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Having played Guitar Hero, I find I listen to songs differently.   Now when I hear a song on the radio, I will listen for the lead guitar part and will try to picture how well the song would fit into the game and how fun or difficult it would be to play.  Some songs, like Don’t Fear the Reaper, have a good guitar part in the middle but might be rather boring for the rest of the song.  I know they probably don’t need any song suggestions, but it’s fun to think of some.

Another song I thought would be good was Hotel California, but I checked and someone else already thought it was a good idea and put it into Guitar Hero World Tour.  They need more Zeppelin too.  I’m thinking that the guitar solo in Heartbreaker would be the highlight of the game.  And some Johnny B. Goode wouldn’t hurt either.  Ooh… Clapton’s Layla (the fast one, not the slow, unplugged one) would be fun too.  And Sultans of Swing.

Okay, for the last two suggestions I cheated and peeked at Guitar World’s list of top guitar solos of all time.  On a lighter note (pun intended), I also recommend Hocus Pocus by Focus and Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group.

Some radio stations are all-Christmas format, so I usually don’t find a lead guitar part in those.  Although… Christmas Eve in Sarajevo could be a good candidate for Guitar Hero Holiday Edition.

And not to be left out of a trend, the Christian bookstores are selling Guitar Praise.  That way, you can enjoy wholesome fun with the entire family, playing Christian/praise/worship songs on the guitar.

“Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre; Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.”
– Psalm 33:2

Most of the news items about the Big 3 automakers in Washington asking for money refer to it as the “bailout” for Detroit auto companies. It is not a bailout. They are asking for a loan. A bailout is what the financial companies got: billions of dollars with no questions asked, no strings attached, and repayment is optional.

The current Congress worries me a bit.  They are looking forward to setting up a new committee or appointee to oversee the running of the car companies. In other words, they are going to use this situation to expand government. They are going to take advantage of the financial crisis to add rules and power to Washington because they wouldn’t be able to get away with it in a normal economy.

The Big 3 car companies want a loan. They are going to repay the loan. They have a pretty good history of repaying the loans from the federal government. And the government has made a decent amount of money on previous loans to the car companies.  What happens once these loans are repaid? Is Washington going to disband the new car committee or car czar? Something tells me that this expansion of power will not go away as easily as it came.

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The senators and representatives seem to be fond of telling the car companies that their business plans are not sustainable and they need Congress to tell them how to run their companies. I would like someone to tell Congress that Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable and they need someone else to tell them how to run the government. Congress wants changes at the top of the car companies. Why don’t we also get changes at the top of Congress, particularly in the finance and banking committees that were supposed to be overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They were warned of their floundering finances, but did nothing to fix it. Why are those the people who are now, all of a sudden, responsible and knowledgeable enough to run car companies?

If the government wants to tell a public company how to run itself, it should follow the existing market methods. If the company is asking the government for money, there are three main options: gift, purchase, or loan.

• If the government wants to just give money away as a gift, then there are no conditions.
• If the government wants to help a company financially but wants a say in the matter, it should buy shares of the company. The more shares you buy, the more votes you get. It works well this way for everyone else.
• The third option is for the government to loan the money to the company. The company pays the government back, and there is no need for the government to force any changes in the company. If the company is being run poorly, then they will have incentive to change things so they can free up some cash to make the loan obligations. If the company can’t make it and goes bankrupt, then I am sure the government would arrange things with the bankruptcy judge so that they are the first to be paid. Even if they don’t get paid, how is this any different from the government’s grand plans to buy bad mortgage debt from the mortgage bankers? Washington was going to buy mortgages that were known to be bad, meaning they expected many of them would not be repaid. The car companies should at least be better than that.

</rant>

There are free-market solutions that the government can use to help the companies. Of course, a truly free market would not have the government get involved. And many people are arguing that government involvement was the root cause of this whole mess, so a truly free market would not have had the same problems that apparently only the government can solve. I vote for less government. Loan the money if you must, but don’t grab for power in the process.

“The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower {becomes} the lender’s slave.”
– Proverbs 22:7

It is cold and snowy outside, so I have started my beard, much to the chagrin of my wife. When some people, those who know me slightly, see me with a beard and they aren’t used to my having a beard, they ask questions. Oddly enough, the most common question is “What question do people usually ask you about your beard?” To which I reply “The one that you just asked.”

For those who are interested: the second-most common question about my beard is “How do you wash it?” And my reply is “I shampoo it occasionally.” Another popular one is “How long did it take you to grow that?” Of course, that answer varies depending on when they ask the question.

When my beard is just starting, or if there was a long weekend during which I didn’t shave, then there’s a good crop of stubble on my face. My kids used to be fascinated with that. They would rub my face with their hands and say “Daddy, you have ants all over your face!”

Tuesday night was crazy.  It was one of those nights that wouldn’t let me go to sleep.

I went to bed around midnight.  At 12:15, one of the neighbor’s dogs starts barking.  Very annoying.  It’s not a constant barking – somewhat intermittent, so I am able to start drifting off to sleep.  At 12:30 however, the dog is joined by a chirp from the smoke detector.  It has decided, just now, that its battery is getting low.

I remember that the smoke detector emits a short chirp every minute when the battery is low, but I also remember that it can be on the edge for a while.  I don’t want to leave my warm bed, so I gamble that the next chirps will not be very regular, and maybe I can fall fast asleep and will miss the next chirp. I win that bet, and am back asleep.

At 1:00 my wife wakes me with a “What was that?”  She then described a chirp-like sound.  I tell her it’s the smoke alarm telling us it thinks its battery is running low.  She asks how often it makes that sound.  I tell her “once a minute”, and the alarm chirps again, and again.  I give up and get out of bed.

I go downstairs and get the step stool, since our bedroom ceiling is at 10 feet.  The step stool is not tall enough – my reach is probably 2 feet shy of the smoke detector.  I try remembering how I did this before.  Then I recall that I use the small ladder from the garage.  But the small ladder isn’t in the garage anymore; it’s in the shed.  There’s no way I’m trudging through the snow to get a ladder just to change a 9V battery.

Ah-ha!  We have tall stools in the kitchen for sitting at the counter.  I bring one upstairs, and now my reach is only 1 foot shy.  Hmm…   I grab an end table from the upstairs landing.  The kitchen stool plus the end table is tall enough, if slightly unsteady. But at this point I don’t care.  Swap the batteries, leave the stack of table and stool, and turn out the lights.  Finally back in bed, heading off to sleep at 1:30.

The kids wake up at 6:30, at least an hour earlier than usual, and they’re hungry for breakfast.  If nothing else, that was a training run for when the new baby arrives.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
– Matthew 11:28

Now that it is December and snowy outside, it is time to update Some Blog Site’s background photo.  In this case, it is part of an old skiing photo.  I plan on having a new background each season.

The Some Blog Site calendar is as follows:

• Winter – December, January, February
• Spring – March, April, May
• Summer – June, July, August
• Fall – September, October, November

I know that doesn’t exactly align with the solstices and equinoxes (what is the plural of equinox? equinoxen? equinice? equinoctes?) and what-not, but that’s how I have chosen to update my backgrounds.  Why do some businesses and government agencies have their fiscal years end in September?  Because they can.

It has turned cold outside, but our furnace is working, so that means it stays warm inside. Why do I bother telling you that? Because that means that the mice have moved back inside our house with us. But not for long.

We had been trying for a couple of days to catch the mouse. He is obviously in the kitchen. By “obviously”, I mean that he leaves a trail of pellets so that we can see where he has been. My wife was quite annoyed, because he kept getting in her stuff. She had to throw out a bottle of paprika. Paprika! The lid was chewed open and paprika was everywhere. The other spices were left alone.

So I bought some glue traps and placed them in an apparent path of his, and then I went to bed. In the morning, the trap was on the floor. There was a bunch of fur (and more pellets) in the glue trap, but no mouse.

After finding the empty trap on the floor, I threw it away and got another two more from the package (four per box). I put them in the same place, figuring that he wouldn’t change his commute, and went to bed. In the morning, the trap was moved and contained fur and pellets again, but no mouse. He must be a quick learner, but not quick enough to avoid the trap in the first place. With all the fur that’s being left in the traps, eventually we’re going to have a bald mouse running around.

Not impressed with the weak glue in the traps, I recalled that last year we had success with the Tomcat-brand glue traps. This year’s traps that are 0-for-2 so far are the d-Con brand. A friend picked up some of the Tomcat glue traps, and the third night had a Tomcat trap next to a d-Con trap, both in the mouse’s path.  And we got the mouse no problem with the Tomcat trap.

I set another Tomcat trap the next night, just to be sure we got all the mice. That first night there was nothing – no mouse, but no sign of any struggle. The second night we got another mouse. By my count, that makes d-Con 0-for-2 and Tomcat 2-for-2. We have another Tomcat trap out there still, waiting for any other intruders.

You can’t tell by the pictures, but the Tomcat trap has a thicker layer of glue. By thicker I mean deeper, not more viscous. The d-Con traps are about 4″ by 4″, and the Tomcat traps are about 3.5″ by 4.5″.

I didn’t set out to write an un-biased review of glue mouse traps, but I guess that’s what this post is.  I recommend the Tomcat traps. I also recommend using peanut butter for bait.

A previous post mentioned how some people have problems with percentages. Now there should be fewer problems with percentages, since there is a Percentages Calculator to help everyone get their percentages right. You can go directly to the calculator, or you can visit the calculator entry page that lists some equations and tries to explain how to use percentages.

Enjoy!