(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Wed, 23 Jul 2003 06:25:56 GMT)

[Found in my email. Original author unknown.]

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (‘AP’, played by John Cleese) walks down the street carrying THE IRAQI INVASION (played by an empty parrot cage). He walks into THE WHITE HOUSE (played by a cheesy storefront) and addresses COLIN POWELL (‘CP’, played by Michael Palin).

AP: Excuse me… boy!

CP: (turns around and stands up) What d’you mean, ‘boy?’

AP: I’m sorry; I have contact lenses. At any rate, I wish to register a complaint!

CP: Sorry, squire, I can’t talk to you now. It’s Code Orange! (he hastily starts to put up a sign)

AP: Never mind that now, my fine …continue.

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Thu, 10 Jul 2003 05:12:39 GMT)

Nippon TV made a very funny Matrix-style parody of two people playing table tennis.

(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Mon, 07 Jul 2003 15:34:22 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toast­mas­ters on June 25th, 2003, as Speech #4, "Show What You Mean". Clearly, I’ve reused some material from my earlier post about Bloomsday. I’m also finding that I take longer to deliver a speech to an audience than I do when rehearsing, so I cut some of the material on the day to fit the seven-minute limit.

I’ve uploaded some photos of the reading to one of my other websites.

BLOOMSDAY

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather…"

So begins James Joyce’s Ulysses, one of the most famous, and famously difficult, novels of …continue.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Thu, 12 Jun 2003 06:47:24 GMT)

I detest George W. Bush and his ad­min­is­tra­tion. The war, the economy, the en­vi­ron­ment, the judicial battles. I loathe just about everything that comes out of the White House. I want that man gone.

I’ve been following the Democratic pres­i­den­tial candidates with some interest for the last few months. Right now, I feel like I’m a yellow dog Democrat. I don’t care who wins in 2004, just so long as it’s a Democrat.

That’s not really true, however. I’d much rather have a candidate that I have some enthusiasm for, rather than the lesser of two evils: such …continue.

(Originally posted to Home at EraBlog on Wed, 11 Jun 2003 03:54:21 GMT)

I have recently become involved with the upcoming local cel­e­bra­tion of Bloomsday, on June 16th. James Joyce’s Ulysses takes place on June 16th, 1904. In Seattle and elsewhere, fans of the book re-enact portions of the book. In Dublin, Joyce has spawned a whole industry: ironic, when you consider how little recog­ni­tion he received there during his lifetime. No doubt, the Joycean industry will go into overdrive next year for the centenary.

The Seattle group has been working its way through the book since 1998. This year, we are reading Chapters 8 and 9, "Lestry­go­ni­ans" and "Scylla and Charybdis". …continue.

(Originally posted to Toast­mas­ters at EraBlog on Fri, 16 May 2003 06:06:39 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toast­mas­ters on January 29th, 2003, as Speech #2, "Sincerity".

NAT­U­RAL­IZA­TION

Fellow Toast­mas­ters and Guests, last September, on the first an­niver­sary of 9/11, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life: I decided to apply for American cit­i­zen­ship, to become nat­u­ral­ized.

Like many of you, I am an immigrant. I have spent most of my adult life in this country. Fourteen years ago, I came to the US from Ireland to earn a Masters degree. I moved to Seattle in 1992, the same year that I became a permanent resident. I have made …continue.

(Originally posted to Toast­mas­ters at EraBlog on Thu, 24 Apr 2003 06:08:36 GMT)

I gave the following speech to Toast­mas­ters on March 5th, 2003, as Speech #3, "Organize Your Speech".

SLEEP APNEA

My wife is a cyborg.

That’s not to say that she’s the Terminator. Nor even that she’s the six-million dollar woman, although I do value her greatly. She calls herself a cyborg because she sleeps with a breathing machine. At night, she wears a mask over her nose to force air into her lungs.

When I first met her, she complained of being tired all the time, of not getting a good night’s sleep, of feeling stupid. When she drove for any length of time, …continue.

(Originally posted to Personal at EraBlog on Tue, 22 Apr 2003 16:04:19 GMT)

I’ve been too busy in the last few weeks to post anything here. Mostly because I’ve been busy with work. Partially because I’m too disgusted with Iraq to say anything useful: Win the war and lose the peace. Feh!

In the last few days, I’ve been at home taking care of Emma. On Friday morning, she had a Morton’s neuroma removed from her left foot. A nerve running through the space between a couple of her toes had become enlarged to about a centimeter in diameter, and it had been causing her a lot of pain. She wasn’t …continue.

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Sun, 30 Mar 2003 03:06:43 GMT)

Emma got this list of "why did the chicken cross the road?" jokes off one of her mailing lists. I’ve seen most of these before, but some are new, and I can’t find this selection on Google.

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Mon, 24 Mar 2003 06:56:07 GMT)

A friend of Emma’s sent her a link to an article by Thom Hartmann at Com­mon­dreams.org.

The 70th an­niver­sary wasn’t noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They com­mem­o­rat­ed the an­niver­sary by joining in demon­stra­tions for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored …continue.