We did some good work on the baby nursery this weekend. The in-laws are visiting, and we painted the room (a pastel-ish green) and put together the crib.
At some point I need to write about health care. Little Bitty semi-requested a post on this, and there is stuff happening. This won't happen today, though, since I have a meeting in seven minutes.
In good news, the Twins are within one game of the Tigers and could tie them tonight.
I have an iPod Touch waiting at home for me. I can't wait.
I had given up on the Twins earlier this season. This was not intentional, and I wasn't even aware that I had given up; I simply stopped checking up on them. I have regained my hope, and I fully expect to be crushed by the end of the season--it is unlikely they will make the playoffs.
In running news, I am smack in the middle of tapering for my marathon, and loving every minute of it.
Señ or Smoke
I attended my third bachelor party ever on Saturday. The first was for my friend Yeti, and it involved a bunch of guys and go-carts. The second was mine, where Jocko, Supertaster, and I went to Six Flags. The third was a friend from college.
We rented out the home of the St. Paul Saints, a popular minor league baseball team. We then took batting practice from
Juan Berenguer. He was very nice, and he made each of the batters look (as) good (as possible).
Sunday was CHG's birthday, and we had a great brunch at the Triple Rock. Monday was Jocko's birthday. Happy birthday to those two.
I did like
Watchmen, but it wasn't great for a couple of (other) reasons:
- The masked crime fighters were superheroes. They could really bring it. The allure of Watchmen was originally that these people, with one exception, weren't super. It is interesting to think about what type of a person would want to fight crime if they were just normal.
- Oxymandias was not played well. It was too over the top, and it telegraphed what was coming at the end of the movie. The character in the book was a good, smart, guy. He should have been played as such.
- The action scenes were a little too intense. This goes back to the first point: these people were just good fighters, not super.
The best thing about the movie? Jackie Earle Haley playing Rorschach. He was fantastic, and I hope he wins an Oscar.
On to real life: Monica Crowley scored some points with me last night. I was listening to
The McLaughlin Group, and she actually complimented President Obama. Granted, he was saying something that conservatives had been saying for a long time, but this is a reversal from many in the media who would never give credit to someone from the other party under any circumstances. This is why I like
The McLaughlin Group.
We watched
Watchmen last night, which I was really looking forward to. It was fine, not great. It was too long, but I was pretty interested in the story. However, I am pretty upset because they did a
horrible job with the McLaughlin Group. John was okay, Eleanor was a little above average, but the actor playing Pat Buchanan apparently has never seen the real Buchanan speak or move. I didn't even know it was supposed to be him until the McLaughlin character addressed him by name.
Shame.
I am not commenting on the validity of their position, but rather I am just going to comment on their tactics:
Republicans lie a lot as a tactic. This link points to a conservative rally where organizers cite ABC news as saying that 1-1.5 million people attended. However, ABC News only reported 60-70,000 people attend. They inflated the number by 2000 percent.
Many Republicans also forwarded a photo of the rally, showing the National Mall filled with people. Except that the photo was from a different rally ten years ago.
This doesn't happen by accident. These were lies. The Democrats probably do this from time to time, too, but the Republicans do it regularly. This is hurting national discourse.
The sad thing is that Republicans have some interesting ideas - some of which I might even agree with. However, they have found that it is more effective to simply lie (sometimes disguised as calling someone else
a liar; for most people, I would write this off as a mistake, but a Congressperson should know that the bill explicitly says that illegal aliens will not be able to receive care).
Moral: I don't like lying.
School has started, and my life is again reasonably under control. I'm a little uptight, so "under control" means that I am working at least a couple days ahead of schedule (ideally, one week).
Pitchfork came up with the top 500 songs of the Aughts. I am a little over
12% cool, based on the number of songs I know. This is a lower bound, because I went through quickly, and I surely missed some.
