Have they changed the Eucharist since back when I used to attend mass?

Dahlia has a friend who is Catholic and who just had her first communion. Her friend must have told her about it and Dahlia passed-on this information to us.

She said that they eat some "stale buns" and drink "bad beer"

If so, this may be closer to what was offered at the actual last supper, but a far cry from the wafers and wine I remember.

Is this really possible?

Among the errands I ran today, my day off, was to get a new monitor for our computer. The original Dell one was never able to render a sharp image--it was murder on the eyes looking at its blurry smear.

Our computer is old (like 5-6 years) and is slow. Now, the computer seems to be really a lot faster. I am no electronics expert, but I just don't see how a monitor (running at a much higher resolution even) can speed up a computer! Even if the monitor driver is more efficient, how much cpu or memory was used for that? Couldn't be much I would think.

An interesting chart

I am for all the proposals by the Republican side, but don't see how they came up with these figures.

The price of a commodity is normally identical to the marginal cost of production,-when supply and demand are in equilibrium. This makes sense since producers will always try to add production whenever the cost of production is below the going price. The current oil price is due to in elasticity: It takes time to bring new production on-line and people cannot instantly adjust to the new higher prices. The cost of production of oil from non-conventional sources such as coal, deep water oil wells and shale oil are all well below the current price of oil; so it is only a matter of time before the price declines back to the cost of production. In the mean-time there is a shortage. What this leads to is that the price will be governed by the utility value. People will pay whatever it is worth to them to get the product. A minimum wage worker simply will not spend $50/day to commute to a job which pays $40/day. A surgeon who makes $1,000/day will spend $50 to get to work.

Predictions of what small increases in the world supply of oil will do to the price are hard to make. Two million extra barrels per day of supply could push the price right back down to marginal costs of production--say in the $50 area. This production could also make little difference for two reasons: 1. Saudi Arabia could just cut production by the same amount. 2. By the time the new production came on-line, there could exist high value demand (doctors who need to get to work etc.) which would sop-up the new supply.

Now, would it be rational for the Saudis to try cutting production? It all depends on the numbers...

Let's say in a few years, oil from ANWAR starts to come on-line and the price then is $150 per barrel. Let us say that this new source would cause a collapse to $50, and that the Saudis produce 10 million barrels per day. If they keep selling all 10 million barrels they will get 1/2 billion dollars per day. If they cut back by two million barrels they will get 1.2 billion dollars per day.

Of course this assumes that the price would collapse, which might not be the case. From the standpoint of our national interest, it doesn't really matter what others do. If we produce our own oil it will certainly help us with our balance of payments problems. Bear in mind that ANWAR alone contains at least one trillion dollars worth of crude oil.

Today was another scorcher.

I was out the door at 6:00 AM this morning for a jog. It was already unpleasantly hot, not to the point where it slowed me down, but unpleasantly so. Yesterday I ran at 1:00 in the afternoon and it was probably a waste of time. I ran really slowly. I probably could have run faster but I was afraid to push myself too hard.

What is really amazing is that we have been keeping the whole house reasonably cool with just two 8,000 btu window units. I still had 3 6,000 units in storage, so I put one of these in just to allow for quicker cool-down times.

Osaka is as far North as I ever went in Japan. I traveled there by volunteering to drive a school bus of volleyball players from our base in Iwa Kuni up to an English school in the vicinity of Osaka. I didn't have anything to do on the day of the tournament so I took the train into downtown Osaka. I wondered randomly, eventually coming to an undeveloped strip of land which had a little brook in it. I followed that for a while and then veered back into the built-up areas again. Then I spotted Osaka Castle and I knew that is what I wanted to see. I had been to Hiroshima castle a lot: It is small but beautifully laid out in very pleasing proportions. Osaka castle was on an entirely different scale: Here in the middle of the biggest city I had ever seen, the metropolis stretched to the horizon, were vast open areas. One would cross a moat and then climb up a level, just to see another open area with another moat and another rise. The next time I would see such an impressive grounds was when, five years later, I went to the citadel at Quebec City in Canada. I took a lot of photographs. I should dig them out and post them sometime...

Will we have strawberries this year?

We have a pretty good sized strawberry patch in our yard; it was here when we moved to this place. Even though the patch produces lots of fruit, we never get much because something always eats it before we can.

This year is different--I hope.

The reason for hope is that we have a dog which runs around in the back yard. We keep her indoors at night, but maybe her daily presence will keep the strawberry thieves away. Time will tell. There are almost ripe berries on the plants now.

Of course, the dog might eat the strawberries. This would still represent an improvement of sorts: Better for our strawberry thief to eat her fill, than for some strange, probably disease-harboring creature to do so.

Update: My wife caught our puppy eating a green strawberry this morning. D'Oh!

Suddenly Summer

For the first time this year it has gotten really Summer-like--low 90's with plenty of humidity and the occasional flash thunder storm.

We did the usual Summer things: Went to the swim and tennis club, mowed the lawn, grilled some fish (salmon, swordfish and sea scallops) and had it with corn on the cob and fruit salad.

My running has taken a hit. Even first thing this morning it was warm and sticky out. I was not in the mood for running in that!

Trike

First Peony of the year.

I picked this one a couple of days ago

Many more are on their way.

Ours seems to only bloom every second year...

This year our Japanese Dogwood is in bloom.

A red fruit is formed, which is supposedly edible. I have tried it. The fragrance of the fruit gives the false impression that it tastes good.

Wow, Just Wow.

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth."

The presidency is pretty much the most powerful job on the planet, so I do want an executive to have confidence...but this guy apparently thinks he is a messiah. Or possibly he is just addressing his supporters in a way they like.

I was talking with a big O fan just the other day and I asked what this guy has actually accomplished. "Community Organizer", what is that? What did he achieve as a community organizer? Nobody seems to know, but somehow it counts as a big credential.

"Hey, we are married. My codeine is your codeine"

My wife had a dry hacking cough last night and couldn't fall asleep. Finally, I woke up and suggested that she take a codeine-containing pain reliever. It it is well established that narcotics are excellent cough suppressants. She took the pill and immediately fell asleep.

In the morning she felt woozy, which I thought a little strange since she has taken the same formulation before, at such times as wisdom tooth extraction and so forth. It seems she took a lot of useless cold remedy stuff earlier last night--before taking the pill I gave her. So I asked, "why didn't you just ask me for one of my left-over pain pills"? "Oh, they were yours and I didn't want to make you have to look for them..."

Aspirin works very well for me at pain relief, but I am happy to accept the offer of a prescription from a doctor when ever I have surgery or injure myself, which is about once every three years. The dozen pills are enough to control nighttime hacking coughs for the two of us and they usually expire (and are thrown-out) before we use them all. This means that we average less than two nights of coughing per person, per year.

Note: The above is fiction--for entertainment purposes only. Added: Turns out she had leftover painkillers from her recent dental work--she didn't need to borrow mine after all!

Meena at play

Hair cutting day.

Surenna has been begging to have her hair cut. Today I complied...

Before

After

A Healthfull and Unique Dessert

Last night my wife made all of dinner; Pork curry (Goan style), steamed Basmati rice with saffron and a garden salad. So, I made dessert. We had fresh sliced strawberries so I knew that had to be one ingredient.

What I made looked quite pretty, but we were not sure how it would taste so we gobbled it up before thinking to take a picture.

I took a graham cracker and spread it generously with Nutella. Then I topped this with the lightly sweetened strawberries and added a dollop of whipped cream.

It was really quite good and easy to make. Eat it with a fork and a glass of fresh milk (hot or cold) or tea.

Double Daylight Savings!

I don't want to re-hash all the good reasons for having daylight savings. I like it and think it is great because there is more daytime after work.

Here is the thing though: We start DLST this year on March 9th and sunrise thus goes from 6:12 AM to 7:11 AM. All is well, but by April 24th sunrise is back to 6:12AM. At this point why not advance the clock another hour? The days keep getting longer for a couple of months and then shorten back to a sunrise of 6:12 on August 11th. At that point we could go back to single daylight savings and then proceed as normal until the next April.

Whatever the benefit of daylight savings, wouldn't there be just as much additional benefit for the almost 4 months of DDLS? You could get up around dawn, work all day, come home and then still have like 5 hours more daylight. You can mow the lawn, have an outdoor cook-out, go for a swim or play some tennis. What is not to like about that? Note: The Sunrise times are for the Los Angeles area and come from Griffith Observatory, Location: W118° 17'54.0", N34° 07'06.0"

Odd little connections...

In the previous post I noticed a parallel between the Movies, Prince Caspian and Godspell. Actually, I noted the absence of a scene that they should have had in common: The book version of Prince Caspian had the scene, but the movie didn't. Any way it is not a huge surprise that there would be connections between these two movies given their well-known Christian roots.

What I noticed in looking at the IMDB link is that Victor Garber played Jesus in Godspell. My wife and I saw him just last Summer in Noel Coward's Present Laughter at the Huntington Theatre in Boston.

Victor Garbor was great in the lead role, but the character who totally stole the show was crazed fan and playwright Roland Maule played by Brooks Ashmanskas. This role may be made for the whole stealing the show as Nathen Lane had his Broadway debut as the crazy young playwright Roland Maule, back in 1982. George C. Scott played the lead in that version, so I don't think Nathen Lane could have stolen the show, but he must have done well, since he is pretty famous now.

Memorial Day Movie: Prince Caspian

The children had been begging to go see this, so we went yesterday. I don't want to do a whole movie review; partly because lots of people already have and partly because it would be tedious. I will give some impressions though.

We all liked it.

The plot strayed from the original story. Some of this made a lot of sense from the standpoint of telling a story through film. I would not have made some of the same choices though. For instance, I think more time should have been spent on Prince Caspian getting to know the Narnians and becoming one of them through knowing their ways. This would have involved slowing down the pacing, which is fine: These stories have a lot of action, but they are not all action.

I found myself strangely moved in parts. I think it is because I read the books 35 years ago and it has a strong effect--seeing things which had been gestating in my mind all this time.

I don't know how they could have filmed it, but I was disappointed that they didn't really do the awakening scene toward the end: The animals regain their awareness, good-hearted people join Aslan and the girls and wicked people run off or are turned to trees...all of this happening in a singing, dancing parade. It is actually much like the opening scene in Godspell in terms of tone.

Still, good enough. Hope they make the rest of the series. Maybe even someday the Lloyd Alexander books someday too: I like those even more!

Nobody around here gets my jokes...

Jemma was all dressed-up in some kind of princess outfit and coloring pictures in the kitchen. She has been telling each passer-by that "I am not a good drawer", I replied as I walked-by, "you are a good dresser through".

Okay not the greatest joke, but come-on! Give me at least a groan people.

Home--DIY...

I just blew all of Sunday replacing a hot water heater that I installed only 3 years ago. One consolation is that it had a 9-year warranty so the new heater was free and has a 9-year warranty too. At the Home Depot they offered me a lifetime warranty for an extra hundred bucks. My bet is that the only difference between the 6-year, 9-year and 12-year models is the price. They just charge for the longer life ones because it is less likely that the unit will survive that long and they will have to replace it. What you get are identical models, but with different lengths of extended warranties.

If they keep breaking every three years, I will never have to pay for a hot water heater again! Of course, I would rather pay $400 every 9 years and only have to install one every 9 years than pay nothing and have to install one every three years.

If I had to install one tomorrow it would only take a couple of hours instead of all day: I spend about two thirds of my time re-learning how to solder copper pipe and the other third being productive. So right now I am pretty good at it, but in three years or so I will have lost the touch again.

Well, that is that. The day is done. Tomorrow will be just for fun--no work!