Okay, so I'm a sucker for marketing

Y'know, I'm not a big fan of video games. I haven't really played them since them since the Mac Plus days (don't suppose any of you remember Crystal Quest?) My time is a resource that is valuable enough that I see no reason to trade it in for eyestrain and improved computer reflexes (and a working knowledge of down-down-left-A being the reverse howling backspin kick).

However, when I was grocery shopping, I couldn't resist buying this ceral (which I often buy, anyway) for the CD of free Atari games. Dood. So retro. Nope... haven't gotten to try them out yet. Hope Centipede is on there.

As for other things, I spent this morning with my advisor and chief grad student, who were doing a building consultation on Our Lady Immaculate Church in Guelph, Ontario (about 45 minute to the east of Waterloo). Holy cats... what a gorgeous church... you look over at the hilltop that it covers, and it's right out of a European painting. It's experiencing some masonry cracking, and some consultants are going nuts (i.e., the wooden trusses will fail catastrophically... we need to remove the towers completely)--things that are likely an overreaction. Despite my lack of religiosity, I appreciate the beauty and work put into these buildings, as well as the long term generational aspect of cathedral building. I read a book by George Nash (Renovating Old Houses), and there was a quote that really struck a chord with me:

I’ve often thought that if it were possible to choose another life, in another time, I would be a master builder of a medieval cathedral. In the Middle Ages, builders coordinated an undertaking that involved the spiritual and financial resources of an entire community for generations. In our age, only the devotion of the military-industrial complex to the myth of the Cold War has come close to that shared undertaking. For us, tradition has disintegrated like the mortar of an old chimney: The moral order has been replaced by the technical order, intuitions by institutions, beauty by bureaucracy. Left only with the shards of private mythologies, we build our cathedrals in our backyards and find transcendence in vegetable gardens and remodeled kitchens.

The photos on the church website (e.g., the front elevation) give some indication of the scale and beauty of the building. We were up inside the attic spaces above the pews (looking down about four or five stories), as well as up in the front towers. Lots of ladders. Man... I really don't like heights. Anybody have any recommendations for phobia treatment programs?