AliThinks

What Are We Doing In This Handbasket And Where Is It Going?

On Thanksgiving morning we were watching the Macy's Parade, because my cousin was a handler for the Dora The Explorer Balloon. It was the first time I'd seen the parade since I was a kid, and the first time the TV had been on in the morning in ages.

This commercial came on, and my head almost exploded:

If you don't have 53 seconds to spare, or are afraid your head might 'splode too, let me sum up: It's a child's stationary bike, attached to a video game. Granted, it's an educational game, but people, this is so many kinds of wrong.

Sure, at least it makes your kid MOVE while playing the game. (Wii, anyone?) But whatever happened to GOING OUTSIDE?

Letting your child (yes, even a four- or five-year-old) ride her bike in the driveway or *gasp* the street gives you, the parent, a chance to teach your child about bike safety, traffic, and other such important things.

And not to knock video games, because I do realize they can give children some skills, but how about singing to your child, or saying rhymes so that he can learn his letters, numbers, and colors?

I'm sure there are some arguments for this type of product. It just seems to symbolize so many things that are wrong with parenting today. And believe me, I'm not a perfect parent and I don't pretend to be one.

If you'd like to read more about where I am coming from, check out this blog called Free Range Kids. It's about letting our kids grow up the way we did, without constant supervision (all the while using safety items such as helmets). And then there's this book I know of, Last Child In The Woods, but which I haven't read yet. (Note to self: read that book.) It deals with something called nature-deficit disorder, which might sound hokey, but which is actually A Serious Thing.

And if any of you who happen to be reading this own a Smart Cycle, please leave a comment telling me why you like it (or don't like it).

Whoopsie!

It's been brought to my attention that I neglected to create a Beaujolais Nouveau video this year. Not only did I not make a video, I completely forgot about the Beaujolais Nouveau.

I KNOW, RIGHT?

Maybe later in the week I'll drink some Beaujolais for ya, but first I have to tell you about the bacon mayonnaise.

It's A Miracle

We went to IKEA this afternoon and spent less than $30.00.

I KNOW.

A Salute

I've been silent because my laptop couldn't connect to the wifi where we were staying. No matter, I was in France to be with my kids, not be on the internet.

So we did it. I cried when I turned on Sky News early Wednesday morning; they were tears of joy and pride and my kids didn't quite understand my reaction.

We did it. Yes, we did.

But despite our historic choice of president, despite overcoming deep-seated prejudice to elect an African-American man to the highest office, we still have a long way to go in the quest of equality for all.

Unless you've been under a rock the past couple of days, you'll know that Prop 8, which bans gay marriage in California, has passed. The margin was slim, 52 to 48%, I believe. Similar bans were passed in Florida and Arizona.

But those of us who believe that marriage = love, that sexual orientation doesn't and shouldn't matter, are saying "enough." I got the idea for this from AndreAnna, who got it from Swistle, who got it from Allen.

So here's what this newly-married heterosexual mother thinks about Prop 8:

Update: Catheroo has a better explanation and a better photo than I do!

What Does It Mean?

Last night I had a dream in which I met the two remaining Democratic candidates for president.

In a bathroom. Each.

I met Hillary in a women's room at a large public gathering. My hands were wet (from water, not pee!) but she shook one anyway. And she knew who I was and where I lived.

Then I found my son in the crowd (random!) and took him to the men's room. And went inside. (What? My son is 10. Old enough to go alone.)

Barack Obama was sitting in a stall, not doing anything but hanging out. We had a nice chat while my son peed.

Usually I'm loathe to share dreams here, because y'all, I don't want to read about YOUR dreams on your blog. But this one deserved a mention, don'tcha think?

Today's Secret Ingredient Is...

You have to listen to me rant before you can have the pie crust recipe.

We get a number of foodie-type catalogs: Dean & Deluca, Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma, et al. The other day we got a new one called Cooking Enthusiast. I was flipping through it today when I saw the recipe wheel:

No longer do you have to scratch your head over simple fractions when you want to increase or decrease a recipe. Spin the wheel on this ingenious magnet and you can double, triple, half or third a recipe.

Just how hard is it to halve or double a recipe? I'll admit that thirding something might take a little more brain power, but who in their everloving mind thirds a recipe anyway?

And believe me, I'm no math whiz. I quit math after high school geometry and avoided the math requirement in college by taking science courses instead. (Don't ask me the logic of that, but I was damned if I was going to take remedial math in college, and that's what they wanted me to do.) But I can, um, figure out pretty easily that half of 1/2 cup is 1/4. I even know that a third of 1/2 cup is 1/6 cup.

This is a prime example of dumbing-down a process. But we're not stupid, we're lazy. On the other hand, if you don't use your muscles you lose them, and it's the same with brain cells. This is why I will never own a recipe wheel. This is why I still add, subtract, multiply, and divide on paper a lot of the time.

Okay. Rant over. The secret ingredient is VODKA, and the recipe is below the fold.

Proudly Entering the 20th Century*

Southern Baptist seminary to offer academic program in homemaking

Coursework will include seven hours of nutrition and meal preparation, seven hours of textile design and "clothing construction," three hours of general homemaking, three hours on "the value of a child," and three hours on the "biblical model for the home and family."

Seminary officials say the main focus of the courses is on hospitality in the home - teaching women interior design as well as how to sew and cook. Women also study children's spiritual, physical and emotional development.

 

I have no words.

*Or, The Subjugation of Women

Stop Bitacle: Sticky Post

Please look carefully at the web address in the URL field of your browser. It should read http://www.alithinks.typepad.com/.

In case you see a web address containing the word ‘bitacle’ or ‘bitacle.org’, you’re not looking at the original page on which this text was posted. If this is the case, the text you are reading right now might be incorrect or out of date [and stolen, -ed.]. After I place a post on my weblog, I always try to keep published information up to date, or incorporate additional information, which I receive from readers.

You will never find this information on bitacle.org. Bitacle.org copies the content of weblogs without permission of the author, the holder of copyrights or the licensee. By visiting bitacle.org, you create income for the people who run bitacle.org, at the expense of me and other owners of a weblog, without permission and often without respecting copyrights and/or terms of use as in a license.

So please, next time you want to view my posts, do so by using the web address of my weblog, which is http://www.alithinks.typepad.com/.

Please make a bookmark of my weblog’s address, if you would like to visit it again. [Or subscribe to my RSS feed, -ed.] Thank you!

______________________________________________________

This post was suggested by the folks at Stop Bitacle.org. Since everything I publish ends up at Bitacle, this is a way to generate negative press for them. I'll leave this post on top for a few days. Actually, I don't know when I'll be blogging again, so it'll probably stay at the top of the page anyway.

Bitacle: Aggregator or Thief?

The other day I got a trackback notification from Typepad; it was for a site called Bitacle. I clicked the link in the notification, and got taken to a page that had my exact blog post, complete with a place to comment and everything. I looked around the page, and there were my archives! 

I asked Chris if he knew anything about it, and he said he'd received a similar trackback. He asked me to let him know if I found anything out.

An e-mail to Bitacle got no response.

At the bottom of the Bitacle homepage there's this sentence: "Bitacle is reader feeds by web." Yeah, okay. Whatever. So why do they reproduce my whole post? And leave space for comments? Granted, there's a link to my blog in their post, but why would anyone reading there bother to click through to AliThinks? There's no need! Everything is there; everything is archived! The page is (apparently) loaded with ads, but Adblock is doing its job; I can't see them.

There has been some discussion on other blogs about whether Bitacle is simply an aggregator or a splog, and whether the language barrier plays into the perception of it. (Bitacle is Spanish). My gut is telling me there's something fishy about it. I don't care if there's a disclaimer at the bottom of every blog post ("Articles are copyright their respective autors [sic]"). Or that their FAQ states:

What type of blogs are   inlcuded in the search?

All blogs that has a feed. This it can be RSS or Atom.

What happens if I don’t wish to appear in the list?

If you doesn’t publish feed, it won’t be   included in the blog’s search. Nevertheless, if you previously has   published feed of the site that was indexed, the old entrances will remain in   the index, although the new ones aren’t added.

Sorry, but Bloglines and Technorati and whatnot are not republishing my entire content!

Stop Bitacle.org is a blog dedicated to creating "negative momentum" against Bitacle.  The folks behind it are outraged, and I am, too.

UPDATE: Allan Jenkins has a spot-on synopsis of what's going on.

The Comments Have Left The Building!

Yesterday Typepad went for a colonic irrigation, which means it was pretty much out all day. I checked my blog last night, and read your comments. This morning they were gone, due to Typepad's invasive procedure.

However, I did see them, as you know, because if you left a comment, I've written back. Your words just don't show up here anymore. Sorry about that. As always, thank you for your feedback.

We made it to Pennsylvania without killing each other. Allan is my hero, because he drove the whole way. Now? It's time for breakfast. See yinz guys later.

In Which I Try To Be Coherent

This morning I realized that my kids will be here in less than two weeks. Woo-hoo! And oh, shit! My things are strewn about the two bedrooms upstairs. My kids will inhabit those rooms this summer.

So I put some of my stuff "away" (I shoved things into a closet). I still need to clean up some other things. And Allan and I have some furniture to rearrange.

Oh, for fuck's sake. This started out lighthearted, and I lost my élan. I meant to tell you a tale of buying duvets and looking for cool duvet covers. The tale included calling upon my sister to purchase duvet covers for us from IKEA, since she lives about 10 minutes from the damn place. The tale also included the jubilant feelings I experienced when I realized that IKEA will ship things other than furniture! Things like duvet covers! Yay! And there's that coffee table (yes, coffee table) we noticed back in April. IKEA ships it!
Woo-hoo! Two duvet covers + one coffee table from IKEA, $298.98! Gawd, I heart IKEA. So. Much.

[Insert low, sardonic chuckle here]

IKEA merchandise, $298.98. Shipping, $300.88.

Ladies and gentlemen, three hundred dollars and eighty-eight hundredths for shipping.

I sent my sister an e-mail, detailing which duvet covers I wanted. IKEA's shipping for those alone was $20, and I calculated online that it would cost her less than half that amount to mail the things. We'll get the coffee table when we're in Pittsburgh in July.

So this post was meant to be humorous and snarky, and somewhere my balloon deflated. Nay, it got popped. At least you know the story though. I apologize for the piss-poor delivery. The sad thing is that it has nothing to do with the events described above.

Cocktail, Tea, Me?

What I want to know is, when did the humble coffee table become the "cocktail table"?

We went out browsing today, and at every place we went, those low tables you set in front of a sofa were called "cocktail tables." And even when we asked a sales person about coffee tables, he or she would tell us that the cocktail tables were located all around the store.

Okaaaay. Is this like calling prunes "dried plums"?  Or creme rinse, "conditioner"? Hey, let's sex up the name of this thing so that we can sell it more easily!

Take Back The Web

A week or so ago, a fellow blogger brought to my attention that my sidebar content is down at the bottom of the page. She asked if I was playing with my template, and I said no. Then I did a little test: I viewed my blog in Microsoft Internet Explorer, hereinto referred to as IE. (This is also convenient, because you can make up phrases like Inherent Evil and Incompetent Exploring to go with the abbreviation).

I told my buddy that it was an IE thing, and suggested she use Firefox.

Then the other day I saw a different blogger write about her site looking all wonky, and that she didn't want to post anything when her blog looked such a mess. I left a comment explaining that it looked perfect in Firefox. Then I explained that Microsoft has added extensions to the HTML used in pages created by their software, FrontPage. These extensions do NOT meet the accepted world wide web standard. The result is that perfectly fine pages not created with FrontPage look all whacked in IE. I thank Allan for explaining that to me, and I hope I got it right here.

This morning I was thinking about this, and checked my stats to see what browsers people are using. I use the free version of StatCounter, and I can see details for the last 100 pageloads.

Of my last 100 visitors, 69 are using some version of IE. 26 people visited using some version of Firefox. Four Mac users out there stopped by with Safari 1.2. One lonely Netscape user came to my blog via a search for Black Eyed Peace.

Now, here's a question for you, dear readers: which browser are you using? How does my blog look to you? A screenshot of what it should look like appears below the fold. (I have IE 6.0, and will not upgrade to 7.0. However, 15 of those 69 IE users have 7.0 -- I wonder if it makes a difference?)

And here's another question: If you're using IE, why? Please give Firefox a try. You'll be glad you did.

Edit: This may also be a Typepad and Blogger issue. But really, get Firefox.

Well, duh.

   

     Click image to enlarge.

The photo looks much cooler if you click on it, really.

They Never Realize...

...the importance of English until later.  However, I wasn't expecting it this quickly.  I just got this e-mail from one of my 9th graders.  Here it is, in all its text message-style, 9th-grade-grammar-mistakes glory.  Names have been changed to protect the guilty.  Translation will follow.

 

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Last week I gave my 6th graders a make-up test on telling time.  They'd flubbed up the test on it the week before, and a re-test was in order.  I was hoping it wasn't my teaching.  When the majority of the class doesn't do well, you can question your teaching.

During a review session, I started to wonder if these kids actually knew how to tell time.  Like, on a clock or watch with hands. 

Ali-SON

Let me bring you up to speed without a lot of bla-bla: during class with the 6th graders, we were working on how to ask and tell someone's age.  "How old are you?"  "How old is your mother?"  "How old is your father?" 

Well, Marina answered "My mother is thirty-two."  Marie said "My father is thirty-four." 
Maxime: "My father is thirty-five."   Alexia:  "My father is forty-seven."  Louise: "My mother is forty-two." 

Some Good News For A Change

So I'm filling out the PDF form so that I can get an absentee ballot, and what do I read? 

Check ONE box. Please note under 8f: 1) Mental competence is not a requirement to register and vote in Pennsylvania and 2) Reinstatement — in Pennsylvania, once a convicted felon is released from prison, he or she may register to vote.

Whew!  That's a relief. 

I'm so, so glad that those folks who are incapable of making informed decisions are eligible to vote. 

They Sparkle And Shine

This morning I gave my 9th graders a test.   In correcting them later on, I found a few gems, and I wanted to share them.

In response to questions like "What have you been doing all day?" and "What have you done to prepare for this test?" and "Why is John so ill?" :

- For this test, I have done learn my English's book. 

- I have been doing in the park with my friends.

- John has been illing because he has been eating a bad horse.

Exercise using if and would to talk about hypothetical situations: 

- If I went to a desert island, I would take my girlfriends.

- If I went to a desert island, I would take a bottle of water.

- If I went to a desert island, I would buy a new house. 

(at least they got the grammar right on those ones).

And talking about what people wish: 

- I wish went in the cold country.  (Response to "It's so hot!"

- Does you wish to could to eat an French hot dog.  (Ditto to "Oh, no!  We're out of mustard!")

I really really hope it's them and not me.  As in, I really hope it's not my fault. 

I don't think so.  My friend Laetitia teaches as well, and one of her students wrote on a test that the Australians celebrate Christmas in the summertime because Christmas there falls on July 26th.