Little Birdy

Here's a very funny article.

Hey, we're average! Huzzah!

Ling-Ling's Treat

Just so I won't be blamed for favoring Toby over Ling-ling, here's her picture with her treat.

Toby's Treat

One of those memorable pictures...

Just like when I was in college 10 years ago, instead of studying for a midterm on Wednesday I am fiddling with something useless, this time I figured out how to transfer pictures from my phone to my laptop.

Above is a really nice shot of Kim holding a special treat for Toby. Unfortunately, the picture for Ling-Ling did not come out as nice - I may post it at a later time.

The Incredibles Review

Indeed.

We just watched the Incredibles on DVD this weekend and, as Tim mentioned in an earlier post, it is very funny and very good. The people at Pixar are just awesome when it comes to putting out good animated movies. All of the main characters had surprising depth, and my favorite is Frozone, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson. The only minor flaw to the movie was the lack of explanation/history/resolution for Mirage, the long-silver-haired helper chick for Syndrome. If someone could shed some light on her (why she is helping Syndome, and whatever happened to her in the end) I would much appreciate it.

The Chronicles of Cookie 1

Yesterday, while visiting the in-laws, we saw a lost little corgi/chihuahua/terrier mix on the street. Our rule for stray dogs is that we will help the animal as long as it does not show any aggresive tendencies or that it does not run away. The dog came to us when Kim called to it and was quite friendly towards us. The dog did have tags - his name is Cookie, it had a phone number, and an address which was approximately 2 miles away.

Our first guess to reuniting the dog with his owner was to call the phone number on the tag. The number was disconnected. Okay...our next step was that since the number was invalid, the owner probably moved and this little guy's family was probably very close by. None of the neighbors we asked recognized him. Since it was starting to get dark, we went home to print out some "Lost Dog" flyers and came back to post them around the neighborhood.

Last night, Cookie made friends with all of the dogs in the house. Ziggy, Brownie, and Miko all welcomed the guy, and Cookie seemed quite happy to make new friends. The only dog who didn't seem to enjoy the company was Scruffy. Cookie kept jumping on him and tackling poor Scruffy, and Scruff didn't like it one bit. As most of you know, Scruffy is...well...handicapped physically and mentally. Anytime a handicapped person (or animal) gets picked on is just plain sad.

Sunday around noontime, I was doing some yardwork, and Cookie explored the yard for a bit and then sat by me watching me trying to dig a hole (why I am digging a hole is a story for another time). The soil in our yard is about 6" of soft dirt then hard clay underneath. Cookie watched me struggle to dig through hard clay. I could imagine him laughing to himself since it felt as though I was trying to dig through concrete.

By early afternoon, no one had responded to the "Lost Dog" flyer, so we decided to try taking the dog to the address on his tag. Remember, the address is about 2 miles away, which is quite a distance for a dog to wander, especially in the city. Nonetheless we decided we had nothing to lose and as it turns out, the owner who lived there did lose his dog. As we were leaving, he was very appreciative and said "Hey, you guys are such nice people". This was coming from a guy who looked like a gangster, so it was quite a compliment to me.

So ends the first and only installment of the "Chronicles of Cookie". Despite Cookie only being with us for one day, he left quite an impresion on us since he's such a charismatic little guy. Not only did we have a hand in reuniting a lost dog with his family, we received a genuine and heartfelt compliment from a guy that normally I would not expect to receive one from. Those two things left me feeling like this was a pretty good day.

My Thoughts on Terry Schiavo

(Feel free to skip this post if you wait to avoid a serious topic)

Unless you've been under a rock for the past month, the Terry Schiavo story has practically everyone picking sides, and boy are people fired up about it. The topic of euthanasia is something I have very strong opinions on, and I'm going to outline a few of my thoughts below.

1. Ultimately, I believe it is a personal decision, and the decision of their family, whether or not to "pull the plug" in the case of coma or vegetative state. There are never any clear rules in determining if a person will or will not recover. All we can depend on are two things, and we can't ignore either of them: scientific data (i.e. CT scans, brainwaves, physical responses, etc), and faith. The scientific data will tell us whether or not a person's cerebral cortex is intact, how much "higher order" brain activity is present, how much motor skills a person has, and things of that sort. Whatever your religious beliefs are, it is faith that defines a person's belief if someone will recover or not, whether or not the soul still resides in the physical body, and how much hope to hold on to. Laws can, by basis of scientific data, define if a person is in a coma or vegetative state. It should never, under any circumstance, define our faith. With that being said, no laws in this country should ever force a person, or family member, to keep a person alive when they are in that situation.

2. The Republican party acted like fools when they stuck their noses into the Schiavo situation. This fight was already litigated for 10 years in the courts and every single decision was in Michael Schiavo's favor. Any time you try to legislate issues of faith, especially one that is deeply personal as death itself, you are asking for trouble. I am terribly dissappointed in the way President Bush, members of the Republican party, and some Christian leaders handled this. Most Christians hold the same stance that I do: whether or not to euthanize someone is a deeply personal issue that should only involve the person and their immediate family. The government has absolutely no right to involve itself in that decision.

Cidade de Deus (City of God) Review

City of God: Good!

Last night I watched Cidade de Deus (City of God), a Brazilian movie (Portuguese with English subtitles) about the slums of Rio de Janeiro. This movie was nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscar 2 years ago, and with good reason. Once in a while, a movie will come along that is so powerful and gripping that it leaves you thinking about it for days. Holy moley, this is one of them. The only flaw is that some of the gang fighting scenes seem over-the-top, but it's a minor drawback. This is not a movie I recommend if you want to be entertained, but for overall cinema impact, this one ranks up there with Schindler's List.