ohio: land of large people

hated it growing up. now i hate it most of the time. but it's home. and i love home.

gots pics from our week in the land of large people. man, they make them bigger in the midwest. the mall is the best place for bovine watching. it's hitting skyline and penn station that does it. if i lived there i'd be a lardass, too. 1:00 AM chili dogs will do that to you.

way long ago i was flying to iowa, a state also known for the plumpness of its residents. i had earlier joked that i would know my gate at the airport by looking for the largest people. as i walked up to the gate i noticed nary a large, plump, or juicy soul in sight. oh well, so much for that theory, i thought to myself.

as i sat down, the gate attendent announced that the flight to des moines (pronouncing the first "s") had been moved to gate D32. shit, i gotta book! as i get to D32, i see a generously proportioned lady sitting on the floor (it looked like she would not fit in a seat) scarfing down a large philly cheesesteak sandwhich.

it was 10:45 AM.

ah, this was definitely the gate to iowa.

ok, here are pics from the nati. click here.

some good ones:

apparently, they named a state park after what shoobie's mom does behind waffle house


this will never cease to be funny

the bengals are 11-4 and afc north champions. after 15 hard seasons sans playoffs. who dey.

why ohioans are large: reason # 1

why ohioans are large: reason # 2

clever shot by mrs. wintermute

call center

today i called the linksys call center b/c my wireless router was acting up. turns out the company has outsourced its call center to india.

the phone rep shares my first name.

that's a first. kinda cool.

silent night, from chewie

beautiful music. don't forget: jesus is the reason for the season, folks.

click here.

[safe to play at work]

courtesy freakgirl

on the road again

pulled in last night after a week in the 'nati.

would make for interesting blogging if i could report some drama, but the wintermute family has only an average level of dysfunction and we get along pretty well, actually. mrs wintermute has been around us long enough that spending five days with the clan is managable. lots of boards games, lots of skyline chili. not sure how weird it was for her to not go to church on christmas eve.

two days to cover a shit ton of work and then headed to asheville, nc for four days with some good friends. we have a mountain lodge up there.

have some good pics from the nati and the road trip...will post soon.

melting dolls is on a roll

this greeting card is in response to the 'merry xmas' vs 'happy holidays' idiocy. courtesy richard delicious at melting dolls.

if you like pizza wrapped around your gordita..

...you'll like this recent find from snl. has the same dude from 'taco town.' andy samberg is my hero. double true.

courtesy melting dolls.

click here for the 'lazy sunday.'

trifecta

yesterday was great. hit all three spots in one day:


1. penn station (1:00 PM)
2. village tavern (10:00 PM)



3. skyline chili (1:00 AM)

the tavern may have jumped the shark this year. i had a good time with howard and his ex-girlfriend from high school (howard and she are the only exception in the world to the 'ex's can't be friends' rule. they are actually genuinely good friends after dating for four years. that was almost 7 year ago, though. time heals.) and it was great to bring mrs. wintermute along to the old hangout. but the tavern has lost some sparkle. i only ran into two fellow aviators last night. usually it's a mini-reunion. next year may be the last for hitting the VT. i watched other sycamore alums about 5 years younger running into 20 of their friends and having a great time. that was me five years ago. i'm in danger of being the sketchy older guy.

dover...relief

judge john jones III increased my trust in the justice system today. a republican (bush 41) appointee, jones put idealogy aside and made the right constitutional ruling today in yesterday's dover, pa ruling.

jones made a broad, definitive ruling that tells the proponents of creationsim
irrational design flying spaghetti monster (un) intelligent design that their beliefs belong at home, not in the schools. i don't have a problem with intelligent design itself. honestly, it might even be true (the universe is cerrtainly mysterious and wonderous and i understand very little about it). however, it's a personal belief. it's not falsifiable. it's therefore not a hypothesis. you can poke all the holes you want in evolution (and there a bunch), but b/c hypothesis "a" is wrong, it doesn't mean hypothesis "b" is right. it just means that the null hypothesis is true. i couldn't believe my ears when i heard a fellow harvard-educated friend say that he doesn't understand why people are against pointing our flaws in evolution. if you believe evolution is false, then a number of alternatives are true:

• hinduism: brahma (not a creator, but more of a force) was the originator of the universe. the gods arrived after the beginning (yes, plural. gods. imagine that being taught in the schools)
• islam: dukhan (loosely, translated, a smoky mass) was all there was
• roman: in the beginning, is started with the elemental forces of Chaos, from which the titans emerged. the olympian gods (zeus, etc) came from the titans
• flying spaghetti monster
  

now, have the ID folks scientifically tested these alternatives to determine which one is more valid? do you think parents may have a desire to not have certain beliefs taught in their taxpayer-funded schools? that is why intelligent design belongs at home and not at school.

sorry for the diatribe.

there are so many problems with teaching intelligent design in the schools that i'm not going to going to catalog them here. instead, professor rosenhouse's evolution blog does a great job of explaining the argument and dissecting judge jone's opinon.

best wishes and good luck, johnny D

i hope damon has a long and fruitful career with the yankees has to shave his head and becomes the ken griffey jr of the yankees

grades

so the big h has unilaterally decided to bring back grades. well, technically, the grades never went away, but the grade disclosure policy prevented anyone (e.g., recruiters) from seeing them.

here's a good summary article from business week.

i thought the non-disclosure policy was a great thing. it let me spend a lot of time on work that mattered to me (e.g., finance, entrepreneurship, healthcare) and less on classes that did not (marketing, strategy). i spent 60% of my time in my last semester on a research project that looked at how first generation immigrants raise capital. it was easily the most interesting academic work i did in all of grad school and i talked about it extensively during interviews--i think it really set me apart during the interview process. i'm actually still talking to my advisor on the project about publishing the paper in a journal.

i was able to do all of this because i didn't have to worry about a recruiter looking at my transcript and asking why i didn't get a higher grade in subject x, y or z. additionally, the non-disclosure policy fosters a collaborative spirit that underpins the learning model at hbs. it's what encourages wall street jocks to help other people with their modeling skills, b/c the jocks know that helping people won't really hurt themselves (i should mention that all classes are graded on a strict bell curve).

hbs announced recently that despite enormous opposition from the students (more than 80% oppose, according to the business week article), it will implement the change starting next year.

commentators say that this merely encourages the competitive spirit. well, the last thing hbs needs is more competitive spirit. if you arrive there, you are already in the top 1% of the top 1% of competitive, type A, anal-retentive people.

by definition, half of each class will be below average. i'm pretty sure that i was in that bottom half. guess what? i don't care. it didn't matter then and it surely doesn't matter now.

what hbs needs is more teamwork. more collaboration and less sharp elbows. what are the top complaints by recruiters of hbs students? is that they are not smart enough? not competitive enough? don't work hard? can't build a model?

no. it's that they are not team players.

leadership is about 5% how smart you are and 95% how well you can motivate and work with others.

will be interesting to see how this changes the culture at hbs.

am i alone on this one? nobf? slim shady? fu tan clan? treves?

starting the day with a sermon

so one of the office managers is former minister. he's holding some kind of religious workshop in the conference room next to my office.

so i'm starting my day with a sermon, since the walls are paper thin.

this is not a general religious or philisophical discussion. this is a hard-core "jesus reveals himself..." type of stuff.

errr, is the office the right place to do this? i'm not trying be anti-anything (i think the whole 'merry christmas' vs. 'happy holidays' argument is ridiculous. i use both, since i celebrate christmas but realize that not everyone else does).

say it can't be, johnny d!

(from nytimes article): johnny d, last may: "There's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they're going to come after me hard," he told MLB.com then. "It's definitely not the most important thing to go out there for the top dollar, which the Yankees are going to offer me. It's not what I need."

(from this morning on MLB.com's hot stove report): "NEW YORK -- The Yankees fired the latest shot in their rivalry with the Red Sox, signing Johnny Damon to a four-year, $52 million contract to become their new center fielder."

damon, playing for the yanks?!?!

mailing labels

if a charity sends you mailing labels, and you decline to give them a donation, is it ok to use their labels?

sometimes the wingman can't help but laugh

me: "so, where do you work?

cute chickie: "right here in town at macquarium."

joe: "oh, i have a membership there."

good one from my pops

my dad sends me a lot of forwards, most which are cheesey and/or not funny. however, today he sent me a great one.

Kumar's mother comes to visit him for dinner...(Kumar) lives with a girl roommate Nita... During the course of the meal, his mother couldn't help but notice how pretty Kumar's, roommate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between the two, and this had only made her more curious.

Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between Kumar and his roommate than met the eye.
Reading his mom's thoughts, Kumar volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Nita and I are just roommates."

About a week later, Nita came to Kumar saying, "Eversince your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the silver chutney jar. You don't suppose she took it, do you?"

"Well, I doubt it, but I'll email her, just to be sure."

So he sat down and wrote:

Dear Mother,

I'm not saying that you 'did' take the chutney jar from my house, I'm not saying that you 'did not' take the chutney jar. But the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner.

Love, Kumar

Several days later, Kumar received an email from his Mother which read:

Dear Son,

I'm not saying that you 'do' sleep with nita, and I'm not saying that you 'do not' sleep with Nita. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her OWN bed, she would have found the chutney jar by now.

Love, Mom.

by the power of grayskull

[click to enlarge]

courtesy bloodninja, from penny arcade.

long day

i hate end of the year acquisitions.

round up

the equivalent of doing a clips show...

bloodninja thinks that apple's stock is overheated. with P/E of 48x and PEG of 1.83, he could be right...

shoobie is giving up the doobie...

prixby is worried about debt. my 30 year debt repayment schedule from grad school tends to agree with him...

the messenger is trying her best to make it through finals...

the beav thinks the braves should sign nomah. sign nomah? i say no way...

fatasian baby discovered the llama song...

bunny macintosh has decided on a wedding theme...

radical georgia moderate, along with shoobie, has dreams that have other bloggers in them...

the power of airbrushing

yeah, we've all heard about it, but this site demonstrates it pretty well.

click here.

then choose portfolio on the sidebar, and then choose before/after

big up to nobf for the link.

night shift

i've been lazy about blogging this week. flew back to atlanta last night and got home around 9. thought i had a few hours of work. at 4 AM i crawled into bed.

not disappointed that tonight's soccer game was canceled due to freezing rain. in good news, we've climbed from 7th place to 4th place in the premier league. can't take all the credit, but the winning streak does coincide with the arrival of moe, joe, and me on the lineup.

i normally don't blog about work (mainly b/c it would bore everyone). however, i got to do something pretty cool this week. the medstar health system in DC and baltimore hosted a bunch of healthcare people (supposed "industry leaders" as they introduced us) for an all-access tour for two days. i got to "gown up" and go inside the OR. saw several surgeries, including bariatic (aka stomach stapling). the cath lab is fricking amazing. what doctors are doing with catheters is amazing. they also showed us how much fat one big mac deposits in your arteries. Never. Again. my boss volunteered to have his heart scanned. hospitals now offer this as an a la carte service. $75 and 5 minutes of scanning. pretty cool deal.

i have to say that the tour left me in awe of surgeons, and physicians in general. everytime we entered a new department, our tour guide would introduce the doc, "this is dr. borat. she's a world-renown surgeon who developed a new procedure for intra-cranial reconstruction. she saves five lives every day."

i tried to imagine a someone giving a tour inside medassets. assuming the visitors didn't already fall asleep, the tour guide would come by my office. "and here is our business development manager. he's good at...well, he's seem to be...err, well, he can build a valuation model. and he 's good at powerpoint. oh look his whiteboard has lots of stuff of on it."

(ooh's and aah's).

impressive.

believe it now

not sure why chewie is wearing a robe. does that mean he was naked in the other movies?

ok, i found it hard to believe that there was such a thing as the star wars holiday special, too.

here's the link to wookiepedia.

from wookiepedia, here's the summary:

The Star Wars Holiday Special was a two-hour television special (including commercials) set in the Star Wars galaxy. It was broadcast one time only on Friday, November 17, 1978 on CBS-TV from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (EST). In it, Chewbacca and Han Solo visit Kashyyyk, Chewbacca's home world, to celebrate Life Day. Along the way, they are pursued by agents of the Galactic Empire who are searching for rebels on the planet. The special introduces three members of Chewbacca's family: his father, Itchy, his wife, Malla, and his son Lumpy.

The program also features cameos (although the cameo actors are listed as stars) by other Star Wars characters, including Luke Skywalker, C-3PO, R2-D2, Darth Vader, and Princess Leia (who sings the film's "theme song", set to the music of John Williams' Star Wars theme, near the end). The program is probably best known for an animated cartoon produced by Toronto-based Nelvana that introduces, for the first official time in the Star Wars universe, the bounty hunter Boba Fett. It was the first film produced, in a total of three Star Wars spin-off films. Though the program received excellent ratings for its one-time airing, Star Wars creator George Lucas, who created its original story, reportedly removed his story credit from the special. Despite disagreements over its quality, this film is considered the first canonical sequel to A New Hope.

i'm turning into my dad

hit the company office party friday night. was at our ceo's estate. that's not an exagerration. it's ridiculous suburban fortress behind a guarded gate where each entrant has to show their ID.

our ceo has hit two homeruns (one of which he took public). all indications suggest that the current gig may even be a grand slam. anyway, pretty tame for an office party. good food and wine. i kept trying to talk co-workers into jumping into the pool, swimming a lap, and then getting out and walking around with wet clothing and pretending that nothing had happened. no bites.

afterwards made a rare appearance at midtown. thankfully, we go there while katie's crew had not yet migrated from front page news to 1150. i hate covers. i hate $20 covers. i hate $20 covers and the requisite $7 beers (yeah yeah ny and bostoners, i know that's nothing, but down here my tuesday night spot serves pitchers for $3.25. that's right, the whole fucking pitcher). finally, i hate $20 covers, $7 beer, and nonstop techno. oh, and the inevitable vin diesel look-alikes roaming the club trolling for chicks. so i don't like 1150.

it was cool to see just about all of katie's crew out--i think it's been literally years since we all hung out together. inevitably, i stand with keith and jessica and talk about 1) cool postings on theforce.net 2) whether serenity is as good as jessica claims it is 3) if firefly is the best one-season show ever, better than my so-called life and freaks and geeks.

[the answers: 1) lucas produced a little-known made-for-tv movie with the entire cast, set immediately after episode IV. it aired once and featured the introduction of bobba fett. the summary can be found here 2) the jury is still out 3) yes ]

i was pretty amped b/c i parked for free. in midtown, that's $10 back in my pocket. mrs. wintermute was at once disbelieving and happy for me. she was a little annoyed when i circled the block when we arrived, refusing to pull into any one of a number of lots or garages. she gave me $10 as i dropped her off in front of the bar, announcing something to the effect of, "face it, you're going to have to pay for parking."

as i gloated, i realized that i'm reallying turning into my father. 3 years ago, on mrs. wintermutes first vacation with my parents and me, my dad insisted on finding free air for the tires. in ohio, air is free. in georgia, it's not.

it costs fifty cents.

my dad put two kids through out of state university, including one through private university. but fifty cents for air bothers him.

so we drove around for 20 minutes from gas station to gas station. mrs. w could not believe it. we finally found an air pump that cost a mere quarter. my dad shook his head. no way. mrs w fished a quarter from the floor and offered to pay for it out her own pocket. my dad refused. finally, i told him i would get up early the next day and find a station with free air.

when the d terminal rules and sucks at the same time

rules: when i haven't had dinner, had a long day, and can therefore stuff my piehole with quizno's (well kept secret--best food in hartsfield and the only location is in the D terminal).

sucks: when the the trains are out of order and my legs are cramping from the dehydration of a 90 minute soccer game that ended just an hour before.

hartsfield is a big fricking airport.

at least i'm not an obese woman in heels. these ladies were sweating their glands out, loping as their wheelie bags careen behind them, cursing their D gate departures

a liter of water and two hours later i'm at my hotel in georgetown, feeling much better. looking forward to seeing the chief and his wife and my big brother for dinner tomorrow night. oh yeah, will get some work done or do some meetings or whatever here.

according to the chief, mina (a former flame of both the chief and my big bro) and ruchi (my junior year room mates old girlfriend) will be joining us. emory nostalgia all around.

new link to the sidebar

i think blogs, in some way, are a good example of the network effect. i'm sure professor eisenman would demand to know which of the three network effects it demonstrates, but i'm still pissed at getting a 2 on my final last year about skype. i nailed it! not only did i nail it, but ebay confirmed my answer by buying skype. so i'm not going to pony up, tom.

so anyway, it's really cool to see the way bloggers add to their network and connect people. your blog becomes that much more interesting (or valuable) as the network connected to your blog (via comment posters and links in the sidebar) grows.

a few bloggers have been so cool as to add me to their sidebar and a big up to prizblog to adding me this week. i've also just added him to mine--lots of good posts, minimal ranting, and great red sox coverage from a beantown resident. and a friend of the beav (who has not added me to her sidebar links--why the hell not!?!?!).

heads up on the next show

quite a few folks mentioned that it would be good to have more advance notice on shows.

ok, so here's way, way advance notice. the nick edelstein band will be playing at jake's toadhouse on jan 21, opening for helios, a really cool band that i saw open for garbage at 99rocks this past summer. so we'll be opening for a band that opened for a famous band. not bad.

for sure, will send some more notices out closer to the date. but mark your calendar.

recount

well, i don't how it happened, but more people must have voted for us than i realized at friday night's show. we somehow are advancing to the next round.

did i mention that the winners get a spot on a portion of the warped tour?

for realz.

i have to say, i kind of brushed off (what i thought was) the tepid crowd response. but now that i know we advanced, i'm pretty happy.

you might even say that i'm psyched.

hellllloooo cleveland

you know the snickers commercial where the r&b dude walks out on to stage at a packed stadium and yells, "helllloooo cleveland!" and then the crowd falls silent? and then his partner whispers, "dude, cleveland was last night."

yup, that's kind of how friday's night gig felt. first, we actually played really well and i was thrilled with the sound. we nailed all of the songs and nick's vocals sounded superb.

however, the rest of the bill ranged from hard-core to old-school punk bands. not exactly the right crowd for a singer-songwriter (nick) whose album review included adjectives like "soulful" and "melodic."

that being said, i had a great time. the 2nd band of the night had a kick ass singer who simply owned the stage. in fact, he owned the whole club. during the set he walked off the stage with his guitar and jammed with the crowd. later, sans guitar, he ran around the club and got up on the bar. awesome.

this dude is my hero

the band that played before us were gonzo linkin park wannabe's. i mean they went fucking nuts on stage and really rocked the house. they even had two vocalists--one who rapped and screamed and one who had a nice tenor--just like linkin park. the amps were turned to eleven and by the end, the singer was shredding his vocal cords while writhing on the ground. i loved it.





so when we went on, the crowd was like, "uh, who are these geezers?"

nick is a really introspective lyricist. tristan offers great vocal and guitar harmonies. michael definitely bangs on the drums. i come from the less is more school of bass. i really try to choose my notes and like to play a lot of counter-melodies. not exactly head bangers' ball.



so about halfway through the set, i peer out through the stage lights and realize 80% of the crowd is sitting down. the only people standing are mrs. wintermute, joe, and a few other friends/family members of the band.

got some nice pics, courtesy mrs. wintermute. click here to see them.

big up to joe for standing in (the wrong) line in the cold.

kameltosis

do chicks at the gym know when they're sporting kameltosis? how can they not? especially when they are doing sit-ups or yoga on the mats near the machines. uhh, the shorts don't have to be quite so tight, ladies. it's just weird for everyone.

t minus t,wo hours

ok, two hours till show time. managed to finagle my way out of a meeting this afternoon so i could jet out of alphacrappa and get to midtown in time for the soundcheck. pleasantly surprised with how good it sounded, esp nick's vocals. he sounded really solid, and tristan's harmonies were great.

hope to have a good crowd. 150+ would be great. but i've played shows where the only audience was the guys in the other band. gotta take what we can get.

hope to see some of you out there.

pics to come.

greatest sports town (even better than louisville)

last month i spent half a week in boston and had a great time. the fact that it was unseasonably warm greatly contributed to my enjoyment. i have a lot of great memories of my two years there and made some great, great friendships that i think will be lifelong. i also got to hang out with mpg a lot...he's probably the cousin to which i am closest (and i'm very close to a lot of my cousins).

click here for the pics from boston

click here for my tour of the good old h.

click here for my morning in beacon hill (esp. good if you like black & white photos).

for my money, boston is arguably the greatest sports town in the country. die-hard fans (such a contrast with atlanta, where braves play-off games don't even sell out turner field) everywhere and such an appreciation for each team's legacy. knowing your history is so important and helps you appreciate wherever you are--your city, your school, your sports team, whatever. in college i ran our school's tour guide program and i think it was a big reason i loved emory so much. when i walk through the quad, i'd look at each building and think about its namesake, or why a certain bench was positioned here, or who a particular tree planting honored.

boston fans know their players going back to the turn of the century. i bet more than 50% of the folks at a braves game don't even know that the braves used to be in milwaukee. i bet less than 10% know that the braves started in boston! how many could even tell you who played for the braves in all three cities (eddie mathews)?!?!?

mpg and i hit a bar that has the greatest boston sport moments painted on its ceiling. here's a sweet shot:

top right corner: sox win the series in '04; bottom right corner: bobby orr

i think this shot from the stadium sums up one more reason why boston is a great sports town: the celtics. eight straight nba championships from 1959 to '66, and ten total from 1957 to '69.

count 'em

i also got to see the bruins kick some ass saturday night and see the "next one" play. if crosby turns out to be the next gretsky, i'll be able to tell my kids that i saw him.

of course, no hockey game is complete without a good fight:



i also got to hit my favorite breakfast joint in the world: the paramount. nestled in the historic beacon hill neighborhood, it makes getting up early to stand in line worth it. mpg lives in beacon hill, which makes it a lot more convenient, esp. when i'm staying with him.

slimy shady and number one blog fan were nice enough to meet me there (well, as it turns out, slim shady lives in the neighborhood now, too). so we had 3/4's of the study group together. i always have a great time with this crew. wish that our fourth musketeer was there with us, but alas, london beckoned him home.

after breakfast the girls did some window shopping. which was, err, fun. some highlights:

nobf likes rules

slim shady and nobf window shopping. i haven't figured out what's fun about looking through windows. but i did have a good time walking around beacon hill with them.

in beacon hill, even the 7-11 is quaint and lacks the usual neon barrage

the real reason that jayne is smiling is because she's window shopping. not one of mpg's favorite activities

if we end up in boston again, i like to dream that we'll live in a garden courtyard townhouse like this one. more likely we'll be in a 1 BR 4th floor walk up in allston.

who knew?

who knew that penn jillette (of penn & teller fame) was so smart?

i'm not saying i agree with all of this, but it sure makes a lot of sense to me.

from the npr (click here) show "this i believe".

"I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The Atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have."

start with a jug of week old milk

1. start with a jug of week old milk, the kind you come back home from vacation and find in your fridge
   
2. let it sit in the sun for a few days
3. now cook it in the microwave, on high, for 10 minutes
4. make sure it has some solid cheesey chunks floating in it
5. toss the jug in the car of your trunk and let it ferment for another week so you have a primordial soup

now open up the jug and smell it.

that is what my soccer socks and shinguards smelled like last night. i tossed them in my soccer bag a couple of weeks ago after a game and forgot about them until yesterday's game.

i smelled so bad that i had to drive with the windows down in 40 degree weather. while warming up, my team mates would not come near me. it was my first game with this team, so now they probably think of me as the smelly guy. a great first impression.