bent something. Sigh. When we got home to Ken's place his dad was watching tv and we told him -- we TOLD him -- that we had had a small accident and something was rubbing the tire. I am sure we downplayed it as not a big thing, but there was no subterfuge. At dawn the next day he kicked in the door, leaped on the bed, literally sat on top of his son, and screamed into his face, "What have you done to my car?!" I was lying five feet from him on the floor. I am fairly sure there was cursing. That was how he behaved when other people were there.


So no two ways about it, Ken was probably going through a tough time. Just being 16-17 years old can be tough enough and he had more going on. He desperately wanted friends to lean on. To support him. So Ken probably tried to grab onto his friends tighter. Of course, we were looking for more space from him, so his actions had the opposite intent. He made us uncomfortable. His behavior was disturbing. His odd actions became the topic of conversation when he wasn't there. By grabbing so hard he pushed us away.

The details of the end of this friendship are a bit loathsome to me. Instead of dealing with the issue staring us in the face -- our friendship with Ken was no longer working -- we started ditching him. Hoping he would get the hint. What kind of crap is that? Tight friends for 4+ years and we wanted him to take the hint to leave us alone? It was not at all surprising that the hint was never taken.

My poor VW Scirocco took some of the biggest hits of this stupid policy. I believe it was an early ditch attempt that led to me shooting down a mountainous street way too fast and realizing way too late that the road was ~100 yards shorter than I recalled it being. Forty feet of skid mark later and the control arm holding one of the wheels had snapped clean through. It was definitely a ditching attempt when I tried to roll my Scirocco backwards down the driveway without starting the motor, so Ken wouldn't know I was sneaking away. You had to get out of the car to get the rolling started and, of course, I lost control and grabbed that open door with all my might, bending it almost entirely backwards on itself. From that day until the day it was given away to charity the door made a horrific CREAK every time it was opened and it had to be slammed shut. Because I tried to sneak away silently. I think there may be some cosmic justice there.

I don't recall how long this pathetic dance continued. I think it started off good-naturedly and infrequent and ramped up to angry and deadly serious. I do recall who it was that finally gathered up enough balls to go out and tell Ken that he was not invited. Me. Talk about mixed feelings. I am glad I finally put an end to this immature and truly mean ditching with some honest talk. But I also was the one who hurt him. Face to face, I used words to hurt him. To tell him to go away. That he wasn't wanted here any more. I spoke for the group and Ken knew it. He said fine, if that is what you want, and drove away. I can't even begin to process what that must have been like. No one has ever been that cruel to me. I can only hope he had, in fact, seen the writing on the wall. That it wasn't a bolt from the blue. His friends -- his friends for all of high school up that point -- telling him they no longer wanted him any more.

I do know that Ken never made a single overture to me after that day. I think we spoke a few times, but only in the most perfunctory, excuse me you are standing in front of the water fountain sort of way.

Look, clearly there are a lot of problems with trying to judge decisions made as a teenager from the perspective of an adult. If Adult-Me had an old friend going through some stuff so serious that it effected his behavior towards me, I would either try and help the guy through it, or at a minimum, just put some space between us until that guy had gotten his shit back together. But Kid-Me was simply not capable of that. Kid-Me had no clue what was going on, except that Ken was becoming more angry, more troubling, and generally less fun. Kid-Me addressed the problem by at first running away from it, before finally snapping under the constant pressure of running and telling Ken to fuck off.

For this I am sorry. You deserved better, Ken. I was just a kid and maybe I did not have the capacity for more a nuanced or braver approach, but that just explains why it happened, it doesn't excuse it. I strongly suspect there was no way of avoiding the trainwreck our friendship became. But handling it kinder would have been better.

We handled it with all the tact that 16 year olds at the bottom of the social food chain could muster, which is to say, very little. - Brian

Games

If anyone is reading this I have to assume they have this in their RSS feeds, because if you are regularly checking this blog at this point you are a champ, indeed. This blog more or less got really going as an outlet for all the stress and issues dealing with newborn twins and remodeling my home at the same time. Once I moved back home and the twins became potty trained, well, the NEED to get my thoughts out there became much more of a "need" to practice my writing chops. And with all things great and small distracting me, "needs" have a tough time making it to the top of the list these days.

I have decided to make another go of it. I am finishing my first "first author" paper since the girls were born (if you don't actually know me, I am a working astronomer) and that has played some role in the doldrums here at Kicker. I really shouldn't be writing a blog about whatever frothy thought flits into my brain when I need to be writing papers to keep my career on track. Long time readers will note how much time passed from this blog being dormant to the final (almost) publication of my next science paper. For new readers, here is the quick summary: A lot of time. There was really no connection between the two types of writing. I found plenty of other ways to procrastinate rather than write science that were much less fulfilling than this blog.

To get myself back in the swing of things, I will start with a light little bit on games. I am a bit of a board game guy. Nothing major. And I would have to say my playing time has dribbled to painfully small quantities with all this child rearing going on. Putting that aside for the moment, one of the classic board games in Monopoly. It has a lot of structural flaws: too random, too hard to reach end conditions (bankruptcy), and it requires significant trading cooperation among players to even remotely work and be fun. One Scrooge McDuck and this thing will grind on for hours. Still, there is probably no game board as well known besides that used for checkers and chess. And I loved it as a kid. My wife, to my mild chagrin, loves it still.




So here is one juicy tidbit I came across: How to win Monopoly in seven rolls of the dice. This comes from this web page. It prominently features a 21 second game consisting of nine moves. Later in the comments someone delivers the 7 roll variant that I believe is the shortest possible. All due credit belongs to them. They write it up further here. I am merely repeating their findings. Recall that all players start with $1500.

Player 1:

Rolls 5,5 -> Lands on Just visiting Jail
Rolls 6,6 -> Lands on Chance. Card is Adv to nearest utility. Buy it for 150. (P1 now has 1350)
Rolls 5,4 -> Buy Park Place for $350 (P1 now has 1000)

Player 2:

Rolls 3,1 -> Lands on Income Tax, paying 10% or $150 (P2 now has 1350)*

Player 1:

Rolls 1,1 -> Buys Boardwalk for $400 (P1 now has 600)
Rolls 2,1 -> Land on Community Chest. Card is Bank Error In Your Favor +$200 (P1 has 1000)

Player 1 buys 3 houses on Boardwalk, 2 houses on Park Place at $200 a pop (P1 has 0)

Player 2:

Rolls 2,1 -> Lands on Chance. Card is Advance to Boardwalk. Rent is $1400. He can't cover it.

GAME OVER

* It is my understanding that modern Monopoly simplified this rule, making Income Tax a flat $200. In which case, P2 is another $50 in the hole.

This example is great for two reasons. One it is demonstrates how much blind luck there is in Monopoly. In this admittedly freaky example, Player 2 got to roll the dice twice and then went home to weep. Imagine if this were a 3-4 player game. It would then last hours while Player 2 had time to catch up on his Spanish language soaps. "Oh mi amor. No soy Maria. Soy la hermana gemela de Maria, Chiquita! Y Roberto es tu hijo! No lo creo! Es verdad! [SLAP]" Most games in Monopoly are hours longer, but come down to the same problem. Player 1 got some good rolls early and that was that.

Second, I just find it amazing that I have that board emblazoned in my head like that. I was able to play along without even glancing at the board. And I bet many of you readers could as well. You might not know where Kyrgyzstan is on a map, but I bet you can find Free Parking and the Reading Railroad in your sleep. What an odd cultural touchstone.

Evolving Pains

Poor old Mr. Darwin has been the target of attacks from religious zealots for a century and a half now, when all he did was come up with a rational explanation for how all the complex life forms on the Earth came to be. While his original theories had some holes, the basic tenets have in fact been proven time and time again. Scientists watch things evolve all the time. But if you want to argue whether there is enough evidence to truly demonstrate evolution is and has been working on things as complex as man, go right ahead. I disagree, but skepticism is the core of good science so doubt away.

What drives me ape-shit crazy is the Creationists and backers of Intelligent Design attacking evolution, Darwin, and scientists using a logic system that is truly cringe worthy. The theory of evolution is not anti-religion or anti-faith. It provides a rational framework that one could easily believe a benevolent deity would put in place to bring about mankind. Just because something is not in the Bible does not mean it doesn't exist. Penguins are not tricks of the devil either.

Similarly, creationism is not "the other side" of the issue. One is a scientific theory demonstrable through experiment and one is philosophy/religion, revealed to us by God and requiring Faith. You do not teach them side-by-side as competing theories. Might as well complain geology is being taught without a proper mention of mythological volcano Gods. I am not saying this to demean the beliefs of creationists, but to select an example that shows how apples and oranges the two things are. You can't have a scientific argument that goes: You say lava is molten rock heated by the mantle of the Earth, but that cannot be because Vulcan would not intrude into the domain of Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. Both are accurate statements, but setting them counter to one another makes no sense. Knowing about Vulcan and the Greek/Roman pantheon is enriching, but it will not in any way help with the predictions of volcanic eruptions.

So what started me on this mini-rant? This YouTube video from the teen actor Kirk Cameron, famous for his stint on the sitcom "Growing Pains" in the 80s and fervent evangelism. To summarize for those unable or unwilling to watch the video, the big idea is to counter-attack all the media hoopla over 150 years of Origins of the Species by printing their own version of it, complete with a 50 page introduction giving the creationist argument. They will give the book away for free, bing bang boom, everyone will start attending a mega-church.



Because I am a glutton for punishment, I leafed through the introduction to the special Origin of the Species book, available here. Sit back, maybe get yourself a caffeine-free root beer and let me help you savor a fine piece of creationist propaganda:

It starts with 3 pages of introduction stolen from what I can only assume was a grade school book. Certainly not as sophisticated as wikipedia. The type size looks like 15 point Times New Roman. Then it spends another 3 pages giving you the timeline of his life, which they have unashamedly stolen from a Darwin 200th year celebration website (they cite it, but not sure if that forgives a full 3 pages of plagiarism). So yes, they summarize his life in 3 pages and then repeat the summary using a timeline for 3 more.

It is at this point I imagine most young readers would drop the book or skip over the introduction altogether. For those with stronger constitutions, they next start discussing DNA and how complicated it is, quoting scientist after scientist who die a little inside each time their own words are so mangled and misused. They then move on to how 4% similarity to chimps is not a big deal, before we hit the real meat: the section on transitional forms.

Again, I only skimmed this whole "Intro" (although it does not take long to read thanks to the giant type; 50 pages my ass) but this is the most effective section. Eight pages listing evolutionary hoaxes and failed attempts to identify missing links. Obviously there is some gross misunderstanding of what the fossil record tells us, but at least this attacks the scientific theory in a scientific way. From there they start to drift off into chicken and egg issues (which came first, heart or blood) and how darn complicated and interconnected the eye is, both of which I find to be very weak arguments, but at least it is still sorta attacking the theory. Finally we get a confused page on vestigial organs demonstrating that they don't really understand evolutionary theory (duh) -- somehow having extra organs we don't need is not an increase in complexity but a devolution? 29 pages in, 20 pages attacking evolution, the theory. That is all we are going to get.

Now comes the good stuff. A page calling Darwin a racist and a sexist, followed by a zen poem (not really, but it almost reads like one) about how man can not make one blade of grass. Seriously random digression. Then we finally get Darwin directly connected to Hitler. The section is entitled "His Famous Student" as if Darwin knew the man and hadn't died 7 years before Hitler was born. This is mostly 3 pages of Hitler quotes where Hitler uses the term evolution. Most of these passages out of context make little sense (I think they made little sense in context, too) and many are not even particularly ominous -- They are just an opportunity to italicize that Hitler liked using the term evolution in Mein Kampf. For instance:

In our case this term has no meaning. Because everyone who believes in the higher evolution of living organisms must admit that every manifestation of the vital urge and struggle to live must have had a definite beginning in time and that one subject alone must have manifested it for the first time. It was then repeated again and again; and the practice of it spread over a widening area, until finally it passed into the subconscience of every member of the species, where it manifested itself as 'instinct. -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Then we get a Hitler Hit List (Hitler should have been a Top 40 DJ), where he organizes the races of the world into their various levels of ape-ness. Hint: You want to be Nordic or German. 36 pages in and I am now strongly offended.

At this point the "Intro" goes off the deep end and becomes a Born Again Christian tract. 3 pages on how Darwin was not an atheist, two pages on how Pen Jillette (!) once wrote how he could understand evangelism if a person truly believed in a Hell, then 10 pages about a choice between the original Mona Lisa (it was important not to get a copy), the keys to a new Lamborghini, a million dollars (in cash), or a parachute. Somehow that was directly translatable into a choice between the four major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity.

Oh, and we are being pushed out of a plane, so don't even try to hang glide using the Mona Lisa because that frame is old and will not withstand that kind of stress.

Important to this discussion is the fact that on February 24, 2005, nine-year-old Little Jessica was kidnapped, brutally raped, and then buried alive clutching a stuffed toy. Yes, this crime is horrific and would normally be obscenely out of place discussing the great world religions (were we discussing world religions?), but it is important because it demonstrates that there is a Just God. Somehow.

Mix in hellfire, a random selection of sins from the ten commandments, condemn homosexuality (always important), and then ridicule and demean Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims by summarizing their faiths with single paragraphs based on the writer's in depth knowledge of similar single paragraph summaries he read ten years ago, before ending with the declaration that therefore, obviously, Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
------

That.... Is a big waste of money.

They have somehow deluded themselves into believing that this will counter the big, bad secularists with this book giveaway.

1st of all, 18-21 year olds is hitting the issue a bit late. Especially for getting people on board the gospels.

2nd, Origin of the Species is not exactly Robert Ludlum. Most of those kids are not going to even crack the spine of that baby, especially with all the other stuff they have to read.

3rd, Mainly, they are opening themselves up to ridicule. This reads like propaganda. College students love the feeling they are being manipulated by clumsy, transparent propaganda.

I am sure some confused young people might latch onto it as the truth they half-believed already, but I think it is equally likely a similar number will be convinced the other way by the multiple controversies/debates this will spark if anyone actually notices this going on.

---

But Kirk Cameron actually looked pretty good. He is almost 39 years old.
Clean living, I guess.

Terror, The Kind You Feel In Your Nether Parts

None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me.

This charming gentleman is Rorschach, the bracingly psychotic vigilante from the Watchmen. Eventually the law catches up to him and he is placed in a prison, where every thug he has locked up over the years is anxious to get their hands on him. At least, they are until it becomes apparent that the balance of power is not quite what they thought it was, as made apparent in his quote.

Similarly, every time you start to think you are getting a handle on this parenting thing, something comes along, knocks you on your ass, and makes you realize it is not your kids trapped in the house with you, but YOU who are trapped in the house with them.

WARNING: This post is a little darker than my normal fare. If you just want funny pictures, scroll down a bit. You have been warned.

It started out as a typical Tuesday. I am scrambling around trying to get the girls ready for Daycare. They need breakfast. They need to be cleaned up. They need clothes. They need suntan lotion. I need to get my own sorry self presentable. I need to load up the car. Tuesdays also offer the extra complications of house keeper, who comes once every two weeks, and gardener, who is relevant because I have to make sure not to leave the dog outside to run away or maul a poor dude making minimum wage with a leaf blower. This Tuesday had it all going on. And of course the girls are always taking advantage of my split attention to demolish something.

Finally we are ready to hit the highway (the housekeeper had gotten her weeks mixed up, so cross that one off the list), but we have to hit the potty one more time before the road. We are now into our 2nd month of serious potty training, where we have taken away the diaper safety net and now march boldly around in our underpants. The girls are doing very well, but they are far from foolproof. Sometimes they give you warning, sometimes they just pee on the floor. Thank goodness for hardwood floors is all I can say. However, if you are diligent and get them to the bathroom after meals, before car rides, and more frequently at the end of the day, they can stay 'Clean and Dry' as our personal mantra goes.

So here I am. End of another long morning, doing the last potty break before the road. I got Kayla up first because she had done close to nothing after breakfast and therefore was more likely to have built up a dangerous bladder level. As is almost always the case, they fight tooth and nail to avoid the toilet and then once there they want to stop and have tea and biscuits while discussing the events of the world. They don't want to go because they don't want to interrupt their playing, yet it wouldn't take very long if they just did it and went. For the girls I think this might be fundamental: They will keep playing up to the point that they wet their pants until they understand that they actually get more playing in if they go use the potty fast.

Also I think there is some basic clenching fine motor skills that need to be mastered, but I think I have digressed into childhood development of waste removal functions quite enough, thank you.

So Kayla is there on her special seat with steps when I hear Rylie getting into something in the kitchen. Earlier they had hit this one drawer filled with toddler/baby odds and ends, including a bunch of old pacifiers that they never used as babies but now like to suck on occasionally, mainly so that they can fight over the pink one. Now when they get into these drawers (which they are not supposed to do) they usually make a mess, scattering odds and ends around the kitchen floor, half of which then need to be washed as they were really not intended to be dropped into the dust bunnies under the stove and then placed in anyone's mouth (please recall the house keeper was supposed to be there today, so the dust bunnies are more like dust badgers). Kayla is definitely in no hurry to finish up, so I figure this is the standard twin distract and grab. I don't think they plan these (yet) but they know how to take advantage.

Now I am hearing some rustling like plastic bags and I know I have to go investigate personally, as Rylie has probably gotten into the sandwich bags and when they do that they tend to scatter them everywhere. And once again, a sandwich bag is not so good at holding sandwiches after being stepped on by dirty baby galoshes. I tell Kayla to stay put and go into the den/kitchen.


Since my massive remodel, the tv/den and kitchen have all become one big great room with an island sitting about two thirds of the way across as I enter from the bathroom. I can't see Rylie because she is on the other side of the island, which happens to be where the drawers with tantalizing kid oriented stuff and sandwich bags are kept. More plastic rustling. I make my way around the island and that is when I see Rylie.

With not one, but two plastic bags on top of her head.

I have seen my share of horror movies and murder procedurals, so I know what killing someone by placing a plastic bag over their head looks like. It looks like this.


Absolute terror, like I have not felt in a very long time with adrenaline released into the blood stream in a single giant splash. A wave of awful tingling traveling up and down your spine and curling around your groin. Real, honest to god I am being attacked by sabretooth tigers, primordial terror. The closest I can recall in my personal experience was the time when I got a call from a hospital nurse to tell me my wife had been in an car accident. Candy only had minor whiplash, but the thick-headed nurse not only failed to start the conversation by telling me she was all right, but actually stopped talking after relating only the fact of the accident, forcing me to ask if my wife was all right. When I found out she was my relief was almost matched by my anger. But as scary as that one sentence on the phone was, it contained no visual to match your child with multiple plastic bags completely over her head.

I let out a "Rylie No!" in a voice which did not sound like my own. It sounded like someone from a movie who had just discovered a dead loved one. So, that is what it really sounds like. It is basically involuntary, an almost hindbrain request that the reality presented before you be declared immediately null and void, as if by just stating a firm negative with all your will you can make it be not so.

There was no pause in my motion. The moment I turned the corner marked the moment I reached for that bag over her head. I think I got off the 'Rylie No!' at about the same time as I pulled the top bag off. It came free easily, its plastic sides sliding easily off the plastic below. Then I grabbed the second bag, which was smaller and more snugly gripping her head.

I think at this point (1 second?, 3 seconds?) I had taken in the scene enough to realize that Rylie did not seem to be in immediate peril. She was moving and not in obvious breathing distress. So when it resisted me I did not tear that second bag off her head with all my strength. But I still yanked that fucker off. Yes I did.

So there we are, on the floor. Rylie is balling because she has been completely overwhelmed by the vehemence of my actions. I am hugging her and telling her she must never ever never ever never ever put plastic bags on her head and hugging her and Kayla has now wandered out of the bathroom with pants around her ankles wanting to know what is going on and I am checking Rylie to make sure she is fine and trying to sound calm enough to not put Kayla into tears and she should never ever never ever put plastic bags on her head.

And I still need to potty Rylie and get her into Daycare.

With a little time to reflect I don't think she was in that much danger. Those plastic bags are actually small enough and, more importantly, stiff enough that I think it would be very hard to asphyxiate yourself with one. Also, the system seemed to work. Rylie got into trouble, the parent heard something going on, went to investigate and stopped it before it got too crazy. It has made me consider all the various plastic bags lying around. A really flexible and big one could be quite dangerous, particularly if it were strong enough to resist a thrashing 2-year old. Those dry cleaning ones strike me as Black Mambas of the plastic bag world.

From now on my clothes are either dirty or cotton or one time wear.



OK, I think that is enough of that. I'll put away the flashlight under my chin and we can leave the fire and go back inside somewhere with bright, artificial lighting. Not everything the girls put on their heads is a Johnny Space Commander product. Sometimes it is a simple pull-up diaper that transforms my terrible twos into terrible twojahedins.



The wifey did not want me to post these, her reasoning being that they were just too embarr- assing. That once something is on the internet it is out there for the world to see...forever. I have two things to say to that: #1 Everyone has embarrassing childhood photos and I suspect the next generation is going to be a lot more comfortable with the digital photograph and the ease with which it is transmitted around the world. I listened to a whole NPR episode about the kind of stuff kids are putting on facebook. Believe me, a diaper on the head is tame, tame stuff. #2 THEY PUT DIAPERS ON THEIR HEADS! Come on, that is just too damn funny to keep to myself.



And let me assure you, this was not a one time event. They have been crazy obsessed with putting those pull-ups on their heads for weeks. [So, yes, I suppose the plastic bag incident was a bit forseeable.] A week ago I went to do the final tucking of the girls into bed and had to pull the diaper off the head of a sleeping Kayla. She had fallen asleep with it on. Sigh. And let me also state for the record that at no time did anybody suggest or encourage this, except by laughing our asses off and taking pictures, of course.

Now you are probably thinking to yourself, "That was awesome. Diaper head pictures. Could anything be funnier?!"

The answer is, in fact, yes: Diaper Head Video.





If this ends up the next Dramatic Prairie Dog I am probably going to be in big trouble. Yes, that is a continuation of the Twin Mind Meld from over a month ago. I think mankind may be in danger.



So lets close this blog entry out with some pure, wholesome cousin adorability. Here are the twins and their cousin Claire on Easter. They are sitting on a mat in my dad's exercise room. The fact they are (more or less) sitting still for these shots is a minor miracle. I can only assume they are catching their breaths long enough to gather the energy to spring up into the air, off their father/uncle's cranium, across the room like spider monkeys, and onto the exercise bike from where they will leap without regard for any possible death or dismemberment onto the weight bench... which they will then promptly start licking. Yeah. Too many jelly beans.



And with that I will take your leave this week (month, half-year, whatever). One reason this blog entry took awhile is that my home computer died about three weeks ago. I have been getting by on laptops and the kindness of strangers, but the big post I had planned was basically tossed out the window. I also hope to get back to my previously planned format of old and new baby adorability, but just needed to get this slightly darker episode out of me.

I finally get it. Nothing is more terrifying than your own kids. Sorry mom and dad.

Fast Forward

Greetings fellow earthlings! While I traveled aboard my fabled space craft through the limitless dark of space to worlds both far and unfathomable, mere weeks passed for me while millenia turned back here. Is there still a place called America, or have the continents drifted so far as to leave this blue ball topographically unrecognizable? Do humans still even use their tongues and fleshy lips to communicate or have we finally evolved to point of brain-to-brain interlocution. Do I need to get myself a clone for organ replacement or has the Replacement Revolution already occurred? If so, ignore this opening sentence and let me begin again:

Salutations my androgene brosters. I am Jim Billy 4.0. I and my nearly limitless supply of similar genotypes eagerly await a recharging meal of yeast paste and reprocessed sea water. Also, death to the primagenitors! Now, where may I acquire a sexless, white jumpsuit with an absurdly large diagonal purple stripe?

Or at least it feels like it has been that long.

As has been quite apparent, my posting has been somewhat irregular for roughly a year now. Except for a few drips and drabs I have dropped like tantalizing bread crumbs, this blog has been effectively defunct since I moved back into my palatial Valley Glen estate (over 2000 square feet now, woohoo!). The number one reason is, of course, gross laziness. The number two reason will be covered in the next post (stay tuned). But the number three reason was that once I fell far behind it became harder and harder to catch up.

The primary on-going reason for this blog is to try and record the ongoing trials and tribulations of fatherhood. Not only is this a creative outlet and frustration release, but in theory it might be nice to have something I could show my kids someday, especially as we more or less completely dropped the ball on baby books. You know how the second child always gets short shrift on the baby book? Well, when you have twins it is instantaneous tiny shrifting. No time, no time. Anyways, once I fell behind during the summer of exhaustion ('08) I had a very hard time moving forward, because I didn't want to leave stuff out that had happened. Of course, events that happened 6-12 months ago don't have the driving immediacy of more recent events so instead of putting anything out there, I just spun my wheels and waited.

Now I am determined to get back in the game. Rather than just jumping ahead in the "story" or trying to go completely back a year, my present solution is this: Two part posts. BAM! Genius. One part present day, the other blasts from the past. That is a one two punch of baby adorability that is without mercy.

Or alternatively, it will be a god-awful mess. Time will tell. And just like the Bush legacy, it may truly be centuries before we can know for sure.

As I have babbled on for quite a bit already, for the "present day" half of this blog let me simply post a video of the girls attempting a Vulcan mind meld. Honestly, to this day I have no idea what they were up to, but it was definitely some sort of bizarre twin behavior, the sort of thing you might expect to see in the hallway of an empty hotel or anything from the set of Full House. They were doing this for a couple of minutes before I thought to grab my camera.



My mind to your mind.

Now compare that to this next series which are the remaining shots from our trip to Austin in January 2008. You can clearly see the toddler/baby split. Today they got hair, high level speech, 10 more pounds, several more inches of heights, and, of course, green-striped shirts. Totally different.

Here we are packing to go on the trip. This was back in the days when we didn't have to pay to fly the girls. The airlines just made us check them inside luggage.

Ho ho, you have seen through my little charade. The airlines didn't make us do anything. Rylie just climbed into the bag and we couldn't get her out, so we gave her a box of graham crackers and zipped it up. Tip the skycap an extra twenty and you are traveling light.

Oh yes, there are levels and levels to my deceptions. Did we enclose my 1-year olds in suitcases and sneak them on a plane or were they just playing with them? You may never know.

It was the second one. The playing thing. That is what happened. Now you know.

Here are the twins in their metal cages of doom from the first hotel we checked into. I suppose the bars are close enough together they are not going to choke themselves, but it did not strike me as the safest or most comfortable crib I had ever run across.

Let me take this moment to bitch about the Austin Hilton Garden Inn. Because I made my reservation late (typical) I ended up at this "overflow" hotel. But not all nights were "overflow" nights, i.e. the conference discount did not apply to all nights... only some of them.

Mind you this was their comp- lication, not mine. I just wanted a hotel for 3-4 consecutive nights with no trouble. Their reservations lady dealt with all of the ins and outs this oddly byzantine reservation structure and assured me I had a room. Not so. They lost the second half of the reservation, where I was supposed to be paying more, by-the-way. And despite having a wife and two one-year old babies they kicked us out of the hotel, this even after a great deal of pleading to the contrary. They put infants on the curb. This adorable face (Classic Kayla), out in the winter cold.

Sons of bitches.

Fortunately the story has a happy ending. We were able to force our way into their sister (and superior) Hilton Hotel, which was closer to my conference and less money. So [cover the eyes of the little ones] FUCK the Hilton Garden Inn. Fuck them. All right, let's move on.

I might have oversold the "out on the streets" angle a little bit, as I actually did have family in town. This is Mark Land and his kids with my kids. Mark is my step brother, a generally good guy who was the closest thing I had to an older sibling growing up.


I would have to say all things considered, if you can be the oldest sibling go with that. Nothing wrong with Mark, per se, I just don't like being on that side of that power dynamic. Then again, there is no joy quite like irritating an older brother, so maybe I will have to re-evaluate.


Back to the wee ones. While Daddy sometimes attended boring lectures on space and time, Team Elf Kicking, Inc. managed to find plenty of time to hit the town. We had lunch with margaritas, toured the local children's museum, went to the LBJ presidential library, and visited the University of Texas alumni club and Bevo museum.

The girls do love their quesadillas and mommy and daddy sure loved their margaritas. Check out the picture of father and child gracing the very top of this blog. Can you say pupil dilation?


Here is the gruesome twosome at the children's museum, standing on some sort of platform with a tree growing out of it. Inside. Good going, Austin, now my children don't know where trees grow.

And is that Kayla playing a piece of corn like a clarinet? Kayla, that is a grain not a woodwind! Dammit, this means another 12 hours in the learning tank...

Er, I mean, "napping box."

Having fully planned out my daughters' future we took them to their first presidential library so they can start to get a feel for the position. Well, only one is going to be president and the other will be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But someone besides her presidential sister will have to appoint her. I will not have my girls accused of nepotism. Who will be prez I will let them decide among themselves. Probably whichever one gets a photograph taken while using a corn cob bong, well, they'll have to settle for Justice.

The LBJ library is nice because it has an actual reproduction of the Oval office: 7/8 scale.

That's right, 7/8. Why make one so close and not just do it 1 to 1? (Yes, I know, probably because it had to fit in the building already there.) The point of a scale model is to build it to a different SCALE. Imagine building a scale model of a battleship to 7/8 scale. It would be awesome because you could also use it as a battleship. Only it would cost more to build than the battleship it is scaled to, as it requires bizarre 7/8 parts.

The LBJ presidential library is located on the University of Texas, also home of some sort of impressive cattle ranch. I mean pictures of cows are EVERYWHERE here. I wasn't entirely clear whether they milked them or slaughtered them for hamburger, but clearly that building behind the girls can hold a lot of big bull behind.

They also have a Bevo museum below the Alumni club where we grabbed some food. For the mascot impaired, Bevo is the name of the Bull that UT people love so much. More specifically, they love his horns. As, in "Hook'em Horns!" Then for some reason they shake their hands in the surfing term, hang loose. Or the rock and roll praise for the devil. It's two fingers up is all I know, and that is a dangerous place to be.


Supposedly the origin of the Bevo name is that Texas A&M grabbed poor Bo, as he was known at the time, and branded "13 - 0", the score of A&M's 1915 win over Texas on his rump. A creative U of Texas fellow, rather than live with such ignominy, altered the brand so it read "Bevo" instead. Like all good stories this one is completely false, but in the presence of a good story vacuum apocryphal tales reign supreme. <-- This could be confusingly mistaken for a terrible mishmosh of a metaphor, when in truth it is merely a proven scientific fact.

That's right. Science. If you can't handle it, get out of the beaker.

Anyway, here is one last picture of the cuties, Kayla up front. Holy Creh-Ap they have grown. If I changed that much in a year I could be a Satyr by now.

Some people suggest I may already be one. [Suggestive eyebrow wiggle]

Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention our final night in Austin, where Candice and I grabbed a baby sitter, dinner, and a movie. But not just any movie, but a full, bad-to-the-bone, Elvis sing-a-long. If you have not seen the '68 Comeback Special I would strongly recommend it. Not only does it have some of the greatest live Elvis performances ever captured on film -- just raw, growly, powerful, and awesome in a way his radio relase stuff doesn't even glimpse -- but it also contains perhaps the most surreal, bizarre, funny, and oddly revealing (and not in a good way) pre-recorded musical sequence (Trouble/Guitar Man). He fights people in a bordello using Kung Fu, I shit you not. Staggeringly awesome. I am not at all the Elvis demographic and it blew me away, all the way from the folk/blues pure live stuff to the ultracampy musical extremes.

Austin is kind of a quirky town, holding out as best it can against the raging storm of TEXAS that blows all around it. Check it out but stay away from Hippie Hallow.

Dem peoples is nude.

Paralyzed

I have a tendency to procrastinate.

Please, please no need to defend me. Seriously, a write-in campaign is not only unnecessary, it is completely illogical as I, not some third party, am saying it and where exactly would you write in anyway?

It is true, I put things off. I find excuses not to do something unless a deadline looms and there really is no way I can accomplish my task unless I start immediately. And yes, I am the only person like this in the whole world. It is not human nature at all.

I bring this up because it ties into another personality quirks of mine. I have been known, on occasion, to obsess about things. Particularly things I can micro-analyze. It matters little what my personal stake in the matter is or how much I really know about the subject, I am absolutely game for breaking down the minutia of any and all available on data for any little thing that peaks my interest, whether it be the combat mechanics of the video game City of Heroes or the likely future signings of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It of course goes without saying that I rarely turn this laser-like focus on anything that might be useful to my career, like maybe finishing up a paper or two. [By-the-way, this is about to get seriously navel-gazing bad, involving political talk. As a bonus there are some babies at the end, so feel free to treat them as your reward... or just skip my blather. It really is the way to go, especially since you are probably reading this post-election.]

So along comes the 2008 Presidential Election, arguably the most exciting election in a generation, if you don't count that all too exciting post-election brou-ha-ha we had down in Florida (Al somebody-or-other... I've blocked it all out). History making candidates and inspiring speeches up the ying yang. Economy tanking and a couple of wars still brewing on the back burner, so the stakes are indeed high. I dare say the typical, cynical American has probably paid a bit more attention to this free-for-all than they have in some time (or ever?). Sure, we are all burned out by an election cycle that seemed to start sometime before the election of Zachary Taylor, but it is almost go time. The finale. Even if you no longer like the book, you want to read that last god-damned chapter.

Now what else does politics have? Polls. And 50 states. And 35 senate races with a possible (but longshot) filibuster-proof majority for the Democrats in sight. Hell, there are even a multitude of competitive Congressional races, filled with odious and idiosyncratic candidates. Boy, that is a lot of data. One could spend hours pouring over those tea leaves, trying to predict the future. Now several months ago this was ok. At worst there was a poll a day and only a mild urgency to go along with it.

The past week, however, has been some sort of Greek-Hades inspired torment, or perhaps just a dubious gift from that cursed Monkey-paw. Beware getting what you wish for. There are now something like 30+ polls a day, ranging from national to state to senate to congressional. This means one can literally spend 30 minutes pouring over the data from one poll, read some commentary on that data, and then click refresh for the latest poll. With 30+ polls there is a mathematical certainty that some will be significant outliers, causing mini-bursts of ridiculous optimism followed (30 minutes later) by gut-churning panic.

Yes. It is ridiculous. It is like checking your stocks every couple of hours. Meaningless and it will make you pull your hair out. A wise man would shut down his browser and retire to a room for contemplation. But there is only about 24 hours left anyway.

Might as well feed the beast a final meal.

So here are my predictions, for the whole world (5-10 people who read this blog) to see:^

Obama 367
McCain 171

I give Obama the Gore states+NH (or Kerry states+IA+NM, if you prefer). Don't waste a micro-second worrying about PA, that was a McCain Hail Mary and there is no one even in the end zone.

Obama will easily win CO+VA+NV. He will squeak out wins in OH+FL. MO+NC+MT are toss-ups that will come down to very tight get-out-the-vote efforts, where Obama will crush McCain. MT is my biggest gamble, as the polling there is sparse. MT has a Democratic governor who is going to be re-elected big time which I think tilts it to Obama.

Indiana and North Dakota would be prime candidates for giving McCain indigestion if the map didn't indicate they were going to be the least of his problems. However, as toss-ups with not much else going on (besides anti-Repub mood) I got to think they will come home for McCain.
Other close ones will be Georgia, where the African American vote looks to be surging, and his home state of Arizona, where the latinos are turning against McCain. I think he wins both in the end, but man would losing AZ be embarassing.

My pick for surprise state would be South Carolina. I don't believe it likely, but it is being very poorly polled and lies right between NC and GA, who are breaking hard for Obama. If African Americans come out like gang busters it might surprise an otherwise sleepy electorate. However, SC just does not have the cosmopolitan big cities of its otherwise demographically similar neighbors, so I don't see it happening.

Senate:

+8 for the Democrats.
They get VA,NM,CO,NH,AK,NC,OR + MN.

The first 5 are virtual locks at this point, thank you convicted felow AK Senator Stevens (R). I would be very surprised at this point to see either NC (Hagan) or OR (Merkley) go Republican, with the Obama coattails in effect. MN will be a nail biter. I think Coleman (the Republican) is a fraction of a percentage point ahead of the Democrat (Al Franken), but Obama is going to have massive coattails in Minnesota and a superior GOTV, so I think Franken just pulls it out.

This give the Democrats 59 seats, if you include the left-leaning Independents. Sanders of Vermont is a safe bet, but Lieberman could be prickly, as there is a movement to take away some of his power, having campaigned actively for McCain and all that.

The remaining contested seats are:
GA, which might be the most interesting state of the night. Will the new, black voters all come out to play? Chambliss (R) holds about a 3-4pt lead over Martin (D). I think the new voters chip a couple points off that, but not enough to win it out right. They MIGHT push Chambliss under 50%, though, which would force a run-off of mega-proportions (Repub filibusters on the line).
KY, where I think McConnell holds off the challenger (Lunsford). The last of the poll average gives him something like a 3-4 point lead. Obama will not do that well in this state and does not have anywhere near the GOTV machinery in place that he has in NC, for example. The polling is sparse here and McConnell appears to be flirting with the 50% mark, so this is the race to check for a tsunami of Democrats.
MS, the Repub (Wicker) has about a 5pt lead over the Dem (Musgrave). Again, a very Republican state that has just not gotten anywhere near the resources of Georgia. Still, it has a very high African American population, so even a failed Obama-surge (and it will fail) might make it interesting.

Surprise state: Texas. Rick Noriega (D) is a strong candidate facing a weak incumbant, Cornyn (R). Texas is an expensive state, however, and the Bush/Repub-mojo is still strong here. There have been very few polls, however, and they have been a bit erratic: 6-7 point race one week, 15 point the next, and then a final poll with massive undecideds. If there has been any late movement and the latino/black vote really turns out it might surprise. It won't, but if it gets close it would be a good start for de-nutballing what should otherwise be a more Democratic state.

Congress:

260 Dem
175 Rep

Or a gain of 23 Seats. I have not endlessly analyzed this one (even I have only so much time to waste), so I have relied on what I have read elsewhere. Basically the Democrats are going to gain 15 seats and lose 1 and participate in about 19 tossups, almost all for Republican held seats. I more or less split the toss-ups in half and assumed one surprise seat for Dems to get there. If this is truly another wave election, I think the Dems could gain as many as 10 more seats.

---

All right. Enough of that. Here are the babies:



These shots are quite ancient at this point, coming from our trip in January to Austin, Texas. They are barely the same people. It just goes to show how ridiculously out of date my babies pictures have gotten. In these pictures they are still babies. Today, they are toddlers. Crazy. I apologize if the pictures are slightly blurred. Those babies were flopping around like seal lions on crack cocaine.



We took these baby in bean bag pictures in front of the Google room set-up at the American Astronomical Society meeting I was attending (my reason for being in Austin). Leave to Google to provide comfy bean bag chairs for people to just, you know, chill in if the conference had just become, like, too much you know? I guess what I am saying is that if you want to project a serious, business-like attitude, bean bags don't do it. Google, of course, wants anything but that.



So there, Amy. Babies in Beanbags As requested a million years ago.

Enjoy.

^I reserve the right to delete the whole thing if something disastrous and unexpected happens tomorrow. No need to pour that much salt in my own wounds.