I would say that I was bored this afternoon, but that’s not really true. I actually had a lot of things I should have been doing, but instead I was playing around with adding music to the blarg. Now I know what you’re thinking…"oh stupid music that starts playing when I go to your website and I have to search fo the dumb thing so I can turn it off!" That might be how it works on whorespace, err, myspace, but I think you’ll like this system.

Over on the right is a small button which will expand when you move the mouse over it. Internet Explorer users need to click on it first and then it will start working. What this button will let me do is post music for people to listen to. If you want to listen, you can. If you don’t want to listen, you don’t have to. If you don’t, it should sit over there and stay out of your way.

Currently you’ll find three songs by three bands you’ve probably never heard of. Two of them I scoured the entire internet (that’s right, the whole thing) to find. The third one, by Rehasher, is a side band of the lead singer from Less Than Jake, at least one of them anyways. In the future, if I come across new songs I find interesting, I will now have the ability to post them for your listening pleasure.

Have you seen the recurring Washington Mutual commercials that show stuffy bankers gawking at things like free checking and no atm fees? Have you noticed that in these commercials all the stuffy bankers are older white males? Have you also noticed that the friendly and reputable Washinton Mutual banker is young and black?

What I draw from this is that it’s ok to portray negative stereotypes on television, as long as they’re of white people. Now usually I can’t stand the forced multi-culturalism of most commercials. Take diaper commercials for example. There is always a white, black, and asian baby. So why do I care about this commercial? For one it’s negatively portraying a group of people, and second is that the group was probably purposely made to be all white. There are at least 15 people in the commercial in the evil white banker group and not a single one is a minority. Imagine a commercial where one whole group was black people portrayed negatively and contrasted with a good white person. The NAACP would be crying racism at the top of their lungs.

What a response time! It appears that Islamo Facists needed less than one week after the Pope’s comments to start killing people! A nun was gunned down in Somalia in what is most likely a response to the Pope’s recent speech.

I didn’t comment on it at the time, but the day after the Pope’s speech, Henry Kissinger warned that we are facing a "war of civilizations." This didn’t get much air-time, because after all, pointing out the violent and dangerous nature of Islamic states is taboo. This killing is just another example of the stark difference between civilized democratics nations and Islamic countries.

Time and time again Islamic countries and Islamic terrorists are showing what a danger they are to the world. This is not something that will go away if we simply ignore it. What liberals and most people don’t understand is that this battle is much bigger than just fighting terrorists. People with the same ideals as the terrorists are running entire countries. Women are stoned to death for adultery and the President of Iran wants Israel wiped off the map. As we sit around trying to appease Iran they are busy developing nuclear weapons. Let’s not forget the failed appeasment of Hitler in the 1930′s, because history is repeating itself.

I’m tired but feel like posting something. Here’s a small sample of the idiocy of late:

• Rosie O’Donnell thinks "radical Christianity" is just as dangerous as "radical Islam." Nevermind that six Muslim nations officially carry the death penalty for homosexuals. Even more saddening is the reaction from the crowd. What the crap are you clapping for idiots? I have failed to notice the Christian suicide bombers around the world threatening to kill anyone who does not convert.

• The Pope points out the violent nature of Islam, to which many Muslims get violent about. Could he have been more right?

• Gas prices go up: life is bad. Gas prices go down: life is good. Consumers too idiotic to objectively judge their current happiness: par for the course.

• On the new Survivor contestants are split by race, and some feel the need to "represent" their race. I don’t care what color you are, you don’t represent anyone but yourself. Just shut up with the awareness for miniorities BS and get past the color of your skin. When you say "I’m proud to be a minority" and constantly invoke the color of your skin, eventually you will become the racist, not the people willing to accept you for your qualities as a human being.

• Arnold seems confused lately. First he raises the minimum wage to $8 by 2008. Minimum wage should be outlawed you socialist! Has he never been to the Subway at Florence and Paramount? The people there are way overpaid, thus proving why minimum wage is such a stupid idea (not to mention the economic forces like incentives that people don’t need when they get paid more just for being idiots). Now he’s signed a bill that makes using a cell phone in the car illegal. Why is this stupid you might ask? I think it’s a good idea, but the dumb bill doesn’t go into effect until 2008 (uhh, how about now?), and even then the first offense fine is only $20! It goes up to $50 after that, but who on earth is going to be deterred by a $20 fine? It’s not even worth the police officer’s time to pull someone over for a $20 fine. Some smart moves Arnold.

• Finally, if you haven’t heard, church let John go this last week. If it’s not public knowledge it will be in a couple days. I’m confused by this move, as if the music is the greatest concern church leadership feels needed to be dealt with. There is so much more I’d like to say about this, but I will bite my tongue.

Thank you for letting me vent about all the idiocy going on lately. I’m sure there is more, but that’s all I have for now. So now it’s your turn. Anyone want to get pissed at me for not liking minimum wage, sticking up for a Catholic, calling Arnold a socialist (and making it sound bad, because it is), insulting the intelligence of the average citizen, pointing out that minority status does not make you immune to being a racist, or finally for bashing church leadership?

Last night we went to our first homeowner’s association semi-annual meeting. We went because we were curious what went on and what it was like, and we weren’t disappointed.

There are 300+ units on our street, and everyone is welcome at the meeting. Not surprisingly though, there were a lot of older folk present. Not only do the attendees skew older, they also tend to be weirder than your average joe. This combination led to a very amusing evening. Most people are there to complain about something, so it’s great listening to old/senile people complain about a weed growing over a fence. You would think the apocalypse was near.

Another interesting observation was the way people handle themselves. Apparently if the person talking is annoying you, it’s ok to yell out that they should sit down and be quiet. From what I could tell, the gentleman behind us does not like anyone, maybe even on the whole planet.

The best exchange of the night was from an older fellow named Mike. It would seem that Mike walks around the complex all day long looking for things to report at the semi-annual meeting. "If you are between 9700 and 9850….those aren’t mushrooms….on the grass…it’s POISON! Between 9350 and 9550 there is a branch….hanging OVER the fence! For SEVEN YEARS! At 9876 there is a UFO over the house!" Ok, I made that last one up, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him say that. In his defense, he could probably qualify as one of my sister’s patients, but it was still very interesting.

I’m already looking forward to the next semi-annual meeting. I’ll make sure to post the details in case anyone else wants to come.

I have a 19" computer monitor sitting on the floor next to my computer taking up space if anyone wants it. It’s a Samsung Syncmaster 950p. It will be 6 years old in January, but it still works. Not as crisp as an LCD, but "free" is also much cheaper than an LCD. If you want it let me know. Anybody at church Mike?

I will be in bed by 10:30 pm and back to work tomorrow. I might even throw on a tie to scare the little boogers. The tie demands respect! Good luck to everyone else going back to school for the educational value.

Update: I pulled out all the stops and wore the tie! I need to buy some new Dockers because the ones I have are only a 30 waist which is kinda tight. Even if I dress nice I still need to be comfortable. I have a problem with dress shirts though because I’m so lanky. They all tend to be really baggy and puffy on me, and I don’t like that. Enough about my wardrobe.

First day went fine and I’m sure this year will be just as good as the last, but I’m going for better. I’m putting a strong emphasis on being organized this year, and especially up front. I think that putting in the extra effort to implement procedures the first 2-3 weeks can make the rest of your year way easier. It might take more work to begin with, but come May it will be nice to not have kids ask if they can throw away their trash. The answer is no by the way. Kids love to crumple up papers in the middle of a lesson for no apparent reason and then think they should be able to get up and throw it away.

Hope everyone else had a good first day back, crazy High Schoolers included.

You put a light bulb into a socket, turn it on, and you have light. Light only comes in one form, on or off. Or does it?

Believe it or not, a light bulb is putting out more than just lighting, it’s also putting out color. Unless you live in a black-lighted gothic room, it’s probably putting out a shade of white light. If you’ve ever painted a house you know that there are more shades of white available than anything else. So the question is, what shade of white is your house being lit with (and why does it matter)?

To see this represented visually, take a look here or above. White light will "match colors produced by a black-body radiator at certain temperatures in kelvin." I’m not entirely sure what that means, but looking at the graphic, notice how color temps to the left are more red/yellow, and color temps to the right are more blue. If you are at a computer (sorry to my minions of cell/pda readers) you probably have a color temperature setting on your monitor. The generally accepted "whitest" color is around 6500k. Try playing around on your monitor setting the color temperature higher and lower, and you should see the difference as shown in that chart.

So what does this all mean for your light bulbs? The cheapy regular incandescents most of us have in our house have a color temperature rating of less than 3000k, a far cry from that holy grail of 6500k. This makes the lighting tend to be very yellowish. However, usually ignorance is bliss. If every light looks yellowish, you probably can’t tell. If you have flourescent bulbs in your kitchen though you might be able to see a difference. Most flourescents tend to be closer to 6500k than most incandescents. In our house the kitchen has always had a very nice white look, but the neighboring dining area is very yellow. Having these two areas right next to each other made the difference very obvious.

If you’re curious and want to see the difference, I recommend checking out some of the "natural" or "daylight" bulbs sold in stores. They usually come in two varieties. Flourescent bulbs usually have a high lumen output (how bright they are) but most that I found were the spiral variety (bad for most of our fixtures). The other type are incandescent bulbs (old school kind) that are made with special glass that filters out the yellow (leaving the light "whiter"). You can browse some different bulbs here where I just bought some (the selection in most stores is lacking).

Make sure that when you are looking you can find out the lumen rating. Some of the daylight bulbs I’ve seen in stores are only rated at 500-600 lumens, but a regular incandescent is closer to 800 lumens. Lots of the daylight bulbs don’t list a color temperature rating, but if they’re advertised as daylight or natural, they should be closer to 6500k.