Old Spaghetti Factory
I tried the Old Spaghetti Factory for the first time last night. I was a bit concerned about it, since I'm not really one for spaghetti, but it turned out very good. I got the Breast of Chicken Fettuccine with a side of sausage — both excellent choices! The nice thing about this restaurant is that the meal is a complete meal. For eight bucks, I got the chicken and pasta main course, a salad, bread, iced tea and a scoop of very good ice cream.
I had heard about the Factory location downtown, but that was a bit out of the way. This location, in Chesterfield Commons, is much more convenient. Better yet, I have a reason to go back — after filling out the survey on the receipt, I received a coupon for free garlic cheese bread.
Blog Spam
For the first time, my blog is being hit by blog spam. Since my blog requires a confirmation to post, I think it is fairly unfriendly to the average stupid spam bot, but someone has been on here posting generic posts of anti-Bush quotes over the last few days. If that person reads this, I do consider “boiler plate” comments — those written to go anywhere and everywhere and not specifically in response to this blog — a form of spam, and I will take the necessary measures with your ISP to put an end to this if you do not cease immediately (yes, I have logged you).
Don't play games with me.
QOTW #16: Did You Watch the Debates?
The Question of the Week meme returns. Feel free to post your answer or a link to your answer in the comments.
Did you watch the debates? What did you think of them? Who won?
Yes, I did (as readers of asisaid know). I thought overall that President Bush could have done a better job of marginalizing John Kerry — given his strong position on the issues. Unfortunately, that did not happen, although those willing to examine the issues will see that the President has a far more thoughtful approach than Sen. Kerry. It is too bad that the average American bases his or her opinions on things such as whether they scowl at annoying remarks of their opponent or not, and instead based it on who had the best substance (would it not be better if they did scowl and show their real emotions?).
Overall, I'd say Bush won because I think he most definitely won debate two and — in my opinion — won in debate three.
Debate #3
Well, I was out tonight so I listened to part of the debate on the radio and then watched all of it (courtesy of DishPlayer DVR) as soon as I got home. Using both forms of media, I felt that President Bush was clearly in the lead with both his answers — which were strong — and the clear feeling that came through of President Bush's conviction and warmth. In fact, I think the President magnified the excellent qualities he showed people in the second debate in this third debate. Unlike Sen. Kerry's “I have a plan” statements, the President laid out a smart, sensible plan to every issue he was asked about tonight.
I must say I'm disappointed, if CNN/Gallop/USA Today snap poll is correct, that people said Kerry won 52-39. I just cannot imagine this. Kerry dodged so many issues that President Bush hit head on.
In particular, I'd note that Kerry continues to dodge where he is going to get two new army divisions and his view of the draft. I am increasingly becoming convinced that a vote for Sen. Kerry (or any other candidate besides Bush — at least in swing states where it really matters — since that would encourage a Kerry win) is a vote to reinstate a draft. This is something that is not being covered enough, but it is Democrats that have recently been trying to start the draft back up. It is the Democrats that have, after sponsoring bills in the House and the Senate to reinstate the draft, who have been trying to tack the idea of the draft on the President — completely unreasonably and completely false.
The president, on the other hand, offers a common sense plan to bring troops back to the U.S. from Europe and parts of Korea where they are not needed as much, so that we can maintain an all volunteer army (the best kind, especially in these tough times when we need a smart, willing army). This is the way to win the war on terror and to make America safer.
We need four more years of the strong leadership of our President. I fear four years of John Kerry.
Considering Stem Cells
Note: I'm sorry about the political focus on my blog at the moment. If you're not into these kinds of posts, please don't leave, you only have to endure this for 21 more days — unless we have “Florida Reloaded.”
With Christopher Reeve's (“Superman”) death, stem cell research has taken an even more prominent roll in the coming election. The opportunist in Sen. Edwards came out today as he capitalized on the said death to emphasize why voters should vote for Kerry-Edwards instead of Bush-Cheney.
I have not seen, to date, a single example of embryonic stem cells appearing to offer any promising abilities not available in stem cells from the umbilical cord or adult stem cells. The only difference here is that embryonic stem cells require the death of human life, however tiny, whereas the others do not. Edwards appeals to our desire to save people from horrible diseases much the same way a snake oil salesman might attempt to sell his miracle cure. We want to believe, and thus we will, even if there is no solid evidence in favor of the advertised powers.
Additionally, Edwards is taking advantage of the American love of celebrity. Frankly, I think if the senator got up on stage and said that a President Kerry would have sacrificed a few people — ones that have been born — to save Christopher Reeve, and in fact, doing so would have cured him, I suspect many people would have been for it.
The difficult point is the question of what I'd want if I was in this kind of position. If I lost most physical facilities through some tragic incident, would I not advocate these same things? That's a difficult question I can't answer for sure, although I would hope that I would remain faithful to my principles. Ultimately, we should stick to what we feel is right when we do not have a bias so that, at some later point, when we do have a bias for whatever reason, we still have a moral compass and not just a relativistic need to help ourselves.
Dizzy... Almost
I'm not sure what it is, but about three o'clock today I started feeling sort of like my head was kind of floating and by five o'clock I felt kind of the same way I do sometimes when I take a Pseudoephedrine-based allergy medicine (although I've never clearly established whether it is the Sudafed/Tylenol Allergy or the allergies themselves that make me feel that way). But I digress. Today, I felt “almost dizzy” and my eyes didn't focus completely if I moved my head too quickly, but I felt fine other than that, so I don't know what that was.
After drinking lots of caffeinated liquids (namely coffee and tea) I started to feel better and I'm almost back on track by now. Of course, it ruined my plan to work on the confirmation lesson I'm suppose to teach on Wednesday. Tomorrow, tomorrow…
MacSword
I've been playing with MacSword as of late. MacSword is the Cocoa/Mac OS X front end to CrossWire's SWORD Bible study software project. It has some really good design ideas that seem to raise the bar over what I've seen in BibleTime and Sword for Windows.
First, and perhaps most importantly, MacSword has an extremely clean interface with very minimal clutter. There are only a few tool bar icons and each translation is placed in a completely separate window (MDI interfaces are a no-no on the Mac) with its own bookmark drawer that can be “pulled” out. This decentralizes the feel of the application, emphasizing the individual modules as distinct and able to exist “autonomously” on the desktop.
I also appreciate the arrangement that Sword modules are simply dropped into the folder that is right next to the MacSword.app file instead of hidden elsewhere on the system (although a global Sword location is possible). These individual modules folders, if renamed with a .swd extension, will be converted by Mac OS X into package files similar to how .app files are arranged (e.g. they are really folders but respond like files), and by doing so provide an easy way to launch straight into the module you want: just click on its .swd file and MacSword comes up and opens to that module.
MacSword is not necessarily feature rich just yet, but it is well thought out overall. I'd recommend taking it for a spin if you are around a Mac, it definitely shows that SWORD can be developed into a user-friendly package that I think non-technical users will actually enjoy for what it does rather than stumbling around the interface (a problem that is not, by any means, specific to SWORD-based tools).
Demonstrating Opportunity Cost Through Funnies
President Match Quiz
Kerry is down to far to even show up in this image, he's somewhere below Ralph Nader in comparison to me, hovering at about 18%.
You can take that quiz here (note: the site is kind of buggy at the moment, but if you register before answering the questions, the site will auto-fill your answers if you retake the quiz or want to try one of the other ones they have there).
What a GREAT Debate
President Bush won this one hands down. I'll have to talk more about that tomorrow. It was great!
