Well I used to have some time for leisure, doing housework and talking with my family. That is now all gone since I got hooked on Farmville. What a time suck this is. I like computer games in general, but hate most of the computer games that are out there these days. The whole “first person shooter” genre bores me to tears. I have played the Civilization series for years and loved them all. But I have not found a game in a long time that I enjoy as much as Farmville.
I like the real-time aspect, the competition with friends, the strategy and the fun graphics.
Crop Analysis
I have spent a bit of time figuring out the best strategy to advance levels. It appears that the best option for points is to plant either Blueberries or Raspberries. This assumes that you have the time to harvest them every four hours. But even if you have gaps between harvest the berries are still th best bet, this holds true upto about 6 hour gap. Most crops wither after that amount of time.
I am interested
In my feelings. I seem to wish to have some importance
In the play of time. If not,
Then sad was my mother’s pain, sad my breath,
Sad the articulation of my bones,
Sad sad my alacritous web of nerves,
Woefully woefully sad my wondering brain,
To be shaped and sharpened into such tendrils
of anticipation to feed the swamp of space.
What is deep, as love is deep, I’ll have
Deeply. What is good, as love is good,
I’ll have well. Then if time and space
Have any purpose, I shall belong to it.
If not, if all is a pretty fiction
To distract the cherubim and seraphim
Who so continually do cry, the least
I can do is to fill the curled shell of the world
With human deep-sea sound, and hold it to
The ear of God, until he has appetite
To taste our salt sorrow on his lips.
Well my veggie garden started out great this year but we had some major issues. The weather was a disaster. It rained all June and July which put a big damper on growth. No rain in August, but my drip irrigation system worked fine.
We went on vacation in the midst of July and the weeds TOTALLY took over. I never recovered the garden back from that.
Next year I will need to do a few things differently. First, I need to find a good, cheap mulch to use. The wood chips that I got from the town transfer station were free, but they rob the soil of nitrogen. Second, I need to get my soil tested. From looking at was grew well and what did not I thing that I am short on nitrogen and to acidic. Test will tell.
Like a die hard Cubs fan, we chant “Next Year”.
In the mean time I will need to remove and drain the drip irrigation system before the serious cold weather hits and get my compost spread. Much to do, so little time.
I ran across this on the web today and it made me stop and think for a bit. Seems about on target to me.
Immortality does not beget wisdom.
Only mortality begets maturity.
There are people in this world who have had enough adventures for
several lifetimes. They are the closest conception we can have of
immortals. Yet some of these people are hopelessly immature. After all,
whenever life became difficult for them, they changed to a new path and
by luck the new one was always rich and fruitful. Life came so easily
that they took more than one helping.
Unfortunately, maturity only comes from the threat of mortality.
Success only comes from the threat of failure. Without pressure, we
would not plan, utilize wisdom, or exercise care. We realize that we
have only a very short time to make an achievement, to prove that our
existence was worthwhile, and so we strive harder. An immortal can never
conceive of such effort.
It would be good if our religious traditions provided us with a
foolproof way through life. After all, we live somewhat haphazardly: Our
lives are a tapestry woven of both mistakes and successes. Religion
doesn’t always provide us with a meaningful pattern. We must make our
decisions the best that we can, and as we mature, we can see our way
better.
We are motivated by death. We are frightened by failure. We have to
make our peace with this mysterious, sometimes hostile world. An
immortal does not need to cope with any of this. But we mortals must,
and we must strive to make a good showing for ourselves.
Of all the “This I Believe” segments that I have heard on National Public Radio, this is easily the one that I identify with the most.
There Is No God
by Penn Jillette
Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 · I believe that there is no God. I’m beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy — you can’t prove a negative, so there’s no work to do. You can’t prove that there isn’t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word “elephant” includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?
So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.
But, this “This I Believe” thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life’s big picture, some rules to live by. So, I’m saying, “This I believe: I believe there is no God.”
Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.
Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.
Believing there’s no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I’m wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don’t travel in circles where people say, “I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” That’s just a long-winded religious way to say, “shut up,” or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.” So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that’s always fun. It means I’m learning something.
Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.
I have a real issue with organized sports. My younger daughter is playing soccer this fall. It is the second year that she has played fall soccer. She loves to run and in the abstract she if very excited about soccer.
However that is not how it goes. Practice is a lot of fun for her. There are games and lots of running. The games themselves are not as much fun. She wants to play goalie and there is no goalie in first grade soccer; or she tends to sit on the ground; or run an fall on purpose; or just goof off.
It is my inclination to just let her do what ever, but at the same time I guess that she has an obligation to the team to pay attention and participate in the game. Her coach is very nice and tries hard to get her involved, but with limited success.
I am bored to tears by virtually all kinds of sports. I don’t watch them. I don’t play. I am uncomfortable with the importance and amount of energy we as a society invest in sports. I am not convinced that much of anything is learned. I know that she is supposed to learn to work as a team etc., but I don’t see that happening.
I had no idea that anyone over the age of about 25 cared even a little bit about the MTV Video Music Awards, wow was I wrong. Gauging from my inbox and from posts on Facebook, people are really into it who are in their late 30’s to late 40’s. Who knew?!?
I think that I stopped watching MTV around 1985, which I believe was when they stopped playing music. This whole dust up with Kanye West and Taylor Swift has only confirmed something I was already sadly aware of: I am old and dreadfully out of touch with current popular culture. I have only hear of Kanye West once before when he made a comment about George Bush hating black people. I have never heard of Taylor Swift! I was curious about the whole thing, so went to youtube and watched it. I did recognize the song that Swift won for, so at least I am not completely oblivious, just mostly.
The prevailing sentiment is the Kanye is a creep and the Beyonce did the classy thing by giving up her time to Taylor. Could be, but it would seem to me that MTV could have done the classy thing by giving time to Taylor later in the broadcast. This would have let Beyonce have her time as well. Just my two cents.
A couple of days ago our six year old asked: “Do you know about the blanket fairie?” I was forced to confess that I did not. She said, “Well, when a kid decides that they do not need their baby blanket any more, they put it under their pillow and the Blanket Fairie brings them a big girl or big boy present in place of the blanket.”
When I asked where she had learned of the Blanket Fairie she was evasive. However when asked what a “big girl” present might be she answered without hesitation: a dinosaur play set.
At this point she has not gotten to where she is willing to give up “Bear Inc”, which is what she calls her blanket. It does seem likely she laying the foundation for a future reward when she does go cold turkey. At this point we try and inforce the rule that Bear Inc is not to leave her beadroom, and we do inforce that it is not to leave the house. This slow restriction of the freedom of Bear Inc may be helping to get us to the point where she is no longer needed. Time will tell.
One of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. Craig Ferguson on the late show lip syncing to Spearhead’s “Say Hey, I Love You”. I really like Craig, but never stay up that late and no way I have the time to record it and watch later.
Well I have had the iPhone for a bit more than 2 months and for the most part I really like it.
In many ways it is a revolutionary device. The ability to really use the internet almost anywhere is amazing. I have re-written a couple of my own web sites to be able to use a bit better on the iPhone, but most site work without issue.
I have downloaded a gob of apps and some are great, other ho-hum and others just stupid. Among the apps that I really like are: WeatherBug, Facebook, Flixster,i.TV, Crayon, VLCRemote, Chopper and Shazam.
Downsides; better battery life, cut and paste could be easier, no arrow keys on the keyboard.
