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I realize this is old news for many of you, but I thought it was worth mentioning that Amanda and I have decided that she’s far too attractive to be dating me.

I kid, I kid. She decided.

Okay, fine. Our break-up was a totally mutual thing and didn’t have anything to do with the fact that I had been out-kicking my coverage for over two years¹. We decided that, although we had a lot of good times and got along really well most of the time, there were some differences that we weren’t going to be able to work out and would not have translated well into a married relationship.

We’re on good terms, probably getting along better than we have in months, and everything is going well… except that our friends were not nearly interested enough for our attention-whoring tastes.

On the plus side she can now be the law school predatress she’s always dreamed of being.

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have, it’s not a sensitive or sore subject for either of us. We’re not happy that we broke up, per se, but I think it’s safe to say that we’re both happier in general.

At least this time around the parents don’t hate me, so I shouldn’t have to worry about someone trying to get me fired from my job.

1. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Shut up.

I have reason to believe that the answer to that question is “shout obscenities and wave a miniature baseball bat menacingly,” but I’m getting ahead of myself.

This past weekend I made the trip down to Birmingham to play ultimate. It was fun, although we didn’t win as many games as I’d have liked. I guess that’s life. I stayed with Abby and Matthew, who were re-doing their back yard over the weekend, which afforded me the opportunity of a lifetime: to lay a whole lot of sod¹.

By the time it was all said and done, I probably sodded a good 1,500 square feet over the course of two days, with a day of playing ultimate in between. How my limbs did not fall off, I am still not sure. In any event, the lawn looks great and it was good to be able to help them out.

I also got to visit with Kim and K-Co for a while on Sunday night, which was entertaining because it had been a while since I had been encouraged to be so overtly inappropriate.

The return trip, though, was when the magic happened.

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1. No, that is not a euphemism.

I’m still no Doug Hass, but my ever so subtle hint back in May that I might be a part of the book that the guys at Roll ‘Bama Roll were putting together is one step closer to reality.

Maple Street Press has finally added Yea Alabama 2008 to their website and, if their article listing is to be believed, my article was not too crappy to make it into the book. To the best of my understanding, the book is going to end up all over the Southeast — pretty much anywhere they sell the big college football preview mags¹ — and maybe a few national chains.

I’m not going to lie, I’m really excited about this and I can’t wait to see it in print. Not only because it’s a cool thing for me, but because I think it will be a great book for Alabama fans, generally. Simply put: this will not be the last post about the book, apologies in advance.

1. For those from elsewhere, this means basically everywhere with a cash register.

So I’ve been a huge fan of Will Wright’s games ever since the original SimAnt and SimCity. When I heard about a new project of his called Spore, I knew I had to check it out. The idea of the game is, as best I can tell, is to carry a species through each phase of its evolution from single-cell to space travel. It sounds incredible.

The game doesn’t come out for several months yet but, as something of a teaser, they released a Creature Creator to play around in. It’s actually really neat, and includes lots of features for showing everyone just how awesome your creatures are. Like automatic uploading of videos to YouTube.

Anyway… this is what I do on Saturday mornings now that I don’t have Law School to keep my occupied. I’m not sure if I should be happy or sad about that. Regardless, you can check out the game here and download a free demo of the creature creator, too.

Two interesting things happened last night. The first was funny, the second was not.

Sometime early this morning I woke up to a loud thump. When I looked around the room, I saw Scout on the floor, kinda half-cowering and looking at me like I had just committed some horrible atrocity. As it turns out, the big dumb shedding machine had rolled off the bed in his sleep.

In other news, when I got to my car this morning I found the contents of the console strewn about the interior, and several of my belongings missing. My car was broken into. Fortunately, nothing was damaged, but I did loose approximately $3.00 in change, and they took a whole bunch of burned CDs. I bet those will sell well at the crack house.

I have a nice view of my parking spot from my balcony… maybe I should invest in a rifle.

All of the fear-mongering about Peak Oil and Global Warming are really funny when you stop to think about them. People have such a tremendous lack of perspective about things. You see, these problems are, in the end, market problems. Peak Oil to a much greater degree than global warming, of course, but they both fit in there.

The thing about market problems is that they don’t always get solved quickly, but they do get solved. And most of the work done to solve them is completely invisible to the average person. Only someone with a solid understanding of economics, who lacks irrational fear of the free market, understands that where there’s money to be made solving a problem, there are plenty of people trying to solve it as quickly as possible.

See, for example, crude-oil-producing bacteria. They eat agricultural waste and shit crude oil. Before you hippies start screaming about gas-guzzling SUVs or something silly, take a look at another great feature of those little guys:

What is most remarkable about what they are doing is that instead of trying to reengineer the global economy – as is required, for example, for the use of hydrogen fuel – they are trying to make a product that is interchangeable with oil. The company claims that this “Oil 2.0″ will not only be renewable but also carbon negative – meaning that the carbon it emits will be less than that sucked from the atmosphere by the raw materials from which it is made.

Predicted reactions for people who actually care about destroying capitalism more than they care about saving the environment:

1. “But, but, but… GENETIC ENGINEERING IS DANGEROUS!”
2. “But it’s still producing CO2! EVIL CO2!”

There are certain words and phrases, the simple mention of which immediately evoke irritation, disdain, and trepidation in the American consciousness. Not the least of these phrases is “thought police.” It’s not that we find being offensive to be a core American value. Holocaust deniers and KKK members don’t hold a special or favored place in the collective heart of Americans.

A world can be imagined where only truly harmful speech is suppressed, while productive or benign speech is unrestrained — but only if one’s imagination is not very good. In order to limit harmful speech a threshold question must first be confronted: What, exactly, is “harmful speech?”

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My name is Pete Holiday and I approve this message.

I whole-heartedly agree with this:

Look…

Will you women get off my back, now?