Category: Uncategorized

News: Good, Bad and Strange

Good: Got the news yesterday that our rental application was approved, and we finally have a place to live in Lawrence when we move at the end of July. Those of you who need the address can email me, and I’ll provide it. Nice looking place, too–Laura’s sister visited the property for us, and took pictures, which she emailed to us. Technology is neat.

So, as of August 1st, we’ll be living in a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath townhouse, with a fireplace and a 2-car garage.

Bad: Had to go to the doctors on Tuesday, because I was spitting up blood. (FUN!) Turns out that I appear to have what is called a hiatal hernia, which is when a portion of the upper part of the stomach pops up through the diaphragm. That upper part continues to produce stomach acids, which, given that they’re above the diaphragm, can go nowhere, and end up causing burn damage to the lining and to esophagus. So, I’ve been given a couple of perscriptions, and blood tests and such, and told to “take it easy”–apparently the condition can be brought about by high stress. Yeah. None of that going on around here….

Strange: A headless body has been found near Castle Frankenstein. You’d think that any family member involved in reviving the old research would do it someplace less obvious….

GMS

An update a week, whether you need it or not….

Yeah, I know. Not a lot of updates recently. Mea Culpa.

So, this past weekend was pretty much the “Gareth gets to do nothing but slack off and enjoy it” holiday that I’ve been needing for a while. Friday was my 34th birthday, and yesterday was Father’s Day. I got to be the quintessential Man of Leisure ™ for the whole weekend. Not a lick of work done.

Some of the birthday/father’s day loot acquired this weekend:

Star Trek: Phase II : The Untold Story Behind the Star Trek Television Series that Almost Was —very cool book about the abortive series that became the first Star Trek movie, including complete scripts for two episodes, the writer’s bible and thirteen story treatments, as well as production designs, etc.

Radiohead: Hail To The Thief —the new album by one of my favorite bands. Not as experimental as Kid A or Amnesiac, but a great album nonetheless.

Steely Dan: Everything Must Go –brand new album by perhaps my favorite band of all time. I had to wait almost 20 years between their last two albums (although there were solo projects by Donald Fagen to hold me over–but even those were 10 years apart), but they only waited 3 years between the Grammy-award-winning Two Against Nature and this release. Woo-hoo!

Harry Potter Wizard Chess —cute little Harry-Potterized plastic chess set, with the pieces molded to look like the stone pieces in the film. It’d be nice to see an electronic version where the pieces move themselves (which seems like a no-brainer licensed product to me), but this works. We muggles can move the pieces ourselves, after all.

GMS

The Storm is brewing….hopefully….

It looks as though attention is finally being paid to the fact that it appears Bush & Co. lied to Congress, the American People, the UN and the World about Iraq’s WMDs, in order to cook up reasons for a war. Still not a lot of coverage by major media (certainly nothing approaching the feeding frenzy that characterized their coverage of the Clinton impeachment and the surrounding issues), but it is notable that now even conservatives are beginning to ask serious questions.

John Dean, former White House lawyer for Richard Nixon, writes a blistering essay about a coming scandal he sees as worse than Watergate. Give it a look–it’s very interesting. A quote:

“In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed.

As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush’s doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.

To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked.”

One can hope.

GMS