Extreme Home Makeover in my hometown

The Mister: Hey, did you hear that Extreme Home..."
Me: Makeover's in town? Yes, I did.
The Mister: (pouts)
Me: What's wrong?
The Mister: Your spies are better than mine

I heard through the gossip grapevine that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was in my hometown of Holt, MI this week. Apparently they've got the entire block closed off for camera and construction crews.

The family story is thus: Dad, a nurse, died from Hepatitis C after a needle stick and a long struggle. Mom and kids are off to Disney World while the crew fixes up the house. It's a sad story, as are all the Extreme Makeover stories, and it will hopefully turn out for the best.

I don't know when this one is going to air, but the new season just kicked off Sunday, September 28th.

Michigan's been hit pretty hard by the economic storm that everybody's facing right now. Our economy and housing market has been slumped for longer than most. So it's nice to see a Midwest family getting some spotlight here.

However, Extreme Makeover isn't a free pass. The sad thing is some Extreme Home Makeover houses have gone into foreclosure recently. Usually because of not being able to pay taxes, change in family situation and that sort of thing. It's something to keep in mind that as much as the show can help people, it's entertainment first, and charity second. If the producers were really serious about helping people, they'd donate some seed money for taxes and would offer financial counseling and advice.

I mean, It's nice that the family gets to go on vacation while other people redo their house, but perhaps they should instead go to counseling boot camp. Or stay in town and help work on the house. To contrast, "Habitat for Humanity requires homeowners to put in "sweat equity," to work on the house with the other people who are volunteering their time. That gets them more emotionally invested in the house, I think. Also, Habitat's houses aren't so Extreme. They are modest, comfortable houses for families with mortgage payments and property taxes that the families can actually afford.

You can't have Manga (or, maybe, you can)

Sometimes, I shall do reviews of things. This post is one of them.

Mahalo Page Review: How To Draw Manga

Context: I’m a writer, not an artist. I have read a couple books and drawn a few pencil sketches but had never gotten much further than that. I can draw a pretty decent Dalek, though.

Pros: Very comprehensive. Good info on the basic supplies that one will need to get started. Page is divided into 10 sections: 2 intro sections, 6 how-to sections and a conclusion. Lots of links to several different sites with good visual examples. Straightforward and well-organized.

Cons: A little too comprehensive. The “what is manga” info is unnecessary and could be shortened. Doesn’t work as a stand-alone, that is, without clicking on the links. Needs a section on using 3-dimensional models for people (like me) who have trouble visualizing. Maybe a troubleshooting section. I can draw a cube by looking at it, but not from memory.

Bottom line: Mahalo’s a content clearinghouse, not a content creator. If you use the how-to page as a starting place and a jumping off point, it’s a great resource that’s not limited to a specific web site. But you’re not going to go from stick figures to busty anime babes just by reading the guide.

New gig

I've been working for the search engine Mahalo for the better party of three months. It's been keeping me very busy.

Mahalo is a people-powered search engine that is half Google and half Wikipedia. Paid guides write pages on news, sports, celebrities and general interest topics.

I love the job, because I get to write factual blurbs about tons of different topics. I've written notes about the FDIC, presidential polls and Lindsay Lohan's ex-girlfriend's new girlfriend.

It's grunt work, not glamorous, but it's the type of work I like to do. And the people at Mahalo are pretty amazing. It's a fast-paced environment with high standards, but it's also very friendly and open.

And it pays. Now if I can just balance Mahalo with the day job with keeping my household running smoothly with spending time with friends, I'll be all set.

Look for a time management post coming sometime soon.

A literary hangover

I've got this annoying habit. I'm like the Cthulhu of books. Most of the time, I'm dead but dreaming. I don't read much. But when I wake up, I devour every book in my path.

This is a problem because I'll pick up a book around 8 or 9 at night, and I'll still be up reading 'till 1, or later. The last two books I read--The Amber Spyglass and Scott Sigler's Infected--went this way.

I used to be an avid reader, when I had fewer things that demanded my attention. But now, I can't find much time to read, and when I do, it throws my schedule completely out of whack.

I've taken to reading short-attention-span work, like short stories, magazines, cookbooks, and non-fiction, to try to counteract this problem. But then I'm not getting enough fiction.

I don't know what to do, except for suffer through a literary hangover every month or so to make sure that I'm still getting in some long-fiction.

I'm just lucky that Infected hasn't given me nightmares. Yet.

What's up with all the white space?

This has been bugging me for a while. I go to a blog site, like PZ Myer's blog Pharyngula, and I have to scroll down literally a foot of white space to get to the actual blog posting.

The blog is great, but I really do consider this a design flaw. And it's not just PZ's blog. Several other blogs I frequent also have this issue.

Is this so people are forced to look at the links in the left or right side of the Web site? Is it a flaw in the blog software being used? Or is it because my Version 6.0.2 of Internet Explorer is just too old to render new-fangled blog technology properly?

Can anyone help me out?

The Resume

I just sent off a resume that, if I'm lucky, will change my life.

I'm now celebrating with a Grand Marnier and lemon on the rocks, and a brownie, but that's more my other blog.

The freelance gig I'm trying to get is very competetive, but would be a great opportuinty for me. Very prestigious, I could fit it into my schedule with my day job, and it's doing work I would enjoy doing.

It took about four days to take the resume I had, which was in good shape, and make it even better. I took my cover letter-writing skills to a whole other level. I solicited some advice from family and friends.

Worst-case scenario, nothing will come of it, but I'll have a much stronger resume to send out for freelance writing jobs. And, my skin will toughen at rejection.

But pessimism's my old style. My new style is much more optimistic. I'm already thinking of ways I can use new media to help drive traffic to my future employer. I'm taking advantage of technology like RSS feeds to keep my finger on the pulse of news and current events. And I'm already planning what to do with the added income I'll be getting.

If it turns out well, I may post some of what I've learned about cover letter writing in a later post. Of course, if it turns out well, I'll be doing much less blogging. But I promise I won't go away completely.

Coming out: My spiritual orientation

I've decided that I'm a theistic agnostic.

Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. I believe that there is a God, but I don't believe that I or anyone can ever *prove* that.

I know that the deck is stacked against there being a God. When I was a kid, about 7 years old, I was scared to death of dying. Now, if I were a good Catholic, like I was raised to be, I shouldn't have been scared.

Clown: Good madonna, why mournest thou?
OLIVIA: Good fool, for my brother's death.
Clown: I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
OLIVIA: I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
Clown: The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's
soul being in heaven.
--William Shakespeare, "Twelfth Night"

In plain English:

Skinner: Ah yes, Renata. How is she?
Linguini: She's good…well, not g…she's been better. I-I mean, uh…
Horst: She died.
Skinner: [awkwardly] Oh. I'm…sorry.
Linguini: Oh, no, don't be. She believed in heaven, so she's covered…you know, afterlife-wise.
"Ratatouille"

But I'm not sure about that. The whole possibility of non-existence after death has scared the shit out of me for years. And the only way I can deal with that is to believe that there is an afterlife, and, by extension, that there is a God. I can't not believe. (I'm not believing in God because of Pascal's wager, either. Hell is much less scary than non-existence to me.)

It's irrational, but faith is irrational. You can't prove faith, and those who try are seriously misguided. That's one of the main reasons that I think Intelligent Design and Creationism are so silly. Additionally, the debates over the Shroud of Turin or the James Ossuary should be meaningless for people who really have faith. Faith is believing something that can't be proven and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's very counter-intuitive. But we all do it to a certain extent. For some, religion is their faith, for others, it's secular things, like democracy.

The argument runs something like this. "I refuse to prove that I exist", says God, "for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing." "But", says Man, "the Babel Fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore you don't. QED." "Oh dear", says God, "I hadn't thought of that", and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
--Douglas Adams "The Hitchikker's Guide to the Galaxy"

I'll live my life on this world doing my best to improve myself, be nice to others, and leave things in better shape than when I got here. Maybe leave an heir if I'm lucky. And I will do it for the benefit of that heir, and everyone who comes after. And, because it's the right thing to do. Not for some fear of divine punishment.

I'm also still going to pray sometimes, go to church sporadically, and search through religious texts to find meaning. I'm not going to consider those texts inerrant and infallible, and I won't just keep to religious texts, or texts older than 500 years old. There's wisdom everywhere. Even in Oprah magazine. Sometimes.

I'm coming out as a theistic agnostic for several reasons: For one, writing it down helps clarify my thoughts, to figure out exactly what I believe. Second, it's a confession of sorts. There's my Catholic roots showing again. Many times, I present myself as far more religious in the company of my devout friends and acquaintances, but I present myself as more atheistic in the company of skeptics and rationalists. I do this mostly so as not to get into huge debates, and not to hurt feelings. But that practice is intellectually dishonest.

That doesn't mean I'm going to randomly blurt out to my mother "I'm not a Christian," or post “I believe in God” in the comments of the Geologic Podcast, but I need to say the words out loud, write them down, get them in order, so I can learn to be true to what I believe, and not change how I present myself because I'm worried about what other people will think or how they will feel.