WNBA

I am going to try and be a better feminist.
(By feminist, I mean that girls and boys should have equal rights & opportunities)

Lucky for me, the Seattle Storm is going to be staying in town. Looks like a local group has bought the Seattle Storm away from the Sonics ownership, and thus the Storm will stay in town. (Sonics ownership is probably thinking “woo-hoo, we made $10 million for a team that was losing money.)

Now, here’s the thing that makes me sad. In basketball, boys and girls aren’t payed the same. I know, it has to do with supply and demand. And I’m not suggesting any crazy socialist equality of wage scheme.

That means that if Miss Squeaky and Mr. Grunty become basket-ball super stars, Mr. Grunty will make WAAAYYYY more money than his sister.

Currently, the WNBA has a salary cap of $750,000.
The NBA currently will pay $754,700 for the twenty-sixth round pick in his first year.

I think a way to rectify this, is for more people to go to WNBA games.
So, I challenge all the sportsfans that consider themselves feminists to go to a couple of WNBA games this coming season. Miss Squeaky will appreciate it.

discuss

“Theories of the origin of life based on metabolic cycles cannot be justified by the inadequacy of competing theories: they must stand on their own.”

Is this true, do we have to accept a theory because there isn’t a better one out there? If that’s the case, was Ptolemy right/true/science until Copericus came along? Or can we say, “this theory doesn’t work because of A, B and C”? without being burdened to find a better theory?

weekend

wow…I’m tired
I think I spent most of the weekend trying to get over some stupid cough. Friday night MyBetterHalf was kind and let me sleep in the loft, and promised to take care of the babies, but get me if she needed me. I even locked the cats out, because they’ve been known to wake us up a time or two (Like this morning, Mr. Oliver!)

(“NO, I’m not faking it!”…sorry, Miss Squeaky and I are always accusing each other of fake coughing.)

Recent developments, Miss Squeaky likes to take stuff. Especially if her brother is playing with it.

Mr. Grunty is getting better at sitting, getting more balance.

We bought a rug for the living room. It is so funny to me, that people love the hard-wood floors, and then go buy throw-rugs to cover it. Why not just carpet the whole floor in the first place?

Well, with the carpet, Miss S had drooled on it within 37 nanoseconds. It makes it softer when Mr. G loses his balance, and bonks his head. Miss S was doing pushups on it, after she was on her hands and knees for a minute. (Later she scooted backwards so her feet were under the sofa, trying to get to the toy that her papa had put just out of her reach.)

We tried to buy curtains. But evidently we have misshaped windows.

Last night we braved the threat of snow to have dinner down south. It was very nice. There was a toddler that Mr. Grunty thought was really cool. (Although the toddler was a bit distressed sometimes at how much Miss Squeaky was drooling on his toys.) We got to listen to one of Blub’s students play the guitar. (Nice finger picking!)

We took them grocery shopping this morning. But they were tuckered out from curtain shopping, and so fell asleep in the cart, they had parental coats wrapped around them for support. I thought it was very cute.

package stimulation

…so, once again the guv’ment is trying to bribe us into being happy citizens and spending our way out of a recession.

Well…I gots to admit, I do like the money.

But, here’s the thing…so the Fed is giving us back the tax dollars that we gave them. Uh…is the fed going to reduce spending, or just keep spending the same amount, even after they returned some of it to us. I think a rebate is great if the IRS collects more than the Congress spends. But, if I know Congress, they’ll spend like drunken debutantes. So, just more debt for Mr. Grunty and Miss Squeaky to deal with. Won’t they be thrilled.

Which leads me to…

yesterday’s games

well sportsfans…

The Patriot-Charger game was a bit boring.

I didn’t see most of the Packers game, I wasn’t too worried. I was sure they would win and all that. Uh-oh…some team from NewYork…led by somebody’s younger brother….

So it looks like an Northern East Coast Superbowl.
In Arizona. Who can take the heat better?

I predict New England wins by 20 points.

play & learn

…this one goes out to a friend up North whose daughters are playing string instruments….

One of the most important things for a young musician is ear training. I believe this should start very early in their education. The ability to hear something, and reproduce it is essential for a musician. (I am not very good at it.) I will even say that ear-training is more important than reading music. For example, the Beatles. I had been playing in orchestra for six years before I encountered a teacher that started working on my ear training.

How does one develop the ear? By trying to duplicate what you hear. There are legions of guitarists that literally wore out their records playing a song over and over again. (Hmmm…CDs certainly change the story.)

I will suggest, that for the beginning string player, that they get an easy melody that starts with the lowest note of the song. That way the first note, they can use any open string, and then play the rest of the notes on that string. Also, if they pick a song that they KNOW by heart, then you don’t have to worry about tuning your instrument to the stereo. (Because some people tune their guitars low, I’m looking at you Mr Hendrix, Slash, and grungy guitarists.)

Good first songs to teach yourself

“Happy Birthday” -very useful
“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “the Alphabet song”
“Row Row Row Your Boat” -later you can play the round on your guitar
“Pop Goes the Weasel” -fun
“Oh Christmas Tree”

We all have these songs etched into our brains. As musicians, we need to be able to play them at the drop of a hat. Do not look up the answer on the interweb. Don’t ask a friend how it’s done. Spend time, each day, alone with your instrument trying to make the notes for the song appear. At first it will be Double-Plus-Un-Fun. But after a week, you’ll see it get better.

(I hope our friend Blub has more suggestions”

more advanced stuff:

football today

Go GreenBay
Go Patriots

Republican -vs- Evangelical

My gut feeling is that this is bad. “Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is preparing another round of letters to Christian television ministries, prodding them to answer questions about their spending and the way they are governed, a spokeswoman said Thursday.”

I can sorta see how Congress can do it, because it looks like a tax issue. But I kinda feel that if a Church wants to pay their preacher a billion dollar salary, that is an issue for the congregation and ultimately God to deal with.

But as long as the preacher is legally filing his taxes, I don’t see the problem for Congress to deal with. Likewise, if a charity wants to pay it’s director a billion dollars, then that is an issue for their donors, who, we hope will quit donating. As long as the director legally files his taxes.

Theologically I believe that hippies are closer to the lifestyle of the Apostles than the a “‘prosperity gospel’ that God wants his followers to flourish financially”.

scriptures…

Serafina

way back in October a friend got me a gift card to Serafina’s…did I mention it was Oct of ‘06?

Well…stuff came up…but finally me and MyBetterHalf got a chance to go.

I enjoyed it, and would go again.
I had Trota al Tartufo
MyBetterHalf had Bistecca alla Griglia

I liked her stuff better. Especially the polenta fries.

I am not really a fancy-shmancy type of guy. But I like it when someone use food as their artistic medium, instead of something for sustenance. If I could take a pill, six days a week that took care of my nutritional requirements, and on the seventh day eat art. That would be great.

Even though I never really graded “Ratatouille” there was a part in there, where the culinary rat was trying to explain to his brother about how different tastes go together. Yeah, I kinda agree with the rat. There’s so much more to life than just eating because you’re hungry.

poor foods

So researchers at the University of Washington say that it is expensive to eat healthy.

I have not read the journal articles, only the press releases.

Fresh fruit and vegetables have jumped 20% in past two years….Drewnowski and Monsivais argue that the study provides yet another piece of evidence that obesity isn’t just a personal problem — it’s an economic one.

“We need to focus on bigger-scale changes, like the farm bill or other policy measures that can address the disparity in food costs,” Monsivais said.

“It not a question of being sensible of silly when it comes to food choices, it’s about being limited to those foods that you can afford.”

Uh…we need a farm bill to help fight obesity? I respectfully disagree.
Once again, GBAtT will have to say, “Not all good ideas make good laws.” Because I can just see it now, some organic oregano farmer will be paid to hand wash his oregano, so he can sell it to yuppies at a profit.