The key to strong, solid ice cubes that pop out of the tray whole and don’t crack into pieces is to not stack the trays. The bottom one is always crap. Totally worth the extra freezer space.

This article about a white (naturally) Tea Party “rapper” from NJ is priceless. Some highlights:

The Brick resident, a born-again Christian who is currently unemployed, mixes conservative manifestos with hip-hop beats.

“I’m just doing this because I don’t know what else to do with myself.”

He took the stage to perform the anthem, “Patriotic People,” which contains such lines as “This is the USA, not the USSR. We need more Ann Coulter, less Bill Maher.”

“I figured, rather than relying on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity to get the message out there, I could rap to reach younger people because it’s coming in a format they understand. They don’t understand Bill O’Reilly using words like ‘pithy,’ his little catchwords.”

He did go through a gangsta phase, celebrating the lifestyle by partying (not the tea kind) and selling drugs, which led to 14 months in county jail.

“This isn’t a bunch of boring people who just listen to one kind of music. Don’t get me wrong. I love country music, but we have an edge, too.”

“Hip-hop needs more positivity,” says Cal. “It should be telling people to get off of welfare, get off the corner, stop selling drugs, stop disrespecting your beautiful black queen.”

Cal is happy to call himself Mr. Conservative and rap exclusively at Tea Party gatherings. “I’ve limited myself to rallies and marches because any other hip-hop venue I’d get booed off stage.”

Is he angry about paying taxes on his unemployment checks? Or worried that Obama will take away the health insurance he likely doesn’t have? Just curious.

I have such a huge crush on Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s so passionate when speaking about science it practically makes me cry. Between 2:00 and 3:00 is my favorite.

It was a good day to visit the Union Square farmer’s market:

With some friends:

There was a big pillow fight (which was somewhat hard to see from where we were):

Then we had coffee (mine is the boring one):

Fun.

A recent meta-study showed that strong religious belief is positively correlated with racism. Of course, correlation does not imply causation. So it’s not clear whether religious belief causes people to become racist, racism causes people to become religious, or some third factor causes both (poor critical thinking skills, for example).

In any case, it’s yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that religion is a source of morality. In fact, the two seem increasingly to be in conflict.

That’s right, suck it, James

The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture, with director Kathryn Bigelow picking up Best Director (the first woman to earn the prize, ever). Avatar gets Art Direction, Visual Effects, and Cinematography. I completely agree.

Avatar was a special effects extravaganza, and James Cameron deserves props for pulling off another mega-successful blockbuster. But the movie was entirely about the visuals. The story was cookie-cutter: predictable and trite. The characters were one-dimensional; the acting was mediocre. It was like these elements were after-thoughts, like Cameron needed something to wrap around his (admittedly impressive) new technology. An extremely accurate and ridiculous review here.

Recently, I have been getting irritated a lot, mostly at the behavior of other human beings. It’s really not a very hard thing to do. But instead of dwelling on that, I’d rather focus on those who elicit the opposite effect. And so, thank you:

• People who work to advance science and engineering, to the benefit of everyone
• People who seek to add a bit of whimsy to the world, while also adding value
• People who practice or study (modern, Western, non-alternative) medicine, even though it can be extremely challenging and underappreciated
• People who fight for equal rights
• People who make jokes about topics I can appreciate
• People who put up with me on a regular basis, particularly those with a knack for making baked goods

I am reading, among other things, Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. I am pretty early in, but already I am impressed with its ability to take one of the more horrible stories in the Bible and a fairly obvious joke and totally amuse me.

And so it went. I’m not sure I took to playing villains as easily as Joshua took to being the heroes. Sometimes we recruited our little brothers to play the more loathsome parts. Joshua’s little brothers Judah and James played whole populations, like the Sodomites outside Lot’s door.

“Send out those two angels so that we can know them.”

“I won’t do that,” I said, playing Lot (a good guy only because Joshua wanted to play the angels), “but I have two daughters who don’t know anyone, you can meet them.”

“Okay,” said Judah.

I threw open the door and led my imaginary daughters outside so they could know the Sodomites…

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

I saw some strange things.

And some pretty things.

It was nice.

It’s worth remembering from time to time that things are not as bad as they seem. In fact, things are great. Things are so great, that we have to get upset about what are relatively tiny inconveniences and minor setbacks.

It’s impossible not to feel disappointed or angry sometimes; it is a necessary part of the human condition. Sometimes these feelings are even completely justified. But it’s important from time to time to step back and consider all the truly terrible things that can happen to people, today and throughout history, and compare them to your current set of troubles. Odds are things aren’t as bad as they might be.

The brilliant Louis CK on this topic:

Also, I’m pretty sure gaining this kind of perspective is exactly why we have reality shows.