Clay Dowling's blog

From http://greyorm.livejournal.com/89681.html, find ten quotes that reflect my mind. To that end:

Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?
Kelvin Throop III

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.
Robert Orben

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

After reading Raven's discussion about "300" at http://greyorm.livejournal.com/86401.html I decided to rent the movie when it came out on DVD yesterday. The first notable thing is that I didn't find the visual style as offensive as it seemed in the trailers. At first glance the movie looks like it's been rendered by a video game engine. The reality is more that of high-contrast lighting with a lot of color filters, and I quickly adapted to it.

I read this: http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/07/24/left.to.die.ap/index.html and couldn't help but think that some people are expecting the government to do way too much for them. I mean yes, it's terrible that children have died because they were left in hot cars. But I'm not sure that an alarm is going to help them.

When I first thought of the idea to make t-shirts, the Nature Lover shirts were designed with my daughter firmly in mind. And I have to tell you it's been a success. I bought this: http://www.printfection.com/dowlingshirts/Nature-Lover-Nadia-Hooded-Swea... for her, and it arrived this week. That night, I woke up to let the cat out around 3:30 and found my daughter had fallen asleep on the couch, clutching the sweatshirt like a comforter. I think that's a sure sign of a successful design.

I've opened up a t-shirt store at http://www.printfection.com/dowlingshirts I'll try to incorporate the contents into this site at some point, but for now you can get all your t-shirty goodness from that site. If there's anything there that you'd like to see let me know and I'll see what can be done.

My wife had things to do on Saturday night. That left me to my own devices, something which is just bound to lead to trouble. Such as this: The Least of my Brothers

Today I had the amusing experience of having my boss call me to see if he was getting a good price on beer brewing equipment (at $35 for used 5 gallon carbouy, which sells for $18 new, he wasn't). I just gotta like a job where my boss calls me to ask me about beer brewing equipment. Worth noting here that he's not my boss at my day job, but for some contracting work I do on the side. Still, a good thing.

The news today that Scooter Libby had his sentence commuted (http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/02/libby.sentence/index.html) was very disheartening. Scooter Libbey perjured himself to protect the White House and the office of the Vice President. While he probably did that under orders from on high, he should still have to pay the price. President Bush's move only deepens the resentment that many in this country feel towards him.

Over the last few years it's been fashionable to encourage fat people to embrace their plus-size body and be okay with it. Originally I was fine with this. Then one day I got on the scale and topped 200 pounds. Suddenly I realized that I either needed to get in touch with the new rounder me (and buy new pants), or I needed to do something about it. Around the same time, my doctor told me that I needed to drop my cholesterol and blood pressure, or I was a candidate for heart disease. All the warm fuzzy talk about "It's okay to be fat" suddenly meant nothing.

I just want to take a moment here to thank my father, Tom Dowling, for the things he's shown me as I was growing up. For the times he took me fishing, for teaching me to play pinochle and chess, for taking me hunting when I was 12 and had no interest in hunting, but was thrilled to be out in the woods with my dad.