All Things Joey
( @drinkingmadeasy )
Drinking Made Easy just published my interview with Caledonia Spirits owner Todd Hardie. I am really happy with the way the interview and article turned out. Check it out via the link below! Leave some comments in the article too.
I just found out today that I won the babycenter.com “Dad Blogger” contest. What does this mean? I get to write a dad-related blog each week which will be published on BabyCenter’s website. I am already thinking up some ideas. Until my first post, here is the content that earned me a victory.
PS: Big thanks to my friends and family. I know they came out in droves to vote and support me. I am very touched.
[Welcome to the Age of Worry]
I recall the moment my wife told me she was with child. She dimmed the lights throughout our home and placed candles on each step leading me to the bathroom and the positive test result.
We embraced each other for what seemed like hours and wept with joy knowing we had created life…
…I am totally lying! I don’t remember how or when my wife told me she was pregnant. Hell, I don’t remember getting her pregnant, but I do remember that the worry started when we found out she was pregnant.
Click the link to read the entire article over at Babycenter:
Link: http://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/guess-what-dads-worry-just-as-much-as-moms/
( #thetwelve @jccronin )
“The Twelve” is a sequel to Justin Cronin’s “The Passage” which I read a few years ago. I liked Cronin’s take on a vampire apocalypse. Cronin opted out of the typical gore-fest that seems to be a natural reaction to the “Twilight Vampires” (aka kind of wimpy) by telling a cause and effect story. The book is told in two timelines: how society falls and then 100 years into the future as society attempts to rebuild.
The Twelve continues the storyline in the future and but also revisits the initial outbreak to introduces a few new characters. Overall, I liked the book. But my enjoyment relied heavily on my enjoyment of the first book. The first section (revisiting the outbreak) is like a prequel with different characters (their viewpoint of what went down). While I liked how the outbreak was fleshed out, those chapters were not critical plot points. I am going to bring up some spoilers about the plot in this review, so this may be a good time to stop reading if you don’t want to know too much about the story.
**SPOILERS**
The prequel characters establish the bloodlines of the future characters which added depth, but like I said, not critical. The prequel chapters also establish the concept of a “familiar”. Every vampire can make a helper that has some powers and needs to drink blood, but they don’t change into monsters.
The main story is that one of the helpers, who is a fairly sympathetic character, is used to create a city/society of immortals that capture and enslave the remaining humans and of course feed them to the vampire overlords. This totally makes sense except for one thing…
There are twelve vampire leaders (hence the twelve) and the millions of vampires running around are basically mindless zombies controlled by one of the twelve. If you kill one of the twelve, all of the vampires in their bloodline die. A major part of the book is the twelve are moving to this vampire city to feed in comfort. But the city has been in progress FOR DECADES. Slaves are being fed to the zombie vampires for no real reason. At one point, The Twelve kill off most of their zombies because there are too many vampires hunting the remaining humans. Why feed the slaves to the mindless zombie vampires?
The “familiars” go through all this trouble to capture and enslave humans only to happily feed them to the mindless zombies. This would make sense if this was occurring with the twelve, but they don’t show up until much later in the book.
Also, most of the twelve head vampires are not fleshed out. Cronin spend most of the first book on a vampire named “Babcock” and singles out two vampires called “Martinez” and “Carter” in the second, but the others are just in the background. Why not just make 6 lead vampires?
**END SPOILERS**
Even with those illogical plot points, The Twelve is an entertaining and well written novel. Cronin is very good at giving the book a sense of history and handles the time shifts well. The book does suffer from middle child syndrome, but Cronin does a nice job setting up the third book. It is clear that the trilogy has a “big bad” and he was saved for the third book which should deliver a satisfying conclusion.
( @drinkingmadeasy @zanelamprey )
Drinking Made Easy just published my latest article for their site. This time I review Bulldog Gin. If you have visited La Casa de Lombardi over the last month, you have probably been the test subject of one of my many experiments with this gin.
Give it a read:
DME: Bulldog Gin Review
The first amendment provides all Americans with the right to free speech. Bravo America! You know what, I am not going to belabor this intro: just because you have the right to free speech does not mean a person should use it whenever-the-heck they want.
Allow me to start with a personal example. I am involved with my community on a variety of levels, but one of the things I am most proud of is setting up a private social network for residents of my neighborhood. Shortly after its inception, a resident started (passive-aggressively) blasting the appearance of people’s homes. Since I was the moderator, I muted the post and sent the person a note on how they could make their points more constructively.
The person went completely nuts on me and then quit the site.
Problem solved! Not so much. The resident later appeared on the community facebook site and started to troll a post about a completely different subject. I tried to remain calm and fair until insane insults started to be hurled my way and the resident thumping their chest about free speech… on a private social network with clearly defined rules of usage.
This got me thinking about the right to free speech:
1. We tend to think we have free speech in every possible situation (including international travel).
2. In domestic situations – and I want to make this point extremely clear – EVEN IF YOU HAVE RIGHTS TO FREE SPEECH DOES NOT MEAN A PERSON SHOULD ALWAYS LEVERAGE THAT RIGHT.
On point number one, just think about any “American travels to foreign country and gets in trouble” story – or you can just watch “The Beach”. When you are a guest, be it in a foreign country, a private electronic forum, or on someone’s property – you can be asked to leave, and if you don’t, your rights start to become less “firm”.
Regarding point number two, just because you can say or do something, doesn’t mean you should, case in point:
If you haven’t seen the news in the last 2 months, the owner is anti-gay rights. After the first tide of backlash, support came from conservative politicians like Mike Huckabee; basically saying (Chic-fila owner) Dan Cathy has the right to his opinions. And Mike Huckabee is right, but taking politics and religious feelings aside, it is just bad business.
Why does Dan Cathy have to let his personal feelings about any subject be publically known? It doesn’t help his business. Prior to this situation, the company had a good reputation for service and making food that people liked. Why ruin a good thing by running your mouth about something that does not concern your business? If Dan Cathy had donated money to anti-vegetarian, anti-vegan, or anti-beef groups, I would totally understand that (not saying I would agree with it, but I get it). To donate $2 million of money earned from a business that most likely caters and employes homosexuals is insane. Why alienate a customer base? Why go after people who are not hurting you or your business?
So the press caught wind, lots of people got upset and now there is a backlash against the company… free speech goes both ways.
Over the last few days another interesting situation is emerging with U.S. Representative for Missouri’s 2nd congressional district, Todd Akin. The growing trend of politicians saying really uncomfortable/crazy things and not be called out on it has befuddled me. Then comes Mr. Akin’s declaration that women’s bodies “just take care of unwanted rape babies” so there is no need for legalized abortions.
Not only did the Democrats (obviously) condemn his statements, the Republicans are abandoning this guy in every possible way: taking away funding for ads and publicly disagreeing with his statements. They can’t tell him to step down from the upcoming Missouri re-election, but they are basically telling him he should. Why? Because he made himself look like a super-moron. FYI – this is a man who is on the “house committee on science”.
I can make an argument that 65-year-old men shouldn’t tell women what to do with their bodies, but a more agreeable point is “when quoting fairly easy to check information, you better be 100% right when you are on national television.”
Wrapping this up, I have discussed the topic of opinionated sandwich shops before and the message remains: just make the damn sandwich and be thankful for the business (and yes that is a metaphor). Looking at my headline picture, it makes me sad that the rights people fought hard for (and died for) have been co-opted by the small-minded to advance an agenda of ignorance. I hope we are moving back to a culture where there are consequences for promoting false information and bad ideas.
( #nexus7 #kindlefire )
I did a video review of 3 different android-based tablets that I currently own:
Asus Nexus 7
Kindle Fire
Toshiba Thrive
My intent was to point out the positive features in each rather than expose tons of flaws. If you are in the market for a new tablet, I hope this helps you make a decision.
PS: I have been beta testing more videos on the site the last few weeks, let me know if you like the new media/content.
