voted

Went to the local polling station and voted. What is this, like, the third or fourth time in my life that I've done such a thing? Yeesh. I must be going insane. Wasn't much on the voting sheet (I chose paper) aside from some ballot initiatives. No people to check off; I suppose the fate of the House and Senate are in the hands of the citizens of other districts. Will be curious to follow the voting on TV this evening.


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a week more or less well begun

My second official day with ETS had a rocky start, but otherwise went as smoothly as could be expected. The main office ran out of student essays for us to rate, so I was let off early. Luckily, I'll be paid for the full 8 hours, despite the early punch-out, since it was ETS that called it a day, not me. That's pretty sweet.

Still-- staring all day at a screen is making my eyes cross. It's soul-killing work for a guy who prefers to bounce around fatly in front of a class.

I really need to get writing my standup routine.


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Tsai on top again

Chef Ming Tsai won the elimination challenge in this week's episode of "The Next Iron Chef," and poor Chef Maneet Chauhan (whom I found cute as a button) said her good-byes. The theme this week was "respect," with the chefs being challenged to show their respect for various ingredients and American culinary traditions. Chef Marco Canora won the preliminary challenge (which featured a guest judge from the US Army), and was one of the top two in the elimination challenge, along with Chef Tsai. The big surprise, in the main challenge, was the poor showing by Chef Marc Forgione, who up to now has been one of the judges' favorites. Forgione found himself on the bottom alongside Chef Chauhan (pronounced "show-hahn," by the way). Speaking of judges: Mike Symon was nowhere to be seen; in his place was Iron Chef José Garces, the winner of the previous season's "The Next Iron Chef."

With only five chefs to go, I have to agree with Chef Tsai that the level of competition is now so high that this is no longer a matter of general skill: what will send a chef home is anything less than perfection. All the remaining chefs are extremely sharp. I still sense some insecurity directed at Chef Tsai (who, despite winning this episode, was critiqued on his somewhat old-school plating style); both Chef Bryan Caswell, the big Texan, and Chef Canora seem to like nitpicking the burly Chinese-American. But Tsai seems to thrive on competition, and tonight he proved he's still in it to win it.

UPDATE: Dammit, I missed the opportunity to title this post "Tsai Rides High."


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Happy Halloween!

squabbles about mind

Another fascinating post over at Conscious Entities, this time about recent squabbles in the philosophy of mind. Go read the post and learn about mereological fallacies, the "extended mind" school (which I subscribe to), and varying views on qualia.


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homebody

Stayed home yesterday, as it turned out, but did some errands. Will have to save camping for next week or later, I think. In the meantime, thanks to some leftover REI credits, I've been sampling various types of camp food made by companies like Natural High and Mountain House. Can't say that I appreciate the price of such packets, which often cost much more, per unit volume, than the military's MREs, but some of the food has turned out to be surprisingly good.

Last night's dinner, a Chicken à la King by Mountain House, is a case in point. It supposedly serves two (and costs a whopping $7.50 at REI; thank goodness for my store credits), but was good for one large, Kevin-sized portion. I was shocked at how tasty it was. Prep was simple: remove the desiccant packet, pour in boiling water, stir contents, shut the zip-top bag, and let sit for about 9 minutes. Doesn't get much easier.

Egg noodles, it seems, are a great dry component for camp food. The ones in the Chicken à la King bag were tiny and cute, but the overall texture, when I ate them, was familiar. The sauce inside the bag was creamy-- almost addictive. The meat wasn't stellar-- reconstituted meat rarely is-- but it was recognizably chickenish. An inventive person might consider buying this meal, then using the contents to make two chicken pot pies at home. The packet comes with veggies inside, so a pot pie isn't inconceivable: the egg noodles could provide the starch that would have come from the addition of potatoes.

In all, a good meal. Dessert was a camp brownie by Natural High, which wasn't anywhere near as tasty. I didn't want to go through the laborious process of cooking the brownie on a skillet with oil (!!), so I poured the mix (just add water) into a flat-bottomed Pyrex bowl, set the microwave for 1:25, and let 'er rip. Turns out I got the timing just right: the bottom of the bowl was covered in a chocolate disk with a recognizable brownie surface. Incredible.

Alas, the taste left much to be desired. Perhaps the food would have tasted better after a 15-mile hike in the mountains (as all food inevitably does: "Hunger is the best sauce," as the proverb goes), but in my kitchen, the overall effect was "meh." The brownie's mouth-feel was fine; the microwave had successfully produced a thick, cake-y texture, even in the center. But despite the rich, dark color, the brownie was bland as hell. I doubt I'll be buying that product ever again.

Over the past couple of days, I've also tried packets of Pad See You (not recommended) and beef stew (recommended, but just OK). What used to be known as "astronaut's ice cream" has been routinely available in camp stores for years; the ones I purchased from REI have been quite delicious, evoking memories of childhood trips to the National Air and Space Museum. Their only disadvantage: as was true years ago, the chunks melt away far too quickly. A packet of strawberry granola proved pretty good, though I was a bit confused by a weird, synthetic undertone to the powdered milk. I should have mixed the ice cream with the granola for a more natural-tasting milk.

My first big week of work begins tomorrow; I'm back to earning steady money again. And the nice thing about this job is that I can relocate anywhere that there's a speedy internet connection. Tonight, I've got "The Next Iron Chef" to look forward to, but I may be out of the house when the trick-or-treaters come around, because I've prepared zilch for Halloween.


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all dressed up...

So I scheduled a camping trip, then cancelled the camping trip, and am now in a position to go on that camping trip. What to do? I may take a little drive south to look at some apartments, instead. Or not. Decisions, decisions...


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camping trip... postponed?

An apartment search led me to what appears to be an amazing deal in the same city my buddy Mike lives in: a 3-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom domicile for $600/month. I don't think that includes utilities, however, so I'm a bit cautious about the total monthly costs. I may be visiting the couple who manage the property this coming Sunday morning, which means no camping for Kevin this weekend. This is a rather sudden cancellation, but I only just received the email about the place two hours ago.

So now I know: Craigslist isn't just peopled with freaks, after all.

UPDATE: The Craigslist ad I had seen is now gone, ever since I emailed the couple back. Now, however, they've put up ads for 3-bedroom places going for $550/month. Is this some sort of scam, or is this a normal practice?

UPDATE 2: Found this page on apartment scams... then ended up here. The couple mentioned in that second link, Robert and Angela Banks, have the same names as the couple that wrote me back. It pays to be cautious.


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christology and eschatology

As is always true with Lee, he's got a great christological discussion going on at A Thinking Reed. (By the way, the McIntyre book he references at the beginning of his post is one I had to read in a Comparative Ethics course. Come to think of it, I've forgotten most of it and should really reread it sometime soon.)


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quite possibly camping (and other matters)

Yesterday was my first full day of work at ETS. It involved a good bit of stumbling and fumbling, but by the end of the day I had acquired something of a rhythm. Although essay rating isn't the sort of work that leaves me delighted and energized, one nice thing about it is that there's no extra work beyond one's scheduled work hours: no loose ends to worry about at the end of the day.* Still, despite this comforting fact, I ended the day with somewhat jangled nerves. Starting next week, i.e., the beginning of November, I begin my first official week of work with ETS. Cross dem fingers. Le travail commence pour de vrai.

Meanwhile, depending on certain things happening today, I'm planning to be out in the mountains this coming weekend. Will the bears have stopped their pre-hibernation foraging yet? I'll need to check that. There's also a chance that I'll be moving out of this house come December-- possibly to Fredericksburg, and possibly to the mountains. A trip down to Germanna Community College on Friday is currently in the works. I'm curious about working there as a full-time staffer, and one way to do this may be to teach at Germanna as both a religion instructor and an English/ESL instructor. I need to find out whether that's even possible, hence tomorrow's trip. I recently learned that community colleges are always looking for Composition 101 teachers. That might be my foot in the door. ESL would be great, too, since I've got plenty of experience in that area. Tomorrow's visit will also be to the head of the Humanities Department, to apologize for having turned down the offer of part-time work that had come in August.

Even if Germanna doesn't take me up full-time at first, I'll have steady work with ETS, which will at least allow me to pay the rent. (Eventually, I'd like to follow in my little bro's footsteps and buy a house, but that's not happening anytime soon.)

Lots to think about. Lots to prepare.

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*This isn't to say that I hated this aspect of being a teacher. With any other job, I would have resented any extracurricular work, but with teaching, it was often a delight to plan lessons and curricula, grade papers, and do research to prep for upcoming lessons.


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Political Compass results

Inspired by Skippy's recent post, I revisited the Political Compass, a site I go to every couple of years, and retested myself to see whether I've finally veered away from my self-professed centrism. Results:

Not much seems to have changed, though I could have sworn that, this time around, some of my answers tilted much further to the right than previously (2005, 2007).


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things I'm waiting for

1. I want a screen saver that's essentially a real-time, hi-res simulation of a low-altitude flight over every inch of the surface of Mars-- flight among the mountains and inside the canyons, Podracing-style! With real-time weather conditions. When I say "real-time," I don't mean that the sim has to show Mars as it is right this second; I simply mean that, if our imaginary craft is flying over the Martian surface at 3000 miles per hour, it should take an hour to cover a straight 3000-mile stretch. The craft will essentially be flying a search pattern that will eventually cover the entire planet, which might take a while, ensuring no repetition for a long, long time. I could stare at that for hours.

While we're at it, I want the same screen saver for Mercury and Venus, too. The gas giants might also be nice, but I'll settle for high-altitude flights for them. And Jupiter's and Saturn's moons, too, come to think of it.

2. I want a kitchen appliance that, when you insert it, vibrates off an orange's skin in the space of three seconds. You hear a buzz; the skin becomes visibly looser; you peel upward and outward just a little ways from the device's insertion point, and voilà-- the whole skin comes off. What are the culinary possibilities of nearly-whole orange skin? What could you infuse the interior with to make it tasty? Or could you somehow carve out all the white and make a tiny Jack-o-lantern?

3. I want a parrot that can sing the entire "America! Fuck, yeah!" song, and that knows not to sing it unless commanded to do so.

4. I want a DVD of the Purple and Brown animated series. I looked for such a DVD on Amazon.com recently, and failed to find it. (If you've never seen the claymation monsters Purple and Brown, type "purple and brown" into the search window on YouTube. How can you not love them?)

5. What else do I want right now...?


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Twitter poetry

Trap me in a tiny box, and I go nuts looking for creative ways to make life interesting. Twitter, which is all about microblogging, confines you to writing posts of no more than 140 characters in length (and yes: a space is a character). Every time I visit Twitter, every time I tweet, it's like being trapped in a tiny box. That drives me nuts, and me nuts like stupid poetry, so that's one of the ways I pass the time on Twitter. For those who've missed my poems, here's what I've written so far (reformatted for the blog):


1.

I wanna ship that's four miles long,
four miles long,
four miles long...
I wanna ship that's four miles long--
rowed by angry slave girls.

2.

I knew a legless ostrich once
that lived a cocaine high
it porn-surfed on my Macintosh
and pecked at women's thighs

3.

when the eagle farts
make sure you're not under it
sometimes it's a shart

4.

I feed my cat nickels
he don't seem to mind
but when he shits pennies
I think he's unkind

5.

On Halloween I lick your brain
because your brain
don't feel no pain
and 'cause it looks just like chow mein
I'm gonna slurp it
YEAH

6.

our cat died years ago, and yet
I find it's still my favorite pet
I dig it up each night and say
"O, undead kittie! Time to play!"

7.

dudi B wut I du--
dudimi dudi U--
dudi in dudi out--
dudi shaykit N shout--
dudidudi in bed--
dudi til UR ded--
dudi green dudi blu--
dudimi dudi U

8.

life is tough in Anusville
the crater town between two hills
for every time the Worm appears
the townies quake and scream in fear



I've also been attempting to write super-short stories that evoke, even if they can't flesh out, things like plot, character, and theme. A few of those:



1.

Garrison Keillor, smashed on rotgut from some Central American hamlet, deep in the jungle with an M-60, hunting Predators and velociraptors.

2.

Darling Lydia, let not yon dwarf smell thy panties and regain his honor thereby, for he is a most execrable dwarf.

3.

"I ask for fal-tor-pan." "You mean the re-fusion of Spock's body and katra?" "No, I mean a Chinese hooker. OF COURSE I mean re-fusion!"

4.

I dream that I am Saruman, chasing Princess Leia through the stairwells of Isengard while she shrieks, delighted, that I am her nerfherder.

5.

Explosions. Kermit the Frog, bleeding, on his knees, arms upraised and face toward the sky à la Willem Dafoe's death scene in "Platoon."

6.

"Faster!!" screamed the hen, urging her elephant on. The terrified fox zigzagged crazily. Behind him the bird cackled, drunk with vengeance.

7.

Her nightgown whispered to the floor, revealing her alluring topography. Spock quirked an eyebrow: the human adventure was just beginning.



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way to go, Sean!

Too proud not to link this: my brother Sean's new chamber orchestra, Counterpoint, has gotten a writeup at CNBC. Awesome achievement, Little Bro!

(True: it's a promo article for an upcoming event, but I'm sure the reviews, when they're written, will be splendid. Sean's a talented musician, and he's one of the driving forces behind the putting-together of this group.)


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Catholic inclusivism?

This post is actually a reprint of a comment that failed to publish over at Malcolm's blog, probably because of the inclusion of hyperlinks, which can activate anti-spam software on some blogs, depending on their comment settings. A bit of background: Malcolm had written a post titled "Slow News Day," about the conversion of Tony Blair's sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, to Islam. In the comments, Dr. Hodges asked, "Doesn’t the Catholic church allow for salvation outside the official church? Lauren Booth might yet make the grade..." Malcolm replied, "Does it? I thought not. Kevin would know..."

So here we are. I've actually dealt with this question on a few occasions throughout this blog's history (use the search function to look up words and phrases like "Nostra Aetate," "inclusivism," and "Vatican II"), but it's good to revisit the subject. What follows, then, is the comment I had hoped to append to Malcolm's thread.

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The Nostra Aetate document from Vatican 2 (see here) seems to open the door to a more inclusivistic approach: salvation is still Christian, and still through Christ, but to the extent that one's religious practice manifests Christian virtues, those non-Christian traditions can conceivably be ways of salvation. See this passage, for example:

Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust. Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

The document goes on in that vein, next addressing Islam and Judaism in a very conciliatory tone. Some consider this document a revolutionary change in Catholic thinking (and the 2000 Dominus Iesus of then-Cardinal Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is seen by many non-Catholics as a step backward toward the old extra ecclesiam nulla salus); others aren't so sure. While I was out west on my walk, one Catholic monk I spoke with was doubtful that Nostra Aetate should be read as an explicit statement of theological inclusivism. Catholic opinions seem to vary. My own reading of the document, as a non-Catholic, is a hopeful one, and is a reading shared by many of my Catholic and non-Catholic instructors in grad school.

Sorry I can't be clearer, but as my engineer friend would probably note, with great frustration and annoyance, religion isn't an exact science. Everything's open to interpretation.

Nostra Aetate concludes this way:

The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to "maintain good fellowship among the nations" (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men, so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.

Make of that what you will.


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émeutes, manifs, et grèves en France

I got curious as to how things have been going in Strasbourg, the large French city about an hour away from where my buddy Dominique lives. Found this blog entry, which made for entertaining reading, regarding the occupation of la présidence de l'Université de Strasbourg (UDS; copy and paste the italicized phrase into Google and click "video" for videos). The blog post includes a laundry list of claims of solidarity and demands for change, almost none of which struck me as very specific. The overall language is very late-teen, early-20-something passionate rhetoric: educated, eloquent, and yet somehow intellectually muddled. What I took from reading this blog was that French students buy into statism. Sad.


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dusky ending for Duskie Estes

On this latest episode of "The Next Iron Chef," tiny, unassuming Chef Tio ended up on top of both the preliminary round and the elimination round. The big surprise, for me, was the elimination of Chef Duskie Estes, but the universal complaint from the judges was her overall inconsistency (a problem that might bring Ming Tsai down in future rounds if he's not careful). I can't say I was a fan of Chef Estes; she turned me off when she voted in favor of herself during the first episode-- a move I found rather arrogant. On the plus side, she had a competitive spirit and was liked by Judge Mike Symon, who saw her as a "dark horse" in the competition. Unfortunately, her elimination-round meal was disastrous, and she failed to recover from several missteps.

During the initial challenge, Chef Tio wowed everyone with her ability to use the vinegar in hot sauce as a catalyst for creating a spicy ricotta cheese. Very, very clever, that. In the elimination round, which required the chefs to transform standard fair food into something Iron Chef-worthy, Tio's fish taco, popcorn shrimp, and moon pie wowed the judges enough for her to secure the win.

And now we're down to six chefs.


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now a Picasa album

I've had trouble seeing all the pictures of my Most Awesome Scrapbook in the Universe over on eBay, so I've re-reloaded them on Picasa as their own separate album. Someone, meanwhile, seems to have placed a bid for my 1893 stamp. It'll sell for a mere dollar. What a shame, but that stamp is apparently the most common one of its series.


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last year

Last year was my mother's final Halloween. Around this time, we went out to a local store that sold seasonal plants, wandered around their pumpkin selection, and bought five pumpkins, one for each family member. My father carved the pumpkin representing Mom, and I carved the rest, right on Halloween day. The results can be seen here, on the other blog.

This year, things are quieter. Much quieter.


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The Most Awesome 1880s/1890s Scrapbook in the Universe

I referred to it before, but after much labor, it's now on sale on eBay. Even if you don't buy it, you might want to peruse the 63(!!) full-size photos I appended to the eBay listing. My write-up for the scrapbook also notes that it may be associated with a macabre bit of history-- just in time for Halloween.


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