Personal Archive

Chez Zader When Kathy Is Out of Town

January 5, 2008 · Category: Humor, Personal

Kathy usually feeds our cats each morning, which is great -- except when she's out of town. And this is a pretty good script for how I wake up in the morning when she's gone. There's some seriously good cat psychology in this video. H/T Diana.

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I Like Fred Thompson

November 28, 2007 · Category: Current Events, Personal, Politics

I enjoyed watching Chris Wallace's recent interview with Fred Thompson -- and I share Thompson's bewilderment at Fox's nitpicking negativity, so far, about his budding campaign. In general, I agree with Matthew Dallman's assessment of Thompson; he feels to me like the most presidential and even-minded of the candidates. While I could support Giuliani, something about him often strikes me as ... dark and edgy. Maybe I just don't have enough East Coast in me to take to him right away. Thompson is the first (and, so far, only) leading candidate reminding us that social security still needs reform, and soon. ...

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The Return to Meditation

November 28, 2007 · Category: Adyashanti, Meditation, Personal

Joshua: i meditated for a long time last night, and then again this morning Joshua: man did that make a difference in my day Joshua: i felt better this morning than i've felt in months Marsh: yeah, i'm changing my life Marsh: more meditation Marsh: that "let everything be as it is" meditation? the most effective use of 20 minutes I've ever come across Joshua: yep Marsh: i can't believe i wasted so many hours watching my breath Joshua: *laughing*

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Partisanship vs. Personal Integrity

November 28, 2007 · Category: Current Events, Intellectual, Personal, Politics

I wrote the following in response to comments from Ajasen and Austen on my post about the insanity of Bush hatred. The subject is interesting enough to me, however, that I'm promoting it to its own post. Austen: I think you provide a good rationale for being angry at Bush. But hatred is a completely different ball of wax. Hatred is more personal, more emotional, more visceral. Anger can, under some circumstances, be a sign of moral discernment, of sensing the difference between right and wrong and reacting accordingly. Hatred, on the other hand, is often a sign that your ethical ...

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How Useful Is the “Atheist” Label?

October 19, 2007 · Category: Intellectual, Personal

Atlasphere columnist Allison Taylor, who lately has become one of my favorite bloggers, has a new thought-provoking post up. She begins: Sam Harris recently gave a lecture at an “atheist” conference where he shocked his audience by telling them their use of the label “atheist” is a huge mistake — “a mistake of some consequence,” to be exact. To understand the magnitude of his “seditious proposal,” you have to know that Harris is considered one of the leading public voices for atheism — along with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett — but, therein lies his point — you cannot ...

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Love Taunts My Metaphysical Conservatism

October 6, 2007 · Category: Intellectual, Personal

Faustin wrote this in the comments to a friends-only post, but it's just too good not to haul up into the sunlight: But the feeling of being in love includes the feeling of inescapable compulsion, that it had to be, that it was cosmically ordained, that in all the world she uniquely fits me, that there was a master plan orchestrating such a harmonious and seemingly improbable outcome. It taunts my metaphysical conservatism. Amen, brother. I wonder if anyone really and truly in love -- the kind of life-love relationship that bends and warps you toward the light, from the core of your ...

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Samsung HL-T6176S 61″ UltraSlim 1080p DLP HDTV

July 30, 2007 · Category: Personal, Reviews

Over the past few years, I've increasingly found that watching an ordinary CRT television gives me a painful amount of eye strain. Since Kathy and I love watching movies together in the evening, we decided it's time for an upgrade. After doing research at our local BestBuy and online, we settled on the Samsung HL-T6176S 61" Ultraslim 1080p DLP HDTV, which we're buying from Amazon. (Shown here with companion TV stand, which I'll probably buy from Circuit City.) Our primary selection criteria were: 61 inches is nice and big (OK, huge) Projection TVs provide much larger size at a lower price point than plasma and LCD ...

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I Want to Design Cars

July 15, 2007 · Category: Personal

I've long wished I could live multiple lives. One to be a musician. One to be an architect. One to be a psychologist. One to be a web desiger. And -- this one crosses my mind almost every time I'm looking at some new excuse for a car -- one to be a car designer. Sometimes it's painful not to be able to do all of them. And now amateur car designer Ugar Sahin comes along and makes it worse, by showing just what can be accomplished by someone with no real experience in the automotive industry. UPDATE: ...

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Crossposting to LiveJournal … Check!

June 29, 2007 · Category: Personal, Web Development

I've become increasingly interested in the "friends" feature at LiveJournal, through which I keep track of the postings by various friends within the LJ community. To facilitate a little more integration between my own blog and that community, I've installed the WordPress LiveJournal Crossposter Plugin. This post is primarily a test to see if things are working properly. If it is ... Hi there, guys. :-)

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Friendship Set on Fire

June 7, 2007 · Category: Atlasphere, Objectivism, Personal, Photos

Today we published Peter Saint-Andre's excellent essay "The Art of Friendship" at the Atlasphere. I am particularly fond of this essay. Kathy e-mailed it to me in July 1999, shortly after we had met in Vermont and struck up an active e-mail correspondence. Mid-way through reading the essay next morning, multi-tasking on the way to work, I remember getting a chill down my spine and thinking, "Any woman that would send me this essay is worth taking very seriously." I promptly broke things off with a woman I'd been dating casually, and told Kathy that I was no longer seeing ...

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