I love stories about new archeology or paleontology finds, such as the recently discovered 7000 year-old city in Egypt.

And in a completely unrelated observation, here is a good example of why not everyone should be allowed to blog -- particularly pseudo-philosophical/intellectual teen/twenty-somethings.

Any assault on idiocy like this one gets my full support.

Pat Robertson's prediction for 2008:

"God's going to give us China. And China will be the largest Christian nation on the face of the earth. They're going to come to Jesus."

Last year Pat Robertson predicted America would be on the receiving end of a nuclear bomb.

Meet Energy Bear

Timmy the Energy Bear is a goofy new-age/snake-oil based teddy bear that is being sold in the UK. 

Energy Bear is composed of:

• Gentle Magnetic Fields
• Natural Daylight Energy in a new and exciting form of soothing Photon Platinum™ non-woven Fabric

Magnets and daylight energy photon platinum? WTF? Notice the warning at the bottom of Energy Bear's page:

"Always read the label and keep out of reach of children"

I whole-heartedly agree! Happy Friday!

I find it a little funny -- and gratifying -- that a good portion of the mere handful of hits my little blog here gets come from folks Googling "Chung Moo Doe" or "Herding the Moo" and similar topics.

I've posted all the relevant links to *why* Chung Moo Doe / Oom Yung Doe is crap in my List (on this page), but here's a quick recap of the key points:

• The founder -- John C. "Iron" Kim and some higher-up cronies all got sent to prison for five years one or more tax evasion-related felonies. (That sentence ended in 2002, I believe, so they're all out of prison now.)
• John C. Kim's claims about his training, experience, lineage, and accomplishments are  unproven and/or completely  fabricated. The same can be said for the "history" of Oom Yung Doe / Chung Moo Doe. 
• The schools may have shed their cult-like ways described in Joe Smith's book Herding the Moo, but they still charge exorbitant prices ($200/month or more) and continue to use high-pressure tactics to extract as much money from their students as possible through seminars, "advanced" training, and selling merchandise.
• I can't speak to this one on a broad scale personally, but I am confident that students trained in Oom Yung Doe couldn't fight their way out of a wet-paper bag.

....for not other reason than my own entertainment. That Web site almost has more hilarity per square inch of screen space than The Onion.

My comments in blue.

"The goal of Project Pterosaur is to mount an expedition to locate and bring back to the United States living specimens of pterosaurs or their fertile eggs, which will be displayed in a Pterosaur Rookery that will be the center piece of the planned Fellowship Creation Science Museum and Research Institute (FCSMRI)."

I'm guessing this will be a perpetual project that is forever planned, never comes even close to fruition--but will vividly live in their imaginations and motivations for years to come.

"Evolutionists have engaged in a propaganda campaign to trick the public into falsely believing that the Earth is billions of years old and that many animals which lived side-by-side with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden actually died millions of years before humans were created (or "evolved" in their twisted view.)"

Evolution, Physics, Chemistry, Biology -- Modern medicine, computers, DVD players, automobiles --- darn all that scientific propaganda!

"In comparison, pterosaurs are a blessing from the Lord"

Alrighty then.

"...the second most exciting part of Project Pterosaur is the expedition. It is during this phase that we will go into the wild and see what the Lord has to reveal to us..."

God: "You are idiots."

"Non-Christian natives encountered should be made to know the Word and of the Saving Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. A Missiological (what the hell is that?)Technician will accompany the expedition to witness and perform Baptisms as necessary."

We're going to severely annoy the locals by reading our little comic books to them, and by our inability to say anything without referencing 'Jesus' or 'The Lord.' 

"We will not, however, sell nor loan specimens to institutions that are Evolutionistic or of other disreputable persuasions, such the Smithsonian... who would seek to use the animals to promote Evolutionism or some other form of disrespect to the Lord."

Damn.

We had a pretty good weekend--nothing terribly exciting, but overall good.:

• Amy worked out both days.
• I made it to my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes on Friday night and Saturday morning.
• Saturday we mostly ran errands and bought groceries and other stuff while my mom watched the boys.
• Sunday, I picked up a yellow toddler bed that matches Kazu's (they both look like yellow VW bugs, basically).
• I disassembled the crib in our room, which opened up a lot of space in the master bedroom.
• Katsuya took a nap in his new bed.
• Had dinner (grilled chicken, steak, and some steamed broccoli) at my mom's in the evening. 

I'm hoping to maybe go see Cloverfield next weekend -- I'd like to catch it on the big screen. I'll have to go solo (or with my big brother), most likely, because the queasy-cam effect would probably make Amy sick.

A small Texas museum devoted to Creationism -- like, Dinosaurs hanging out with Adam and Eve in the 6000-year-old Earth type of Creationism -- is probably going to go out of business! Yay!

Unfortunately, it was soon erased.

The much bigger but equally idiotic Creation Museum in Kentucky seems to be doing just fine. Boo!

What really irks me about the Creation Museum is how they peddle their disinformation to a generation of children. Check out their news page and read news snippets like this one:

"Buddy’s Creation Adventure Team Workshop (for ages 7-11) was a big hit once again. Children learned the fallacy of evolution, alongside the true biblical account of creation..."

Maybe we should just auction off Kentucky and all its inbred, slack-jawwed sister-fuckers. We'll even throw in a free Mike Huckabee. Bids anyone?

(First, a quick addendum: Christmas pictures are in the Winter 2007 Album.)

Spent a tiring day with the boys yesterday, but we had fun, and the boys were generally well-behaved. I got a few minor projects done as well:

Saturday:

• Trained: Went to my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class and had a great workout/class.
• Cleaned house: Did laundry, put stuff away, and got the last of the last Christmas stuff put up into storage.
• Took Kazu to the park. I spent part of the day with the boys at my mom's, where they played with their cousins. I walked Kazu to a nearby park where he played some more and went on the swings for a long time. (Katsuya wasn't interested, so he stayed at Grandmas and played with his 4-month old cousin.)

Sunday:

• Built a writing portfolio: I finally got around to creating a hard-copy portfolio of work from the stacks of magazine archives filling my shelves. I still need to go round up some Web pages and print them up, and add them to the mix... but it's a good start.
• Cleaned house. Like every weekend that my wife works, I spent a lot of time being domestic: doing laundry and cleaning up around the house in general. I also made dinner (Italian chicken/pasta/vegetables) and got the boys ready for bed.
• Walked the dogs. The dogs haven't been walked in ages. Poor Kirin (our Great Dane, who is venerable in Great Dane years) can scarcely go for walks for more than ten minutes anymore -- but she still enjoyed it, I think.
• Bought a leaf-blower/sucker. I used a $50 gift card for Lowes to buy a much-needed leaf-blower/sucker for the yard.

Today's accomplishments:

• Tackled a big project at work. It's well under way and I'm feeling a little more confident about it (and less overwhelmed) than I was yesterday.
• Uploaded pictures from Christmas 2007. My boys truly are the Cutest In All the Land. I feel sorry for all you people with fugly kids.
• Ordered 3 DVDs: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Transformers.

Today's remaining agenda:

• Get the crap beat (or crushed) out of me in my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. Good times!

I'm sure there's a sad story behind this man's life.

But anyone capable of throwing four children ages 3 and under, off of an 80-foot bridge to their deaths -- should probably just be executed and done with.

He's already confessed. Why waste any more time or tax payer money?

It's stories like these that make me generally avoid reading the news anymore -- other than financial or science/health-oriented news.

Here's a great site for arming oneself with information to rebuke creationist idiocy -- and an interesting read.

If you aren't a fan of Bruce Campbell, you should be.

I just like this song and my kids love the videos.

This is completely meaningless to most folks, but it's a minor victory of man over machine/software that I felt like I needed to celebrate.

After more than a couple hours wrangling with Publisher 2007, I finally figured out how to get the damn thing to stop hyphenating everything at the end of a line (which is fine for newsletter or newspapers, but not so good for marketing-style brochures and such).

From the menu bar:

1. Click Tools and then select Options...
2. Click the Edit tab.
3. De-select the check box for Automatically hyphenate in new text boxes

Sure, it sounds easy enough, but I spent a good couple hours looking through paragraph formatting, line spacing and other layout options before I finally found this.

Seems like it could have been better placed in the user interface.

Happy Friday! I'm looking forward to a weekend of a little Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and hopefully some quality time with the wife and kids. I'll probably have to take down our Xmas lights as well, weather permitting, and see about getting all the Xmas boxes back up in storage. Oh, and I have to dump another $325 into my car for a new starter. (sigh)

New year's Day found me home alone with the kids all day, with the exception of a brief lunch-time visit by my mom (who thankfully loaded the kids up so we could take them for a ride, which got Katsuya to sleep).

Otherwise, it was a busy day -- laundry, cleaning, minding the kids, etc. We had some good times playing with a clay-like play foam and bouncing in the bouncy castle.

Overall, though, I was too tired and too grouchy. I was on a pretty short fuse with the kids -- I hate it when I get like that. Extremely tired + over-caffeinated = impatient and over-reacting a bit when I needed to parent them.

Hopefully today will be a bit better. I need to take my somewhat ailing Saturn in as it is not starting quite like it should. Hopefully this won't be yet another expensive repair bill. If I can get away for less than $500 I'll be reasonably "happy".