Turducken

Yes that's right, the holiday craze is coming to my stomach soon, thanks to the culinary skills of my friend Liz's friend Alex. Liz has a traditional urban tribe sort of Thanksgiving, and this year features the Turducken. Pictures will be posted soon.

Please note that the links bar has finally been restored, bigger and better than ever. Let this be a lesson, save your links before switching templates.

I realize my posts have been lackluster lately. I blame the fact that my computer is down and I can never remember my blog password (it's set to auto enter from my computer). I'm not sure what the problem is, but the kind folks at Apple are either charging me $377 to fix it, or telling me that it's now an expensive paperweight. It's only 4 years old, but it has been dropped onto a concrete floor, so I think I may be in the market for a new computer. Scott, any advice?

Geborten Fun

Let me start by saying that this post in no way advocates throwing a surprise anything for me. I do not approve of being surprised.

This weekend we threw a surprise birthday brunch for my friend Jeff, which went off well. I think part of the reason he didn't suspect anything is that we threw it a week early. There was food galore and a good time was had by all.

These are a couple friends, we called to coordinate our wardrobes. You cant see it so well, but our shirts all have pointed pocket flaps and shiney buttons.

Here we are in the kitchen. I was in charge of potatoes.

Jeff got ahold of more than his share of hats, and played dinosaur. Yes, it was an alcholic brunch. A good time was had by all.

Home for the Holidays

I will be in Fresno on Weds Dec 21, untill the morning of the 31st. Are there any plans in the works? Any word about others coming to town (Johnsons or the Jay)? Maybe we could do a potluck or something.

Also, I will add congratulations to my home state for soundly defeating all of Arnold's bills. Given the way elections are going around the country there may be hope for 2008. Things are not as clear cut here. The liberal, tolerant voters in Seattle have approved a law banning smoking within 20 feet of any door or window. Now I'm not a smoker, but this is rediculous. Wat it means is that people can't even go outside a bar to smoke without being twenty feet away. In busy areas where the street is lined with bars and restaurants, that means walking into the middle of the street. Ans it doesn't help to add patios, because few places have enough room to build farther than 20 away from the building. It is a stupid law that I'm sure will end up in court. Stupid passive agressive Seattle.

A new look

I decided to shake things up a bit, so I changed my template. Fair warning to anyone that is considering it, you loose any changes you made, including the links. NowI will have to go through and redo it all. Oh well, I guess its worth it for the change of pace. Next time I will copy the code so I can paste it in rather than retyping it all.

nothing much to say

I haven't posted lately because I haven't had much to say. But I realize how utterly dissapointed I am when I go to friends blogs only to find that they haven't posted in a while (I'm looking at you Johnson), so I figure I'll put up a bit of drivel.

Here's my question, when did it become unbelievable that a guy who has reached his 30's doesn't want to dress up for Halloween. Fact is I haven't been excited about halloween for ages. I don't like dressing up, and I don't remember getting hasseled for it (with the exception of a girlfriend several years ago). Maybe it's because I'm in school again, but I keep getting shit about not wanting to go to costume parties. And the more I get hassled the more resolute I become.

On another not, related to the anti-SUV pro hybrid questionable public transportation debate on Adam's site, what happens to a Hybrid when the battery goes dead. I know what happens to an SUV. When the connection to the negative post is loose the battery doesn't get current from the alternator and the car refuses to start. Fortunately I have a stick, so I could get a push start. Of course I then proceeded to leave the headlights on and suck the thing dry. I think that given the abuse the battery has gone through since this summer, it should be replaced. Hopefully that will solve some of my car troubles. But seriously, what happens when a hybrid battery goes out. Does it cost hundreds of dollars to replace?

weekend update

Let me preface my endoursement of "Good Night and Good Luck" by saying that yes, I had a couple drinks before the movie started. The department happy hour was on Friday, and by the time we got to the theater the show was sold out. We went to the restaraunt across the street and I had a couple more drinks, untill the next show. Having said that, there were times when I wanted to shout at the screen. Not in a "this sucks, I want my money back!" way. The tension of certain scenes and the arrogance of the jr. senator got me all worked up.

On a more humorous note, I had an interesting run-in at the bus stop. I was at a cafe in Capital Hill and needed to catch a bus home. I usually drive to Capital Hill, but I was having car trouble. I don't know the bus system in that neighborhood, so I walked downtown to a stop of a bus that goes past my house. That particular stop is now my least favorite in the city. It is always full of dealers even though it is daylight in the middle of downtown. As I was waiting for the bus a lady sits down beside me and starts laughing and asks me where I'm going. Heres a recreation:

Crazy Lady: "HaHa, that bus says terminal. I'm not going to the terminal. Where you going? You going to the MOtel?"
Me: "No"
CL: "You sure you ain't going to the MOtel? Ten Dollars."
Me: "No"
CL: "I'll rock your world. I do it for five."
Me: "no thanks"

then she proceeds to go on about somebody stealing shit and gettiing shot and shooting and on and on.

Hate that bus stop!

Aristotle

One stream I am following suggests that all moral philosophy since the enlightenment is flawed because it has moved away from Aristotle's basic structure of human nature as it is, human nature as it could be if it realized its telos, and precepts of rational ethics as the means of moving from the former to the latter. The important distinction is the modern denial of telos, the idea of man having an essence that defines an end goal, rather than a continuum of development (or stagnation). While it is generally agreed that human nature is continually developing, it is rarely placed within a context of "end goal." As a result, ethics is seen as a description of how we ought to live, but is no longer seen as a functional concept.
Modern moral philosophy conceives of human nature as it is, and seeks to discern rationally who we ought to live, but denies a end goal defined by the essence of what it means to be human. Hume argued for judgment according to passions, Kant according to reason, but neither was able to move outside of their particular culture.

This is all still pretty muddled, and I'm sure my comments are filled with holes.

Kant's defense of Morality

I was just reading something that I would be interested in feedback on, particularly from those of you in the religious field, though all are welcome. In his defense of rational tests for the morality of any maxim, Kant first rejects the notion of testing according to individual happiness. He concludes that mankind's concept of happiness is too vague and conditional to be used as a universal rational basis. OK, fine with that, but then he approaches the question of religious beliefs. He repudiates the notion of testing according to whether a maxim or moral precept is commanded by God, because rationally mankind must first determine whether God's commandments are morally worthy of obedience. According to Kant, if we already possess such a standard of judgment, than God's commandments are essentially redundant. Now remember that Kant was a good God fearing Lutheran, so don't think that he was off-hand discounting God. The moral precepts he was defending were the product of his Lutheran upbringing. What he was trying to do was suggest that there must be some innate practical reason by which, appealing to nothing outside of reason, we are able to discern moral from immoral or amoral precepts. Of course it can be argued that this reason is a product of God, but I have not read enough Kant to know if he would agree.

Google Earth

Jay was writing about the google map images, and I discovred a program called google earth on the computers in our lab. Here is a picture of my apartment. I must have been gone at the time;the oil stain on the right is mine.

Church going folk

So last night, after a cram session for today's German test, I had lost much of my English vocabulary. There is a college Christian group that meets in the arch building (why here?) on Thursdays for worship. My friend was commenting that they were all hanging around for a long time after it ended, and I said it was all part of the community building, etc. It was then that I realized I forgot what we called that time. You know, the coffee and donut time.

So here is my question:

What do you call the time set aside for socializing, and the space where that occurs? Also what are the various names for the worship space?

Yes, I am ashamed that I don't remember what they were called at my church (any help Heather). Problem is we switched to the all in one sanctuary basketball court, so those separate spaces disappeared.

And yes, I realize this points out how long its been since I attended church, hence the name of my blog.

Side note: I ran a spell check just now. The spell check does not know the word "blog"