Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

Even though it exists as an advertisement, this is a fun game if you are nostalgic for Oregon Trail.

ThuleRoadTrip

I read an article (link via Digg) that informed me the URL shortening service TinyURL had gone down for several hours leaving many links broken. Although I used TinyURL briefly when it first came out I have grown to despise the whole idea of shortening URLs like that. I hate not knowing what kind of link I am clicking. Is it legit? Or is it goatse? You never know until it is too late. That is why I was very happy to find that someone had written a script to “embiggen” these TinyURLs (link).
However the article raised an interesting point I had not thought of: Every single link is controlled by TinyURL. What if the owner decides to redirect everyone to an advertisement first before taking them to the real link? What if, as apparently happened, the service is unavailable? Part of the blame is on clunky CMS packages that force bizarre, meaningless, and ridiculously long URLs upon us. But the other part goes to the publishers themselves. Why are they displaying giant links on their site anyway? A simple text description or even the word “link” is sufficient. If you want to see the URL it is visible in the browser’s status bar when you mouse over it anyway. And if you want to copy the link just right-click and choose “Copy link location”. I really don’t understand the need for services like TinyURL. Anyone?

A lot happened today:

Erin turned one month old.

Isabella started Kindergarten.

I went back to work.

Erin is doing fine, although last night and today she didn’t sleep much which means that Mom and Dad didn’t sleep much either.

Bella had a good first day to school, riding the bus both ways and a full day are all new to her.

I am exhausted. Luckily I started back to work during a break, so although I had a very busy day it could have been a lot worse.

The Sieve and the Sand

I don’t know what it is about act two, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been completely disinterested in what was going on in a second act. I just couldn’t find anything that really jumped out at me, but I’ll try. Comments are open, so please share your thoughts (on any section, not just this one).

Faber is fairly ineffectual in his role as a moderate mentor. He did not prepare Montag well enough, and Montag took his newfound thirst for revolution too far when he interrupted his wife’s gathering. While fiery energy is good you need to recognize which people you can challenge and which people need to be slowly introduced to new ideas. I imagine Montag’s outburst will be his downfall, but I wonder if it will be one of the friends or Millie herself that will turn Montag in. By the end of part two it didn’t come as a surprise that the house they received a call about was indeed Montag’s.

The dryer is fixed. It turns out it was the thermal fuse afterall. This is good news since we are really behind on laundry and now we can get caught up.

I suppose I should have tried replacing the fuse first since that was the easier part to replace. But I really thought it tested fine. Apparently I wasn’t testing it properly though, because they tested it for me at the parts shop and it was bad. I figured out what I was doing wrong in the testing, but hopefully I won’t have to worry about that for a while. I guess since I had the dryer apart to get at the ignitor I should have brought both parts in for them to test. Oh well. The important part is that the dryer is working and even with buying two parts and the time I spent replacing the parts it was still cheaper (and probably quicker) than paying someone to come out and fix it.

I came across this video from Pirates and Emperors and had to post it (YouTube Link via Digg; see also Original Site)

Having been a child in the 80′s when the big bad Communists were THE bad guy, I also remember our “friends” the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. From comedy movies like Spies Like Us to action movies like Rambo III, the Mujahideen were always there to help out against those pesky Russians. Sure we may hate Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban now, but back then they were our best buddies.

Maybe we should stop funding wars altogether. But then what could we spend the money on? Health care and education? I can dream can’t I?

So I looked up possible causes for why our dryer no longer works. It seemed to point to either the thermal fuse or the ignitor. I tested both parts and according to what I read the fuse tested good and the ignitor tested bad. So I went out and bought an ignitor and replaced it. Guess what? Yep, that wasn’t the problem. So I still have a dryer that doesn’t get hot. I’ll probably replace the fuse just to be sure, but this is really discouraging.

I originally started to write this post over a month ago. But then Erin was born and for some reason I was a little too busy to read or think about writing about reading. Then I started blogging again as we settled into a sort of routine, but neglected to finish (or even start it really) this little project. However I was just linked to as a Big Read blogger, and there is nothing more motivating than having someone else remind you of things you said you were going to do. I suppose the only other thing I should mention before I get started is that I am writing my reactions to certain situations/thoughts raised by this book and do not intend to get into plot summaries and such. So without further ado…

The Hearth and the Salamander

Many of the concepts of this novel are frightfully accurate portrayals, not of a far away future, but of the world we are living in today. Mildred lives entirely in a world of entertainment. Her ‘family’ is the cast of some vaguely interactive soap-opera that she views on giant wall sized televisions. When she isn’t in front of the Walls she is listening to her SeaShells. A 50″ flat screen and the iPod aren’t too far off the mark. We are slaves to entertainment and like Mildred we live within our own little worlds. My family gave up on broadcast television quite a while ago and I found out two big things: I don’t miss it at all, however I do feel left out of many conversations with other people. I am sometimes surprised when the big thing to talk about is something that happened last night on some show.

The biggest theme of course is that books are illegal. While that may not be the case, I know many people who do not read and if they do it certainly isn’t for leisure. Why is that, I wonder? The issue of censorship in a broader sense is even more real. Our news is brought to us by a few very large corporations, the same ones that provide us with our entertainment. Everything we are fed is very sanitized and bland. There are no real opposing views presented. We are easily distracted by a pop singers seemingly drunk performance or some other drivel and yet the really thought-provoking issues are left unsaid or under-reported. It is in these corporations best interest to keep us happy consumers whose biggest thought is about a failed dance routine and not the suffering of people in this and other countries. Like Mildred, we dare not delve to deep into the meaning of what is going on around us, for that would detract from our entertainment.

I was interested by Guy’s plea that a new Wall would cost him one-third of his yearly salary at $2,000. I thought, $6,000 a year? And I thought I had trouble making ends meet. But then I poked around a bit and my un-scientific research leads me to believe that was a very decent salary if we remember the book was written in 1950. So being a fireman would seem to be a good job, which is how Mildred has three Walls already, but she still wants the fourth. It made me think how much of my budget goes towards entertainment? My estimate is around 10%, but I know people who routinely spend at least 30% which would put them in league with the Montag’s.

I wonder if Clarisse’s death is an accident?

Beatty makes an interesting explanation for the ways things are in that world. His explanation is 20 pages long, which is just about one-third of Part One. An interesting thing about it to me is how relevant his story is. It is too easy to self-censor oneself so as to not offend anyone. But what happens when the censorship is all encompassing?

It dawned on me just recently that I have access to an enormous resource on campus. The Library and all it has to offer. I have used the interlibrary loan system three times in as many months and I only wish I had started sooner. It never occurred to me that pretty much any book I want to read I can get from the library. Crazy, I know. At the beginning of my leave I took out Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy and I just started reading it. It is so far a very interesting book. So if you love to read and haven’t figured it out yet, see what your library had to offer.

I hate to admit it, but I find Lolcats and Russian Reversal jokes funny. But what is even more bizarre is that there were two lolcat/ISR references in one day (link and link).

moar funny pictures