Another Good Choice

Duke Cunningham is in jail for 8 years & 4 months, and now there are some shady revelations about a Republican candidate to replace him. (What a great district I'm in!) Howard Kaloogian [wikipedia link] posted a photo he claimed to have taken in Baghdad on his website to illustrate how calm and civilized it is. But as it turns out, it's in not Baghdad, or even Iraq, but Turkey. Yay!

Weekend Update

I finished reading Fevre Dream this weekend, and I thought it was very good. It makes me want to read more of Martin's non-Game-Of-Thrones fiction, but I have other books in the queue before that. Next is Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast (although I did get the graphic novel version of The Hedge Knight).

In other nerdy news, I Tivo'ed a few of the 2005 BBC Doctor Who episodes and I think I'll keep watching them. I remember the writing in the old Tom Baker/Peter Davison episodes as being maybe better than this, but I love seeing the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver and hearing that theme music again.

I got the Reason Drum ReFill too, but I haven't played with it too much yet.

Also, there are some new Easter Bunny baby photos up.

Islamic Law: 1500 Years of Getting Medieval On Your Ass

Here are two examples of why Sharia is a stupid basis for jurisprudence in the 21st Century. The first: Abdul Rahman, the Afghan who converted to Christianity, was being tried for apostasy, the punishment for which is death, until under pressure from foreign (read: "civilized") governments they had acquit him for being mentally ill. It's not just the crazy legal system; the overwhelming majority of his fellow citizens think he should be executed too. The second: an Islamic man divorces his wife while she's sleeping by saying "talaq" to her three times. That means they're divorced, and if they want to remarry she has to spend the night with another man, be divorced by him, and not remarry within 100 days. What a forward thinker that Muhammad was.

Ozzfest '06: Not Looking Good

Here's the lineup for this year's Ozzfest:

• Ozzy (not Sabbath)
• System of a Down
• Disturbed
• Hatebreed
• Lacuna Coil
• BLS (what a surprise!)
• Unearth
• Norma Jean
• Bleeding Through
• Atreyu
• Strapping Young Lad
• The Red Chord
• Full Blown Chaos
• Between the Buried and Me
• Walls of Jericho
• A Life Once Lost

That's a pretty crappy lineup compared to last year (Sabbath, Maiden, Arch Enemy, In Flames, Soilwork, Mastodon, Shadows Fall, etc). I was heartened last year that they actually had the balls to put on some real metal acts, but now we're back to a bunch of ClearChannel faves (System, Disturbed), emo-screamo (Norma Jean, Unearth) and hardcore bands. SYL is a good choice, and Lacuna Coil is alright, but otherwise... please. Who wants to go to Ozzfest to see a bunch of kids with backwards hair and girl pants (and that's just in the audience).

'06 World Baseball Classic Final

On Saturday night Miranda's grandma and I went to the World Baseball Classic semifinal between Korea and Japan, and last night we went back to the finals, Japan vs. Cuba. I wasn't sure who to cheer for but I decided on Cuba. Most of the white Americans there were cheering for Japan which I took to be because they didn't want to cheer for a communist country. But in Cuba they're all still driving around in 40-year-old chevys while in Japan they fly around in robot cars, so I went with the underdog. Japan won (10-6), thanks in part to some ninja-style pitching. I go to maybe three or four Padres games each year, but this series has been more engaging. I hope they keep it up.

Throwing the Goat

Here's an article about the increasingly lazy manner in which people are making the devil horn hand gesture. This writer has done his homework... I like the mention of the Gothenburg Death Rock contingent. And how do I get my name engraved in medieval calligraphy on glittering pages of steel?

Opeth @ House of Blues

Dustin and I went and saw Opeth and DevilDriver at HOB on Monday. Dark Tranquillity was supposed to play too, but apparently their bus broke down. DevilDriver were all heavy metal, and banged their heads like they were trying to shake them off. This was a good illustration of the difference I see between American and European metal. American metal bands are all trying to out bad-ass each other, full of pissed-off aggression like they're trying to be Slayer or something. Most of the Swedish bands play very heavy music but they don't seem angry, it's just heavy because they like it that way. I like it that way too: heavy but without the misdirected angst.

Opeth: Lopez was absent from the drums due to some blood poisoning condition he has and even though the substitute was a good player he didn't play the parts like he wrote them. Michael was very funny. They played some old stuff like Under The Weeping Moon. Someone asked for Black Rose Immortal, and Michael said "yeah, right." Then someone asked for I Hate Hip Hop and he said "that's a good song, and the lyrics are easy to remember. It goes 'I hate Hip Hop, I love heavy metal.'" They played White Cluster, The Amen Corner, Closure, Ghost of Perdition, The Baying of the Hounds, The Grand Conjuration and more that I can't remember. Good stuff.

Disaster Magnet: Drummerless Again

Dwight told me that their drummer Lane quit the band, again, this time for keeps. It's always the drummers, man. As a guitar player I recognized long ago that drummers are a flaky bunch, so I felt bad that as a drummer I had to flake on them too, thereby becoming part of the problem.

A Happy Accident

I found this picture with the caption "Reuters sends a subliminal message to Deadeye Dick: can you spot it?"

No More Paternity Leave

I dropped Mackenzie off at the day care center today for the first time. The lady was giving her a bottle when I left, so Mackenzie seemed happy enough. I hope it all works out.

I bid on a used copy of the Reason Drum Refills CD on eBay. I have been trying to resurrect an old song from my University days, which we called Hallowe'en. It was never completed at the time, but I'd like to finish it and record it under the name Sic Semper Tyrannis.

If the makers of any of these products would like me to endorse them, I will:

• Gilette Edge Clean Shaving Gel
• Desert Pepper Trading Company Corn, Black Bean, Roasted Red Pepper Salsa
• Kashi Go Lean Cereal
• Chipotle Mexican Restaurants
• Chef Jay's Tri-O-Plex protein bars

Disjointed Update

I'm off on paternity leve until next Wednesday.... We went snowboarding in Big Bear last weekend... Mackenzie is in the 97th percentile in height, 95th in weight... Posted photos online at homepage.mac.com/hamblins... Finished reading the Narnia Chronicles, picked up a signed copy of George R.R. Martin's Fevre Dream...

Cheney's Itchy Trigger Finger

Dick Cheney's shooting victim was released from the hospital over the weekend. I think that maybe the media read too much into this event; it was probably just Karma balancing its books. Cheney gets some bad publicity, and Harry Whittington? Well, he's an old, white, Texan, Republican lawyer. He was probably due a face full of birdshot for something.

Cutest... Picture... Ever.

Here's the baby picture that may be "the classic":

Mackenzie's Birthday

When Mackenzie was born, I went online to see with whom she shared a birthday. She is in good company:

• Robert E. Howard, author of the Conan stories, among other good things;
• Steven Adler, original drummer of Guns n' Roses;
• Bill Bixby, the actor who played Dr. Banner in the Incredible Hulk television show;
• Olivia d'Abo, who played hot chick Jhenna in the movie Conan the Destroyer

But also bad company:

• Steve Perry, singer from Journey;
• Jazzy Jeff, Will Smith's erstwhile sidekick;
• Michael Hutchence, original singer from INXS who purportedly died by choking himself while masturbating

Valentine's Day

Yesterday for Valentine's Day we went to a restaurant downtown called Le Fontainebleau, which was every bit as fancy as the name suggests. I was dressed nicely, I thought, but when we arrived I felt underdressed. Some people were in tuxedos. I got Miranda a gold necklace, and she got me a 1GB iPod Nano. I loaded it up with songs and some pictures of Mackenzie, but I have yet to use it at the gym since I've worked out with Tim on both days and didn't want to appear antisocial. Today I pyramided up to 7 reps at 335 lbs for squats, which was a personal best.

Speaking of antisocial, the other day we were walking by a coffee shop and there was a guy smoking a big stinky cigar on the patio. I said to Miranda "every time I see someone smoking a cigar, I think 'what a sociopath.'" Miranda said "Doesn't Arnold smoke cigars?" Yes, he does, but at least Arnold is deservedly a sociopath.

"Hundreds of Thousands" of Shi'ites Protest

Don't these people have jobs? I haven't seen this kind of reaction to a cartoon since the Spider-Man Clone Saga. Whatever you say about blasphemy vs. freedom of speech, there's no denying that these non-western Muslims just have really short fuses.

Creatine

I was alerted to this stupid article about creatine by Miranda's grandmother, who was worried because I have a jar of creatine on top of our fridge. It was in the San Diego Union Tribune over the weekend.

Where to start? First off, creatine is not a "designer" supplement; you may recall that "designer" was the same adjective used to describe the steroids from the BALCO scandal. It may be "made synthetically" but it is naturally occurring in meat and the human body, and manufacturing it synthetically is much easier than extracting it from these natural sources. Next, creatine is not a "steroid alternative" any more than, say, a banana or a walk in the park are "steroid alternatives." Muscle cramping is a known side effect but only if you aren't properly hydrated, and in that case you are more susceptible to muscle cramps anyway. Dropping Mark McGwire's name further associates it with steroids, and having actors' spokespeople "categorically" denying its use is just silly.

This is just another media-driven scare. Remember the ephedra hype? It was made illegal and was taken off the shelves, but apparantly it's legal again, at least in California. Wanna ban something that's dangerous? Try cigarettes.

My Picture of Muhammed

I just found out that Katatonia has a new album coming out in four days, a day before In Flames' new CD. When it rains it pours.

Here's a picture I drew of the prophet Muhammed. I hope you like it.

Caveman Babies

It's a wonder that there are any people around at all, given the disadvantages people have during birth and infancy. During the Roman era the life expectancy of humans was a scant 22 years. In prehistoric times you might live into your teens if you were lucky, so early humans probably didn't sport big long beards as they are often depicted. Humans have the disadvantage that we have large heads and narrow birth canals, so many babies and their mothers would have died in childbirth. Assuming baby and mother survived this, the infantile stage is very long for humans relative to their lifespan. They would be completely dependent on their mothers for the first several years and if the mother died, the baby would likely soon follow. Compare this to other animals that are running around within hours or days of birth. It's a good thing we have opposable thumbs, sophisticated vocal cords and are reasonably smart.

Mackenzie!

It's been almost two weeks since I posted, but that's because I've been busy with our new baby who was born at 7:31 am on Sunday, January 22nd. She was 10 lbs 1.2 oz and 21 inches tall.*

She's a very good baby. She doesn't cry much, she eats well, she's alert and she sleeps (so far) for long stretches at night (4.5 hours or so). She's a big bruiser for a newborn, but she still seems tiny to me. This is my first day back at work and I miss her already.

*I don't believe you should measured in length instead of height just because you are unable to stand up.

Macs, Metal and Mackenzie

Ars Technica performed its own benchmarks of the new Intel-based Macs, and their assessment was much more modest than what Steve Jobs presented earlier this month. So that makes me feel a little better.

Also, I heard the two preview tracks from the new In Flames release, Come Clarity, due out in two weeks. Their last few albums lost me somewhat since they were a departure from their trademark melodic sound. If these tracks are representative, this new album should be good. It sounds like a good blend of their recent stuff and their older stuff, and I'm glad they are gaining such commercial success.

Our baby is due on Tuesday. I'm starting to slightly freak out now.

{Unintelligible Noise}

Apple announced that they will be shipping the new Intel-based "MacBook" laptops starting in February. This bullshit page shows all the performance benchmarks that make the PowerBook G4 that I just got in November look like a Speak & Spell.

The least they could do would be to try to blow wind up the asses of those of us who two months ago bought a computer that was touted as the "Mercedes Benz" of laptops only to have it replaced by a computer that claims to be 4X faster for the same price. Sheesh.

Craig Titus & Kelly Ryan

This is fairly shocking, and I must be out of the loop because this story has been developing for over two weeks. Bodybuilder Craig Titus and his wife, fitness competitor Kelly Ryan, have been arrested for the murder of their assistant. There is a website devoted to coverage of this story, called www.freecraigtitus.com. These two have traditionally hosted the Mr. Olypmia after-party, which I went to two years ago. It was actually kind of a dull party; not a lot of pros were present. Anyway, lots of damning evidence against them and already Shawn Ray has been on bodybuilding forums making fun of them. We'll see what happens...

The Naughty Bits

According to this post, the adult film industry had estimated sales of 12.6 billion dollars in 2005, compared with 8.9 billion dollars generated in box-office revenues for Hollywood movies. This may be comparing apples and oranges (video vs. box office) but according to this article, the total non-porn video/DVD sales for 2005 were 24.3 billion dollars, which is to say that porn accounts for more than a third of ALL video sales. That's pretty amazing, given that according to the first article, most of it is produced by a handful of "small" studios. These companies aren't publicly traded, so a handful of people must be gruesomely rich.