stereo-isotopes

The view from my office window (o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave--Play Ball!) also affords me a glimpse in the hinterground of the steam generated from the cooling-towers of the nuclear power plant. In the forefront is shaggy shadow of a dissected Holiday Tree. The place where I work is a bit like Springfield, the biggest little town in Germany. The exhaust really shows in in the sunsets, and some co-workers express periodic angst over inchoate radiation or the potential targetting of terrorists. I, on the other hand, call it our "Cloud-Maker."

Demi-tasse--that's my answer to half full or half empty

Cognitive dissonance is what they call the discomfort experienced when one tries to simultaneously hold two contradictory ideas in his head. Double-think. The most common examples of this phenomenon I go through aside from the occasional buyers' remorse comes with smoking. H and I both talk of quitting, once we're equally ready, and in the meantime, go through the motions by rote and nasty-habit. We both fancy ourselves and each other as smart, capable people (possibly add enabler to that litany) but still make the time for it, and quite often. H told me about a theory that held that out of all cigarettes smoked daily, only five or six are really enjoyed. I think that's a pretty accurate assessment, and really try to savour those rare, tasty gasps of relieve.

prospecting

Casually, H and I are hunting for a home together. There is no pressure to move, we've reached a comfortable schedule and compromise for tearing down the Autobahn to one another's place for over-nights, and the search is quite a bit of fun. There is, of course, an array of practical reasons for living together: primarily, the chance to come home to each other everyday, the chance to no longer be satisfied with our present living-arrangements, and the chance for a dishbot. I also like the fact that we might be living under the aegis of a new city coat-of-arms. Right now, there's just an uninspired bear with bad posture for my village and a shield with crossed, flaming swords for H. I want to live in a land that is represented by what I call "National Chicken." National Chicken is a bit like Famous Grouse or Rolex's Oyster Perpetual, I think. We'll have a very, very, very fine house.

Maybe the gas came from Uranus

I should suppose that any article that offers theories about extraterrestrial life bears attention. So I wonder why only the UK Sun is running with this story. Seemingly persistent plumes of methane gas could possibly only come from a biological source for replenishment, given the absense of active volcanoes on the planet. There's a lot in the news that doesn't suffer ridicule well these days: calls for ending black history month (despite the superficial annual parade of obligation it usually is handled with) since a black US president makes it redundant, the US army poised for a damage-control mission in Mexico since the state is, in American estimation, teetering on collapse, bin Laden's apparent attribution of Israeli strikes on the Palestinians to America's slipping importance as a world-player, art or anti-art. After the headlines have faded a little, spent their cause-celeb, being able to have questioned the reporting, approaching it with a skeptical-grin, is something that we ought not to take for granted.