December 2007 Archives

Judd Apatow comedies are hit or miss for me, but Walk Hard definitely hit and hit hard. I'm at a disadvantage for reviewing it as a musician biopic parody because I haven't seen Walk the Line, which is its model, but I can tell you that it made me laugh. Hard. Parody jokes are often predictable and quickly grow old, but Walk Hard managed to land enough great jokes to keep it afloat. John C. Reilly was great as Dewey Cox, especially because he did all his own singing. There were some great cameos and bit parts by recognizable faces from SNL and The Office. Thankfully there wasn't as much over-the-top base humor as in Superbad, which exceeded my sensibilities (and that officially makes me old). To be sure, there were plenty of Apatow moments, but they were funnier than they were gross. 

These were taken with my iPhone. Scully (cat) is becoming more tolerant of Daisy (dog). 

According to a chapter in the forthcoming book, The American University in a Postsecular Age, about the secularization of universities in America, professors in American institutions aren't nearly as anti-God as they're often portrayed. Make no mistake, as a group professors are more atheistic/agnostic than the American public, but the numbers aren't terribly lopsided. According to the chapter in the book by Gross and Simmons, their survey found 23.4% of professors are atheist or agnostic, compared to roughly 7% in the general US population. The percentage of atheists is higher in elite institutions (37%), but so is the percentage of those professors claiming to believe in God (33%) or "Believe in Higher Power or God some of the time" (29%). The rate of professors who believe in God is higher at community and 4-year colleges. Interestingly, professors in my own field of Psychology have the highest percentage of atheists/agnostics along with Biology (61%). Frankly, I expected to see Philosophy up there, too, if not higher. Not surprisingly, the disciplines with the highest rates of belief in God are the non-scientific ones like accounting, finance, elementary education, criminal justice, nursing, etc. 

I was able to find a draft of the chapter by Gross and Simmons (the latter is from George Mason, by the way) describing this survey and its results. There was a short summary published in Harvard Magazine this past summer (Gross is from Harvard). 

I guess I'm a rare bird to be a Psychology professor who believes in God. 

**I'd love to post the figure of results, but I'm pretty sure it'd be a copyright violation.**

It was bound to happen. I knew that leaving my posts until 11 at night I would eventually forget to post. That happened yesterday. My intention was to post twice today to make-up for yesterday, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Two days of essentially sitting on my rear between dog walks is both relaxing and conflicting. I certainly enjoy the time to "do nothing," but the lost time always leaves a small wake of regret. The opportunity costs not only include work-related to-do items and household chores, but leisure activities as well. Case in point: reading. I don't do well reading for leisure in my normal home routine. I'd announce that will change in 2008, but the mostly unread reading list I posted in January suggests that's not likely, at least in that large a shift. More on productivity goals for 2008 later this week. If I can pull myself away from the recliner, that is.

So here's the deal. Every year my wife and I agree to a loose spending limit on gifts for each other, and every year she exceeds that limit (or at least spends more than I spend on her). I was determined to not let that happen this year so I bought her a GPS Navigation system--something far more expensive than our usual gifts. The wrapped present under the fake tree with my name was heavy but too big to be what I really wanted...an iPhone. I watched her open the GPS system with unabashed cockiness that I'd finally outdone her on our presents to each other. Opening my gift was practically an afterthought. It turns out the big heavy box had another wrapped box inside along with some stuff to make it heavier. Inside that box rested yet another. I was resigned to opening box after box until a small envelope or something when I sat staring at the impossible. She got me the iPhone. Talk about inner conflict. I was elated to finally have the iPhone and yet crushed that she'd pulled an end-run and beat me yet again. 

It's 11:30pm on Christmas eve and I just finished wrapping presents and placing them under the tree. Miss Daisy desperately wants to go to bed (and was quite resistant about going out to pee one last time) so I'll keep this one short. Today was a mixture of relaxation and brief shopping sprints here and there. Christmas should be nice and low-key this year, which is always quite nice.

Daisy is doing quite well in her first full day with us. She's very quiet and sweet, but she seems to yearn for the outdoors quite a lot. I took her on three walks today, including a pretty long one in the afternoon. We discovered she loves to play and race around in our basement where there's carpet (we have hardwood floors throughout our main level). She's all nose on our walks, as expected with a scent hound.

We picked Miss Daisy up from the Friends of Homeless Animals (FOHA) shelter this afternoon. Sorry to all of you hoping to be the first to make the trite comment about "driving Miss Daisy," but my friend Steve holds that dubious honor. I'm sure he won't be the last. 

There might as well have been tumbleweed rolling across campus today with so few people around. Although campus didn't actually close until this afternoon, nearly all services were shut down yesterday. I've worked in in a corporate office, a government lab, and the US DOT headquarters in DC, all of which experience the typical "there's no one here" scenario before Christmas. However, none compare to the emptiness on a university campus in late December.

It's been far too long since I last posted. In the spirit of the season, you will find at least one entry every day for the remaining 12 days of 2007 (including today).