Whatever random crap I feel like posting. Typically left-leaning. Occasionally vulgar. Not always serious. Sometimes annoying.

Archive for the ‘personal’ Category

What Oz did on his summer vacation

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

Not that anybody cares, but it's been a good summer for Oz. He learned to ride a bike pretty well; we're now going out and doing 10-mile rides a couple of times a week. He learned to play guitar; he can churn out pretty recognizable versions of "Born to be wild", "Satisfaction", ...

Generations

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

My favorite moment of recent wish-I-had-video real-life generational absurdity happened at dinner last night:  My 8-year-old son explaining to my 83-year-old mom the difference between U2 and YouTube.

My boy Hal

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

As I've mentioned, Oz is a bit of a road savant.  And not just in that he knows the routes of our local area well; he's also better than I am at looking over a map and both internalizing the paths and converting them to actual directions, roads, and  turns ...

False shadows

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Here's a small gallery of 4 pictures of an artwork from MassMoCA that I saw on a recent trip there. The artist painted the floor and wall to make it look just as if there were a complex shadow falling on the wall. The pictures evoke it decently, ...

Oz rocks

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

A couple of months ago, I asked Oz what musical instrument he'd like to learn to play. He said "electric guitar". So I've been teaching him to play. Power chords. Distortion. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Liberty and security in NYC

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

We took Oz to NYC over the long weekend, stayed in midtown, and did tourist things with him — went to the Museum of Modern Art, Central Park, the Museum of Natural History, and even the Statue of Liberty. Theresa and I have both of course been there for both ...

Buridan’s ass’ mom

Friday, May 16th, 2008

Background: We're often on Oz about not drinking enough. He doesn't like a big variety of drinks, and now that it's getting warmer again, we have to work a bit against his getting dehydrated (or as he says, in that joke by an 8-year-old way, "de-hyphenated"). So: Recently, I was ...

Too old to rock ‘n roll, too young to die

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

I've been hearing a bit lately from some old band-mates from the mid-late 20th century, which has been pretty cool. In honor of that, I share this video, which captures some small sliver of the joy of playing in a band. You know the old chestnut: What do you ...

Oz sides with Byrne against Tufte

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Edward Tufte, god of information display, has famously claimed that "PowerPoint makes you stupid" (The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint). David (Talking Heads) Byrne has disagreed (Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information), with "I ♥ PowerPoint"". Oz has sided with David Byrne, and has discovered the, um, joy, I guess, of PowerPoint. After doing ...

Cussin’ and hatin’

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Another recent Oz-let: Oz has a pretty remarkably undeveloped sense about swearing. Once or twice the idea of a "bad word" has come up, but hardly at all. I'm a little surprised by this; by second grade, I hadn't started swearing (that began in earnest in fifth grade), but I certainly ...