I stumbled across a link to the complete archive of Calvin and Hobbs.  It’s tempting to download all of the images just so I have a copy when the site is taken down for copyright infringement.

UPDATE:  The Calvin and Hobbs archive was taken down, but not for copyright infringement — two many people were linking to it and killing the site owners bandwidth.

via Science Blogs

I thought I was a bit of a Harry Potter geek, but given the chance to name a dinosaur, I’m thinking Dracorex Hargwartsia wouldn’t be the first name I would come up with.  The paleontologist who names it claims that the first part of the name (draco) is because the dinosaur looks a bit like a dragon -

“The creatureis a very special dinosaur that seems at home in a “Harry Potter” adventure,” explained Bakker. “It was a plant-eater, only about as heavy as the war horse of a medieval knight. And itcarried an armor-plated head of almost magical configuration, covered with knobs and spikes, horns and crests. I was staring at the skull last summer, and the name just popped into my head, hogwartsia, said Dr. Bakker.”

The new dinosaur species is from the pachycephalosaur dinosaur family. The skull with its mixture of spiked horns, bumps and a long muzzle caused some middle school children who saw the fossil in the museum’s Paleo Prep Lab to remark, “It looks like a dragon!”

but I’m not buying it.  He’s secretly a Draco Malfoy/Voldemort supporter.  He’s obviously predicting that Draco will come back in book seven to wreck Hogwarts.

I can’t wait to tell Justin about this one.

I just compiled the shipping version of our product in Dev Studio 2005.

Do you think it’s making a statement about the software? I can see the support calls coming in now -

• Customer: Hello, I just installed your software, and I’m having a few problems…
• Me: Okay, what type of problems?
• Customer: Well, for some reason the monitor keeps spinning around, and pea soup just shot out of the DVD drive.
• Me: That’s not a problem, that’s considered normal behavior.

I heard about this a while back…

BLACK JACK, Missouri (AP) — Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving were denied an occupancy permit after moving into a home in this St. Louis suburb because they have three children and are not married.

The town’s Planning and Zoning Commission proposed a change in the law, but the measure was rejected Tuesday by the City Council in a 5-3 vote.

The current ordinance prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by “blood, marriage or adoption.” The defeated measure would have changed the definition of a family to include unmarried couples with two or more children.

Mayor Norman McCourt declined to be interviewed but said in a statement that those who do not meet the town’s definition of family could soon face eviction.

Of course I think this law is stupid and possibly unconstitutional, but that aside, the math doesn’t work out for me:

1. The children are living with their parents, with whom I assume they are related, at least that’s the way they make it sound, so they are not in violation of the law.
2. Each parent is related to each of the 3 children, so they are only living with 1 person that is not related to them - the other parent.

I don’t see how they are violating the ordinance.

Side note: Would it somehow be better if they were related, having children together, and not married?

The word peruse means the opposite of what you think it means:

peruse: v - To read or examine, typically with great care.

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Quote of the day:

“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”

–H.L. Mencken (1880 – 1956), American journalist, social critic, cynic and freethinker

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Bounce U and Pump It Up in Chesterfield are not the same place.  If you were standing on the roof of one, you could hit the other with a golfball shot from a three-man slingshot (if you bounced it off the pavement a few times).  Despite their close proximity to one another and the fact that they are essentially the same business, you can not find either one without a map or good directions.  Leaving the map to Pump It Up hanging on the bulliten board does not help you get there from Bounce U.

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Oddly, I don’t have a strong opinion about the political soup d’ jour — Illigal immigration.  Part of me says - most of them are doing more good than harm by providing a cheap workforce for low skill jobs, and frankly all of us can trace our roots to immigration, so who cares, let them be.

The other part of me says - go through the proper channels and come here legally.  If you set up roots in a country that specifically told you not to, well sorry, you knew the risks, and if you get caught and deported, it’s not like you didn’t know it was a possibility.

Actually I think most people don’t have a strong opinion on this — it is just the politicians trying to create an election year issue.  We already have laws we aren’t inforcing, including fining companies that hire illigal immigrants, but enforcing those laws doesn’t give politicians anything to talk about to boost their ratings.

In the end, the longer we let the politicians talk about this, the more it will cost us.

The new hockey season started last week and with it, we shuffled some players.  Our goalie from last session has moved to defense and we picked up another defenseman with a good shot from the point.  We also added a new goalie (obviously) and he went the first 85 minutes (almost two full games) without giving up a goal — then, in the last 4 minutes of last night’s game, he gave up 4 goals.  It wasn’t pretty.  Why watched our 5 - 0 lead disappear incredibly fast.  We still won, 6 -4, and the goalie is pretty damn good, but it was amazing to play in a game that turned around that fast.  On the night I had an assist (should have gotten credit for a second), and a 2 minute high sticking penalty.

Here’s the way the penalty went –

I was trying to steal the puck away from one of Justin’s coaches, who happens to be the best defensemen on the other team.  As we are fighting for the puck against the boards, he grabs my stick and pulls it up against his chest.  I eventually got the puck, but the blow the whistle and call me for high sticking.  Justin’s coach calls over to me (with a big smile on his face), “Hofer, you hacker.”  Then after I get out of the penalty box, he skates over and asks if I liked that move.  I said, “Yeah, but I don’t remember you teaching the boys that one.”

Please excuse Jim from work today, he is suffering from Vernal Hyperthermia.  It is a highly contagious condition, so it is best if he stay away from coworkers for the time being.

But instead I’ll stare out the window at the nice day.