Stop-Action Video: A New Hope

I know, Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" was MTV's Best Video Ever (tm) in the late 1980s, so how could stop-action get any better? Well, you could cross it with Legos, Star Wars, and America's favorite postage stamp.

Texas is to Canada as Iowa is to Venezuela

Or so the map below would indicate.


Why? Find out here.

Ready

I've passed some sort of biological/psychological milestone. As of yesterday, every time I get a call from Kerry, I think it's because she's gone into labor.

But am I really ready? A new reason to know "no": One of my bosses was traveling to Pakistan this week. "Was traveling", because as he was leaving London, he got word that his daughter's appendix had burst. So he landed in Dubai and turned right around. I can't imagine how that must have felt.

The very good news is that Paul's daughter is recovering fine. The lesser good news is that I'm not traveling to Pakistan any time soon.

Christian Allen, arriving (ding ding)

Congratulations to our cousin Shelby on the birth of her first child, Christian Allen. There were a couple of false starts, but she finished it off today. And as far as we know, everyone is resting happily.

Thanks to Cousin E and AP for keeping us posted via email and text message. (Actually, this post is surely redundant, as every Hollerer reader who knows Shelby has no doubt heard the news through other channels. Oh well. For some mysterious reason, I just feel like calling attention to the birth of a child.)

The trouble with censorship

This Reuters article is about editors at a newspaper in China who were fired for allowing an advert honoring the mothers of those killed at Tienanmen Square. It's a relatively heavy piece for Oddly Enough, which tends to highlight incompetent criminals, wild animals wandering through cities, and the like. I think this story got filed under "odd" because of how the advert got in the paper. It did not refer to Tienanmen Square by name, mentioning only "June 4". Thanks to the effectiveness of state censorship, the young clerk had no idea what June 4 meant, never mind that it might be something verboten.

OPEC makes a point

According to the lead story in the Financial Times today, in response to increased US and European interest in biofuels (eg, ethanol), OPEC is threatening to curtail investment and send oil prices "through the roof" (a direct quote from the Secretary General of OPEC).

Yes, double the price of oil. That will teach people to look for alternatives.

Dreams

I have declared that all dreams Kerry and I have until Genghis arrives are impending parenthood anxiety dreams (iPad - take that, Steve Jobs). Not that it has required keen insight to see it on my part. Two nights ago, I dreamed I was scheduled to take a qualifying exam to skipper some sort of small, Coast Guard vessel. I had not been studying or practicing enough, and it was becoming increasingly clear that I was not going to pass. Last night in slumbertown, Kerry and I were taking our last childbirth course. Improbably, the course was being taught in a classroom lecture style, with extensive math concerning frequency and duration of contractions, etc. More improbably, the class was being taught by our differential equations prof from Rice. And to cap it all, Kerry asked a question about drugs for fathers to increase the level of support provided during childbirth - Pitocin for pops.