Happy new year

May you stick to your resolutions, lose ten pounds, gain a rating class, get a promotion, write a book, have a great idea, win the lottery. And may you and your family draw closer and enjoy your best year yet.

Neurobic of the day

Play Guitar Hero left-handed.

Critical thinking

I have a liberal arts degree. Specifically, a double major in Linguistics and German.

[Aside: Had enough credits for a minor in History also. But if you had a double major they wouldn't recognize the minor. I'm sure I've brought this up before, and will again. Not that I'm extremely bitter. ]

Went to a pretty good public high school and a pretty good state U, participated in various academic summer programs, won a five-week trip to Germany, played chess at a reasonably high level from middle school on.

All of this, and most particularly the liberal arts degree, was supposed to teach me critical thinking skills.

And yet somehow I was about six years into a professional career before I grasped what critical thinking really amounts to. Caught on after watching my boss/editor Rick Pastore pick up ideas and plans like they were apples, systematically scrutinizing them for wormholes and bruises. Every idea that went into his office came out stronger and more sound. (Or dead, when appropriate.)

No doubt my teachers and professors tried many times to get across the basic concept of critical thinking. I blame-a myself. A little dense.

Still. I probably shoulda studied engineering.

Macromicrobranding

There’s a better example of microbranding right under my nose. I shave with the

Gillette (R)

Good News (R)

‘Pivot Plus’

with

Lubrastrip (TM) and

Comfort Blades (TM).

What a marvel of modern engineering (and/or aggressive patent and copyright management). Incidentally I hate the Lubrastrip. It’s like having your razor blow its nose all over your chin.

My brain is full, may I be excused?

So my daughter got Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for Christmas and I spent several hours – until about 2am, actually – tuning it up for her. Beat the game on the easy setting, progressed to winning the first battle on the medium setting.

As previously mentioned, this is all in the interest of stretching my brain in new directions. (Um, yeah, right.)

My daughter also got a DVD-based Spanish program. So after all that Guitar Hero, we spent an hour learning Spanish together.

And then later in the day, I cranked up Guitar Hero again and found that I had regressed from moderate incompetence back to total incompetence.

Whether the Spanish bit had actually crowded out any of the guitaring bit, I can’t say with certainty, but stuff like this is part of why the human brain is a fascinating little conglomeration of circuits.

Where is everybody?

Hm, very strange. It’s Tuesday but nobody’s at work, can’t reach anyone by email, blog traffic’s way down.

Weird.

Thank you, Carmine

This morning the kitchen smells fantastic, and it’s all because of Carmine Gallucci.

Mr. G used to invite his kid’s college friends over for Sunday dinner in Providence. This is where my wife learned to cook her pasta sauce: sauteed onions, chopped fresh parsley, garlic; crushed tomato, tomato sauce, tomato paste; romano cheese and a bay leaf; homemade meatballs and boneless country-style pork ribs, first baked and then simmered in the sauce until the pork is falling apart.

Happy solstice

The Sun is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equator. Er, which means it’s the shortest day/longest night of the year. More or less. I guess the winter solstice can technically happen anywhere between the 20th and 23rd of December, at least according to Wikipedia.

I’m fond of the Sun. So the winter solstice makes me happy. Days start getting longer now.