First Offical Lightsaber Game for Nintendo Wii

The first official Star Wars Lightsaber game for Nintendo Wii has been announce. It will be "Star Wars: The Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels". It allows you to fight in the time of the new movie and TV series. Here is the description:

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a state-of-the-art computer-animated motion picture and television series that bridges the gap between Episode II and Episode III feature films. Under the supervision of George Lucas, Star Wars: The Clone Wars brings a fresh new look to the timeless saga of one of the most celebrated stories and introduces generations of fans to brand new characters as well as classic rivalries and conflicts that delve deeper into the Star Wars mythos. Now everyone can experience the fun and excitement of a Lightsaber fight. Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels immerses you in the characters, locations, and epic duels from the all-new Star Wars animated feature film and TV series. Built from the ground-up for Wii, Lightsaber Duels features an intuitive motion-controlled combat system that puts the Lightsaber weapon in your hand. Mastering the Jedi¿s distinctive weapon is now within any player's grasp."

Congratulations to St. Patty!

Meeting Gunner James
Originally uploaded by nomad7674.

Our congratulations and best wishes to Mod-Blog reader and friend, St. Patty on the birth of his first child, a son. It was a great honor to visit and meet him for the first time.

Quantity over Quality

This week, I was discussing with a friend the old theory of "quality time" - that it is okay to spend very little time with your kids, if you make sure the time you DO spend with them is significant. He explained how his own observations had shown him that this theory of parenting was clearly wrong, and that he could always tell which kids were most likely to go bad by seeing how much time they spent with their parents on a regular basis.

In the same way, it is good to remember that while we all seek quality, the way to get there in virtually any enterprise is through quantity of time spent. I came across this article which does a good job of explaining why.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

I'd strongly recommend reading the whole article - it is short. It reminds us that any enterprise - work, hobby, marriage, parenting - requires the investment of time. Skimp on it, and that enterprise will never grow beyond a certain point.

Biking Update - August 2, 2008

Well, as expected, this was a tough week for the weight-loss plan and for the habit of biking. It was even harder than expected, due to unforeseen circumstances. As mentioned before, we travelled down to Savannah, GA for the wedding of a good friend. While down there, we had the expected difficulties - too much good food, irresistible wedding cake, and lots of sitting around waiting or sitting around admiring the ceremony. I did eat reasonably at most meals, although a little more than I should have, but got very little exercise because of the tight schedule of events for the weekend. What really messed things up, though was the travel home. We were supposed to fly home on Sunday, but were waylaid by thunderstorms from Washington DC to Massachusetts and after 6+ hours of waiting to take off on the ground in Savannah, wound up stranded in Philadelphia. This meant lots of good exercise (walking endless terminals, trying to find an alternative way home) but very little good nutrition and eventually we simply crashed at a hotel after a highly caloric but comforting meal. We drove home on Monday instead, which meant another many, many hours of sitting still and not eating as well as we should. The stress of the flight, along with the exposure to virii from all over this great country then left me sick for two days afterwards, during which I did not biking but mostly slept and slept and... well... slept.

But, when it was all said and done, I did not end out too badly. I was up about 2 pounds from the whole sugary weekend, and I was back almost to my low by Friday morning. At this point, I am back on track and ready to return to the weight-loss routine. I have been good since returning home and returning to work, and we are hoping to get in a good day of biking today. Not sure where, exactly, but we're going to see where the spirit leads. Maybe to an established route or trail, or perhaps to a new road of discover. Please keep praying that I keep up the biking, and keep losing weight!

Hilarity Ensues at the House of Representatives

This is hilarious. The Democrats don't want to vote on off-shore drilling, so they recess for the August break. Some Republicans don't want to recess until there is a vote, so they've decided to keep going. So the Democrats turned off the lights and the microphones. So the Republicans kept going and one Congressman punched a bunch of buttons into the PA system until he got the right code to turn it back on. Then the lights and microphones went dead again. So the Republicans cheered and kept going and sent out a request for a bullhorn. While this started out as a good thing, I worry that it's becoming more and more of a circus and will be look on as foolishness. Still, they haven't done up a picture of the Speaker of the House wearing a diaper like the Democrats did of Newt Gingrich. Original story here, with follow ups here and here.

US Airways Takes Another Step away from Customer Comforts

US Airways announced today that they will begin charging immediately for what used to be their complimentary water, soda, coffee or tea on their flights. Water and soda will cost $2 and coffee and tea will cost $1. I can't really say this is morally wrong or anything, but I think it is poor business. A drink costs them under $1 in materials and on longer flights, the flight attendants aren't doing anything else productive during that time.

Not everything needs a law

For years, airlines have banned in-flight cellular use because of concerns about interference with sensitive instrumentation. Now, finally, the airlines are ready to open up use of some cell phone technology, after hardening their hardware, and now Congress is ready to pass a law banning cellular use on planes because "polls show people don't want to hear people yakking on a long flight."

http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/53980/flight-cell-call-ban-advances-congress

This is a case of Congress doing too much. While I agree that I don't want to listen to Mabel talking to Ingrid about what she had for lunch, I don't want Congress to ban the practice and suddenly also make it impossible for me to check the news via a data connection which bothers no one. Laws are inflexible, whereas people are not.

Please, Congress, do the logical thing and simply pass a law ALLOWING airlines to ban cellular use on airlines, even if the FAA allows it. Then let them figure out what serves their customers the best. Some will cater to talkers, some will cater to those who love silence.