Fundamentalism is pretty scary. Anybody nutty enough to kill a person just because they don't believe in that's person's particular fictional superbeing should be locked up for the benefit of all mankind. And yet Dominionism (the belief that Christians have a divine mandate from God to dominate the Earth) is alive and well among America's Christian population, and we really should sit up and take notice. Due for release in October 2006 is "Left Behind Games" latest offering: Left Behind -- Eternal Forces. A video game in which Christian soldiers are called upon to raid the streets of New York City where they must convert or kill liberals, moderate Christians, Catholics, Jews, homosexuals -- pretty much anyone who doesn't fit into the dominionist Christian worldview. Yeah you heard that right. Here. In America. Melting pot of diversity? Or cesspool of intolerance? ...   more »

---

Please join me in wishing my father, Doug, a happy 67'th birthday--a wish well deserved for one of the most wonderful people I've ever known.  I'm biased of course, but it's hard not to think well of someone who has been there when you needed them for pretty much your entire life.  Perhaps picking your kid up and dusting them off when they're down, challenging them to see the world in a new way, teaching them everything from basic math to driving, instilling in them a fascination for science and an appreciation of critical thinking, and presenting a strong moral example are just part of the job description for any parent.  But I'm grateful just the same.  

Happy day, Pop!  See you this weekend!

---

I picked up the BloodRayne Director's Cut DVD last week and watched it the same evening. Rayne, the bitchy and beautiful dhampir (half-vampire) who slices up nazis and evil vampires in the BloodRayne video games (BloodRayne and BloodRayne II by Majesco) is such an interesting character that I had been really anticipating the BloodRayne movie right up until I discovered Uwe Boll was directing it. I figured that would pretty much be the kiss of death for it. But I decided to give it a chance and went out and got the DVD anyway...   more »

GM, in an effort to get more people to buy its crappy gas-guzzlers in Florida and California, has offered to cap the price of gas at $1.99/gallon for a year for those who buy some of their most mileage-inefficient vehicles...   more »

This is something I find myself asking each morning as I drive in to work from Fitchburg. We've got some local road work going on... there are pipes laying by the side of the road everywhere, and for some reason the road crew doesn't include a police officer to direct traffic...   more »

On Mother's Day seven of us went to Deerfield, MA to see the sights.  Check these new photo albums to read about our day:

• Yankee Candle -- South Deerfield, MA
• Magic Wings -- Deerfield, MA

I posted a new photo to Photos/Nature/Spring2006.

So Lynnea was feeding the cats tonite, and was pouring water into one of their bowls.  In so doing she suddenly noticed bits of food floating in the bowl.  I said "Lynnea, typically we put dry food in that bowl and water in the other one."  She got a sheepish grin on and said "aw snap!"

Last night I played an incredibly fun and amusing game of Magic: the Gathering with a friend at a local card shop. After an evening of fairly intense gaming we decided to kick back for the last game of the night with a more relaxed tribal game. Surprisingly it turned out to be the most intense, interesting, and longest game of the night and demonstrated the effectiveness of white control even in the most dire of straights. My opponent gained life at a ridiculous rate, passing the 200 mark at one point (each player starts at 20). By comparison I spent most of the game at 8 life. In the end? My opponent scooped to me (forfeited the game). Here's what happened...   more »

Some of you may have followed an exchange in the comments on my weblog a few weeks back about the end of the ShareCal experiment (which I had been conducting for 2 years using the idle time on many computers where I work). For those of you who missed that, here's an e-mail I sent around the office about it that summarizes it nicely...   more »

Okay, that's long enough... time for another name that movie! Today's Name That Movie is a spectacularly bad film, I mean a real dog. Some of you will not get this, but I have to believe at least one or two of you will (Tom and James, are you listening?)  This movie is so bad, I actually cooed when I found it sitting in the bargain bin!  Yes I'm aware of how disturbing the idea of me cooing is.  (Sorry about the image quality, but clearly the DVD transfer was made from either video or a low grade copy.)  On with the show...   more »