Cartoons and vegetables, the best way to get your children to stop watching TV

Turner Broadcasting, concerned that everyone's children are getting too fat, are producing a show to "rebrand fruits and vegetables". Click here for story. Elfy Food follows a band of elves on a mission to retrieve magical foods from the evil Frank Farter and his monsters, in six two-minute long cartoons. Each episode features a different fruit or vegetable, which imbues the elves with special powers - carrots become "lumo gooms" providing night vision, broccoli turns into "turbo tips", providing brain food and apples become "crunch-a-balls" offering "sportability".

Frankly, this is nothing but false advertising. I've been eating carrots my whole life and not only can I not see at night, I even have trouble seeing during the day. And I eat an apple in my lunch every day. But I'm the least sporty person I know.

A bold Idea whose time has come and gone and come and gone

Someone once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results. Well those zany congressmen are at it again with a new plan for a dollar coin. Click here for story. The Presidential $1 Coin Act passed by a vote of 422 to 6. Which means that only 1.4% of Congress are sane.

The trick this time is to honor each president with his own dollar coin. The plan is to issue 4 new coins every year starting in 2007. So the point isn't to make a coin that the American public will use, but rather a coin that the American public will collect. My God, the US Mint will become little more than the Franklin Mint.

I can't wait for the official US Civil War chess set nickel.

Never ask a doctor if your sick, never ask a beer distributor what to drink

Guess what they'll say? In Lisbon a beer distributor is handing out fliers in gyms touting the health benefits of beer. Click here for story. "Forget the myth of the 'beer gut' because it is just that: a myth," it reads. It adds that beer is a good source of magnesium and fibre and helps prevent diabetes, dementia, cholesterol and osteoporosis.

As Big Lou sings "Is anything better than beer?" No, no shout.

Cheese, the new artform...or new crack

The New York Times has a story telling of the blossoming "cheese culture" Click here for story. It tells the twisted and sad tale of people whos lives have been taken over by cheese. But the oddest point in the story is that some of these individuals make illegal cheese. Which I believe will be the next source of income for street gangs on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Chicago, your home for Lollapalooza

This year maybe they'll be able to actually have Lollapalooza, as the last few tours were called off. By turning it into a single city two day festival, the costs and issues will be reduced considerably. Click here for story. They just announced some of the acts who will be playing, and it's a pretty eclectic group.

But two days and sixty bands for $85, is not necessarily a bad deal.

Ameila's only going to hear Stephen Covey at bedtime

A professor in England has recently released a report that claims that girls who are enjoy romantic fairytales like Cinderella are more likely to be abused in later life. Click here for story. Psychotherapist Susan Darker-Smith said she found many abuse victims identified with characters in famous children’s literature and claimed the stories provide "templates" of dominated women. She points to the submissive and helpless heroines in stories like Rapunzel.

In response, Kim Reynolds, professor of children’s literature at the University of Newcastle, said: "This isn’t a new theory. We have heard these arguments about fairytales since the 1970s, particularly from feminist critics."

This brings up two questions. 1.) Just how does the Disney Corporation live with itself? 2.) How sweet a gig is professor of children’s literature at the University of Newcastle?

I smell freshly baked brown bread, oh my God I have typhoid

Oh those wacky Scottish Scientists. They are currently developing an artificial nose to help them diagnose patients. Click here for story. The theory is that the "Spectral Nose" will smell a patient's breath, and detect the odors associated with certain diseases.

At the end of the story it gives a listing of how certain diseases smell. They are:

Rotten apples, pear drops or acetone (used in varnish remover) - forms of diabetes.
Sweaty sheep - smallpox.
Plucked feathers - measles.
A butcher’s shop - yellow fever.
Fish - uremia, which stems from kidney failure and can cause coma.
Musty fish/raw liver - liver failure.
Foul smell - a lung abscess or intestinal obstruction.
Freshly baked brown bread - typhoid.
Stale beer - tuberculosis.

At first I wondered how the scientists would know what a sweaty sheep would smell like, then I remembered that they are Scottish.

Your leaders have to much money when...

Robots have been taking over a lot of jobs, but when those mechanical monsters start replacing the manily camel jockey, then all hope is lost. Click here for story. But why not just make a mechanical camel?

40 Minutes of mediocity, 8 minutes of fury

Last night Paul and I attended the Bulls v. Knicks game at the United Center. And for the first 40 minutes of the game, neither the Bulls nor Knicks displayed anything resembilng basketball. But man that last 8 minutes were hot. Both teams hitting clutch shots and fighting to the end, with Ben Gordon sealing the victory and home court in the first round of the playoffs with a great jumpshot.

On a lighter note, my donut and water trucks won their races.

No. 3 on the least popular computer games

If you had been waiting for a computer game that melds your need to shoot things with your nicer humanitarian instincts, well your wait is over. Thanks to your friends at the UN World Food Program you can now be the leader of "Food Force" a nifty bit of shareware. Click here for story.

The game is set on a fictitious war-torn island, Sheylan, where thousands of people are in desperate need of aid. Players undertake one of six virtual missions that can involve anything from air-drops to rebuilding villages.

In a similar, but completely opposite, vein the US Army have also developed shareware called America's Army. In the first six months 1.5 million people have downloaded the game. I wonder who will have more downloads at the end of the year?

What's brewing?

The upcoming weeks feature a great deal of homebrewing activity. The Big Brew on May 7th and the first round of The National Homebrew Competition on April 30th.

The Big Brew is a congregation of homebrewers to brew, drink, learn, talk and eat. Click here.Think of networkfest, except with burners and carboys instead of computers and monitors. This year I'll be in far west suburban Wayne, IL. Brewing a porter. It should be ready by the time I leave for the National Homebrew Convention in Baltimore on June 10th. Click here for more info.

The first round of The National Homebrew Competition, Click here for more info, is holding a session at Mickey Finn's in Libertyville, IL. Two years ago I won third place for Brown Ales in this competition. I hope my Scottish and Brown Ales are as successful this year.

It should not surprise any of you that I tend to do my blogging with a bottle or two of beer sustaining me. This does account for the uneven writing and spelling errors.

Two great stories about car crashes

The first comes to us from CNN.com. Click here for story. It's a heartwarming tale of an elderly couple who decide to purchase a new car. And when the wife decides to take the car for a test drive, she accidentally puts it in reverse and hits: 1.) her husband; 2.) the salesman; 3.) another car; 4.) a tree; and finally 5.) a wall. Where the car came to rest and the airbag deployed.

The second I heard on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Click here for story. In this yarn, a 48 year old man drove his car to the DMV to renew his license. But more accurately he drove his car into the DMV. The car jumped the curb and hit the building, denting a wall. Apparently the man was heavily medicated and was unable to control his car. However, the man was so well medicated that he calmly backed his car up, parked and entered the DMV as if nothing had happened. Then he paid his renewal fee of $25 and renewed his license.

Another benefit of regular Church attendance

One of the problems of the modern homebrewer is how do you satisfy your lust for more equipment without going broke and pissing off your wife. The answer, which I should have known, is go to church.

As I was leaving Wednesday night service (study) I passed by the Fellowship Hall where the LWML (Lutheran Women's Missionary League) were setting up their bi-annual rummage sale. And standing, proud and tall, on the first table was a 6 gallon carboy. For those who don't know a carboy is a large glass jug used by homebrewers to ferment their beer. And they were willing to sell it to me for a single buck, as opposed to the $20 bucks at the brew store. Score.

But I shouldn't be surprised. After all, I made my first batch using the big soup pot in the church kitchen. All I had to do was promise Pastor a couple of bottles. Its good to be a Lutheran.

It's about time! Oh wait, its about someone else

When I sign in to Comcast, my home page contains little news blurbs. Today I saw the headline "Senate Panel Grills Bolton Over Record." And I immediately thought of the movie Office Space Click here.

But alas they were grilling some diplomat for his outspoken ways. But if Congress has no problem bringing baseball players in front of the oversight committee, why not Michael Bolton. Lets face it, he has a lot to answer for.

I don't care if spongebob is gay, this is wrong

Apparently after 35 years, Sesame Street has come to believe that they are responsible for the rise in obesity in children. So to remedy this, they have made some changes to everyone's favorite glutton Cookie Monster. Click here for story. Now our beloved blue eating machine will no longer sing "C is for Cookie" but instead will opine "A cookie is sometimes food."

But of course this is a lie. A cookie is always food. Instead of changing a long standing character from a caloric vacuum to a paragon of restraint, they should introduce a new muppet. Now how about Eddie the Vole, he will simply pop up at random times and shout "Turn off the damn TV and go outside!"

End the struggle?

Last night Gerry Adams called for the IRA to give up its "armed struggle". Click here for story. This is a dramatic shift in the Sinn Fein policy. But now that the IRA is looking more like lawless thugs and not romantic freedom fighters, the pressures on Adams to make such a call are mounting.

Proof that you don't have to be smart to be a geek

Several Star Wars fans have been camping out at the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater for the premiere of The Revenge of the Sith. Small problem, the premiere is planned to be at the Arclight a mile or so down the road. Click here for story.

That's a lot of piggy banks

The latest list of the richest performers from Australia was just released. Who's on top? Not Nicole Kidman. Not Russell Crowe nor AC/DC. But the Wiggles. Last year they grossed $45 Million.

Maybe no the production values on the tapes will get better. Probably not.

Angelic Amelia 

I can think of several better ways to spend $2.2 Billion

I don't usually agree with Bob Herbert, but this time he's right on the money. Click here for story. There are now talks of building a stadium for the New York Jets on the West Side of Manhattan. This will cost $2.2 Billion dollars. The State and City kicking in $640 Million, plus cheap land prices and other deals which I'm sure we wont know about until its too late.

Behind all of this is New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics. A new stadium just might give it the edge over Paris and London. But still that kind of money for a sports stadium is insane. The only way that they will be able to make a profit is to plaster advertising over every possible location (this urinal is brought to you by...), personal seat licenses and obscene ticket prices.

Cubs hammer Arizona

After sitting in Court in Waukegan all afternoon, listening to the Cubs just pound the Diamondbacks was a great way to while away the hours in traffic. Let's go Cubs!!!

The wonders of digital photography

I wasn't allowed to take pictures on a consistent basis until I had my own 110 camera, which I didn't get until I was 10. But with the advent of digital photography, we are more than happy to give our camera to Nick, age 4, to snap pictures to his little hearts content.

The weird thing is that some of the pictures ain't half bad. The kid still takes some bizarre shots, but he took the three pictures below. Not too shabby.

Nick's Pic of Shakespeare 

Nick's Pic of Sarah 

Nick's Pic of me 

A lot of firsts this week

Despite the whole family feeling sick this week, Amelia passed some major milestones this last week. She had her first semi solid food and she had her first bath in the tub. She's also rolling over quite regularly now.

First Bath in the tub 

First semi solid food