A couple articles about the infamous (so famous it's IN-famous!) Wikipedia have caught my eye as of late.

First, there was an article entitled, "Professors Ban Students from Citing Wikipedia." To sum it up, students are citing Wikipedia as a reference source on their papers and teachers are getting fed up with correcting the exact same wrong information multiple times.

This one I completely agree with. I love Wikipedia, but personally, I chase information I learn from Wikipedia with a grain of salt from the same container I use when someone tells me a fact off the top of their head. It's a good source of information, but I don't consider it accurate until I double-check the facts.

Second was an article about how Microsoft is paying people to change Wikipedia so that the entries about Microsoft are more favorable towards the company. Apparently, this caught Stephen Colbert's writers' eyes as well because last night "The Word" was "wikilobbying." Basically, that whomever has the most cash can make their own reality on Wikipedia. He went on to offer 5 cold, hard American dollars to the first person who changes Wikipedia's entry of "Reality" to read, "Reality has become a commodity."

Colbert has a bit of history tampering with Wikipedia already, so I was excited to check the history of changes page for the "Reality" entry today. Apparently, at one point, the definition was changed as requested, but it was quickly changed back and a protective block was put on the page. Here are some notes from the history page:

1/30 @ 4:39 - "Replaced page with 'Reality becomes a commodity'"
1/30 @ 4:40 - "Protected Reality: blocked - mentioned on Colbert Report"
1/30 @ 4:41 - "Protected Reality: Colbert; there's no way it'll stop in 3 hours (in fact, then the West Coast will hit it)"

I love that these people are protecting reality. It's reassuring to know that there's a thin blue line between myself and roaming herds of unicorns.

If this hasn't found its way to your inbox, then allow me to hip you to No More King's "Sweep the Leg" video. It was written by and stars William "Johnny" Zabka. And yes, those other guys are all the original actors from "The Karate Kid."

The song is catchy. It will strike hard. It will strike fast. No mercy. Good luck not singing it after the video is over. You have been warned.

Watch the "Sweep the Leg" video here.

Today, we say good-bye to a very large empress tree in our backyard.

We recently unearthed part of the trunk and decided that when one can see a sixth of the way into the trunk of a tree it's not necessarily a good thing. When that is coupled with raised ground on the opposite side of said tree, it is definitely not a good thing. Although the tree almost appears to be straight if one tilts one's head just right. Unfortunately, it's not very comfortable tilting one's head for long periods of time, so we decided to have it taken down.

Well, that and it almost blew down onto our garage/playarea in the last wind storm.

Farewell, fair empress. You're slanted majesty will be missed.


Summer


Winter

It's snowing. The sky is a gray canvas speckled with white. The few cars that pass by make nary a rumble and the street has become part of a wintry playground enjoyed by bundled up kids of all ages.

Here's the rub: I work from home.

At best it's a hard sell to call in a snow day. The company I work for is located in San Francisco where snow is something that happens at a mountain resort.

I was toying with the idea of e-mailing my work from our personal computer. Something along the lines of, "I can't quite make it in to work today. It's really snowing hard. The schools are shut down and it's just crazy here. I just don't think it's safe for me to brave it. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it in tomorrow."

Unfortunately, my coworkers are pretty clever and, at some point in the day, they'd start to say things like, "Hey, wait a tick. Isn't his computer inside his house? He did say it was snowing hard, but still..."

Recently, my son and I went on an Adventure to find the first easter egg. We booted up the Atari, followed the instructions, and eventually wound up in the secret room.

And what's in the secret room? There's the creater's name (Warren Robinett) and...well, that's it. Hey, what do you for a game that takes up a total of 4096 bytes?


The Secret Room
From the Echo-7 flickr collection.

When you're a parent, you have certain responsibilities. You have to change diapers, remember to use the back burner to cook on, and you have to watch kids' television programming. This latter one also burdens one to not point out how inane and absurd said programs are.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy many cartoons and youthful media endeavors, but after watching the same episode of the same kids' show for the Nth time, I find myself analyzing the show and attempting to make sense of the nonsensical. My parental obligations stop me from pointing it all out to my son. I don't want to ruin it for him. I don't want to drive the cold, steel spike of jaded realism into his happy, imaginative land of naive bliss. God knows I watched and enjoyed some horrific programming when I was a tyke.

Lately, we've been watching "The Wiggles." For those of you fortunate enough not to know anything about them, let me attempt to sum up. They are four Australian guys (each one with a signature-colored shirt) and their eclectic friends who sing ditties that lodge themselves in your brain like a Ceti Eel from "Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan."

The Wiggles are supposed to be four brothers. Greg (yellow shirt) and Murray (red shirt) are the talented siblings. They sing and play lead guitar (respectively). If they were a band, and that point is debatable, they'd definitely be the ones getting all the ladies.

Then there are the other two. They seem to be the unskilled kin who leech off the other members of the family. First, there's Anthony (blue shirt) who's special talent is eating all the time. Then there's Jeff (purple shirt) who is a narcoleptic. I'm actually getting a little worried about him. He's always falling asleep and the rest of the family has to go hunt him down. It's all fun and games until his untreated neurological disorder leaves him snoring near a crocodile nest, in Thunderdome, or at Yahoo Serious's house.

Because Greg, Murray, Gluttony, and Sloth Wiggle show a distinct lack of aptitude for the art of the dance, the Red Coat Dancers are always found getting as jiggy as they can during every song. My wife and I often make up off-camera scenarios for the dancers that include overly-dramatic dialogue and catty name-calling. I would definitely tune in for a reality show based on their backstage lives. It would combine the primadonna attitudes of "America's Next Top Model" and the performance pressure of "American Idol," but with a children's show setting. Plus, I would start laughing hysterically every time one of the Wiggles started swearing.

Another cast member is Captain Feathersword, who is the disturbing friend of the Wiggles. He's a pirate who LOVES to tickle. He has an eye-patch and carries a "sword," which is actually a bunch of feathers attached to a hilt. He seems like the kind of friend who would come over unannounced, stinking of rum, and crash at your place for a week (all the while making inappropriate comments about your sister). Also, there are an incomprehensible number of references to his pants in the songs.

And so my teeth squeeze my tongue quiet every time Captain Feathersword talks about his pirate pants or Anthony eats the entire contents of the Wiggle fridge. After all, I'm glad nobody pointed out the Communist undertones in "The Smurfs" to me when I was a kid.

The two things I knew about "Kansas City Bomber" was that it was about 70s roller derby and that it starred Raquel Welch. That's really one more reason than I needed.

It is a well-known fact that I enjoy myself some roller derby. More specifically, I revel in the modern, reincarnated form of the sport. To be annoyingly accurate, I love watching Portland's own Rose City Rollers.

Now, close your eyes and try to imagine how gleeful my face looked when the opening credits reveal that this famed film was filmed right here in the City of Roses. Now take that image and exaggerate it in a cartoon-like fashion to see what I looked like when I found out that it also is set in Portland. That's right. Raquel Welch's character, K. C. Carr played for the fictitious Portland Loggers (although I didn't see the name in writing, so she very well could have been playing for the Portland Lagers). Not only that, but their bouts took place at the Expo Center, which is where our own roller girls play today.

The movie itself is not so satisfying. The acting, dialogue, and story were as painful as a full-body tackle block, but it was still worth sitting through just to see early Portland roller derby...and Raquel Welch.

Go Lagers!