Recently, Random's thoughts about his girl child's fourth birthday prompted me to muse about the passage of time.

Michele Catalano recently posted some similar thoughts of her own on the subject.

Last night, I found this video of a hilarious (but unaired) XBOX ad that really encapsulates the feeling I've been having recently. (Via New Links).

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Graham at Point2Point points out this archive of colorful illustrations from the 1940s and 1950s. Looks like the kind of place where Lileks would feel right at home.

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Kathy the Cake Eater has a thoughtful and thought-provoking post on the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz today.

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<sarcasm>

I'm sure this particular issue has not received the attention it properly deserves!

Write your congressmen!

Now!

I mean it!

Forward this to everyone in your address book!

I really, really mean it! This is so much more important than Kid Rock and Spongebob!

</sarcasm ends>

Via Rand Simberg, with whom I agree 100 percent on this.

I stopped using cursive in eighth grade. For quick notetaking I use a modified (and largely illegible to others) hybrid of print and script. Whenever I have tried to "fancy up" a thank you note by writing it in cursive, it looks like an eighth-grader's messy writing. Much better to print legibly than to adhere to a pointless old tradition.

I do almost all writing (including outlining and drafting, when applicable) on a keyboard these days. I occasionally plot out visual works (slideshows, web pages) with pen and ink, but do all content at the computer.

I say give the kids typing lessons for most of the time spent on cursive, and use just a small amount of time to teach them how to read cursive, which is still a valuable skill (the reading, that is). Let them learn it with calligraphy as an elective for occasional use. Otherwise, pitch it overboard.

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Nothing much tonight. Lots to write about but no energy. The stress of the week has strangled my muse.

Here's a link to Michele, who came up with the idea of summarizing your favorite movie in exactly seven words -- no more, no less. At last count, she had well over 400 comments (2 by me).

My movie, in seven words:

Jail. Mission. Reunion. Concert. Car Chase. Jail.

Know which one it is?

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Via Crooked Timber, yet another reason (#957?) to love the Internet:

I'm not a huge fan of Wagner, but the Goethe Institute has prepared an interactive multimedia site covering his Ring of the Niebelungen. While aimed at youth, the site is quite rewarding (and presented in German or English).

I paged through some of the comic strip version in German and found it quite entertaining and interesting. This would definitely be a great resource for anyone seeking greater familiarity with the Ring, with the German language, or both.

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I coach my sons' recreational soccer teams. My daughter (age 5) played soccer for the first time in the Fall in a different rec league. A referee made a good call in one of her games that led to the other team's not getting a goal. At the end of the game, which they tied, the other team's coach was telling his little girls that it was all right, they won anyway, and the score was really one for his team, one for their opponents, and one for the ref.

Five year olds.

Ass.

Fortunately, most parents, coaches, and refs over the five years that I've been coaching have been very positive. They want the kids to learn to play and to play their best, but only as a means of having fun and getting some exercise. They have not been fanatical about winning or ashamed of losing.

So I'm glad to see that Hockey Canada has assembled a set of wonderful public service announcements to drive home the message that parents should be good sports.

If you've got a fast internet connection, check out the videos here.

The kids are watching. And they repeat what they see and hear.

(link via Bad Jocks).

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I saw this slogan on the bumper of a car this morning: Some Things Exist Whether Or Not You Believe In Them. It was black with an eldritch white script. Made me think of something a neo-pagan or wiccan would sport.

I usually don't parse bumper stickers too closely, but this one really got the neuronic flywheel spinning. I'm sure it was meant to assert a reality beyond this one, whether or not you believe in it. But if you take it literally, it really describes nothing mystical at all.

I mean, the Internet exists, whether or not I believe in it.

And that table exists, whether or not I believe in it.

Her car exists, whether or not I believe in it.

You get the idea. I guess you could just say that existence exists, whether or not you believe in it.

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Today's Geekpress contained a link to this fascinating article explaining how to write English like Chinese (Hanzi or Kanji).

I've been beating my head against Kanji and the Kana alphabets of Japan for the past few years. This article really enlightened me on the radical-root system for listing Chinese characters. Check it out.

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Cheesecake, electric organs -- what more could you ask for? All this and more from this great gallery of album covers (mostly from the late-50s to early 60s, judging by their look). It doesn't have Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass's Whipped Cream and Other Delights, which was the raciest-looking album in my parents' collection, but I won't hold that against them.

(Via J-Walk, via RocketJones).

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A cool book meme (from Lintefiniel Musing aka Jen Speaks, via the Llamabutchers). Remove the names of the authors you don't have currently on your bookshelves and bold the ones you've added.

1. Michael Crichton
2. Neal Stephenson
3. Tom Clancy
4. Robert Heinlein
5. CS Lewis
6. JRR Tolkien
7. Ayn Rand
8. Larry Niven
9. Yann Martel
10. David James Duncan

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Everything you wanted to know (and some stuff you didn't) about the Michael Jackson creepy pedophile allegations.

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For those of you who don't follow Neal Stephenson or SF, The Baroque Cycle is an ambitious trilogy of 900-plus page novels, all set during the height of the Enlightenment in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. I have just finished reading Quicksilver, the first volume, which Stephenson painstakingly wrote in longhand on cotton parchment with a fountain pen (to get into the historical mindframe).

There are no significant spoilers here, but if you haven't read any of it yet and are sensitive to learning any details ahead of time, don't read any further. The rest of this is below the fold:
more...

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I have to apologize that my earlier-promised essay on religion has stalled. I thank everyone who replied to the poll, but I'm encountering one of the great frustrations with blogging: I keep finding that others are already writing on the same subject matter and stimulating some great commentary. At this point, I don't know what I can add.

I'll provide my answers to my poll, along with some general commentary soon. In the meantime, check out Naked Villainy, Bill, Rand Simberg, John Scalzi, and Timothy Sandefur (and guests) for some thought-provoking material.

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