Web Site Ratings

ES1 alerted me to this post over at GruntDoc. It discusses a site which claims to scan your website and tell you what it would be rated if it were a movie.

It gave us a G rating.

I don't like that. I want PG at least. I'd be okay with PG-13. I'll try to fix this now.









First, some gratuitous violence, in the form of the Enterprise-D deciding that it doesn't like Toronto:








Next, some sexual references:

intercourse. more intercourse. fondling. even more intercourse.




Now, an alcohol reference:

I love scotch.



Finally, some naughty language:


poop.








There. Let's see if that fixes it.

Updated 8/16/07 to correct image links.

A simple question.

Is there any smell better than that of a fresh, made from scratch pie baking in the oven?

How to ruin the birth of your child

How to nearly get arrested on the day your first child is born, instructions provided by Some Dude.

1. Be rude, nasty, and mean to the labor nurses.
2. When they tell you your wife needs a c-section, insist on being in the room.
3. When anesthesia tells you that you can't because she will be getting a general anesthetic and hospital policy forbids it - declare loudly (with swearing) that you are the Health Care Proxy and that she can't stop you.
4. In response to being told that if you attempt to enter the OR, Security will be called to escort you out, refer to them as Flashlight Cops and say that you can take them.
5. Continue to yell at the staff so loudly that you can be heard three rooms away with all the doors shut.
6. When your family is taking you out of the room and into the hallway continue to swear and yell.
7. When you see security, immediately start yelling about how you can take them, they're thirty years older than you and swear at them, before they even say a word to you.
8. Threaten to punch on of the OB/Gyn residents.
9. Continue to curse and threaten Security as they escort you off hospital property.
10. Be informed that you might be let back tomorrow to visit you wife and new son, but will be arrested if you come back tonight.
11. Loiter just off hospital property and call the local news stations to report about the horrible treatment you recieved.
12. Swear at the local police officers.

Then thank God they decided not to arrest you.

For more about Some Dude or sumdood see here .

Schaedenfruede, or Christian Compassion?

Today, 2 of my coworkers & I stayed late after school. One of my fellow teachers was assaulted by a student, and two of us stayed as witnesses. I don't like to blog about what goes on at work because of privacy issues (not to mention the fact that I'm not tenured). But the basic problem with this student, endemic to many of our children, reminded me of Paris Hilton.

It is a basic narcissism. The belief that the rules don't apply to you. The feeling that if someone tries to remind you that you are subject to the same rules as everyone else, that they are hassling you.

I must admit that my first reaction upon hearing that Paris was returning to jail was one of pure pleasure. Hearing that she was reduced to tears brought me no end of joy. Was that wrong?

Really, no. My joy was in seeing someone who is emotionally an infant being finally forced into the real world. The lesson that we can't always have what we want is taught by real parents at roughly the same time as toilet skills. There is a narcissism to our current celebrity culture. It is the narcissism that causes people who are famous to think that they can do things they really can't*. It's the "the rules don't apply to me" feeling that makes Sheryl Crow drive a half dozen tour busses while telling people to use one square of toilet paper.

I see my kids and I know that if they don't shed the notion that they're above responsibility, they will never be able to hold down a job, and will end up in the gutter. Paris is headed in the same direction. Sooner or later, people will get bored of her. With no talent or skills to fall back on, she'll end up alone and burnt out.

Right now, she is being shocked out her comfort zone. She is finally experiencing the fact that everything she has can be taken away. She is finally seeing that her celebrity status does not impress everyone. If she is lucky, this might shock her into taking stock of her life and realizing what is important and what isn't. Her entire celebrity has been the brilliant marketing of absolutely nothing**

If this can knock her into actually building herself a real life, it will truly be something to rejoice over. It's what I hope for for my students.

*Yes, the Dr. Nic is my own ES1.

**which is actually a perfect description of her figure too. I never understood why so many other men found her attractive. Christina Ricci prior to her recent weight loss: hot. Lindsey Lohan around when she filmed "Mean Girls": hot. Morena Baccarin: do I even need to say? Paris: not so much.

Cue the Theme Music

ES1 & I were watching my birthday gift from her - The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. We were watching the episode "Riverboat." We had already decided that we were going to bed right after this episode.

The episode was nearing the climax. I flipped over to Drudge to briefly check the headlines.

Precisely as the climactic theme music popped up, I saw the headline:

Immigration Bill withdrawn.

ES1 & I are both children of immigrants. Her mother is an immigrant. My parents and brothers are both immigrants. I was the first US born in my family. I later became the first to attend a catholic school since 1536. To call us anti-immigrant would just be moronic.

The amnesty bill was a proverbial kick in the nads to everyone who had been waiting patiently in line to immigrate the right way; my oldest brother is on the citizenship waiting list. Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way.

If someone comes to your front door, you welcome them with open arms and make them part of the family. Assimilate does not mean forget your heritage. Assimilate means you learn English, call yourself American and renounce allegiance to your previous homeland. Then you teach us your traditions and, most importantly, teach us how to cook your food. Assimilate means that what you came from enriches what we all are. But you're now one of us. We are all changed and improved by your addition. But you are one of us.

Again, if someone comes to your front door and rings the bell, you welcome them with open arms. If they sneak in through your basement window you deal with them appropriately.