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Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:
Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.

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Has anyone looked into the possibility that Zooey Deschanel and Katy Perry are the same person? Or twins? Or related?

A great article on only children. I'm quite happy with the one I've got and have no plans for more. This doesn't make me a bad person and it's in my kiddo's best interests as well, and the article makes that point rather nicely, too.

In October I implemented Paging Keys on The Sand Trap forum. I used this GitHub repository. It's now MIA… any idea where it's gone?
I've backed up a copy of the paging keys JavaScript file here: http://iacas.org/paging_keys.js. If someone can find its new home I'd be appreciative, as I'm missing the directions (not that they'd be incredibly difficult to figure out).

Edit: Duh. http://github.com/matthutchinson/paging_keys_js.

I need help being ready the next time my significant other won't listen.

In addition to solving this problem, it's a little bit more secure to leave all of those buttons unchecked.

I have a lot of domains up for renewal at about the same time - late August.

Dotster loves to charge about $16 or $17 to renew domains. For two years, it'll run me about $460 just for the essential domains.

I can transfer the domains to GoDaddy and get a year of renewals on all of them for about $175. I think I'm going to do it.

I don't use ANY of the additional services hosted by GoDaddy or Dotster. I hate GoDaddy's commercials and their site is an absolute mess. However, I won't be visiting it much and I don't watch commercials much. I don't care about the owner's politics or their constant attempts at upselling.

GoDaddy is good at the one thing I care about - it's cheap - and that's enough for me.

$10.99 + $2.69 = $13.68.

You can save a penny by ordering any two favorites and adding a third rather than choosing any three favorites.

A penny saved is a penny earned!

We're looking at getting a new microwave. The one we have has a busted turntable.

It'd be the type which acts as a vent for the stove/oven as well. Black, preferably, as our other appliances are black.

What's good these days? I don't need my microwave to connect to the Internet¹ (at least I don't think I do), but some good modes and a nice turntable would be nice. By modes I mean your popcorn mode, your defrost mode, and maybe a good re-heat mode.

Anyone have any recommendations on a good microwave?

P.S. Come to think of it, if my microwave could connect to the Internet it could always re-set its clock when the power goes out. Or download new firmware. Or send me a weekly report detailing my TV dinner habits².

P.P.S. Or maybe it's going to be cheaper to repair the turntable? Maybe I'll look into that. For now, though, recommendations on a good microwave?

P.P.P.S. Holy frick - there are $1400 microwaves? For home use? Who the heck needs a $1400 microwave?

Just some tidbits from the recent trip to French Lick, Indiana.

• The only restaurant they've got that isn't named "Denny's" is Larry Bird's "33" restaurant. The food was okay. The atmosphere wasn't really Bird-ish, but rather just sports-ish.
• The West Baden Springs Hotel was the largest free-standing dome in the world prior to the Houston Astrodome. Clark Griswold moment: Walk in, look at it, say "Okay. Let's go."
• Dairy Queen is supposed to, per their rules, serve your Blizzard to you with the spoon in it and upside down. If they don't, it's supposed to be free. It's trademarked or something.
• I apologize sincerely to the gas station on the way there. That being said, it's partly their fault.
• I think a go-cart place like the one in the warehouse in French Lick (or was it West Baden?) would do really well in Erie, PA.
• I never got to see the nine-hole course that French Lick has to offer. Their indoor tennis/golf thing is pretty sweet, though - we'd do well to steal some ideas from them.
• Buffets are almost always a good value. And yes, Dave, I tend to eat four or five desserts. That's almost the entire point!
• The drive back was not nearly as interesting, but fortunately we were done with the tournament early enough that we were home at about 11pm. And then, like idiots, we fell asleep on the couch.
• I wasn't online much at al l, because the connection was terrible, but it was kind of fun not to check my email for days on end.
• Why can't you find a good deep-dish pizza outside of Chicago? Seriously?
• The most famous person I met all week? Michael Breed. Uhhhh, yeah.
• Good to see you again, Don!

66 or Bust!

Okay, so it was a bust, but we played a good version of Mad Monkey Golf all day today and ended up shooting 74. On the bright side, we improved our score each of the three days we played the Dye course. On the darker side, we still didn't get much luck. In the end, it was a great experience and one we hope to repeat next year.

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Today didn't go quite as well as we expected, but didn't go any worse, either. I will say this, though: if we didn't have bad luck, we wouldn't have any luck at all. I don't think we've gotten one good break in three rounds.

But some of the luck was our own making.

On the first hole Dave fatted an approach and left himself a difficult pitch that behaved oddly on the green. Couldn't make the par putt to save it, and we're +1 through one again.

On the second we again took what we thought was a good line but put the ball on a hill that sloped up to a volcano bunker. I talked Dave into 7I and the ball was as high as a gap wedge, but landed on the green. Whew! Par. It's on this green that one of our, uhhh, more unusual playing partners began using his wedge to putt. He'd later switch to a hybrid. He'd broken his putter on the first hole, as we'd later discover.

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We start off #10 at the Donald Ross course, and bogey two of the first four holes. After yesterday's 77, we need to come home strong in order to make the cut. There are some 340 players here, and yet the cut is still the top 70 and ties. It may be the toughest cut to make in professional golf. You can miss the cut, for example, and only be four shots or so out of qualifying for the PGA Championship (top 20)!

A birdie on the par-five 15th after a third shot to six feet (above the hole!) helped stem the tide back to +1 for the day until a flared shot well right and into the next hole's fairway bunker led to a bogey at the 17th.

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Round One of the national club pro was supposed to begin at about 2:05. We showed up at about 12:30 to begin warming up only to find that, oof, there was a 100-minute delay due to some threatening weather. We got in some good practice time and then headed back to the hotel. Our mistake. Both of ours, but more mine I suppose. Caddies are supposed to know these things, right?

Our first round was off #1 at the Pete Dye course. We got off to a poor start - bogey, bogey after hitting the ball too far and into a fairway bunker that NOBODY else probably drove into all week, and then well right on what we had thought was a good line.

We birdied the third nicely, and got back to even par with a near-ace (birdie) at the eighth. On the ninth I was headed to the fairway as the players walk backwards only to look back and see a ball going over my head - what looked like 45° right of the fairway. Dave immediately said "new ball." We never saw the first ball again, and we three-putted for 7.

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Light practice today - lots of short game work, some bunker work, etc. Dave's ball position was changed a little in the bunkers - it had gotten too far back - and we're working on adding a little more "pop" to his stroke coming through the ball with his putter. One of the drills involves me rotating his shoulders forward before he would normally try to - this puts a little lag in the stroke and lets the putter head accelerate into the ball with good pace, the handle ahead, and the putter head rising gently.

We tee off on the Dye course - which I've yet to see - tomorrow afternoon.