Tight Squeeze

Chip’s Not Dead Yet is one of those charity run/walks (it’s for a good cause, the BC Children’s Hospital).  I was going by when they were setting up and saw this rather determined truck driver try to see if he could make it through the starting gate.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to stick around and see how the hell he managed to get out of this situation (he didn’t exactly have a clear straight shot back).  Unfortunately, I also was not able to stick around for the run itself, maybe next year.

Who Defines Marriage?

I’ve been remiss in not forwarding this along. A few days ago a friend of mine had an op-ed published in the Bangor, Maine paper called “Married same-sex couple await recognition by state.”  It’s a very well written piece (and I’m not just saying that because Mel is my friend) on the definition of marriage and why his marriage to his partner should be recognized by the state, just like any other marriage.  The following is an excerpt from the piece and I urge you to go and read the full piece over at Mel’s blog.

The word “marriage” has served double duty for all of this nation’s history, signifying both the religious union and the secular one. The latter, at least, has changed and evolved as this nation has, such that the term “traditional marriage” as it’s currently thrown around carries little meaning with regard to the civil institution. Wives were once the property of their husbands and were prohibited from owning property of their own, interracial marriages were once proscribed, but these have long since fallen by the wayside, despite dire warnings from religious conservatives at each step that eliminating these discriminatory practices would destroy the very fabric of society.

Erudite Rantings and Ramblings (Funny too)

I’m not so sure that Stephen Fry would like the way I characterized his podcast in the title to this post, but I honestly had a hard time thinking of a better way to describe his occasional dispatches. For those of you that don’t know of him, Fry is a British author, commentator, actor, and god knows what else. You can see his full list of film and tv credits on IMDB if you so care. He is also, as I indicated, a podcaster. Though his podcasts are few and far between, each is a real gem as far as I’m concerned. Fry is witty and intelligent but, and this is the important part, also self-deprecating and does not take himself too seriously. It’s a tough job to be able to simultaneously to reference the ancient myths and classics of literature while at the same time seeming to take those who think that might be the only marker of a person’s worth down a peg or two. See, for example, his wonderful rant on language and pedantry. He is someone who truly loves language and is just a really good storyteller (if you like that sort of British absent-minded professor off on some digressions, but always getting back to the point eventually, way of story-telling). Give it a listen.

Happy Holidays

We’ve just put out some of our holiday decorations so I thought I would wish everybody out there a joyous holiday season (whatever your holiday may be). The picture below is of a traditional German wooden pyramid holiday decoration from Seiffen.

The Death Star Canteen

Okay, I know this is old, but for some reasons it keeps coming up in random ways in conversation and by e-mail. It has three things I love all rolled into one: the hilarious ideas of comedian Eddie Izzard, Star Wars and Lego. Here is somebody reproducing Izzard’s Death Star Canteen bit using stop-motion Lego animation.

And here is the original bit from Izzard:

If you liked those, I would also highly recommend his bit on flags and countries (especially if you are originally from India).