Oh Comon!

A few weeks back Duncan wrote on a radio bit he heard where they were saying that some teachers are not using red ink to mark their student's papers as it is to stressfull for them. He says in his post titled "Dial W for Wussy" that of course this is absurd and it is making our children to soft. I agree.

Well, I'm watching my recorded "The daily show" from last night and this author Sally Satel was on promoting her new book, One Nation under Therapy. She basically talks about all these silly things including the red ink.

Things like:
- some schools don't allow the game tag, now they have a game called "circle of friends", they sit and share their emotions, and no one is ever out. I say to these school administrators, tag, your a fricken idiot.
- the Girl Scouts have an Anti Stress badge, you get it by writing feelings diaries and giving foot masages. excuse me?
- she says they found that basic activities that are good for children, having conflict, challenge, etc. are seen as being harmful to children.
- Little league teams in Massachusetts not keeping score
- Dodgeball is not allowed in many schools
Here is a good quote that gives you an idea of the bull that is going on.

Sensitivity screeners remove from texts and tests distressing references to
things like rats, snakes, typhoons, blizzards and ... birthday parties [which
might distress children who do not have them]. The sensitivity police favor
teaching what Sommers and Satel call "no-fault history.' Hence California's
Department of Education stipulating that when "ethnic or cultural groups are
portrayed, portrayals must not depict differences in customs or lifestyles as
undesirable' slavery? segregation? anti-Semitism? cannibalism? "and must not
reflect adversely on such differences."

Society is doomed.

The sky was falling

You know sometimes things happen and you say "I got to blog this" and then you forget and you can't think of anything to put in your blog... Or is that just me?

Anyway. A few weeks back a coat hook thing that I had attached to the wall last year fell off the wall. We had about 25 coats etc on it (I think 3 were mine) and I ah... Well...Ah... Well I did not screw the thing into the stupid metal studs our building is made out of because I was in a hurry to get it done and did not take the time to go down to the home depot and ask one of the kids there if they know how I can screw this thing into metal studs and let them look at me like "what do you mean? HOW can you not know how to do this? I mean oh m' god!" and then have to pay through the nose for some screws and then come back and make the wrong holes and have like 8 holes for 3 screws. (was that a run on?). Any way, so it fell down, not a big deal.

So, two days later, I'm adjusting some cables on this big ikea shelf thing that we have on another wall that has our projector on it. This thing weighs about 80 pounds. Well, this thing I put up with these cool screw in wall anchors that you screw to the drywall, and then screw a screw into it, and there were like 12 of them, but again, nothing into the studs for the same reason as in the above run on sentence. So this thing falls down. On to the couch. Onto our table. Onto the heater. Needless to say, the heater is severely dented, the table slightly dented and the wall has gaping holes in it where these anchors were torn out of the wall.

After I recovered from the shock of having this thing fall down and having to catch my projector in mid air (it is ok), I headed straight to home depot.

Well, my suspicions were right, the kid looked at me like I was an idiot and pointed to some metal stud screw things. Well armed with those, some big mother f***in anchors that go in straight and then deploy long pieces of metal perpendicular to the screw and squish against the wall, I attached this thing backup, into the studs this time. And same with the coat rack.

Just glad no one was sitting on the couch when it happened cuz my wife definitely would have said something.

I like to laugh

I like stupid funny. My friends (some) think i'm strange, my wife definately does but I just can't get enough of this stuff. By this stuff I mean:

Old School
Road Trip
Eurotrip
an National Lampoon movie (yes even the bad ones)
Scrubs
The Office
Scary Movie 1,2,3
Not another Teen Movie
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle

I think you get the idea. If you like to laugh, watch one of these movies and let the belly rolling begin.

Speeking of White Castle, why is there no White Castle in Vancouver? I could really go for some of those juicy, tasty, bitesized little burgers... mmmmmm

Oh yeah, I also like food.

Isn't that funny.

I'm watching the news and the biggest story today is the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla. Now I myself could not care any less about this wedding, or the fact that Prince Charles and Camilla have both been divorced and are being remaried.

The Queen did not attend this wedding, and it did not occur in a Church as the Anglican Church refused to marry them as they say it goes against the rules of the Anglican Church.

So, I'm no histroy buff, but I seem to remember Simpons episode where I "learned" how the Anglican Church started. I could not remember the details, but a quick google search brought this site up:

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/king-henry.html

So here is a little outake from this web site on the history of the Anglican Church:

"It was not that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing
the Bible in English. His motives were more sinister… but the Lord sometimes
uses the evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in
fact, requested that the Pope permit him to divorce his wife and marry his
mistress. The Pope refused, and King Henry responded by killing his wife,
marrying his mistress, and thumbing his nose at the Pope by renouncing Roman
Catholicism, taking England out from under Rome’s religious control, and
declaring himself as the reigning head of State to also be the new head of the
Church. This new branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman Catholic nor
truly Protestant, became known as the Anglican Church or the Church of England.
King Henry acted essentially as its “Pope”. His first act was to further defy
the wishes of Rome by funding the printing of the scriptures in English… the
first legal English Bible… just for spite."

So as we can see from this, the church was infact founded out of the desire of the reigning King to have a divorce and remary.

Funny that. I really find the history of the different churches quite entertaining.

Cool Photo

Bryan Cyr photo
Originally uploaded by applecran.

Brian Cyr has some really cool photos. He is a local artist and has is pictures in many places, he even has prints being sold by Ikea, so you know those are all over.

I really like this one. I found this in my images folder while doing the google maps thing. It is just a low res version from his site, but I would love the full size one.

Check out his other work at http://www.blindeyefotography.com/ and buy something if you can afford it! I wish I could.

school
Originally uploaded by applecran.

Here is a Satellite image of my high school from Google Maps

downtownvancouver
Originally uploaded by applecran.

Here is a picture of Downtown Vancouver

Oh m'god! Soooooo cooooool!

Google Maps ( http://maps.google.com ) has added satellite images to it's already very cool map application.

Still in BETA, this map application has the best interface of any online mapping service. Try it out. It is VERY good.

Now, they have a link that will overlay Satellite images over the maps. This comes after Google aquired Keyhole.com - a satellite imaging company. So this also means that google now owns a satellite that can take your picture from space... just think about that next time you google yourself.