American in Spain

We won’t know who George W. Bush’s successor will be until November, but if we morph Barack Obama’s face with John McCain’s, we can see a face that looks a little bit like the next President of the United States of America.

As you may recall, I’ve already morphed Barack Obama into Joe Biden, which turned into a pretty good looking gentleman. And I’ve also morphed John McCain into Sarah Palin, which turned into a not so good looking grandmotherly person.

I present to you, a face that looks an awful lot like the next US president, guaranteed… (more…)

I surprised and impressed myself this weekend. September 20th was the three year anniversary of when we bought our house, making this the house Marga and I have lived in together longest. The biggest reparation that our house has needed since well before we bought it is to sand and varnish the outside window frames. All new houses built around here are built with either PVC or aluminum windows, but our house still has the older wooden windows. Several months ago, we replaced our three worst windows with new aluminum ones, but we decided we couldn’t wait any longer to give the remaining wooden windows more protection against the elements. We should have taken before and after pictures, but I didn’t think to do so. The difference is amazing.

I wouldn’t say that I have a fear of heights. I rather enjoyed looking down from the Empire State Building, for example. But I have had several nightmares that involve precipitous ledges. Not falling, necessarily, but being in a very dangerous place. Part of what make humans such good survivors is the ability to imagine, very vividly, the consequences of actions before deciding which to take. I have a very, very vivid idea of what it would be like to fall from my seventh floor apartment window. I can feel the terror, the wind rushing through my hair, and the realization that these are the last sensations I will ever have. Frankly, it freaks me the hell out. When I lean out the window, I’m always very aware that my center of gravity and a good portion of my mass is clearly inside the house. As soon as there is any doubt, I’m all the way back in.

So when it came time to paint the panels above the window frames this weekend, it really sucked being the tallest family member.
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My calendar has three days this week (Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) marked témporas. There don’t seem to be any pages on the internet about témporas in English, so I thought I’d make one.

My father-in-law tried to explain them to me recently. He explained that, he already knew that August wouldn’t be very warm this year because he’d observed the weather during Easter. What?? He explained that everyone knew that the weather during Easter affects the weather for the rest of the year. I said, “But you don’t really believe that, right?” He said, “Sure, the shepherds and farmers have been using that wisdom for centuries!” I was just a liiiittle bit skeptical.

Témporas are the days right around a change of seasons, and, legend has it, one can observe the weather on these days and forecast the weather for the entire season. Here’s a translation of one of the only websites I’ve found about it:
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It wouldn’t be very fair of me to only morph John McCain and Sarah Palin together, now would it? I prefer to think of myself as a politically neutral face mangler.

The Obama-Biden merger was much easier because of similar postures and general head shape and hair style (no bangs). Plus, I think I’m getting a little better at it. Unlike the wide-jawed grandmother that resulted from morphing the Republican presidential ticket, the Democratic ticket results in a pretty good-looking guy. Perhaps even handsomer than either of the two candidates on their own.
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I was absolutely amazed today to discover that no one out there in the tube system has yet created a video morphing the faces of John McCain and Sarah Palin. How could this be? As someone who possesses the technology, skill, and crazy necessary to create such a video, I felt it was clearly my civic duty to fill this important void in presidential politics. Thus, I have created and posted a video morphing John McCain and Sarah Palin.

With no further ado, I present to you the bastard lovechild of the Republican presidential ticket…
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The other day, I was reading this Slashdot article about a study personally commissioned by Dilbert author, Scott Adams, to survey 500 economists about the economic policies of McCain and Obama. The results of the study are somewhat interesting; the most interesting part being how honestly Adams dealt with the inherent bias in such studies.

Even more interesting to me were two particularly perceptive comments left on Slashdot. While I have not verified that their central theses are correct, I highly suspect that they are.
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Marga has been very, very sick lately. We didn’t go out at night at all during our August vacations. We haven’t been to our normal weekly salsa dancing outings since early July. She’s had zero appetite and has been forcing herself to eat a bare minimum to survive. As a result, she’s lost several kilograms in the last few months. She has no desire to do anything other than sleep or sit on the sofa staring blankly at the television, but, like with eating, she forces herself into some physical activity, like going for walks with me in the evenings. If I didn’t know what was wrong with her, I’d think she was terminally ill. That’s how bad the past two months have been.
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Sometime over the long weekend (Monday was a local holiday), the school next to my house had a roofing accident. The roof was renewed only eight years ago, in 2000, but something went wrong. It did rain quite a bit this weekend, but nothing extreme for this climate. We have a particularly good view of the roof from our house, so I thought I’d report on it.

No doubt the kids are delighted to be free for a couple days. Parents, not so much. (more…)

Am I the only one that is disappointed with the media for not coming up with any headlines that rhyme Palin with an abbreviated gerund? C’mon guys! Here, I’ll help:

Tailin’ Palin (close media coverage)
Wailin’ Palin (complaining about close media coverage)
Nailin’ Palin (with direct questions)
Sailin’ Palin (I dunno, maybe she goes out on a yacht?)
Mailin’ Palin (a snail-mail or e-mail campaign)
Failin’ Palin (we can only hope!)
Curtailin’ Palin (get the media to ignore her for a bit)
Derailin’ Palin (her train of thought)
Hailin’ Palin (as in “to the chief”. Shudder!)
Unveilin’ Palin (for what she really is…which might result in…)
Jailin’ Palin (hopefully it won’t come to that, but if it did, some rich white guy would be…)
Bailin’ Palin (out of jail)
Exhalin’ Palin (beats me…but it rhymes)

…and finally….

Pailin’ Palin (when she gets asked foreign policy questions)

Do all the headlines need to be prose? Let’s have a little poetry in there to liven things up!

Disclaimer: None of these were meant to be remotely sexual or promote sexism or violence against women. If any of them mean that, it’s coincidental and not the primary definition of the verbs as I understand them.

After a casual walk around town on Saturday, we decided to stop for sundaes at Gurugu, a local café, where we entertained ourselves watching some toddlers play on some plastic playground equipment and eavesdropped on a couple our age that were so talkative that it must have been their first or second date.

When the bill came, I saw the date and wished my wife a happy eleventh monthiversary. (more…)