I have a problem with coffee houses on warm days. I always want an iced tea when it’s warm, but you can’t order an iced tea at a coffee house. I mean you can, but they don’t just have tea, they have like 10 different kinds of speciality teas. I don’t want any of that crap, I want plain old black iced tea in at least a 32 ounce container. I ordered an iced tea today and I got 16 ounces of some type of green tea citrus something. It sucks. I don’t think it has any caffeine in it. What’s the point of iced tea without caffeine?

Hey, this blogging in public thing is going okay. I don’t think the other coffee house patrons are judging me as much anymore. It must be because my writing is so awesome. Thanks guys. I wish I could take a picture, but there are these three college girls right in my line of view. I don’t want them to think that I’m taking their picture. It would suck to be that guy. You should really come by Kayak’s sometime and see it though. It’s very cool, it has a mountain log cabin feeling to it, and they have Tibetan prayer flags hanging from the ceiling. I love me some Tibetan prayer flags. They also used to serve s’mores. I don’t know if they still do though, I can’t see them on the menu. I wish Kayak’s had existed when I was at WashU, I probably would have spent a lot of time here doing homework with a couple other guys.

Last night was a good night. Nebraska beat Oklahoma in college football and health care reform passed in the house. I’m kind of embarrassed, because I though Oklahoma had only lost to Texas and was ranked in the top 10. Apparently they had lost three times and were actually ranked like 20th. So while it was nice to see Nebraska beat a ranked team and their only true rival (sorry Missouri & Colorado), it isn’t as big of a deal as I thought it was. Health care passing in the house was nice too. No, the bill isn’t perfect, and there is still a long ways to go before this whole ordeal is over, but this is the most progress we’ve ever made, so that’s good. I spent a lot of time switching between college football and C-SPAN last night. Never done that before.

Okay, I’m out of food and drink. I’m not sure what the unwritten coffee house rules are, but doesn’t some bouncer come and throw you out when you are done with your food and/or drink? No? Hmm… Well I’m tired of sitting here anyways. Only 22 post left. I’m over half way through being half way through. Hurray!

First up is Yelle. Yelle is a French electropop singer. I can’t say that I’m really into “electropop”, but Yelle’s music is strangely entrancing. Here is a video of Yelle singing Je Veux Te Voir (I Want To See You) at the Knitting Factory in NYC. People often ask how the French stay so thin. Judging from this video, I think it’s because they jump a lot. FYI, the lyrics to this song are pretty dirty, but you’ll never know, unless you speak French or click on that lyrics link I just provided.

Along with Yelle, I found Alizée. Alizée is a more traditional pop singer. Her music isn’t as strangely addicting as Yelle’s, but it’s very pretty and soothing. It sounds so French. Perhaps because it’s in French. Also, Alizée is beautiful. She is what I would describe as girlfriend hot. She’s attractive, but she still has the illusion of attainability. Attainability is hot. Anyways, here is a video of Alizée singing J’en ai Marre (I’m fed up). You can view the translated lyrics here. One weird thing about French, even after you translate it into English, it still doesn’t make much sense.

Finally, a cute little French girl telling a fairy tale. I’m not usually a fan of cute kids doing cute things, but if they are speaking French, well, not even I can resist. One great thing about this video is that it has english subtitles. I now know how to say hippopotamus, giraffe, and crocodile in French. Woo Hoo! Now if only I could find a video of cats speaking French, that would be awesome.

That is all, I have Husker football to watch. See you tomorrow.

As far as I know, this is the first place I ever lived. It’s a condo in Lincoln, Nebraska. My Dad actually lived here until just a few months ago, and I have spent many summers and holiday breaks in this condo.

My parents got divorced when I was three or four. For awhile, I lived with my Mom in an apartment, but I have no idea where that was. Then, when I was in kindergarten, we lived in this house. I’m amazed I was able to find it, but it was actually fairly easy. I remember that my aunt lived in the basement of this house for some time. She would tell me ghost stories about a ghost named VooDoo, and then I would have nightmares.

My Mom remarried when I was 5, and my Mom, Stepdad, and I lived in this house when I was in first grade. I remember that it was near a drive-in movie. I could see movies from my front yard. I couldn’t hear them, but I could see them.

After first grade, we moved to Edmond, Oklahoma. We lived in the duplex apartment with the red car in front of it. This was a semi-fun place to live. I spent a lot of time riding my bike and playing in the wooded area towards the bottom-left of the picture. I remember catching horny toads and playing in red dirt. Oklahoma had lots of red dirt. I also remember the people in Oklahoma being a little weird. I personally don’t think I’d ever live there again.

Then in third grade, we moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, where we lived in this apartment complex for the first year. This was awesome for a kid. This neighborhood was called the Ridges, and it was very hilly and rocky. I used to climb on these rocks a lot. I scrapped many knees here. There were also lots of cactuses, and I put my hand in several of them.

In fourth grade, we moved to this house in Grand Junction, Colorado. This is where I lived until I left for college. There were not as many plants in front of the house when I lived here, but the rock yard was there. The Colorado river was near by and I used to ride my bike down there all the time. I also played a lot of Nintendo in this house.

After high school, I went to Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. I lived in the Freese hall my freshman and sophomore years, which is the dorm on the left. Freese was a co-ed dorm and Doane had a beautiful campus. Notice the lake and trees. It’s pretty.

During my junior and senior years, I lived in Colonial Hall with seven other guys from my fraternity. Colonial was made up of quads, which are four dorm rooms with a shared living and bathroom. Good times. I wish I could say more, but I’d rather leave some things undocumented. Right now my quad-mates are thinking, “Like what? the time you stayed in to do homework when we went to the bar?”. Yes, exactly. Nobody needs to know these things.

After Doane, I got my engineering degree at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. I was at WashU for three semesters, and I lived in the Millbrook apartments during this time. I did a lot of studying here. Not much else.

After WashU, I went to grad school at the University of Nebraska. So we’ve come full circle back to Lincoln, Nebraska. This is the apartment complex I lived in. I had a studio apartment, which was small, but suited me well. I get a kick out of the efficient use of space.

After grad school, I moved to St. Louis, Missouri and lived in this apartment complex. These apartments were nice, but I got tired of paying rent, so I bought a condo and moved out.

This is the neighborhood I live in today. I can’t show you my actual condo, because you’d probably stalk me and eat my brains. Not cool.

Well that was fun, it’s amazing how fast that went by. It’s like my life just flashed before my eyes. Am I dead? Nope, still here, few! If you liked this post, you might also like this post with various pictures of me over the ages. See you tomorrow for another fun filled NaBloPoMo post!

A). Marisa Miller, Heidi Klum, Jessica Biel

Okay, look. I don’t read People, or US Weekly, or watch TMZ. I’m also horrible at names and faces. Who in the hell is Marisa Miller? Let me do a Google image search… Oh dear god. Wow. Good for her. This (possibly NSFW) is nice. And this. And this. Yeah, um, I’m gonna fuck her.

So that leaves Heidi Klum and Jessica Biel. I know Heidi because she a judge on that runway show that has nothing to do with airplanes. She’s quite fit as well. (Psssst… “fit” is British for looks fuckable. You may now consider yourself cultured). I know that I know Jessica Biel, but I can’t seem to bring up her image in my mind. Let’s do another Google image search… Jessica’s nice, but not my thing. I’ll kill her and marry Heidi. I think I’d enjoy the German efficiency Heidi would bring to our union.

Next List.

B). Lady GaGa, Kathy Griffin, Scary Spice

I think I preferred the last list, can we just do it again? No? All-right. I’m actually somewhat of a Kathy Griffin fan. I love here Life on the D List show on Bravo. I also like Lady GaGa’s song Just Dance. It’s a good song to get you going on the way to work in the morning. I don’t know much about Scary Spice, but I do remember the Spice Girls.

I’m going to marry Kathy. An odd choice given that she’s the oldest of the three, but she’s funny and I think it would be cool to hang out with her on a daily basis. Plus her last husband was kind of a dick, so she deserves a good guy like me. I’m going to kill Lady Gaga and fuck Scary Spice. Lady Gaga just seems a little out of control. I don’t do out of control. Supposedly Scary Spice was named “Scary” because she has a take charge up front personality. That could make for a unique bedroom experience. I’d like to try it out.

Next List.

C). Rosie O’Donnell, Barbara Streisand, Amy Winehouse

I have to kill Rosie. I actually like Rosie when she doesn’t let her mouth get too far ahead of her brain, but that never last very long. My biggest issue with Rosie is this. I’ll spare you the gory details, but basically Rosie did her own little expert structural engineering analysis and determined that the U.S. government must have been responsible for 9-11. I don’t do crazy, so I’m afraid Rosie has to go.

Every time I see Amy Winehouse, I think she’s a drag queen. An attractive drag queen, but still a drag queen. Also, isn’t she some type of raging drug addict? Or has she recovered? Either way, I can’t marry her. I could fuck her though, so I will. I guess that means I’m marrying Barbara. She older, but super rich. I can deal with that.

Well that was fun. Feel free to critique my selections. Remember, we are all about intelligent discourse here at Roseyland. Also, I should warn you, this blog post uses the word “fuck” a lot. This is out of character for me, but the nature of the game Kill Fuck Marry makes it necessary. If such language offends you, please don’t read this post.

• Conversations with Nate Dogg
• The Ramblings of a Mad Man
• Earl and the Ninja Duck (A Children’s Story)
• The History of Earl (Cat Pictures)
• Everywhere I have lived via Google Street View
• Self Driving Cars and Virtual Bubbles
• Staying Positive Amidst all the Crazy
• My Obsession Love Fondness of Lily Allen
• The Self Aware Universe
• Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Book Review)
• Commentary on some random news article of the day
• Christmas in London
• Teleportation Thought Experiment
• Countries I Would Add to Epcot
• The Wine Cube
• Remodeling my Bathroom
• Tour of My Condo
• Places I’d like to go
• NaBloPoMo - Looking Back (My last NaBloPoMo post)
• ???

That is 19 potential posts. I need 7 more. Any ideas? Anything on the list you like? don’t like? Leave a comment. I love comments.

See that guy on the right? That’s my senior year college roommate John. The guy on the left is his gay partner/lover Rob. If you look close, you can see that they are wearing nothing but body paint, man panties, and shoes. They are dressed up (or down) as corn for Halloween. I assume they went with corn because they are both from Nebraska. There is a lot of corn in Nebraska. Their dog, Chi, is dressed up as a pumpkin. In the picture below, you can see Chi dressed up as a purple monkey. It looks like Chi got two costumes this year. Lucky dog.

The next picture is John and Rob’s refrigerator in preparation for Market Days. Market days is this gay and lesbian street festival in Chicago. Apparently it’s a big deal. Notice the obscene amount of gay pride themed jello shots.

So why are we here? I don’t know. Somehow I saw that picture of John painted as gay corn on the cob, and I just had to blog about it. John is one of my favorite people in the world. I lived with him and four other guys for two years in college. We all pledged to the same fraternity as freshman, and it has been good times ever since. All of these guys are a million times more interesting than me, but John is particularly interesting, because he’s gay. Well not just because he’s gay, but also because he was a huge republican in college. He worked on republican candidates campaigns, he went to the Republican National Convention in 1996, and he screamed with girlish glee when he found out that Bill Clinton put a cigar in Monica Lewinsky’s vagina. That probably should have been our first clue.

John was also student body president for two years and president of the young republicans for 3 years (I think). We used to debate politics a lot in our quad. John was always the staunch republican. To be fair, John was never a fan of the religious right. We both shared a deep distaste for Pat Robertson and his ilk. I guess what I’m trying to say is that John being a super republican in college makes it all the more wonderful that he is now a gay man living an all out gay lifestyle in Chicago.

I wish I could tell you about the time that John got drunk, threw a pear against the wall, stripped naked, put on a life vest, and tried to strangle me over a can of mandarin oranges, but I promised not to blog about things that could get people arrested. So there you have it, the abbreviated story of my gay republican college roommate John. I’d like to thank John and Rob for letting me post this and use their pictures. You guys are awesome. I’ll come visit someday.

I’ve always been fascinated by evangelical religion. Not being that religious myself, evangelical religion is very foreign to me. I like to think that I can always understand another person’s perspective and why they feel the way they do, but evangelicals are a tough nut to crack. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll all about the importance of community, and incorporating some sense of spirituality into your life, but I don’t get blind faith. I can’t shut off the logical/rational side of my brain. I need my beliefs to be compatible with factual reality.

I could ramble on about evangelical religion forever, but we don’t have time for that. In this post, I want to focus on my favorite scene from Jesus Camp. This scene isn’t even in the movie, it’s a deleted scene, and it’s awesome. Check it out:

Let’s recap what we just saw. The leaders of the camp have called a meeting to discuss contingency plans in the event that any of the children become possessed by demons. I imagine if you are running a summer camp, you have to have a lot of back-up plans. You know, things like what to do if it rains, what if one of the kids gets sick, oh, and also, what if the children become possessed by demons. Because you know, that could happen. I think what I love most about this clip is the way nobody is surprised when the head pastor announces that they will probably have to deal with “demonic manifestation”. It looks like there are about 15-20 people in that room. You would think at least one person would be like “wait, wait, this is a joke right?”, but no, they all act like this is a completely normal meeting. Given that nobody thinks this is a joke though, why aren’t they more freaked out? I mean if I believed in demonic possession, and someone told me it was likely to happen, I’d probably lose my cool a little. Aren’t demons supposed to be fallen angels who follow Satan? That sounds bad.

Another thing I want to point out in this scene is the description of a demonically possessed child. In the words of “Uncle Leon”, a demonically possessed child might be “a child doing funny things with their hands or whatever”. Dude, demonically possessed children are EVERYWHERE! It’s an epidemic worse than the swine flu, from now on, I’m throwing holy water on every child I see. Better safe than sorry.

I’m going to leave you with one more scene from Jesus Camp. I’ll let it go without comment, because well, I wouldn’t know where to begin.

As I write this, it is November 1st, 2009 at 6:31 PM, and I have just now decided to participate in NaPaBloMo. This is where you blog every day for the month of November. I haven’t been blogging lately. No real reason, except that I was just plain burned out. I loved the blog post I wrote about my London/Paris trip this summer. It was a great way to document my trip, and I actually go back and read those post a lot. Which is weird, because I wrote them. Unfortunately, with all the pictures and everything I wanted to say, those post wore me out.

I’ll be honest, I’m probably going to fail at this blogging every day thing. For one, I know that I’m going to be out of town for Thanksgiving, and I might not even have internet access. Can you write blog post ahead of time for NaPaBloMo? Or, can you write a blog post everyday, but not post it until a few days later? Which would be more ethical? Maybe I should just stay home with the cat for Thanksgiving.

Three paragraphs into my fist NaPaBloMo post I guess I should finally get to the topic of the post. V. This Tuesday, November 3ed, the new ABC series V starts. In case you don’t know, this is a remake of the original V mini series that aired in 1983, when I was in second grade. I loved V. I wanted to be one of the aliens. I wanted to wear a red jump suit, eat mice, and peel off my face to reveal my true lizard self. I frequently told people I was an alien, and I would draw lizard scales onto my skin using magic markers. Man, those were the days. The Scfy channel has been running a marathon of the original series today, and I have watched a lot of it. For some reason, it doesn’t hold the attraction for me that it once did. I guess it’s possible that I have changed since 1983. I mean I haven’t tried peel my face off in ages.

I do plan on watching the new V series on ABC. I’m not sure if I will like it or not. The previews look decent, but I’m really not much of a Sci-Fi fan. Still, the blond chick in it looks hot. I’ll route for whatever side she is on.

Hey! I made it past day one of NaPaBloMo!!! Only 29 or 30 days left. No, I don’t know how many days are in November. It’s probably 30, since October and December both have 31 days. Okay, so I guess I do know. Never mind. See you tomorrow.

• Look! It’s a picture of a cat being all cute! This will probably be your favorite part of this post.

I saw the line above in this article by Daniel Gross. It’s a play on a Winston Churchill quote, and I think it describes the current health care debate perfectly. A few weeks ago I was definitely in the “knows so little” category, and I probably still am, but I have made an attempt to learn more. I know that I am strongly in favor of health care reform. I discussed health care a while ago in this post, but let me summarize my general beliefs:

• Insurance companies should not be allowed to discriminate based on the health of individuals. There should be a nationalized set of standards/regulations that govern all health care sold in the United States. This does mean that health care cost is spread out over people with varying degrees of health. I am fine with this.
• Everyone who can afford health insurance should be required to purchase it.
• Caps on maximum benefits paid by insurance companies should be eliminated.
• A basic level of health care should be provided to those who can’t afford it.
• Health insurance should be decoupled from employment.

I don’t believe that we should completely reinvent the wheel. We need to adjust our health insurance business model to better align profits with benefits to society. We can not continue with a system that denies care to those who need it most and allows so many people to go bankrupt due to medical expenses. This only hurts us all whether we realize it or not.

Right about the time people started hysterically screaming about death panels, I figured that I should try to understand just what was in the currently proposed health care bills. I did some Googling, and I found the article Your Handy Health Care Cheat Sheet by Alec MacGillis in the Washington Post. This article is a great summary of the proposed health care bills. Let me summarize the summary, the health care bills currently before congress include:

• A national health insurance exchange or market place where different health care plans can be easily compared. Initially this will only be for people who do not get health care through their employers. Insurance companies are not required to put their plans on the exchange, and individuals are not required to buy on the exchange. However, anyone getting a subsidy to purchase health care can only use it on the exchange (I think). All insurance plans, whether they are on the exchange or not, will have to abide by the same regulations, such as not discriminating based on an individual’s health. For a better description of what the health care exchange might look like, check out the New York Times article A Health Insurance Exchange: The Fine Print by Anne Underwood.
• Individuals who can afford it will be required to purchase health insurance or pay a fine/tax.
• Subsidies will be provided to those who can not afford health insurance.
• Some of the bills include a public plan on the health insurance exchange and some do not. This is the most controversial item.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with the bills before congress. They mesh well with my beliefs except for the decoupling of health insurance from employment, but I could see that happening in the future if the exchanged was opened up to everyone. I’ve been back and forth on the public plan a million times. On one hand it is a good way to ensure that that all insurance plans on the exchange meet basic standards. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s completely necessary and we could always add it later. If I had to choose, I would prefer a public option, but I think it would be dumb to let this point prevent the passage of meaningful health care reform.

So what about the alternative plans? I did some searching, and the first alternative plan I came across was The Patients’ Choice Act. I read the summary, and it sounded like a decent plan to me, but then I read this analysis of the act. Apparently, the Patients’ Choice Act doesn’t require insurance companies to participate in the the health insurance exchanges that it sets up, but it only regulates the insurance plans that do participate, which makes the exchanges pretty much pointless and provides no protections for people with preexisting conditions. It looks like this plan is a lot of talk and little action. I’m going to count this as a big FAIL.

The more interesting alternative is the idea of high deductible insurance mixed with some type of health savings plan. In these plans, individuals pay for the first few thousand dollars of their health care before insurance kicks in. Often times employers that offer these plans also make contributions to their employees health savings plans to cover some of the out of pocket cost. The idea is that since individuals are spending their own money, they will make more fiscally responsible health care decisions, which will drive down cost. At the same time, individuals still have insurance for protection from large unexpected health care expenses. A big proponent of these plans is John Mackey the CEO of Whole Foods. He wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare, which I consider a must read. So go read it. Other good articles advocating for these types of plans are How American Health Care Killed My Father by David Goldhill and How to Fix the Health-Care “Wedge” by Arthur B. Laffer.

There is a lot to like about these plans. I definitely know people who treat their employer provided health insurance as some type of all you can eat health care buffet. When you don’t pay the bills, there isn’t much incentive to spend responsibly. However, I ultimately feel that these plans fall short. For one, the most fiscally responsible health care decision is not necessarily the most healthy health care decision. Another issue is that, to my knowledge, no other country has tried these types of plans on a large scale, so we don’t really know how well they will work in the real world. I think some version of these plans could be work, but most of the people advocating for these plans are also asking for much less government regulation. Meaning that people with preexisting conditions will have no protections. In his op-ed, John Mackey says:

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

To be honest, I almost agree with John Mackey. I don’t really believe in intrinsic human rights, but health care isn’t about human rights. It’s about infrastructure. We have a habit of taking things like public education, national defense, transportation networks, communication networks, etc… for granted, but it’s this infrastructure that provides a stabilizing force for our communities and holds our society together. Health care should be a part of this infrastructure. It isn’t about giving anyone some sort of “entitlement”, it’s about ensuring that nobody is held down by forces out of their control. There is too much lost potential in this country, and we are all paying the price.

I think a lot of people are wondering why we need any reform at all. Most of us, me included, have excellent health care under the current system, so why change? For the answer to this question, I would refer you to the article The Most Outrageous U.S. Lies About Global Healthcare in Foreign Policy magazine. Here is an excerpt from the article:

There is one yardstick by which U.S. health care distinguishes itself: cost. The United States spends more — in total dollars, percentage of GDP, and per capita — than every other country on Earth.

On virtually every other broad metric, the claim that U.S. health care stands for global excellence is demonstrably false. The United States doesn’t take a top spot in either the World Health Organization or nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund rankings. The American health-care system is not best in terms of coverage, access, patient safety, efficiency, or cost-effectiveness. It does not produce the best outcomes for diseases such as cancer, heart disease, or diabetes; for the elderly, the middle-aged, or the young; or in terms of life expectancy, rates of chronic diseases, or obesity.

Which countries do come out on top? Often — France, Switzerland, Britain, Canada, and Japan. On the World Health Organization’s list, the United States comes out 37th.

We spend the most, and we come out 37th. I find this a little embarrassing and I’d like it fixed.

Admittedly, after reading all this, it still isn’t clear to me what the magic solution is. Of course there is no magic solution, and no system will ever be perfect. I do however find comfort in the fact that Switzerland and the Netherlands have recently moved to a health care system a lot like what is being considered by our congress. I also hear that Japan has a similar system. I’m not saying that we should just follow some other country, but these are countries with similar economies and standards of living. I think we would benefit from a few lessons learned by them.

If you were wondering what my thoughts on health care are, now you know. I think it’s abundantly clear that we need reform, and serious reform, not just a little window washing. I’m also very supportive of the plans currently before congress. They aren’t simple or easy solutions, but they are well thought out and backed up by the experiences of other industrialized countries. I hope that we don’t let political ideologies or just plan craziness stand in the way of taking a significant and much needed step forward.

Other things I wanted to include in this post but didn’t include:

• This American’s Experience of Britain’s Healthcare System <– This is a great blog post, you should read it.
• This summary of health care systems around the world at Electoral-Vote.com
• The book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care <– I haven’t read this book, but I saw the author interviewed on BBC America World News, and it sounds very interesting.
• This cartoon video gives a good and fun to watch description of why we need health care reform. It proposes a more government run solution than I think is practical for the US, but it still makes some good points.