Pigeons on the Pill

My wife pointed this article out to me today, the pigeon population in Hollywood had gotten out of control. In my opinion, that's not the only thing in Hollywood that is out of control, but that is a matter for another post. See article in Yahoo! News:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070730/ap_on_re_us/hollywood_pigeons;_ylt=AvWteLdwkhCB.grlna3DUgADW7oF

So, instead of contracting this job out to a couple rednecks with rifles for about 3 weeks, they are going to spend 5 years feeding birds contraceptives to control the population. Does that not seem wrong to anyone else? What we are just putting thousands of pigeons on the pill against their will? Some pigeons may now never fulfill their dream of 2.5 baby pigeons and a cozy nest in the Hollywood suburbs.
Who is going to counsel all the female birds of all the possible side effects? Couldn't dizzy, nauseous, or moody pigeons actually now create a health risk to humans?
What about birth defects? What about male pigeons!?! They are going to be eating this contraceptive food as well, right? Will that turn them gay? Or are they already gay because they are Californian pigeons? If pigeons do form an "alternative lifestyle" race of pigeons, then I think we will have definitive proof that man was not created that way, but environmental changes influenced his persuasion. I know one thing, I feel sorry for those male pigeons. Who knows what will happen to them. We might need to add a couple more food bins to the equation and put bird steroids in those to man up a couple of them.
I'm not sure this is going to work. Won't the pigeons just adapt into a transgender species and continue reproducing.
My favorite line from the article though is is the same as Jeni's: "The poop problem has become unmanageable and this could be the answer." All this, just to solve a poop problem.

Review: Transformers

Work has been a struggle the last 2 weeks leaving me no time for blogging, so this review is about 2 weeks old. Anyway, I was optimistic about this movie, but cautious at the same time. I was worried that my children memories would be ruined by a crappy adaptation. They weren't. If this movie is still playing in a theatre near you, I strongly recommend you go see it. The beginning action scene was difficult to follow, but it gets better. It had a good amount of humor to offset the action and the story line was ok. Toward the end, Jeni felt it was a little 'unbelievable' and contrived with a couple of the sayings that seemed a little too movie like and not what someone would say in real life. But hey, you're watching a movie about giant transforming robots from outer space who bring their civel war to planet Earth, at what point was it believable to begin with. But all in all, well worth your movie dollar. Now I just have to get to work on my M.A.S.K. screen adaptation.

Icon Diversity

I was installing a new piece of software the other day and saw something new. You always see TV commercials and movies where the cast of characters are diversified. Apparently, Hollywood would have us believe that all groups of teenages hanging out has at one member of every race and that the group be split 50/50 girls to guys. But we know better. I've been to the mall. Anyway, I had yet to see diversity displayed on my computer icons. One of the menu screens on the web interface for a new product we are using here at work is to the upper right. Clearly, those little Fisher Price wanna be's are diversified. I got a good chuckle out of the graphic. I just wonder which of those baldies are the girl ones.

Slow week

I feel bad as I've been unable to post much this month, but really, bloggable material wise its been a slow couple weeks. I don't have much to say except, try clicking on my Redshirt Football blog to the right. I'm working on publishing team previews for all the BCS teams by August 1st.

May the Force be with you

This picture cracks me up. Now you know why I'm leary of squirrels while walking through the park.

Creation Museum

Jeni and I went to the Creation Museum this weekend. The Creation Museum is the product of Answers in Genesis, an organization devoted to using science to prove creation over evolution. Unbeknownst to the liberal media, there is a lot of science out there that confirms that the earth is only 6000 years old instead of billions of years old and that it takes a ton of faith to believe both creation and evolution and that the theory of evolution has numerous holes and is very far from fact.
Overall, I enjoyed the Museum. There were a lot of dinosaur displays. However, they were sold out of the planetarium tickets for the day so we didn't get to see that. Plus, there was a record high crowd and we had to wait over an hour to get into the museum and about 45 minutes to get into the theatre. I will definitely be going back. I've heard the planterium is the best thing there so I regret not seeing it. Plus, it was so crowded, I skipped several displays and skimmed others so I don't feel that I got the full experience.
One of my biggest disappointments was that they weren't prepared for a crowd. I don't really blame them for this. It's only 2 months old, I'm confident their logistics will get better. I want to wait several months to go back so that they can get all the initial kinks, logistics and crowd control issues worked out. Also, to another degree, it was almost too family friendly. It seems like they backed off on some of the science parts to make it appeal to a larger audience. Over time, I'd like to see them expand more on some of the science aspects and delve deeper into that. But that's me, and I'm a geek. I'm sure they wouldn't sell as many tickets that way, which is probably why they have a huge creation science bookstore at the end of it. So I guess I don't have many complaints afterall. They still acheive their main purpose well, which is to cast considerable doubt on the theory of evolution and teach people that you can believe in both science and creation. That science and creation don't have to conflict with one another. To me, that is the most important point. As long as they can always get that point across to people, I'll be happy.
Well worth the price of admission and trip to the 'Nati.

Garden Update

Time for a little update on the garden. The herbs are going well, the green beans are coming around now that we've had some rain over the last 2 weeks. The tomatoes could be doing much better. We are getting a couple cucumbers every week, but Jeni claims they are not edible. The sunflowers are doing well and we are gong to have thousands of sunflower seeds.

The biggest news is that we now have some watermelons staring to grow. Right now, they are really little. We call them mini melons. Click here for the pictures.

Book Review : Blindside by Michael Lewis

Jeni and I just got back from a trip to Cincinnati and on the trip we listened to the new Michael Lewis book "Blindside". It's the story of Michael Oher, a freak of nature left tackle. Oher had a rough childhood, growing up in the Memphis ghetto before being taken in by a rich, white family and given a Christian education.
Good book. It started slow and it took Jeni a while to get into it, but when she did, even she thought it was a pretty good book. He makes a lot of good points about racial differences and the different cultures without directly addressing the issue. The book is designed and written more just to get you to think about it and about how a life can be changed just by changing the person's environment.
However, I thought it was a pretty big risk to write a book about someone who really hasn't done much. I mean sure, he's all freshman SEC and it's a great story, but he's still just a college player. I guess even if Michael Oher isn't successful, it's still a success story because a life has been changed. But, worth the read (or listen) nonetheless.

Stoplight Trouble

Jeni and I were running a few minutes behind going to church on Sunday, so we were in a hurry driving there. Nothing too out of the ordinary, especially since we hadn't gotten back from Columbia until 1:30 am the night before and I'd worked another hour and 1/2 after we got home. I am the second car in line at a stoplight and there is no one behind us. It's not a busy intersection, very little traffic. So the light turns green and the big Dodge RAM truck in front of us doesn't go. I give it a few seconds, but I'm in a hurry and its a short green this direction. I'm thinking I'm about quarter way through the green by now. So I do what any red blooded American who's running late would do, I honk my horn. Only this guy was ready. He quickly got out of that truck (in fact, Jeni almost thinks it was too quick and that he was just sitting ready to pick a fight, but I think it just happened fast, like a movie) and started heading our way. He wanted to fight. He was yelling quite a few things that he was going to do to me, but I didn't want any of those things done to me, so I decided that speeding away would be the best idea. I can't put in print any of the things he said, but let's just say that my mother would have covered her ears. He was not happy with me. Now, some of you may call me a coward for glancing in my rearview, shifting into reverse and creating some space, and then driving off. But I assure you, I was late. This was a big guy, it would have taken me 10-15 minutes to take care of him and then I would have been really late to church. So, I just drove around him. Heck, the way I see it, he's just lucky I drove around him and not through him. I'm guessing car beats human in a game of chicken every time.
Surprisingly, he didn't chase after me after he got back in the truck. I thought he would. I think he was drunk and ready for a fight but not for a car chase. Jeni thinks he had a female in the passenger seat settling him down.
At any rate, that is the first time someone ever got out of their car on me. I will probably be more careful in the future as I'd have been really upset if I'd had to fight him. I was tired and irritable from a bunch of work stress.
I kept thinking two things. One, had that been a crowded intersection, I'm not sure what I would have done. The Saturn would not have been able to nudge his truck out of the way. I guess I would have written down his license plate and called the cops. But I would have felt more like a coward if he's standing there beating on the car window. Plus, he looked big enough to shatter a Saturn car window. Secondly, boy am I glad the passenger (if there was one, it happened quickly and neither of us remember) didn't have a gun. Let me tell you , I know that Jeni's Saturn is not outrunning any bullets. And I'm guessing bad guys aren't as bad of shots in real life as they are in the movies. Even if they did miss us and the car took a couple bullets, I'm not sure how'd we'd explain that to the insurance company. They already laughed at us for busting up our garage door, I'm sure they'd get a kick out of bullet holes.
On a lighter note, he was a Notre Dame fan. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. I think he was taking that "Fighting Irish" thing a little too seriously. Or, maybe I wasn't taking it seriously enough. He's was probably a Yankees fan too.