Going Dark to Protest SOPA & PIPA

Just announcing that Creatures of Prometheus will go dark tomorrow, January 18, 2012, along with Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla, reddit, and many other sites, to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, and the Protect IP Act.

These two bills, now being considered in Congress, would represent a massive power grab by Washington, and would change the way the internet functions, forever.  If either of these bills becomes law, the government will have wide, new powers to shut down entire websites, immediately and without hearings, trials, or anything, based on simple (or wild) accusations of piracy or intellectual property misuse.  Apparently, you can even be shut down for linking to such alleged material - it doesn't have to be actually posted on your webpage.

This is NOT the way online piracy should be handled.

You can learn more here: http://sopastrike.com/

Educate yourself.  Write your congresspersons and tell them to oppose these draconian bills.  Lend your voice to the struggle.  Washington needs to know enough is enough!

-Earl

p.s. I'll be back later in the week, with an update on the new pup!

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UPDATE: I created this avatar for my facebook and twitter accounts; feel free to copy and use it!

2011 Year-In-Review at Creatures of Prometheus

Let's just say that my 2011 had its ups and downs. It certainly felt at times like I was having way more than my fair share of frustrations heaped upon me, but there were some really stellar moments as well.

Let's go month by month, Rational Jenn Style, through the year.

2012 Rose Parade B2 Stealth Flyover

Sunday was New Year's Day, as everybody knows, but didn't really register as such with me, since there was no Rose Parade, and consequently no B2 Stealth Bomber flyover to watch from my front yard, slightly groggy-eyed, at 8:00 a.m. sharp.  I've come to rely on it for the past several years, as my marker for the start of the New Year.  It's a much more exciting way to 'ring in' the new year than staying up until midnight on New Year's Eve. *yawn*

Monday morning I finally got my flyover.

Here's how it goes down: First, the Goodyear Blimp appears on the scene.  Last year it motored right over my house en route to the parade; this year it flew in from the southeast and I spied it over my neighbors roofs across the street:

The blimp usually appears 10-15 minutes before 8.  Then you just watch the northern sky and wait.  This year I was getting a little antsy when, according to my iPhone, it was a couple minutes past 8, with nothing happening. I was about to tweet my frustration when I heard the roar approaching from the west.  It's tricky, because the sound somehow seems to precede the plane in a weird way. It's hard to describe.

Then it got very still, almost like you're in the eye of the storm.  I almost thought I'd missed it, when I spotted the B2.

Again, the whole thing is a little hard to describe.  It just appears to glide without any effort whatsoever, and makes very little sound at all at this point. It gradually descends, on a perfectly controlled trajectory, as it approaches the parade route.

Once it goes below the edge of the mountaintops, it becomes extremely hard to see.  Then I run inside and watch it swoosh over the Rose Parade on TV.

On a lark, I just did a quick YouTube search, which turned up this really great video (not by me) of the Stealth on approach; you can see it banking and everything, and it's extremely cool:

Happy New Year from Creatures of Prometheus!

RIP Todd, 2003-2011

I am very sad to report that earlier today, Todd lost his battle with a malignant nerve sheath tumor that had been aggressively growing on his left hind leg.

Todd was rescued in January of 2004 as a six-month-old puppy, when he came to live with Paul (his brother) and me.

Todd seemed pretty clearly to have a good percentage of Plott Hound in him, as you can tell by looking at the photos in the link.  Plotts are native to North Carolina, and hardly anyone here in L.A. has heard of them.  When we were in Tennessee last summer, however, he was regularly recognized as a Plott by local folk who knew of the breed.

Amazing Gluten-free, High-fat, Semi-paleo Mac & Cheese Recipe

I grew up with Mom's made-from-scratch, baked-in-the-oven Macaroni and Cheese, which was always a favorite in our house. I never even tasted the stuff from the box (that strangely goes by the same name but is almost completely unrelated) until college.

Her basic cookbook, then and now, has always been the 1963 Good Housekeeping Cookbook.

In more recent years, Mom has managed to track down additional copies of that exact same edition...

...and now my sisters and I all have our own.

The recipe presented below was adapted from the "Basic Baked Macaroni and Cheese" recipe from that cookbook. 

Mac + Cheese is one of the things I have missed after going paleo a couple of years ago.  I won't say I never made it again, but I have definitely gotten out of practice, with a recipe that had become something of a specialty. After discovering gluten-free pasta at my local Trader Joe's, I've made it a few times over the past several weeks, and I think I've managed to get my Mac + Cheese Mojo back.

New Community Group: SoCal Obejctivists

I just got back from Chicago where I had an awesome weekend courtesy of the Chicago Objectivist Society, at their MINICON.  Over the past year and a half, I've made many good objectivist friends in Atlanta, Denver and now Chicago (among other places). All those cities have vibrant objectivist community clubs, run by and for people with an enthusiasm for Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.

Once I realized how much fun was being had by these folks, with their monthly socials, dinner lecture events, and conferences, I started thinking how much fun it would be to start such a group here in the L.A. area.  One would think that with the Ayn Rand Institute right here in our backyard, such a club would be thriving, but there isn't really one. (I guess that would make Irvine the backyard of L.A. Well maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but stay with me.)

Meanwhile, I was going back and forth to Tennessee, and even living there for a while, for a house I designed and helped build. Then the new year rolled around and I thought it was a great time to start up the club.  Then I had a freak accident requiring hand surgery, and all that stuff that completely derailed the first half of the year.  My summer was spent getting caught up, and now I'm finally moving forward again.

Which means:

ITS TIME TO START THE CLUB ALREADY!

It also helps that I've become friends with Objectivist sex blogger Jason Stotts over the past several months, and he wants a local club here in SoCal too.  So, without any further ado, we are proud to announce the formation of the SoCal Objectivists.

From the 'About' page on our Google Group:

This announcement list is for Objectivists and others in Southern California seriously interested in Ayn Rand's ideas. It's purpose is to announce our periodic, informal social events, and distribute info about other events of interest, such as Objectivist campus clubs and Ayn Rand Institute Events.

We're planning our first social event for the evening of Saturday, September 17th, probably in the Long Beach area. Meeting locations will alternate monthly between Los Angeles and Inland Empire/Orange County. Our goal is to create simultaneous L.A. and I.E./O.C. chapters under one larger organization.


For now we're running things from the Google Group, but we will have a regular web page up and running soon. You can follow us on Twitter @SoCalOists, or like us on Facebook, or just sign up to get our announcements at our Google Group.  We will also be disseminating information about other local events of interest via the Google Group, such as objectivist campus club events and Ayn Rand Institute events.

The Auditorium Building - Additional Images & Tour Info

Since it's less than two weeks until the Big Tour of the Auditorium Building, as well as the Louis-Sullivan's-Birthday-Edition of my talk on Viollet-le-Duc, Sullivan and Wright, and I'm in full-on final prep mode this week. I'm also very excited!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about with this tour, here's the deal: I'm leading a tour of one of the greatest extant works (the Auditorium Building) by the Godfather of Modern Architecture (Louis Sullivan), on Friday, September 2nd, starting at 2 pm.

The Auditorium Building is now owned by Roosevelt University, and we will be visiting several spaces that are part of Roosevelt that aren't generally available on a walk-in basis to the general public. We will also be seeing some spaces that are viewable on a walk-in basis, as well as visiting the Auditorium Theatre in a private, specially-arranged group tour.  All in all, we will be seeing as complete a picture of the entire building as one can have, and we will see Sullivan's architectural genius on full display.

To kick off the week, I thought I'd post a few additional pictures of the Auditorium Building from my visit there last month.  Let's start off with some of the Roosevelt University portions of the building that are not part of the Auditorium Theatre itself.