Dividing by Zero

Over the past few years, various friends and other concerned parties have been getting on my case about my sleep habits, or rather, my lack thereof. There is a degree of truth to the stories — more than one person has received an email response from me with a 3:00 am timestamp. (Of course, the first person to bring that up had sent me an email herself just 10 minutes earlier.)

I’ve been doing better about it. These days, more often than not, I’m asleep by 12:30, and almost always by 1. In the past two or three years, I think there’s only been one or two times when I watched any late night TV, and those were times when I was sick and had spent most of the day sleeping. (The fact that I’ve largely stopped watching TV at all undoubtedly has something to do with it as well.)

I did watch the first season of The Daily Show, back when it was hosted by Craig Kilbourn. I’ve only ever seen perhaps a half-dozen episodes of the Jon Stewart version. Aside from a few water cooler conversations, missing it hasn’t had a great impact on my life.

Somewhere along the line though, I did miss something. I’m not sure when he came onto the scene, but thanks to YouTube, I’ve discovered that at some point a fellow named Craig Ferguson took over CBS’ The Late, Late Show. I’ve caught one or two of his rants and find them equally funny and thought-provoking.

Why, it’s enough to make me think I should start staying up late again!

Pooched Eggs are one of Wylie’s all-time favorite breakfasts. Every morning he curls up on the couch, watching me in the kitchen, waiting to see if this treat will be forthcoming.

Pooched Eggs

In a bowl, combine two eggs with three teaspoons of milk.

Melt a small pat of butter in a frying pan over medium heat. As the butter finishes melting, add the egg mixture. As the eggs begin to set, stir the mixture with a spatula, allowing more of the liquid to come in contact with the pan. Continue until no liquid remains and the egg mixture has solidified.

Serve over a bed of kibble.

Feeds one.

Variants: This recipe also works with small pieces of ham or sausage stirred in. Instead of scrambled eggs, you can substitute fried, dogs aren’t overly fussy about that sort of thing. Dogs are omnivores, so stirring in small amounts of vegetables should be OK, just don’t go overboard (Wylie doesn’t want a huge chunk of tofu either).

Talk Like a Pirate Day was two weeks ago. That was a Friday this year, which made a perfect excuse for celebrating an entire Pirate Weekend. A few highlights from this year’s festivities follow.

For any well-dressed pirate, eye patches and hooks are optional, and of course all swashes should be buckled appropriately. Traditionally, proper pirate headgear has included both bandannas and pirate hats. In more recent times, the latter category has been expanded to include sports caps for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Seattle Seahawks (beware though, wearing another team’s hat may have you walking the plank).

Can you guess which pirate makes her own chain maille?

This bloke be Claire.

According to Wylie (the obligatory not-so-scurvy dog), heaven must be a lot like this.

Sure, Sue thinks its funny now. But what’s she gonna say when Jacob tries the “Pull my finger” routine on her?

These swabs must be music pirates.

The most fearsome pirates of all.

Like Dustin Hoffman says, “You gotta be like Julie.”

It’s a funny video, and of course (like you’d expect this time of year) it’s one with a message.

Well that wasn’t what I expected. I missed last week’s Presidential debate, but tonight’s debate between Vice-Presidential candidates was interesting.

I particularly liked how well the candidates spoke of not only their opponent, but also of their opponent’s primaries. (And that was interesting too. This is the first time I’ve heard someone refer to the Presidential candidates as “primaries” relative to the veeps.) I don’t think anyone pulled their punches, but it was a very civil debate. One such nice touch, almost lost amidst the applause, was when the two candidates came out and Sarah Palin asked Joseph Biden, “Can I call you Joe?”

A pleasant surprise: Based on debates I’ve watched in the past, I fully expected the initial question to be ignored so the candidates could thank the moderator, the presidential debate commission, their families, the American People, God Almighty and anyone else they could think of for allowing them to appear there instead of actually answering the first question. Instead, both of these candidates were brief with their thank yous and actually spent some time giving meaningful answers.

I liked this debate format. I know there’s some controversy surrounding the choice of moderator, but I liked how the candidates were given a choice of responding to an immediate question or responding instead to previous comments. It gave the entire proceedings more the air of a conversation rather than an argument. (I’m quite tired of the endless arguing, hearing a conversation was nice!!!) Having questions that were directed at each candidate, more along the lines of “Tell us about yourself” instead of another point to debate was also a nice touch. (The sort of stuff we want to know about who the candidates instead of about their policies.)

Also surprising: I hadn’t expected to hear a Republican candidate use the word “blunders” (plural!) in reference to the current administration’s actions in Iraq. That earns Governor Palin a nod of respect that she’s willing to publicly think for herself rather than toe the party line.

More memorable points:

Both candidates agreeing about gay marriage. Not whether it should be allowed, but rather the point that a lot of people seem to be overlooking: instead of fighting over the meaning of the word “marriage,” folks should instead be discussing the civil rights of committed couples.

Senator Biden’s tears. When Biden spoke of knowing what it was like to be the only parent, “to not know if your child was going to make it” there were tears in his eyes. Instead of making him look weak, to me he looked stronger. (Joseph Biden’s first wife and year-old daughter died in a traffic accident in 1972. His two sons were critically injured but survived.)

Exxon Mobil’s Windfall profits. It seems that the Obama-Biden ticket is deadset on taxing Big Oil’s “windfall profits.” This makes me nervous. How will they tax non-US companies? And is it really fair to tax them because of the dollar amount? Sure, Exxon Mobil has profits in recent years that are larger than those of any other company in history.

People love to go on about that. But those are only record profits when you measure them in dollars. If you instead measure them as a percentage of revenue (the “margin”), they’re relatively small, something like 20%. By comparison, companies in the software industry tend to have profits in excess of 30%.

The difference is that our lifestyle is built on cheap oil, not cheap software. so “Big Oil” is an easy target. Beyond that, I’m just not comfortable with the government deciding how much profit is “acceptable” and how much is “too much” based on the passions of the moment.

Overall, I think Senator Biden “won” versus Governor Palin. I’m looking forward to visiting FactCheck.org to see who was right, but there were several times where Biden corrected Palin along the lines of, “I know which vote you’re talking about and here’s the background of why I [or Obama] voted that way” or “I know which vote you’re talking about and here’s the details you’ve left out.”

All in all, I found the debate informative. I’ve not made up my mind yet, but it was all useful input.

One question though, did anyone count how many times the two candidates used the word “maverick”?

It seems that Dr. Horrible is recruiting for his new Evil League of Evil. Aspiring evil doers are invited to submit video applications.

This sample application from “The Enabler” may hold clues to the cause of certain current events.

At least once a year I find a Praying Mantis somewhere around the house. (This time on the back of the house, about two feet from the basement door.) I’ve seen a number of them (including some young, less than half an inch in length), but this is probably the best photo I’ve taken of one to date.

I received a letter from BNY Mellon today. They’re the bank responsible for processing dividends on the six shares of stock I own in the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. An entire six shares. Even if I cashed them in, they wouldn’t cover the amount of hassle I’m now at risk of encountering. Here’s how the letter opens:

We are writing to let you know that computer tapes containing some of your personal information were lost while being transported to an off-site storage facility by our archive services vendor. While we have no reason to believe that this information has been accessed or used inappropriately….

Having worked for a financial services company, I was already pretty thoroughly convinced that personal information isn’t protected nearly as well as the various players claim it is. So in many ways, it really did seem like just a matter of time until my information was put at risk through no fault of my own.

Oh. And the tapes were lost in February. According to the letter, they’ve spent the past five months investigating. Given the lack of a “here’s what we found out” paragraph, I can only conclude they have no idea what went happened.

I know what’s going on. Where did you think Congress was going to come up with the trillion dollars they need to bail out the financial system?

Wylie likes having a certain amount of routine in his life. When I get home from work, he runs up and down the stairs (and sometimes slides across the floor) until I take him out for his afternoon walk. When I cook breakfast in the morning, he lounges on the couch, waiting for a piece of scrambled egg or perhaps a pancake to land in the ol’ food dish. And when we come back from our evening walk, if I go upstairs before giving him a treat, his confusion becomes quite evident. (He’s quite insistent about this last routine. In addition to looking back and forth between me and the cupboard - he knows exactly where the snacks are stored - he’ll occasionally go so far as to block my path up the stairs. The message is quite clear, “Hey! Aren’t you forgetting something?! Where’s my treat??!“)

Today was a rough day for Wylie.

It was quite bad enough that no people food was dropped into the ol’ food dish, but to add insult to injury, the ol’ food dish up and disappeared. Being fairly easy going, Wylie came right upstairs and flopped on the bed while I got ready for work.

Wylie perked up a little at the next break from the routine. Usually once I’m ready for work, he gets a couple Milk Bones and then he’s confined to the upstairs for the next eight to nine hours. Today was different though. I went downstairs and gathered my things for work, but instead of coming upstairs with the Milk Bones, I called Wylie to come down. That definitely got him to perk up and once he saw the harness, he got even more excited. He was going to go for a ride in the car!

He enjoyed the ride in the car and despite all the stereotypes, he didn’t put up any resistance at walking into the vet’s office. I took a few steps with him toward the exam room and it wasn’t until he was on the scale that Wylie realized I was no longer with him. (The technicians later told me that he spent a large part of the day upset that I wasn’t around. Clearly he was concerned that without him to keep an eye on me, I’d probably wander off and fall down a well or something.)

When the vet cleans a dog’s teeth, the routine is to put the dog under sedation. This way the dog won’t be as anxious about the procedure and the humans won’t be as anxious about the possibility of being bitten. But because of the sedation and the need for monitoring afterward, it’s an all-day thing. They cleaned Wylie’s teeth in the morning and I picked him up on my way home.

It was pretty clear that Wylie was still feeling the affects of the sedation. Usually he hops right into the car, this time he had to take it in stages, using the doorframe as a step instead of jumping directly onto the seat.

When we got home, Wylie came upstairs while I changed clothes. I felt badly that he’d come upstairs just to go back down a few moments later and felt even worse when I saw him on the stairs. He didn’t exactly fall down the stairs, but it was hardly a graceful descent either.

When we returned from the afternoon/after-work walk, Wylie went back upstairs and stayed curled up on the bed until it was time for our evening walk. From his reduced pace on the evening walk, it was obvious that he was still a little groggy, so we cut the walk short, reducing it to about 2/3 of a mile instead of the usual 1 1/2.

And when we got back, Wylie made it plain that I wasn’t to go upstairs until he’d had his evening treat. He might not have been feeling well, but he does have his priorities.

As John points out, this is a chain post. (John blames Wil Wheaton, so I’ll happily blame John.) I’m fairly comfortable stating that this post doesn’t invoke The Curse since (a) you chose to visit my site instead of me dumping this in your in box and (b) this doesn’t end with the usual litany of bad outcomes if you don’t pass it along.

And hey, maybe this one will really work!

REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
From: Minister of the Treasury Paulson

Subject: REQUEST FOR URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully
Minister of Treasury Paulson