February 2004 Archives

Today's leap day. I gotta blog. It could be my only chance to blog on leap day. Who knows if Plugs and Dottles will be around in four years.
K-

A friend sent me this. It was part of a set of optical illusions that must be making the rounds. I found it very clever and not a little difficult.

Look at the chart above and say the color not the word. Evidently your right brain tries to say the color but your left brain tries to say the word.

Be careful. When my office mate tried this his head exploded.
K-

Do you ever get a little weary of parents who go on and on about the wonderful accomplishments of their kids? Well me neither. So I know you'll indulge me here.

Took a photo of A- before he went off to his Eagle Scout Board of Review last Thursday night. (For those of you unfamiliar with the workings of Boy Scout rank advancement, a Board of Review is the final requirement satisfied before a boy earns a rank. The scout sits and chats with 3-4 adult troop leaders. The boy may know them, he might not. It's much like a job interview but there's little chance the BOR will deny a scout his rank.) A-'s never been one to willingly wear the complete scout uniform so this photo illustrates a chance event.

I think he was nervous; I know I was. His review lasted an hour-and-a-half but everything went A-OK. Afterward we celebrated with his favorite Edy's Grand Cookies and Cream Ice Cream.

Way to go A-!
K-

One of my more charming – and more nerdy - quirks is my fascination with license plates. No, not making them just keeping an eye out for them as I drive along.

Some states have really attractive license plates. Oregon, Nebraska, and South Carolina are among the best. (Although Maryland’s brand new Chesapeake Bay plate has a lot going for it.) Some states have really dull plates. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Washington come to mind.

Some plates have a slogan on them. My favorite is Idaho’s (“Famous Potatoes”). Ohio’s tag says “Birthplace of Aviation.” I think that’s somewhat of a dubious claim but as Ohio’s got nothing else going for it, I’m willing to give it to them. I’ve always wondered how it feels to be a prisoner stamping out license plates in New Hampshire. Its slogan is “Live Free or Die.”

Most plates are rectangular. The only one that isn’t has to be the coolest license plate by far. Canada’s Northwest Territories has a license plate shaped like a grizzly bear. Not just the picture of a bear printed on a rectangular plate, the plate is stamped in the shape of a grizzly bear.

On long trips I’ll see how close I can get before I spot the first tag from my destination. It's rare when I can go more than 100 miles before seeing the first tag from where I'm going. I keep an eye out for creative vanity tags such as “POETIC” and “GR8DANE”. They’re a sort of jolly word puzzle offered up to bored drivers to ponder as they drive along. I love spotting license plates from faraway and exotic places. My kids have long grown accustomed to hearing me holler out things like “Look! There’s one from Guam! How do you get your car back from Guam?” or “Hey, look! There’s a guy from big, Beautiful, WYOMING! He must think he’s died and gone to hell driving around Maryland.” or “Guys, guys…there’s a car from North Dakota! Has anyone actually been to North Dakota? And what’s a peace garden anyway?”

Today, while driving to work, I spotted the tag on the car directly in front of me:

KEM-666

Kem – me.
666 – The number of the Beast.
And today is Ash Wednesday.

I'm guessing God is telling me to give up driving for Lent.
K-

I bring an old, beat-up 32 oz. Stanley thermos with me to work everyday. It's filled with my favorite coffee.

Everyday just before departing for home, I pick up the the thermos and give it a good shake in the hope there's some coffee left in there. Just a swig. One small swig to fortify me for the trip home.

There is never any coffee left.

You'd think I'd learn.
K-

George Washington celebrates a birthday today. Number 272. He's more interesting than you might think. Perhaps the only truly indispensible American.

He's the father of our country. But curiously he's not the father of anything else.
K-

To get the bad taste of "Do Your Taxes" Saturday out of my mouth, we're going to see The Producers. One of the show's road companies is appearing at The Hippodrome, a newly remodeled theater in Baltimore that, in its heyday, was a premier stop on the Vaudeville circuit. The Producers opened it last week.

All of us are going. It'll be the first time A- and D- have seen a truly professional theater production. If you like Broadway shows, you know what that means.

You also know that it's worth it.
K-

Do you hate it as much as I do when you find your brainpan cluttered with all sorts of useless knowledge and you don't even know how it got there?

All the news sites today have articles about the final episode of Sex in the City tomorrow night. I've never once seen that show. Really-honest-to-gosh-truly. I've never had HBO in my house. I've never rented Sex in the City DVDs. I've never been at someone's house when it was on. And yet despite never having laid eyes on the show and my willful and intentional attempt to not acquire any knowledge whatsoever about this particular situation comedy, I seem to know more about than I care to admit. I can name 3 of the 4 actors in the show. I can tell you where it takes place. I even seem to understand there's some sort of ongoing joke about some brand of shoes in the show (Manolo Blahnik perhaps?) How can that be? What other useful information is this stuff crowding out?

I wish I had some brain Drano.
K-

Saturday.

Do My Taxes Day.

Wah.
K-

Update: 5:48 PM
All done. It appears I get money back. And without cheating.

This morning I was just innocently coping with life when Scrooge McDuck popped into my head. I wasn't expecting any visitors nor did I particularly want any. But there he was rattling around the old brainpan.

Scrooge McDuck was a comic book favorite when I was a kid. Every Saturday I would walk from my house about a mile to "downtown" Westboro, Massachusetts, to this place we called the "Coffee Shop" where I would procure penny candy, Table Talk Fruit Pies, and comic books. If a new Scrooge McDuck was in the rack, I'd buy it and have it read before I got back home. I was always fascinated by his money vault that more than anything resembled a big, indoor swimming pool filled with coins and bills. Occasionally he really would go swimming and diving in it.

I wonder whatever became of Scrooge McDuck. Is he dead? Did he lose his fortune in the dot-com bust? Is he on the Halliburton board of directors?

Do kids today even know who he is?
K-

A- got his first real college response today. Fittingly it came from the University of Michigan.

If he wants to he can be a Wolverine. I guess the powers that be in Ann Arbor have decided he's got what it takes to be a Michigan Man. One down, four to go.

It won't take long time readers of Plugs and Dottles to figure out what I think about that.

It shouldn't take the rest of you all that long either.
K-

Update: 21 Feb 2004
It appears that Maryland likes him, too.

I read on CNN.com today that the Fox Network is planning a reprise of the Mister Ed TV show. Remember Mister Ed, the talking horse? What really made me laugh is that the updated show will use the voice talent of Sherman Hemsley for the title character. Evidently this time around the producers want a show with "urban sensibility." I'm guessing the updated show won't be using a palomino as the lead animal.

I don't understand how a show about a talking horse can have any sensibility whatsoever.

Unlike the show's title character, I'm speechless.
K-

I was reading Heather's spirited defense of her centrist political position where she pointed out an interesting site called The Political Compass.

The Political Compass purportedly determines your political Cartesian coordinates based on results from a straightforward multiple-choice test that takes about 10 minutes to complete. At the end of the test, out pops a two-tuple pinpointing your exact location in a political plane defined by an economic x-axis and a social y-axis.

I took the test although I wasn't terribly surprised by my location in this political 2-space. What I did find interesting is where I stood relative to a set of classical composers. How this site determined the political Cartesian coordinates for all these dead musicians is anybody's guess.

So where do I stand? Let's just say that Mr. Mozart and I are in perfect harmony.
K-

Years ago when I was a college freshman, the Hewlett-Packard Company began marketing handheld calculators. The HP-35 retailed for $295 and the more advanced HP-45 retailed for $395. Back in 1972 that was a major investment for a student. (So much so that it wasn't until several years later that the "philosophical" question of whether to allow calculator use during tests was resolved.) I still remember being amazed at the HP-45 my physics lab partner had. Right then I knew my K&E Log Log Duplex Decitrig Slide Rule was headed straight to oblivion. (My K&E Slide Rule is in pristine condition and still sits in my office desk drawer. It now looks about as primitive as an abacus but, unlike calculators, it will continue to operate after a severe electromagnetic pulse.)

A unique feature of HP calculators is the way it performs calculations. HP calls its data entry format Reverse Polish Notation. Back in the '70s, it was unlike anything people were used to. RPN really threw the uninitiated for a loop. You didn't push buttons the way the equation appeared on paper for heaven's sake!

HP's idea was simple really... you first entered the data into the calculator, then you told the calculator how to operate on the data. The big advantage of RPN over the more traditional "algebraic" entry is that you don't require parentheses or storage for intermediate results to perform your math.

I avoided HP calculators and RPN for the longest time. I preferred calculators that used algebraic entry. That is until I bought my trusty HP-15C in the early 1980s and instantly became an RPN proselyte. I discovered long equations are just so much easier to calculate when you don't have to worry about matching parentheses and storing intermediate results. In the '90s, I acquired an HP-32SII after leaving my 15C behind in an airplane. It too used RPN.

Yesterday my HP-32SII calculator died.

It seemed OK in the morning. Then late in the afternoon it winked off just as I set it down. I've tried everything to bring it back to life. Nothing is working. To make matters worse, HP no longer sells handheld scientific calculators that use RPN. I've got to buy a bigger "graphing" calculator to get RPN. I can get a used HP-32SII from eBay for about three times what I paid for it.

RIP RPN.
K-

It was 20F when I headed out the door for my morning run today. But...

Can sweat and bugs be far behind?
K-

It was dark coming home from work tonight. I could see the interior of a minvan up ahead of me awash in the eerie blue glow of a TV screen. Some bastion of surburban America was undoubtedly transporting the leaders of tomorrow and decided to keep them occupied with the boob tube.

Do today's young families really need DVD players as part of their minivan option packages? I suppose they help on long trips but I'm fairly certain a sizeable fraction of the reading I've done in my life has taken place while riding in automobiles.

I remember the first car we got that had FM radio. Boy were we psyched. Music with no static. My grandparents were the first in our family to have a car with air conditioning. My brother and I found the relief of that car's cool air more than offset by the frequent farts coming out of their decrepit dachshund. Talk about mixed blessings.

I suppose kids today will feel deprived if they can't watch Sponge Bob on their way to Aunt Gertrude's but it's hard for me to sympathize.

I was probably 15 before the White family cars had seatbelts.
K-

I finished reading Isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin over the weekend. (I spent most of Friday sitting in the Whitetail ski lodge transported back to 18th century France where Franklin spent some of the last years of his life.) The book was very interesting and helped dispel some of the myths about Franklin and addressed some of the criticisms that have often been leveled against him. It is a highly readable biography of the first American who truly trusted in the American people to decide who should govern themselves.

I'm now reading - primarily - Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. It's OK so far but the book is rife with 18th Century Royal Navy cant and jargon that can be difficult for a 21st Century landlubber to understand. To help me navigate through this thicket of lingo, I bought a companion volume to the Aubrey/Maturin series called A Sea of Words. It's basically an oversized glossary. The funny thing is I'm finding this nautical dictionary way more intestesting than the book itself. For every word I look up in A Sea of Words, I'm finding I spend 5 to 10 minutes looking up related words and browsing through words that just happen to fall under my eye. At this rate I'll be reading Master and Commander for years.

I have a similar problem with the real dictionary. My favorite dictionary of all time is The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. I adore this book and it would certainly be one of the books I'd take with me to a desert island. I figure all the other books are already in there. I've never understood how people can think dictionaries are boring. It's not at all uncommon for me to go get my dictionary to look up some word, get sidetracked for 30 or 45 minutes, and then completely forget to look up the word that brought me to the dictionary in the first place.

If I had a spare $900 I'd buy the OED. Now there's a trove.
K-

Nothing blog-worthy is happening in my life this week. Is that good or bad? On the one hand, it's nice to have experiences, encounters, and bon mots that cause one to blog. On the other, nothing unexpected or unanticipated has shown its ugly head in my life, which is also a reason people blog.

My kids' scout troop is going on their annual ski trip tomorrow. I'm taking a day of vacation to drive. I've got a book, my Ipod and headphones, a thermos of coffee, and a big, fat butt I plan to park in a chair by the lodge fire while all the scouts are off skiiing.

I am so looking forward to my day off.
K-

Each year Howard County student musicians have the opportunity to participate in the "Solo and Ensemble Competition." The 2004 competition took place Saturday. Here's how it works: you begin by selecting a musical work composed specifically for your instrument. The music you select must be difficult to play, certainly much more difficult than the music you play in school. Next, you practice that piece for several months. If you have a private music teacher, you work with him or her so that you really understand the rhythm, the phrasing, and so on. Then you find (and pay for) a piano accompanist who plays the piece along with you. Finally, you march into a room all by yourself, play the piece - once - for an ajudicator, who then proceeds to critique the hell out of you.

Sound like fun?

Here in America we adulate kiddie sports. But with perhaps the exception of gymnastics, there is no similar ego-shattering event in youth sports. With the Solo and Ensemble Competition, months of preparation, tutoring, practice, and flat-out hard work (most student musicians practice their craft much more than most student athletes) are taken into a studio and put on the line. These high school and midddle school musicians demonstrate a confidence and intestinal fortitude rarely required from their athletic peers. I've seen "Superior" ratings produce shouts of joy from otherwise laconic teenagers and "Good" ratings produce tears. Sometimes you're the windshield; sometimes you're the bug. But regardless of the outcome - and just like athletics - the Solo and Ensemble Competition teaches kids a boatload about discipline, proper technique, perseverance, and confidence.

As for my kids? A- played Bernstein's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. It was somewhat of a daring choice for his solo because it's 20th Century and doesn't have that melodic quality people usually expect. D- played Bach's Aria for Trumpet.

As you can imagine, I'm very proud of both their performances.
K-

Ladies, I'd like to provide you with a little Valentine's Day suggestion. Are you looking for that perfect gift for that special someone? Most people don't realize that it's not just women who like to receive chocolate for Valentine's Day. I know, I know... it's stereotypical to give your lady-friend a box of chocolates on festive occasions, but it's an under appreciated fact that men like to get candy, too.

Godiva Chocolate.

The 1 lb. box.

It's a good thing.
K-

Overheard at Wizards of the Coast, a store at a local mall specializing in board games. This store is in the throes of going out of business. Everything is 30 to 50 percent off. The conversation took place between a mother and her 10-year-old son:

"Are you really sure you want this chess set?"
"Yes!"
"But it's not a regular chess set."
"But it's the one I want!"
"Are you sure you're going to be happy playing chess with penguins for the rest of your life?"
"YES! This is the set I want! Please go find the guy so we can pay!"
"But you're playing chess with penguins! It's, it's... IT'S JUST NOT NORMAL!"

By this point I was laughing so hard I had to leave. I assume the chess set with the pieces shaped like penguins is now sold.
K-

Quotables from my younger son these last two days:

"I'm not whining. I'm speaking in a complaining fashion."

"Most of taste is 40 percent smell."

K-

Some branches of our family have been in the US for generations. There's 7 generations of Fishers, 10 generations of Fraziers, the Burke's arrival predates the Revolution. Nearly all the branches that I'm aware of were born and raised in the mid-Atlantic or Northeast. All that American heritage and yet a brand new milestone was reached only yesterday in the White household.

As I mentioned here, my oldest son is appearing in his high school production of The Will Rogers Follies. He's in the ensemble. Because the cast is so large, individual cast members are required to acquire certain elements of their costumes. Sunday night A- purchased off eBay the single most important element of his costume for $28. The box arrrived yesterday. He tried them on... they fit.

In the long quotidian history of our family, I've no doubt that A- is the first to own and wear cowboy boots.
K-

Not really understanding what in the parlance of bloggers a 'meme' is, I just typed "What is a meme" into Google. Here's what it came back with:

Web Definition: meme - /meem/ [coined on analogy with `gene' by Richard Dawkins] n. An idea considered as a {replicator}, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used esp. in the phrase `meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. This lexicon is an (epidemiological) vector of the `hacker subculture' meme complex; each entry might be considered a meme. However, `meme' is often misused to mean `meme complex'. Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably obvious reasons.

I'll keep looking.
K-

I just got an email here at work that triggered my rant reflex.

OK, world, listen up. This is Kem White: supreme arbiter of the English language and obnoxious know-it-all! Please, please, please...

"Irregardless" is not a word.
K-

I had Howard Dean's blog, Blog for America, listed on my blogroll. I just dumped it. There's no point.
K-

OK, here's what I want you to do. You've got to trust me on this. Just do exactly as I tell you and I guarantee your life will be measurably improved. I did this myself over the weekend. I can tell you I'm a new man.

Follow this link and print out the recipe for Chocolate Brownies. Take the recipe with you into the kitchen and follow the instructions exactly. Please, don't argue. Just do it. Your future happiness depends on it.

Chocolate Brownies done? Good. Note that the last instruction says to "Cool for several hours before cutting." You must follow this instruction exactly because it gives you time to do the crucial next step: Go to the supermarket and get vanilla ice cream. And I don't mean frozen vanilla yogurt or low-fat vanilla ice cream. You need to get Real. Vanilla. Ice Cream. - Breyer's, Edy's, Ben and Jerry's, Häagen-Dazs, whatever - and bring it home with you.

At the end of a long, hard day, especially if it's been cold outside, cut a 3"x3" square of Chocolate Brownie from the baking pan and place it in the bottom of a bowl. Don't think...Act! You can make it larger but it must be no smaller than 3"x3"! Then place two - not one, not three, but two - scoops of vanilla ice cream on top. Grab your favorite spoon, sit in front of the fire, and consume.

You've got to trust me on this. Your life will be better. You will thank me.
K-

While surfing the blogosphere a while back, I encountered a blog that had just been hammered by a comment spammer. He had 500 or so spam comments to remove from his blog. He tipped me off to a Movable Type plug-in called MT-Blacklist. I installed it without problem. I have to tell you, I'm now a believer. MT-Blacklist has successfully blocked comment spam including an 89 comment barrage Saturday night. As with other kinds of virus software, you have to update the spam definitions occasionally but it seems to be working. Not one spam comment has gotten through since I installed it.
K-

For Christmas my youngest son received the first two of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. And for the longest time my son has been, well, perstering me to watch them with him. I kept putting him off because I was reluctant to tarnish my memory of The Lord of the Rings, which I had read at least twice, and perhaps three times while in college.

Last Tuesday he finally wore me down and I watched The Fellowship of the Ring with him. I thought it was pretty good and fairly faithful to my memory of the LOTR if not the books themselves. During the week I thought "Well what's done can't be undone. There's no point in not watch the last two." So on Friday night he and I watched the second in the series. And we've just gotten back from seeing The Return of the King. I have say that if you've an interest in this kind of story, The Lord of the Rings - and this last one especially - are extremely well done and entertaining.
K-