At the bottom of this spiel for playchess.com, we see the following feature: a rating graph which automatically keeps track of your progress over time:
But then I starting thinking, “Progress?” Clearly, the phrasing and picture are designed to get you psychologically excited about seeing your skill increase. But then I made a chart of my “progress” since restarting tournament chess, and determined…yeah, that’s not so much necessarily the case:
Some guy named Tom has a blog called “The Everyday Christian”, which I find myself frequenting as of late. There’s a bunch of red state stuff and Reformed theology.
Basically, the guy has the worldview I had 5 years ago, and I’ll occasionally comment to try to convert him away from American Orthodox Conservatism (or maybe just to play devil’s advocate).
Did you know Al Gore has a blog? No, you can’t leave a comment. No, there’s no way to send him an e-mail. You can sign up for his newsletter, but that smacks of one-way communication.
That’s really too bad, because one of my friends gave me a wonderful idea…
Mr. Gore has just won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Liquid Egg Product congratulates him on that. And while it’s hard to top getting a Nobel Prize–this website sure can’t match the monetary award that provides–I can surely give him a token of my appreciation…
Go ahead, Mr. Gore! Display on your blog proudly! (Get your webmaster to help you if you can’t do it yourself.)
Step 1: Listen to Person A present arguments for one side of an issue, and realize how convincing Person A is.
Step 2: Listen to Person B present arguments for the other side of the issue, and realize how convincing Person B is.
Step 3: Turn into John Kerry.
Today reminded me why I will never ride a motorcycle. On the way back from lunch, a motorcyclist wiped out tumbling over the roadway. Due to the smoke and debris, it wasn’t clear exactly how he fell, but he was able to get up under his own power.
Fortunately, this wasn’t a situation where everyone just passed by ignoring the situation, even though the guy had a buddy with him. The old guy closest to them stuck around, a lady called up FHP, and I offered the use of towel and rubbing alcohol to address the wounds (which he declined).
Getting a close look at him, he primarily had some cuts and a large abrasion on his left shoulder, but seemed to be mostly in good shape.
To top it off, on the side road to get to work, a power line lost slack, sagging into the middle of the right-of-way. The turn to get into the work parking lot is before the power line, so it had no direct effect on me.
Oh, man. Tuesday morning I had a seizure for the first time in a long time, which took me out of work for about two days.
I wish my skill in manipulating English were sufficient to describe what happens to someone who hasn’t experienced it. (Not looking for a pity party; I’m doing fine, just think it might be interesting to try to describe.)
Many people who have seizures experience something called an “aura”, a signal that a seizure may shortly happen. This generally is a physical change or an altering of how the person perceives the world. Some people may experience déjà vu or get an unusual taste in their mouths. For me, the effect is having auditory hallucinations: I hear incomprehensible, speech-like sounds which start faintly and begin to crescendo. For the first minute or so, I’m generally in control of myself and can communicate with the outside world while the head voices are fainter than ambient noise. Then I lose the ability to talk clearly, and for some reason, never have the wherewithal to think of writing down what I’d like to have said. By the two minute mark, I’m ignoring input from the outside world even as I’m aware of what people are saying. The cacophany of pseudo-voices start to become torture, not because they’re loud, but they are preventing the brain from working at even marginal effectiveness, and I’m 100% aware of this. For 30 sec, I’m lying down, just asking for the seizure to happen…
After an hour or two, I’ll regain consciousness, but feel very physically tired, and have generally sustained some strains and bruises from the spasms. For the next few hours, food or drink has a metallic taste, but it’s especially strong with water, which makes it hard to drink. Thirst is prominent; hunger is almost non-existent. Rather than sleeping 7 hours a day, I can sleep up to 14 hours a day for the next couple days, and have little physical strength (yes, even less than usual).
The next few days are spent being extra sure that I didn’t miss a dose of medicine.
[Warning: this post not for the kiddies.]
Here’s the link if you want to read the whole story, but I’ll summarize. Through a website, Guy A found Guy B who were both interested in doing a bondage session. Guy A got a little more than he bargained for when Guy B left him alone wrapped up with only a straw in his mouth to breathe. Apparently, the straw fell out before Guy B got back, and that was the end of Guy A (Guy B later committed suicide, presumably at least in part over this incident).
Now in this particular instance, the master left the slave bound by himself for a few hours, which few would disagree is patently irresponsible. But what about the general case? Let’s say there’s a consenting couple who are always in proximity during the session, but there’s some sort of accident. Should the surviving/non-maimed consenting partner be held legally liable?
And I can’t believe I’m asking this, but does anyone practice bondage? (You can put your name as “Anonymous” to answer that one.) What’s usual, for there to be established ground rules, or more on the spur of the moment? Does it actually enchance your sex life?
Please don’t look at me; I’ve never tried this stuff. [Mascot's note: I have!] [Counter-note: No one's asking your opinion.]
This week has been…errgh…but to be explained later. In the meantime:
“Michael Vick tried to deny and stonewall, but at the last owned up and admitted what he did. That’s dignity.”
This past Sunday, Favre broke the NFL record for interceptions thrown. Where’s the party?
Apparently in Buffalo, where Tony Romo threw 5 interceptions last night to celebrate. And he’s still the center of attention in the Cowboys’ win last night (despite the Dallas defense holding Buffalo’s offense to 3 points making the difference). Nope, the country doesn’t favor the white quarterback at all…
The Mascot is a self-absorbed lech, even more than I knew. Sorry for any mental scarring. I’m glad you guys took him down a couple notches, and I have some more blows for him–figuratively and literally.
I laughed about 15 minutes non-stop at your comments over the weekend, so that was awesome. Now I have to catch up on this blog and your blogs, sneaking in a few minutes here and there during work.
