Monday, December 31, 2007

2008 Crystal Ball

Many years ago my good friend Miss Dottie dubbed me Nostradumbass for my uncanny ability to make predictions such as, “So and So will make an idiot of themselves tonight over some guy,” or “That moron is going to puke all over the rug.” So I thought it would be fun for me to adopt my Nostradumbass persona since 2007 is drawing to a close and make some predictions for 2008. Sure I will be wrong on most, if not all, of these predictions but what the hell, I am Nostradumbass.

1. John Edwards will win the Iowa Caucuses BUT whoever takes second place will win the nomination. If it is Clinton, then nomination will be over before the end of February and she will pick Bill Richardson as her VP. If it is Obama, the nomination will be a hard fought battle but he will get the nomination. Obama will also choose Richardson as his VP. The Republican side is a little murkier but if Romney is able to squeak first place then I think we will be in for a showdown between Romney and McCain all the way until the Republican convention. If Huckabee gets first place then I think we will see McCain rise quite dramatically and have the nomination sewn up before the convention. McCain will then choose Huckabee as his running mate. I believe in January we will be saying President Obama.

2. There is going to be a semi-credible third party candidate in the Presidential general election and they will be included in the debates. This candidate will win some (not many but some) electoral votes.

3. Gas will hit $4.00 a gallon by Labor Day weekend and we will see oil prices reach $150 to $200 a barrel for a brief period of time.

4. Sometime in the next 12 months we will see a major breakthrough towards a viable form of alternative energy. It will be years before this technology will see practical results but 2008 will be the year that the discovery will be made.

5. We will see a major solar flare that disrupts electronic communications on scale previously unimaginable.

6. We will see a “surge” of troops into Afghanistan. The public reason stated will be because of crackdown on Al-Qaeda but the large presence of the Air Force will demonstrate that the true reason is because of increased instability in Pakistan and the very real risk that their nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of radicals.

7. A major international incident will erupt as Chinese fingerprints are found all over a breach in the defense system of another government. A cyber cold war will break out with the pawns being ex-Soviet states who will find their systems have become the testing ground for newly created cyber-weapons.

8. Facebook will be hit hard by malware that will be distributed within their new widgets. We will see the first malware that is designed for video game consoles that are connected to the environment. We will also learn what Storm Trojan is and people will be shocked to learn that the 50 million computers already infected is just the tip of the iceberg.

9. The mortgage crisis will continue and make the S&L crisis of the ‘80s look minor in comparison, HOWEVER, because foreclosures will be especially bad in Ohio and Florida (both swing states in an election year), Congress will give a major bailout to homeowners.

10. My last prediction was going to be the possibility of Israel attacking Iran unilaterally because of uranium enrichment, but I am going to end on a happier note and predict that my beloved Kentucky Wildcats will finish the season much better than people anticipate, with us in the Championship Game for the SEC Conference.

Check back in a year and we will see how well I channel Nostradamus versus just being a dumbass.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Aint to proud to beg

I am posting this blog from an iPod Touch and have decided that personal pride is no longer a valid enough excuse to not have an iPhone. So from now on I plan to beg, cheat and steal my way to a new phone.

Tie the season for Roy to get the Jesus Phone*.

* As dubbed by Wired Magazine in their review.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Miskatonic University Alumni

Any Miskatonic University Alumni should be aware of a wonderul new product that has come on the market. Baby's First Mythos is a must buy not only for your spawn but for any cute diminutive horrors that you care about and feel should have their sanity crushed by the might of the Elder Gods. This wonderful tome teaches them their ABCs and 123s, while at the same time exposing their immortal soul to the crippling reality of that malignant disease we call the universe.

I can think of no better present to find under the Christmas tree than this cute Golden Bookesque package of horror. I can't wait to send Sophie to sleep while reading to her poems about Azathoth, Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. The twinkle in her eye as her sanity flees will be just precious.

Move over Dr. Seuss, Lovecraft is coming home to roost and we will never be the same.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Happy Birthday Star Child

It goes without saying that I am something of a nerd and one of the defining characteristics of being a card carrying member of the Interstellar Brotherhood of Geekdom is a love of science fiction. I no longer remember exactly when I started loving all things science fiction but I do remember when my love of written science fiction began. As a freshman in high school, I was assigned to read Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I loved this book and began devouring as many science fiction books as I could get my hands on. Looking back 2001 is no longer one of my favorite science fiction novels. Hell, it isn’t even in my top 5 favorite Arthur C. Clarke books.

The top honor goes to The City and The Stars. If you have never read this work, do yourself a favor and pick it up immediately. No other book embodies the spirit and intelligence of science fiction as well as this novel. Upon finishing it, I gave it away so that someone else could experience the wonder. I had planned on simply purchasing another copy. Strangely, no book store I went into ever had a copy in stock. This included new and used book stores. Whenever I went into a book store (and if you have been to my house, you know that this was quite frequently), this would be the first item I searched for. This quest went on for over three years and the book remained elusive. I began to believe that maybe the book was magical and could only be found when one was ready to receive it. Remember, this was before the internet made everything as readily available as the corner grocery store. Eventually I found a dog-eared old copy sitting on the shelf of a used book store and since then have seen it everywhere, but I will never forget that three year quest.

December 16 is Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s 90th birthday and the General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Astronomical Association has set up a blog so that people can send Sir Arthur birthday wishes. If his writing has ever touched you or if you simply enjoy the convenience of global communications brought to you by geosynchronous satellites (Sir Arthur came up with the idea), then go and wish him a happy birthday.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Shit.

You parents already know this, but for everyone else, here is a little fact.

Baby shit stinks. Bad. I mean really really bad.

One of the lies that every baby book perpetuates is that you will get use to the smell of baby feces. The worst offenders make it seem that after a while you will get used to the smell and actually enjoy it.

This is a lie.

There is part of me that is worried that the Apocalypse is nigh and that global warming is the proof. If Jesus is the personification of beauty on Earth and the Anti-Christ is his opposite, then when the infant child of Satan takes his first shit, it will be shit so shitty that the global temperatures will rise as a result.

Now I will admit that fatherhood has brought my tolerance to all things shit related to a level that I never could have imagined. Tonight is a good example.

It all started with giving Sophie a bath. Imagine if you will, Sophie playing wonderfully in her tub, quacking at the rubber ducky and otherwise being the cute bundle of fat that she is. After a while, she is standing up holding onto the faucets and making her little proclamations, when she begins to do "The Grunt".

I don't know if all babies do this, but when our little Sophie decides to answer nature's call, she contorts her face into a M.C. Escher painting and begins grunting in a way that can only be described as metaphysical.

Anyway, she is standing there holding onto the faucet and begins "The Grunt". I immediately grab her from the tub because I have already learned this lesson and really don't feel like sanitizing the tube for all traces of fecal coliform. As I pull her to my chest and head to her changing table, I notice the dooce is already beginning its descent.

I am no dummy. I know that Newton explained the laws of gravity in 1687, so I swiftly flip my precious daughter onto her stomach with her ass stinking in the air and make for the changing table. Luckily Anna is in the other room and her assistance helps makes short work of the situation.

Later in the evening Anna goes out drinking for Stephanie's birthday (Happy Birthday Stephanie!) and Sophie and I have a night together. She is her wonderful self, playing wither her toys and reading her books, but when she crawls over into my lap with a huge "shit eating grin" and a smell that would peel paint, I knew that our adventures for the night were far from over.

Here is a little more information for you non-parents. Diapers are merely the manufacturers' recommendation as to where poop can go, not an actual catch-all as they are advertised to be.

Sophie had given me the present of one of her uber-poops. The kind that I haven't seen in months. I open up the diaper and see a line of solidified shit that runs from her privates to her mid-back. The best description for a dump like this is comparing it to the grout between floor tiles. In this situation there is only one thing you can do, grab a baby-wipe and start mining. The worst part is that you have to make sure that you get it out of EVERY crack and crevice. I don't know how much therapy Sophie is going to need because of all of this, but I hope the doctor offers group rates, because I am going to need it as well. Of course she finds all of this funny as hell, because the moment I undo the diaper she begins giggling and kicking her legs like a synchronized swimmer.

The moral of the story is that you will do things for your children that are disgusting on a Lovecraftian level, but you do it because you love them.

And that baby shit stinks.