Luke, err, Dylan, I am your father

Posted in Family with tags , , on July 29, 2008 by macmystery
Join me ... it is your destiny!

Join me ... it is your destiny!

Much to my wife’s anguish, in the just longer than five years my son has been alive, I have managed to get him hooked on anything and everything Star Wars. Really, I think she may be upset because at 5, he may have a better grasp on the movies than she does.

Anyway, he asked for anything Star Wars for his birthday. My wife found this cool birthday card with Darth Vader on the front, ad when you open it, it plays the “Imperial March.”

A couple nights ago, as he was winding down, not too long before bedtime, Dylan sat on the floor looking at a Star Wars comic book. But while he turned the pages of the comic book – he can’t read it all yet, so he’s just looking at the pictures – he would open the card beside him on the floor so that the song would play.

Each time the song would play through and finish, he would close the card and open it again, starting the song over.

He kept repeating this, over and over, until he was finished with his comic book, like it was his own little soundtrack.

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Where’s Bob Jones U?

Posted in Odd with tags on July 29, 2008 by macmystery

While everyone has been focusing on the the fact that the University of Florida was named the nation’s top party school by the Princeton Review, the Review also released, among other lists, the top 20 “stone cold sober” schools in America:

1. Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
2. Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill.
3. U.S. Coast Guard Academy, New London, Conn.
4. College of the Ozarks, Point Lookout, Mo.
5. Grove City College, Grove City, Pa.
6. U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.
7. U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
8. Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.
9. Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, Calif.
10. Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich.
11. U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.
12. Wesleyan College, Macon, Ga.
13. Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Needham, Mass.
14. City University of New York-Queens College, Flushing, N.Y.
15. Webb Institute, Glen Cove, N.Y.
16. Berea College, Berea, Ky.
17. Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Ga.
18. City University of New York-Baruch College, New York.
19. Simmons College, Boston.
20. Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.

So how did Bob Jones U not make the list?

For what it’s worth …

My alma mater is the top “jock school” for 2009.

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Simply horrifying

Posted in Family on July 26, 2008 by macmystery

These people are monsters.

I read these kinds of stories on the wire all the time at work, and it’s pretty hard to read them and not get upset. In fact, too many nights in a row reading these stories, and it’s hard not to be in a downright depressed mood.

I used to read stories like this, before I had children, and while they were disturbing, I could forget them easily.

But now, as a parent, I can’t. I read them, and I feel sick to my stomach and I want to cry.

If I ever found out someone I knew was hurting a child like this, or someone I didn’t know was hurting a child I knew like this, I’m not sure I’d want to be held responsible for my actions.

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Gatsby great, this time around

Posted in Books with tags , , , , , , on July 26, 2008 by macmystery
"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I did something Friday I don’t do very often anymore … I finished a book.

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I had read it before. High school. Tenth grade, maybe. I wasn’t impressed then. I simply couldn’t relate to the early 20s lifestyle with the parties and drinking and the implied sexuality.

This time, however, I was hooked. I couldn’t put it down. In a grand total, over parts of three days, it may have taken me five hours to read. That’s a high estimate, I think.

I don’t know why I chose to pick up this particular book. I do a lot of reading at work. So much so, that sometimes it’s difficult for me to enjoy reading outside of work.

In recent memory, books of fiction I have read over the past 10 years: All seven Harry Potter books. And maybe 10-12 Perry Mason mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner … they’re short, quick and interesting. And a book called “Name the Baby.” (It’s not a parenting book.)

But that’s it. Lots of magazine articles and newspaper stories and tons more online, but not many books.

But as for this book, it makes me think, how many books do we push as “classics” in high school lit classes that simply go misunderstood by kids? I think maybe I just didn’t have the life experience at 15 or whatever to fully grasp this story.

Though, I say that knowing I was reading William Faulkner and John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway at the same time and enjoying them. And those three, particularly Faulkner, are no walk in the park and certainly not always easy to understand.

But it makes me wonder what else I should try and read again, knowing I may find myself reading a totally different book than I first encountered in my high school literature class.

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Which one of these is not like the others?

Posted in Odd with tags , , , on July 26, 2008 by macmystery
Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and, ... Ludacris?

Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and, ... Ludacris?

This is an Associated Press picture from Friday night’s basketball exhibition between the United States and Canada in Las Vegas.

The three fellows taking in the game together?

Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and rapper Ludacris.

Uh, is this normal for these three to hang out? No. 1 and No. 2, I can see … but Ludacris?

Just found it interesting …

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