Fruitcake Anyone?

Okay, it's time for me to step up to the plate and defend an easy target that keeps getting bashed unjustly at this time of year. Yes, I'm talking about Christmas Fruitcake. Fruitcake is the butt of more jokes at this time of year than tofu. I don't know whose Christmas Cake all these complaining people are eating, but the Missus makes a damn fine fruitcake and I'm pretty sure she hasn't got some secret that nobody else is in on. I say, lay off the fruitcake.

Crispy or Original Recipe?

Okay, time for a real controversy. Enough of this lightweight stuff. An alert reader, Lisa, has identified an alarming new product. Alarming because it is sure to lead to much marital strife. She is concerned that her husband actually approves of the latest in brownie pans. See it here:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/a1aa/?source=google_home_office&cpg=ogho1

Lisa says:

"I was horrified. What a wretched contraption. Everyone knows that the lovely, soft, gooey inside pieces are where it's at. Who wants a hard crispy overcooked outside edge? That's the bottom of the barrel (or the sides, as the case may be). If there was an invention that rendered all bread slices as crusts, who would want such a thing? Maybe 1% of the population? The crazy 1%, that is."

I leave this one open for discussion.

Speaking of crispy overcooked edges, one of my favourite such stories is of a teacher I worked with who decided to be really keen and bake some bread with his elementary class. Well, teaching in elementary can really demand your full attention and sometimes you can forget about things such as the bread you put in the oven awhile back. He remembered it all right when the fire alarm went off and the school was evacuated. Now that was some hard crispy bread.

How Do You Know?

What do Swine Flu shots, global warming, and 9-11 have in common? You can find plenty of people who fall passionately on either side of the great divide that each issue has. And that's annoying. How does Joe Regular Guy know the truth when everyone on both sides claims to be telling the truth and says everyone on the other side is lying.

I've been thinking about this lots lately, but it is my blog topic tonight because of a recent debate that hijacked my Facebook status update. Two friends, regular readers of the blog I might add, got into it over the flu shots. Both were able to send me links to strengthen their positions. The same happens if you talk about global warming. People I know and respect fall on both sides of the issue and can send me plenty of links. I'm drowning in links, but it doesn't bring me any closer to knowing what the truth is.

Perhaps there is a way to know which links to believe and which ones are bogus, but it is not something that Joe Regular Guy can figure out, so these debates must be getting mired in misinformation. We've got more access to information than ever before, but we can't know what's good information and what isn't. So until someone comes up with a better way here is how I decide what's what. Not based on the truth, since who knows what that is, but on the probabilities of the truth. And I'm open to changing my mind on any of these if someone can present a convincing argument (and by that I most definitely don't mean a link to someone's expert opinion on what the truth is) that I've got the probabilities wrong. It is quite likely I could end up being wrong on all three of these issues, and that's what's so damn annoying.

Let's start with the Swine Flu shots. Why would the people who are saying to get a shot be saying so if it wasn't safe? There are two reasons I can think of. To make money for the company that makes the shots or because if lots of people get the shots the benefits to all are greater than the risks to the individual. It seems incredibly unlikely that all the shot advocates are in the drug company's pocket so I'll rule that out. If it's the latter then I don't feel too bad getting a shot because I'm a team player and I'll take one for the team. More likely it seems to me that the shot advocates are telling us to get a shot because it is good for us both as individuals and a society to be inoculated against the flu. It makes the most sense. And the kicker is that the Calgary Flames were first in line to get the shots. Why would an NHL team risk their high priced talent on something that is as risky as the anti-shot people would have you believe. It doesn't make sense. I'm trusting the Flames on this one, so I got my shot.
Yeah! We got our shots and now we're all going to die!

Next up, global warming. Global warming advocates have made a pretty convincing argument, but they could be wrong. What I find strange is that the people saying they are wrong seem to be in fields other than climatology. So the experts on climate are pretty much in agreement, but it is others that say they are wrong. That tips the scales in favour of global warming being a real problem, but it does not mean the naysayers are wrong. I am sure at some point in history all the experts in a certain field believed one thing and were proven wrong by others who weren't in the field, but it would seem to be less likely than the experts being correct.

Another point is that although naysayers could be right, if the naysayers are wrong and we continue to do nothing about the amount of CO2 we're pumping into the atmosphere then we're really going to have a big problem. The costs of doing something don't seem to be that great when compared to risk of doing nothing. Not only that, but what is the motivation for these climate experts to be telling us this if it isn't the truth? I can't see one. On the other hand there is plenty of motivation for the climate change skeptics. Who wants to risk their high standard of living by maybe having to pay more carbon tax? So this one breaks down for me as: experts with no apparent hidden agenda vs non-experts with plenty of possibilities of a hidden agenda. Put me down as in favour of starting to do something to reduce emissions.

Lastly lets look at the 9-11 thing. Was it an inside job? Again if you watch a YouTube video you can see some pretty convincing stuff. The question is, do I believe it is likely that a consipracy of that magnitude is possible. The answer is no, it does not seem likely that it could be pulled off without someone finding out. So for now I'm not buying it. Now if the Calgary Flames tell me that the U.S. government attacked it's own people then I'll have to rethink things.

Whew, I'm exhausted. Next post I'm going back to talking about tube socks or stir sticks.

Not Confused About Somethings, But I Am About One Thing

Wow, it's been far too long since Little Jackie Showers regaled you all with anything. So here goes. Stay with me on this one, because it's a little odd.

Lately I've heard or read some stories about transgendered people. I'm no expert, but what I've come to understand that to mean is a person who feels they are one gender, but physically they are another. For example, a man who as always felt that he is a women (in the psychological sense I suppose). Not something I could relate to. Or so I thought.

It occurred to me today when I heard a comedian referring to the usual high school stereotypes such as the nerd, the academics, the class clowns and the jocks that maybe on some level I could relate. You see when I was in high school I didn't really fit neatly into any category, but if I was anything I was an academic. I was good at school. The thing is what I wanted to be good at and what I felt I was inside was an athlete. The only problem is my body was letting me down. I was transcategoried.

I've moved on because fortunately once you get out of high school there are leagues for those who aren't good enough to make teams in high school. In fact there are pretty low talent leagues out there where an academic can feel downright jockish. I once crushed a grand slam home run in a Baptist Church softball game. And there was another time when I hit a game winning home run in the staff vs student softball game when I was a student teacher at a middle school. I'm still a clumsy bookish fellow next to the real athletes, but put me in the right talent pool and I'm an Olympian.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. And before anybody writes in to complain, I'm not saying all Baptists are poor softball players, just that this particular game wasn't exactly being played at a high level. Now, the Lutherans on the other hand, have no game whatsoever.

Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio?

I turned 46 recently. Yes, that's annoying but I'll get over it. I did get to thinking though that there are little things in life that I miss from my past. And I'm not someone who believes that the past was the good old days. Have you seen how clear instant replay is today? Wow!

I miss our weekly pick-up flag football games. I don't miss the three days it took to recover, which is essentially why I stopped playing, but I sure do miss the strategy and camaraderie of the contests. As you know by now if you're a regular reader, I miss tube socks. However I am confident the tube sock will be back unlike my football career.

I miss Johnny Carson. I miss Howard Cosell. I miss Howie Meeker. I miss Wheaties. I miss Match Game and Battle of the Network Stars.



I miss when my feet didn't hurt in the morning. I miss being able to eat Haagen-Daaz without needing to follow it up with an hour in the bathroom. I miss being able to run without having to be careful not to pull a muscle.

I miss when children's sports each had their own season and kids could play several sports a year. I miss cream filled long johns although I'm sure there is a bakery somewhere that has them. I miss the sound of World War Three on Halloween. I miss the Pop Shoppe.

I miss when safety didn't come first. I miss expecting to wait for a ferry. I miss when it wasn't the government's fault. I miss when you only had to brush and not floss. And I miss when the Olympics were a good thing and being a homer was not.

Who Let the Dogs In?

I'll begin by admitting right off the bat that I am not what you would call a "dog person". That is to say, I don't have a dog, I am not interested in getting a dog and I really don't understand what's so great about having a dog. Dogs are okay and all, but I don't really want to hang out with them.

The thing that's bothering me today is I've noticed dogs more and more in places that you never used to see dogs. Inside places. Places like the hotel I was in the last two nights or on the passenger deck of the ferry. People take them into stores when they are shopping and even into coffee shops or bakeries. These are places I'm sure that you would not have seen a dog ten years ago. Maybe even five years ago. How did this happen?

Forget whether dogs being in these places is okay or not, that's not really the point. The point is who let the dogs in? Who decided it was okay for people to bring their dogs into places where they didn't use to go? Was there a discussion of this that I missed out on? Was it just social convention before, because I was under the impression that there were rules about where you could take a dog.

I'm a little worried that the horses might be out of the barn on this or is it the cat is out of the bag? Anyhow, maybe we better have a discussion about this before the snake people get any ideas.

Don`t Let a Little Snow Get in the Way

I was planning to watch the baseball play-off game tonight, but it has been postponed because of snow in Colorado. That`s right, a snow-out. I imagine it would be pretty hard to play baseball in the snow and admit I have not tried it, but I have played sports in some less than ideal weather. Football is particularly good for this as the sport practically embraces bad conditions.

We used to play our weekly pick-up flag football games in all kinds of weather. The most memorable such game was probably the time we played about three days after a six inch snowfall. The night before the game it rained and when we got to the field there was a layer of snow with pools of water sitting on top. We still laced them up. It was fun, but pretty stupid. Not too smart to run around in ice water for 90 minutes.

One time I played basketball outside during a rainstorm. It makes a big difference to the game of basketball when nobody can count on traction and the ball is slippery. You wouldn`t catch Dwight Stone trying that (that`s a 1976 Olympics reference for you kids out there). Anyhow the basketball game was probably similar to the style of play you would see at an over 70`s Masters basketball tournament. Slow and methodical. As I remember it my team beat a much more talented team that day. We were better mudders. When you are slow like me you don`t mind when the conditions slow everyone else down.

My favourite bad weather sports story comes from my days in youth soccer. Our team travelled to Vancouver for a game (several hours by ferry and car) and when we got to the field it was pouring rain and much of the field was underwater. Many areas between the sandbars were ankle deep. Since we had travelled so far and this was before the days of winter field closures, we went ahead with the game. Needless to say, I had a pretty good game that day, but the real story is about a fellow named Mike.

Mike was a decent player, but he was always complaining to me that he was jinxed and could not score a goal. He said this often, and while it was true he wasn`t scoring at all that season, I didn`t buy into his jinx theory. In this rain-soaked game he got the ball just outside the 18 yard box and the goalie started to come out to challenge him. He chipped a beautiful shot over the oncoming goalie and right towards the middle of the net for a sure goal. It sailed through the air and came down right on the goal line, splat! It landed in a puddle and just spun there on the goal line as the goalie scrambled back and jumped on it. The jinx was intact.