Quick hits

Batman style!

CBS just bought CNet. Nobody can figure out why. Proposed new shows include "How I Met Your Motherboard", "I Love Linux", "Office", "Everybody Loves Redmond", "The Where Do You Want To Go Today Show", and the new Sunday night anchor, "60 Megabytes". Seriously though, CNET owns and operates the domains TV.com, MP3.com, and News.com. Start puckering up to kiss the sites you love goodbye.

Elvi has posted some photographs taken last weekend while we entertained our Japanese guests. You can browse her album here. I'm not sure why they all make V signs with their fingers for photos. Maybe they're all in the same triad.

The hockey last night showcased players with a wide range of skills. I fell somewhere in the middle, but the wingers I played with did not. I did a lot of backchecking.... The new LCC rink is very warm inside and the ice is soft and tiring. Granted, the temperature peaked near 30 degrees yesterday, but we will be playing hockey there all summer. It's so nice to play so close to home. If I still had two wheels on my hockey bag, I'd walk to and from games there.

This blog has achieved further Google domination for another odd search. We're number one if you Google for "passover for idiots" (with or without the quotation marks). Next stop: Tu B'Shvat for 'tards.

Progress

We've had two beautiful spring days and I've spent them inside and I don't mind a bit.

I've spent my time inside finishing a treatment for that historical biopic, finally, after several false starts. I also discovered there's a script on the same personality that's been in development for six years. I'm not sure if that's good news or bad.

I attended an ELAN schmoozer last night and talked with some nifty people. It's good to get out of the house once in a while. Tonight is my first game of summer hockey, at the new LCC rink.

Bonus sports updates:

Thanks to sizzling Lance Berkman and a trade of Andy LaRoche to acquire Dave "So far so good" Bush, my Irrational League team is gusting to third place. My Team 990 team is bobbing around 100th place out of 250 or so. My playoff hockey pool is fourth or fifth and will remain there.

Does u want job?

The parent company of I Can Has Cheezburger is looking for a human to sift through submishinz for that Web site. The AP reports.

I'd apply but I'd never hear from them again, like pretty much every pitch I've sent out this year. One of my goals for 2008 was to do less research and do more byline. It's not working out. I've started applying for contract jobs and that's not happening either.

As a result, I'm going to do another book With Alex Y., this one on the B-17 in the Israeli Air Force. It should be out by the end of summer.

Hamo and Kami come to our castle

Tomorrow through Sunday, our family and home will host two students from a faraway land called Japan - or as the Japanese themselves call it, Jappan.

Our two guests are both teenage males and older than all our non-adopted children. In a way, it will be like having two older brothers for our almost 14-year-old daughter, Child One. It had better be just like that.

The boys are staying with us as part of a student exchange, sort of. Child One, whose all-girl school organized this, is not going to Japan, as far as I know.

The boys sent us letters in which they introduced themselves. I can't find them and everyone else is asleep. All I remember is that one is called something like Kamikaze and the other one sounds like Hamotoru. They sent photos, too. The photo of one shows him smiling widely and mock flexing for the camera. The other photo shows a boy who looks sullen. I'm guessing that one's Kamikaze.

Somebody gave us a check for $270 to take care of these boys, so in order to turn a profit, we need to find cheap ways to entertain them. We do have a lot of laundry to wash and I'm told their people love to wash clothing, but that's really only going to take a day and a half. I could spend another few hours introducing them to some of the marvels of our Western world, like computers and the new DVD player I bought last week.

We've needed to plan meals around their own culture and diet. Did you know that they eat rice? Isn't Wikipedia amazing?

These boys may not eat beef if, like most Japanese, they treat cows as sacred animals. They have a name for them: Kobe beef, after the NBA star they also treat with utmost respect. It's not too different from us here in North America. If we see a really big black guy walking toward us, we will cross the street to allow him to pass by as far from us as possible. So, beef is out, but tomorrow night, we will serve the boys the classic Japanese dish of suishi: raw pork on squished rice patties. I hope they like leftovers, because that's our plan through the weekend.

As you can see, we need to gently assess and compromise for differences in culture. These relatively young Japanese boys don't want to talk about Pearl Harbor and I'm not going to discuss it with them; here in Canada, the fall of Singapore and the treatment of its prisoners plays more fundamentally in our national consciousness. If they finish the laundry by Sunday, we can sit down and watch "Bridge over the River Kwai" together. I understand the Japanese also like Godzilla. Who knew they were so into Matthew Broderick?

While the boys stay home and wash Saturday morning, I'll be taking Child Three to T-ball evaluations. Child Two is spending this weekend on stage, in her first role in a non-school play. The play is called "Esther" and it is indeed about the Purim story. We would take Hamotoru and Kamikaze with us Saturday to see it, but I'm sure by now they're tired of learning about Purim over and over in their international school in Tokyo.

I'll end this post with a video of the mayor of Japan. Unlike our mayors, he has time to go out into the streets and perform good deeds for his people. Good for him.



Bonus thought:

I wonder if I should be handing out my blog URL on job resumes.

Sporting news

The NHL playoffs have taken a little break and therefore so has our pool. As Will Dixon posts, I'm tied in third place, eight points back of leader John Callaghan, but there's no way I can gain ground, since we have the same players now. In fact, my team is not even to going to maintain my third-place tie.

My Team 990 baseball pool entry is mired in 113th place out of 256, primarily due to injuries. I have no investment, emotional or financial, in that contest, so don't expect me to follow up on that unless my team cracks the top 50 or something.

The Irrational League is a horsehide of a different colour. Last you heard, I was in second place, but injuries and plain old crappy pitching have dropped me to fifth, as follows.

.286 batting average (2nd)
42 HR (5th)
191 RBI (6th)
34 SB (3rd)
4.20 ERA (6th)
1.35 WHIP (5th)
14 wins (tied 8th, in last)
11 saves (6th)

My picks are not hitting homers at the rate I thought they would. I'm looking at you, Carlos Beltran and JJ Hardy. On the other hand, Kemp's and Berkman's stolen bases are a pleasant surprise.

The pitching is in turmoil. Smoltz is out. Corpas lost his closing job and is now useless. Orlando Hernandez still hasn't come back, and Justin Germano and Chris Young are both pitching much more porrly than they should be. Germano seems to have lost his job, too, for now.

On the bright side, I picked up Jamie Moyer in our monthly free-agent draft. I had to hold my nose to do it, but he'll get some ugly wins. Jon Rauch looks like an astute draft pick now, as does Jon Lieber. Smoltz may come back as a closer. I still need more decent starting pitching, but no one wants to trade it.

Flipping the bird

I don't have much to write about. I got a haircut Friday morning. I had a dream about Youppi on the beach that night.

Yesterday, the wife sent me a link to this BBC article.

Which punch line do you like best?

1. That's why Antarctic scientists don't wear tuxedoes.


2. Not surprising, and explains why whole chickens are banned in Antarctic research stations.


3. Obviously, the seal couldn't find a vacuum cleaner.


4. Thank God we have thumbs.

I like this bit from the article:

Chinstrap penguins occasionally indulge in homosexual behaviour, and adelie penguins sometimes "prostitute" themselves to get stones for nest-building; while one in seven emperor penguins will change partners from one year to the next.

But generally, king penguins lead straightforward sex lives: males and females pair up for years on end.

Like Elvi observed, it's not as if the penguin had any say in the matter.

Want!

I'd love to have this, but $2,900 is a bit steep. Do watch the video.