September 2, 2012
Author Archives: James Cain
August 27, 2012
Moon
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August 23, 2012
Cell Phone
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“My cell phone is for MY convenience — not YOURS.”
August 5, 2012
Six Hours Later
It’s funny the last post I wrote up about the Olympics, I was talking in general terms; things I’ve seen in past Olympics and felt I could expect in this Olympics. Not only were all my predictions right, NBC buried the needle in failure.
My absolute favourite twitter hashtag of late is #NBCfail. I’ve gone a little overboard with my comments but as they say, it’s easy to act when you’ve got great material.
So what the hell NBC? How could a network who brought us Joey screw up this badly?
August 5, 2012
Curiousity Lands on Mars!
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July 28, 2012
The Olympics: Enhanced for your Enjoyment
I love the Olympics; it’s what sports should be: non-professional athletes who train without the sponsorship of their professional counterpart, and, for the most part, retains the dignity, humility, and respect for the games, for the fans, and for their fellow competitors.
What I don’t like about the Olympics is what the media does to the games.
July 20, 2012
Tragedy: Aurora Colorado Shooting at the Dark Knight Rises Premier
Life imitates art.
Sadly there was a shooting in a theater in Aurora, Colorado at the screening of the Dark Knight Rises. The death count is too early to tell but there are countless injuries and probably at least a dozen or so casualties. It’s unbelievably sad.
The nerd in me wants to bring up the parallel of life versus art: how young Bruce Wayne was affected: leaving a theater, watched his parents die, became a force to fight evil, refused to use a gun or take a life.
It was just days ago when Rush Limbaugh was on his pulpit calling the Dark Knight Rises a liberal movie, with ties to the homophonic Bain Capital.
It’s easy to draw conclusions and vilify the other side when you’re outraged. When this happened in Arizona, there were calls to tone down the rhetoric but ultimately there was no, ha, smoking gun, to tie a lone lunatic’s motivations to something spoken on the radio or on TV.
Regardless of whether the Svengali affected one person or not, isn’t the issue that it’s on? If there is a hate machine active somewhere that is spouting lies, deception, and division, what does it take for us as a culture to turn it off?
Also, please tell me, how can you advertise yourself as a member of the “sanctity of life” camp when you advocate gun ownership for individual protection. Individual protection is a euphemism for killing. You’re advocating killing, which means death, which means murder. How does that work?
July 18, 2012
Portrait of the Artist
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July 15, 2012
Consistency, Politicians & The Media
“Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.” — Bernard Berenson
Most people change their minds all the time; from their weekend plans, to their dinner choices, to what kind of clothes to wear out of their house. Assuming you are an intelligent civic minded individual, when it comes to political issues, you weigh this against that, you decide based on your best information, and you align them with your own values.
Over time, however, values change, more information comes in, biases develop, and you change your mind.
If you want a go a step further, sometimes I can both like and dislike something, at the same time. Example: should cops have guns? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends.
A flexible mind is healthy; it shows an ability to be resourceful and thoughtful. For me, it reflects what I want in my politicians.
Unfortunately, modern politicians only believe in consistency.
July 5, 2012
At the edge of the final frontier…
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine will forever be to me the one that got it right. This fan made trailer does a great job demonstrating why….
July 3, 2012
Record Temperatures in St Louis
It’s still hot in Saint Louis. Ever try living in a Ziploc bag with a heat lamp over your head? Yeah, still hotter.
Crutch of the St Louis Meteorologist
Speaking of the weather, when I want to find out just how hot it is outside, I turn to the St Louis NewsTeam. As I mentioned the other day, St Louis meteorologists always seem surprised it’s hot and as a result, they constantly lean on this thing called the bar graph. The bar graph is seemingly harmless: it shows you at a glance the forecast and 7 days worth of high and low temperatures. No problem. No problem until they start talking about “normal temperatures”.
“Normal temperatures” are how today’s high or low temperature stacks up against the average of every temperature in recorded history. But let’s go back. You step outside and the temperature is whatever it is. You think of it in terms of right now; consequently, you accept the weather, you enjoy being outside, and you move on with your day. But now here’s Mark Nicehair with the ST Louis NewsTeam telling you something like today is “unseasonably cold” or how today “isn’t the peak day of the week.”
Imagine if an insurance guy got on TV and said, “according to our actuarial tables, your mortality rate is normal this week, except for, and let’s look at our bar graph here — you can see Thursday is where your biggest chance of dying will occur, so be extra careful crossing that street or getting into that car”.
Depressing isn’t it?
July 2, 2012
Sorkinisms
June 9, 2012
Plum Jelly
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May 13, 2012
James and Emma
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May 5, 2012
Please state the nature of the medical emergency….
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December 26, 2011
Lesson Learned
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December 5, 2011
RIP Bill Vann
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February 1, 2011
My House
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August 17, 2004
Storm in Steelville, MO
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