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Archive for October, 2002

Lost 6 lbs., John gets a new job

I am Satan personified before approximately 9:30 a.m. on weekdays. I stumble out of bed and mumble profanities while shooting fireballs from my eyes at objects [cats, furniture, carpet] that are in my way. I don’t drink coffee and showers don’t even cool me off. Elise knows to avoid me at all costs before the internal exorcism takes hold.

Today was no exception. I was awakened by the happy voices coming from my alarm radio. I smashed it with my triton and hovered out of bed and onto my feet. As I stumbled to the shower, cats ran and hid. I got dressed and ate breakfast. Elise woke up shortly after and got into the shower. I took a deep breath, contained my demons and peeked my head into the bathroom to ask if Elise if she would do a favor for me before she left for work. As I was leaning into the bathroom, I stepped onto the scale with one foot. *Poof*, the evil was exhumed. I looked down, lifted the other foot onto the scale and noticed that I had lost six pounds.

Walking to work everyday [and watching my calorie intake] has paid off.

In other news, John has accepted a job with the Austin American-Statesman. Jerk. I’m happy for him and Christine. Wouldn’t you know it… after Elise and I move out of Austin, both Philip and John move to Austin. Yarbles! Great bolshy yarblockos!

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World Series, Jackass

We were blessed with two very drab days this past weekend. Elise and I had been saving nickels and dimes all week so we could go on a pizza date on Friday. We were both in bad moods on our date. We willfully suspended our sourness, made fun of each other and bought a couple pumpkins and rented Phantasm with our $5 gift certificate from Kevin Smith [shameless plug for the DJ we hired for our wedding reception].

So we went home and I gutted the pumpkins and dehydrated the seeds. Then we watched Phantasm and carved our Jack-o-Lanterns. I’ll try and remember to take pictures of them this week.

A used car salesman’s phone call woke us up shortly after 8:00 a.m. on Saturday. Needless to say, he won’t be getting our business. I hopped out of bed, jumped in the shower and went to get my ears lowered.

I came home and we decided to take Annie to Petco to get her shots. Annie’s our new cat. She adopted us. She’s a cool cat, just a little skittish. We decided that it probably wouldn’t be seen as humane if we brought a pillowcase with a cat in it to a pet store. We drove over to Wal-Mart and bought a cat carrier. Then we drove home to get Annie. Drove to Petco. We missed the vet by a few minutes. We drove back home and Elise called a local vet. Luckily we were able to get an appointment. $100 later, we have a healthy cat.

I think that’s all we did on Saturday. Oops, no. We went to HEB to buy ingredients for chili. I made chili for dinner. We ate chili and flipped channels to watch game six of the World Series, the A&M vs. Nebraska game and the Halloween Marathon on AMC.

On Sunday, we woke up a little before 10:00 a.m. I jumped on the computer to realize that the time had changed. Now it was only 9:00 a.m. Elise went to church at 11. I goofed around on the Inertnet. We went and saw Jackass: The Movie at 1:30. Elise had to turn her head a few times. I engaged in a lot of much needed juvenile laughter. After the past few months that I’ve been having, I needed some sophomoric enlightenment.

I watched the Anaheim Angels win the World Series. I have had absolutely no interest in baseball in nearly twenty years. I was always the kid who was hit by the ball in little league. I don’t know why, but I started watching the World Series at game 4.

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Halloween Friday Five

1. What is your favorite scary movie?
hmmmm… The Shining. I don’t know.
2. What is your favorite Halloween treat?
Candy corn
3. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume.
Not usually.
4. Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events?
Yes. I like big production haunted houses. I need to attend more.
5. Will you dress up for Halloween this year?
No. We’re boring. I will when we have kids. Hopefully we’ll have a lot of money by then so I can go hog wild.

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Fun Friday stuff…

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Big Company

I think this is pretty funny.

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50 Favorite Horror Films

According to the Box Office Prophet’s 50 Favorite Horror Films, I have 15 good horror movies yet to check out. There are only 10 more days until Halloween. I better get crackin’! Despite the films that I have not yet seen, I think I would exclude Scream. I really didn’t like that movie [or any of the sequels]. I would have pushed Jacob’s Ladder, Stir of Echos, Rosemary’s Baby and The Blair Witch Project up a few more slots closer to number one. I just purchased Army of Darkness on Saturday.

Movie: Seen It Own It
50) I Walked With a Zombie
49) Riget (The Kingdom) Parts 1 and
48) Poltergeist x
47) Army of Darkness x x
46) Au Rendezvous de la Mort Joyeuse
45) King Kong x
44) Stir of Echoes x
43) The Omen III
42) Candyman x
41) April Fool’s Day
40) Event Horizon
39) Jacob’s Ladder x
38) Masque of the Red Death
37) Braindead (AKA Dead Alive) x
36) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) x
35) Carrie x
34) Rosemary’s Baby x x
33) Scanners
32) Blade x
31) Re-Animator
30) Pitch Black
29) Aliens x
28) The Others x
27) Hellraiser x
26) Hellbound: Hellraiser 2
25) The Eye
24) The Hitcher x
23) Freaks
22) The Sixth Sense x
21) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) x
20) The Innocents
19) Phantasm x
18) Jaws x
17) The Birds x
16) The Thing x
15) Suspiria x
14) Night of the Living Dead (1968) x
13) The Blair Witch Project x x
12) Silence of the Lambs x
11) Scream x
10) The Exorcist x x
9) Psycho x
8) Dead by Dawn: Evil Dead 2 x
7) Dawn of the Dead
6) Alien x
5) Halloween x x
4) The Haunting (1963) x
3) Nightmare on Elm Street x x
2) The Evil Dead x
1) The Shining x x

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XP installed

I installed XP last night. I’m happy now. It’s like I have a brand new computer. Everything is so smooth.

Ironically, while I was installing XP [and talking on the phone], I saw 3 or 4 switch commercials. I thought about it for a second and began wondering if Apple is pushing so hard because of XP. I have nothing personal against Apple… hell, I’d use one because Tony Hawk endorses them!

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XP, Linux, Bachelor

I bought a Windows XP Home upgrade on eBay last night. My computer is pretty much hosed right now. Not really hosed, but it reminds me of Johnny’s old maroon Ford Aerostar in which we used to cruise around. When you banged on the dashboard on the driver’s side, the radio station would change. When you banged on the dash on the passenger’s side, the dome light would turn on. Everything worked, but not as it was intended.

I was beginning to worry that I might have to start using duct tape to open Photoshop.

Mom bought us a copy of XP Home for Christmas last year. Instead of putting the new operating system on my computer, I installed it on Elise’s computer because I read that certain manufacturers hadn’t planned on developing drivers for XP. Elise didn’t like XP and wanted to go back to Win98SE. Because of Microsoft’s new Product Activation, this single copy of XP can now only go on her computer.

I’ve kicked around the idea of installing Linux as my primary OS. I even own a copy of Red Hat’s Linux 7.3. My interpretation of every installation tutorial that I’ve read suggests partitioning your hard drive to leave one normal OS on your computer. I’d be willing to bet money that Linux wouldn’t easily support half of my peripherals and software. By that I mean that it would take more time and effort than I have available and would eventual find myself standing behind this group of striking young Linux enthusiasts. I like computers and all, but not that much.

So my copy of XP is in the mail today. Hopefully I’ll have it by this weekend so I can have a nice little project to work on. Now I have to backup all of my files.

In other news… Luciana gave me a ride home yesterday. I accepted only because I didn’t want to lug my motorcycle jacket home. It was too hot to wear it and it wouldn’t fit in my backpack. Today I wore two fleece pullovers. Those fit into my backpack.

Elise has me watching The Bachelor. I think she’s trying to soften me up. She’s turned me into a Friends fan as well. I could be watching a special on after-market carbon-fiber ground effects for sport motorcycles on Speedvision when I look at the clock and shriek “Omagawd, Friends is on and it’s the episode where we find out if Chandler and Monica are really moving to Tulsa!!!”

Okay – that’s a slight exaggeration. In actuality, I come strutting into the living room fifteen minutes after her show has started. This is usually after I’ve completed a dozen or so bench press reps with railroad ties and just eaten 20 ounces of rattlesnake meat with poisonous centipede au jus and polishing off a highball of 10W-30 on the rocks.

I’m wondering if watching The Bachelor with Elise is some sort of test. I openly critique other women’s physiques, personalities, faces, hair and head. Yes, I said head. There’s one bachelorette who looks like she has a Magic Bubble brain hemorrhage. Anyway, Elise engages in the same critiques – I just hope she doesn’t think I’m ogling. Ehhh, It doesn’t matter, she told me she thought Robert Redford was still “hot” [in Indecent Proposal].

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Stupid bird

I am on my third week of walking to and from work. Believe it or not, I really like walking. I like it so much that I’m going to sell the trusty Shadow. I need to get the tire replaced first.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of selling the bike for some time now. Now I’m going to do it. I’m going to go to the store this week and buy a For Sale sign and create some fliers. Elise and I could really use the extra cash.

Most people think I’m crazy for having a motorcycle as my only means of personal transportation. A lot of people think that I’m even more crazy for walking to work. Everyone at work has extended an invitation to either pick me up or take me home from work. I have to explain to them that I seriously enjoy the walk. It’s nice to know that I can ask someone for a lift if it’s raining and I forgot my umbrella.

Walking to work is very humbling. It literally keeps my feet on the ground. A few years back had I been in this very situation, I would have thought to myself: “Thats it… I’m going to sell my motorcycle with a flat tire and go deep into debt by buying a car that I can’t afford.”

Now I walk the 45 minutes [I don’t know how far that is in conventional distance measurement] and take comfort in knowing that I don’t have write a large check for a car note at the end of the month.

I also make it a point to say hello to at least one bird. Without fail, some bird always manages to fly by or land nearby and chirp at me. There have been a couple times where I have seen a bird do something that I think is stupid – like flying off of a lamp mounted above one of the loading docks behind the department stores by which I walk. The bird will fly off and turn around, without having gone anywhere, and land back onto the same lamp.

I’ll say: “What did you do that for, stupid bird?”

I’m learning the way of the walk as well. During my first week of walking, I was almost embarrassed to look at oncoming cars. I don’t know why. I’m just stupid like that. I guess I thought that the people inside their cars would pity me or point fingers. There aren’t many pedestrians where I walk. Now I just don’t care. I like to look at people in there cars and see how long it takes before they look away. I’ve thought about stopping and picking my nose or doing something else absurd for my own humerous benefit.

Temple is too small for that. Soon enough I would probably be recognized around town as the guy who stares at oncoming traffic with his finger up his nose.

My most recent lesson in the way of the walk was given today. I learned to look up before walking under power lines.

This morning was quite cold. Cold enough to warrant wearing my motorcycle jacket. I also wore my Lakers cap so as to contain the heat that escapes from one’s head. I was halfway to work, walking underneath the powerlines behind the department stores when I saw something fall quickly just before the brim of my hat. At first I thought it was a drop of rain. I looked up. I didn’t see any rain. I looked down. No drops on the ground. While looking down, my right foot moved out in front of me and there I saw it, in all its glory, a nice white splatter that covered the tip of my ozzy.

I looked up again and back. There were two birds sitting on the top power line. I didn’t say anything to those birds. I took off my hat and inspected my brim. Nothing there. Miraculously, the heaven-sent dob of cottage cheese hit only my foot.

I’ve never been pood on by a bird before. I’m glad it didn’t hit me anywhere else. Should it have, I couldn’t have walked back home because I had a meeting at 8 a.m. It was funny though. I couldn’t get mad. I just kept on walking to work with bird poo on my foot.

Now I know to look up every once in a while.

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Austin County Fair, Astroworld

I was halfway home when Elise surprised me and picked me up on Friday. Yes, I’m still walking. She earned 30 minutes off by having perfect attendance so she was able to catch me before I reached the apartment.

We ran home, El changed, we both packed for the weekend and we headed off to the Austin County Fair. We cranked up the boom box that sits in the backseat and acts as our car stereo – powered by an AC/DC converter, and blared down Hwy 36.

We arrived at the fair at 9:30 p.m. or so. We ducked our heads so as not to be seen [not that we’re celebrities or anything… we wanted to check things out before we found ourselves stuck in conversation] and walked around the fair grounds. I bought my once a year smoked turkey leg, Elise had a paper boat of nachos.

We checked out most of the FFA show animals and the fabrication entries. We made a once around the carnival and dodged most carney haggling. Nothing has changed at the ACF. We made our way to the infamous beer barn and ran into some friends. After deciding that we didn’t want to hang out in front of the beer barn all night, we agreed that we should ride on some rides. Cheezy, Tracy, Jamie, Elise and your humble narrator made our way back to the carnival area.

One thing at the fair has changed – the ride prices. It cost me $8 in ride tickets for El and me to ride one windy windy swirly swoosh ride. The three girls and I piled into a three quarter pod, not unlike the infamous tea cups at Disney World and were spun into centrifugal hilarity. We all tried to take pictures with Jamie’s disposable camera. I’m curious as to how those turned out.

The girls decided they wanted to ride another ride. This next ride was also centrifugal in nature. This one was smaller in stature but larger in amusement. So large in fact that the heavy-set guy who rode with his wife was rushed out of the fair in an ambulance.

Cheezy and I stood behind the molded aluminum gate and watched the girls spin around and around. I noticed the heavy-set guy’s head lay back at the ride swooshed him and his wife around and around as well. After a while, I could barely hear his wife trying to yell “Stop the ride.” It took a few swooshes around before I realized that she was serious.

I told the carney that he should probably stop the ride. When he did, the heavy-set man didn’t get up. We all ran to where the paramedics usually hang out. Nobody was there. Elise ran to the entrance of the fairgrounds to find help. By the time she got back, EMS had arrived and loaded the man onto a stretcher. We watched.

An ambulance came and took the heavy-set man away. I hope he’s alright.

We all walked to a concession stand so I could get something to drink. This year, the 4H held a monopoly on Coca Cola sales. The 4H concession stand was clear across the fairgrounds. I didn’t feel like walking that far for sugar and carbonation. I settled for the concession stand at which I was standing and bought a cherry limeade that tasted exactly how I would imagine homemade hummingbird nectar would taste.

We congregated in front of the beer barn and all decided to go home early. El and I were tired and there wasn’t much excitement to keep us up much longer.

Elise and I woke up at 7 on Saturday morning. It was Astroworld day.

Diamond Shamrock gave us a ticket to Astroworld for choosing their gasoline. With Elise driving to Killeen everyday, it didn’t take long to rack up four fill-ups.

We arrived at Astroworld at approximately 11 a.m. A few small lines were already formed at the gates. I was happy because we arrived early and wouldn’t have to wait long for rides. After fifteen minutes of waiting in line, we made our way to the front. Texas Cyclone, here we come…

“I’m sowwy sur, yoo mobby deesh teckuts mow fo du gumpny binnick und the foody high fobble”. That’s what the ticket-taker told me. I turned to Elise and she told me that he said “The gates are open for company picnics, all others will have to wait for general admission at 12.”

We sat on the brick edge of the landscaped atrium just outside the gates of Astroworld. We people-watched and patiently waited for high noon as other patrons started piling in.

We found our place in line at a quarter till noon. I sold some stocks, relinquished our possession of our first born and signed a contract stating that I would clean the park’s bathrooms in a Yosemite Sam plush outfit and forked out two large dollar bills to purchase our second admission ticket. That just means that I think ticket prices have doubled since the last time I visited Astroworld.

We were little kids again. The first ride we rode was the Dungeon Drop. A little cart suspended 230 feet in the air with patron feet dangling beneath. A 62 mph drop – straight down. Elise was nervous. I told her to watch the penny.

I put a penny on my knee. This was a trick that I was taught when I was just a wee lad. The horn blew, the carts dropped and just as the imminent fear of gravity became reality, the penny gracefully and magically lifted from my knee and gently spun at chest level. It followed us all the way down until it took another path and clanked down behind one of the ride operators. We both laughed and rushed away so we wouldn’t get caught!

Next we rode The Serial Thriller. “Thrill seekers will find their feet dangling below and the track roaring above them as they rip through 5 inversions at speeds of up to 55 mph!” This ride was built in 1999. It felt really weird riding a roller coaster with your feet dangling down below you. We both wore flip-flops and opted to take them off before we rode. We zoomed at 55 mph, twisting and turning upside down. It was scary. I was really afraid that I was going to get my feet knocked off by support poles.

It was somewhere after 1 p.m. at this point. I was hungry. We walked around until Elise decided on what she wanted for lunch. We stopped for pizza. It was pretty gross. We’re finally learning to do that share-a-meal thing. We could have easily spent twice as much on lunch, but we decided on a single serving pizza and a side of two breadsticks.

After pizza, we walked over to Dreyer’s and bought a couple ice cream cones. I had strawberry, Elise had almond and caramel. We sat on a bench tried to avoid looking at the kids who were playing tonsil hockey two picnic tables over. We decided that kids really don’t have many other places to go to make out. It’s not like they have their own apartments or anything.

Without waiting for our dairy based midday meals to settle, we headed over to Greezed Lightin’. Luckily we never had to wait too long in line. Greezed Lightin’ was the classic rush I remembered it to be. 60 mph in less than 6 seconds. We rode in the first car and were shot out into one loop and up, slow stop at the top and then backwards to do it all again in reverse. Elise loved it. She wanted to turn around and get back in line to ride it again. I scooted us along so we would have a chance to ride all of the rides.

We decided to cool off and go for a relaxing ride. We road the Thunder River. That ride is always a blast because you never know who’s going to get drenched. For the first time ever, it was yours truly. The nice girl sitting next to me shared the water with me. We were soaked. It was hilarious.

We moved over to the next ride which was the Mayan Mindbender. This is a smaller version of Disney’s Space Mountain – inside and dark. We had fun – but it wasn’t the best. Plus my back was cold from all of the water that my shirt had soaked up.

Next we rode the Viper. Hmmm… the Viper. The rides are starting to blend together as I try to recollect. I remember the ride, but it’s hard to explain. Fast, a couple loopdy loops, some twists, some turns, two pair of bruised shoulders from being banged around in restraints.

We then rode Batman: The Escape. You have to stand up when you ride this one. More loops and twists and windies. “Riders experience the rush of standing up through a 66-foot-high, 360-degree vertical loop and a horizontal, 360-degree loop that suspends riders nearly parallel to the ground.” We rode in the first car on this ride as well. Riding in the front is the best. Traveling at 55 mph with nothing in front of you is pretty damn scary.

Then we rode the Ultra Twister. “Drops riders 9 stories, head first, virtually straight down. With their heads still spinning, riders shuttle through a circular steel structure rolling 360-degrees forwards – and then again – backwards!” Elise screamed like a… Well, I don’t know what she screamed like but it was funny – and loud!

We decided that our day should start coming to an end. Elise wanted to ride the Merry-go-round, so we did. We rode on the rabbits. I almost fell asleep. I should have had a balloon tied to my wrist, a sparkly unicorn painted on my cheek and some cotton candy caked onto my chin and it would have been picture perfect. We were both bushed.

Elise and I left Astroworld, hopped in the Trooper and headed up 610 to Northwest Mall. Our destination: Alice Cooper’s Nightmare. I’m a big Alice fan and had to pay homage.

We weren’t too excited about having to pay $15 a piece. It was worth it though. I can honestly say that I was scared. It’s hard for me to become scared by ghoulies and zombies. This after subjecting myself movies about the paranormal, supernatural and things that go bump in the night at a very early age.

The Alice Cooper team used effects that I had never experienced in a haunted house [stripped department store]. It seemed as if behind every corner was some hydraulic-driven skeleton or severed head that popped out to instigate the fight or flight reflex. Remote controls were used to maneuver disemboweled prosthetic human organs. The whole thing was awesome. As both sets of our palms were sweating, even a plain clothes character who jumped from out of a corner and yelled “Whooooo!” while clanking on the back of a skillet was scary.

And yes, there was even the proverbial chainsaw man at the end of the tour. Luckily he jumped out and chased the girls in front of us and saved us from embarrassment.

After all of the excitement of the day, we decided to go drive back to the Austin County Fair in Bellville and see the infamous hypnotist. My parents claim that this guy was hilarious. I wasn’t impressed. Maybe it was because I was tired, maybe it was because he sucked, maybe it was because the participants weren’t as involved as they should have been. There were a few parts where I laughed, but overall, I wasn’t amused.

After sitting though an hour of that junk, we headed to the beer barn to do our social part. We talked to a few people that I hadn’t seen or spoken to since I graduated from high school. It was interested to hear about what those people are doing.

It was brought to my attention that my ex-girlfriend was there. Not only was she there, but she was standing a few feet behind me. Luckily I was in the company of good friends who made sure that my back was turned the whole time. I hadn’t seen or heard of her in many years. I had always hoped it would stay that way. The notion of her being there passed very quickly and we had good conversations with old friends.

I also made peace with an old friend who I held a grudge against for many years. I’m a kind person by nature and hate having to avoid eye contact with anyone. It was nice to lay that distaste to rest. I wrote it off as water under the bridge and gave my old friend a hug. He showed me a picture of his newborn. That made me happy.

We left the fair at 2 a.m. or so. I can’t believe we stayed up that late in our old age. Because we neglected to eat dinner, we got back to my parents’ house and ate some clam chowder and went to bed.

I slept in until almost noon on Sunday. Elise did laundry. I ate breakfast and took a nap on the couch. Sleeping until noon and getting up to eat breakfast can really take it out of a guy.

Dad and I watched the Chargers beat the Chiefs. Elise and I left Mom and Dad’s at 7 p.m. We drove slowly and depressed-like back to bustling Temple.

We had a great weekend. It was one of those that we hoped would never end…

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Public restrooms and leaky gaskets

I hate public restrooms. Really, I do. The men’s restroom in the conference center at Scott & White is no exception. The single wall mounted liquid waste management apparatus is attached to a painted cinder block wall that divides the little boys’ and little girls’ rooms. Whenever a toilet flushes in the women’s restroom, the pipes within said wall make a noise that could easily be misconstrued as the ignition of the Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters.

In the seven months that I’ve worked at Scott & White, one would think that I would accept and embrace this spontaneous calamity. I haven’t. Without fail, yours truly always manages to become startled by this noise. During this nanosecond fit, it’s not unlike me to leave a pattern that would lead some to believe that I use the facility by means of sonar.

In other news: Elise called me this afternoon during her lunch break. She took the Trooper in to have the oil changed. I told her to ask the technician if he could identify the leak. He said the leak was coming from a gasket. He suggested a temporary chemical treatment that would cause the gasket to expand.

We’re trying to save as much cash as we can to purchase a nice used vehicle. I was hoping we could save for a little while longer. We’re going to have to sell before we can only get cash for parts.

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Short visit with Lisa

My parents came to visit this past weekend. They arrived on Friday shortly after I got home from work.

I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. It was good.

We all stayed up pretty late. El and Mom stayed up later [as usual].

We woke up at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday. We all got ready and headed to Ft. Worth to have lunch with my sister, Lisa and her boyfriend, Ron.

The visit was short and sweet. Lisa was in town from San Diego for her fifteen year reunion at TCU.

After lunch, El, Mom, Dad and yours truly headed back to bustling Temple. We stopped in West to buy kolaches.

We got back to Temple and went to Wal-Mart to buy food for dinner.

We took it easy for the rest of the day. El and I stayed up to watch the season premier of SNL. If the opener is any indication of the rest of the season, looks like we’re in for another ho-hum year of SNL.

On Sunday, El and I woke up late. Mom and Dad had already eaten breakfast.

Mom got on my computer and tried to install a Roxio update. My computer’s on the fritz now. I’ll fix it once I get the website back to normal.
Mom and Dad left around 2:30. Elise and I went to the mall to spend her gift certificate.

We spent well over two hours in Victoria’s Secret. I was there for so long, I figured out the secret…

I felt like such a pervert while in this store. While El was trying on undergarments, I was told that I could sit in the little pink chair next to the dressing room.

I sat in that little pink chair. Girls and women came in, browsing and purchasing. I sat there and tried to look every which way to keep from making any eye contact with anyone. The only other things that I could look at where women’s bras and panties. It was quite the test for your Sunday afternoon unshaven, perverted looking narrator.

We made out with a couple pairs of skivvies and a brassiere.

That was the extent of our weekend.

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New regulations needed to curb bad banking

by Hans-werner Sinn

After the 1982 debt crisis, the U.S. savings and loan (S&L) crisis in the United States in the late 1980s, and the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the subprime mortgage crisis is the fourth major banking crisis since World War II, and by far the biggest. According to the International Monetary Fund, the total loss in terms of balance sheet write-offs will be nearly $1 trillion worldwide, of which the lion’s share probably will be borne by U.S. financial institutions. Given that the combined equity capital stock of all U.S. financial institutions is roughly $1.2 trillion, this is a breathtaking sum.

Why do banking crises happen? Are bank managers ignorant?

Why do they underwrite risks that drive their banks to the brink of bankruptcy? The answer lies in a combination of a bad accounting system and various moral-hazard effects that were not contained by existing regulatory systems.

The bad accounting system is the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which is now used by big companies throughout the world. The deficiency of IFRS is that it does not mitigate systemic contagion resulting from asset price movements. When asset prices move, firms that own these assets are forced to revalue them on their balance sheets quarter by quarter. The timely reporting of non-realized capital gains and losses makes the shares of the company that holds them volatile, sending shock waves through the financial system.

An alternative would be a precautionary accounting system, like the one that all German companies used before the transition to IFRS began. In Germany’s traditional system, a company’s assets were evaluated according to the “lowest value principle”: the lowest of an asset’s historical price and its current market price must be used for accounting purposes. This allowed managers to pursue more long-term goals and proved effective in blocking contagion effects.

Indeed, it was a major reason for the German financial system’s stability.

In the current crisis, three moral-hazard effects are particularly important. First, management pay depends too much on short-term share-price performance, probably owing to the excessive influence of investment banks on commercial banks’ policies. Given that investment banks can only attain high rates of return in a world with volatile asset prices and short-term performance goals, companies pressure their managers to follow suit.

Second, banks’ assumption of excessive investment risks reflects their expectation that governments will bail them out if necessary. This was the case in the S&L crisis, where the government explicitly served as a deposit insurer. Banks could take on overly risky projects without scaring off investors because the government would step in as the lender of last resort.

In the subprime crisis, a similar phenomenon was implicitly at work, with banks speculating that they were too big for governments to let them fail. The fact that the Bank of England bailed out Northern Rock and the U.S. Federal Reserve saved Bear Stearns with $30 billion suggests that they were right.

The third, and probably most important, moral hazard results from asymmetrical information between banks and their lenders. Banks issue securities with attractive nominal interest rates but unknown repayment probability.

Often, securities are created that are backed by sophisticated portfolios containing good and bad assets whose true risk cannot easily be assessed. In the current crisis, even the private rating agencies dramatically underestimated the risks involved, which helped lure international financial investors into purchasing mortgage-backed securities at exaggerated prices.

So nothing stopped the banks from selling “lemon” bonds.

Like used cars that break down right after they are sold, tomatoes and apples that look good but taste like water, or suits that quickly become threadbare, the seller could reduce the quality of the product and cut costs without the buyer’s knowledge. As low-quality products sell at the same price as high-quality products, the latter disappear from the market.

In capital markets, the information asymmetry between buyers and sellers of securities is even more extreme, making it hugely tempting for banks to issue securities that increase their expected profits by reducing the repayment probability below what buyers expect. To do so, they develop complicated legal claim structures that hardly anyone can fully understand and operate with too little equity capital to cover the risks. This destroys the market for sound financial instruments, undermining the viability of the capitalist system.

To address this problem, stricter banking regulation is needed in order to increase the probability of repayment, and hence the quality of securities. Financial products must be made transparent, off-balance sheet operations must be limited, and, above all, the scope of leveraged operations must be reduced by requiring higher equity-asset ratios. Banks often oppose higher equity-asset ratios, because equity capital is more expensive than debt capital. But this is precisely because of the lemon effect.

The IMF, the Group of Seven or a joint U.S.-European body could be the right forum for determining new rules for financial markets aimed at enhancing the efficiency and stability of the world economy. By contrast, setting rules unilaterally would be a recipe for global disaster, because competition between governments to create advantages for their own banking sectors would merely reproduce the inadequate regulations that resulted in lemon banking in the first place.

Hans-Werner Sinn is a professor of economics and finance, University of Munich, and president of the Ifo Institute. © Project Syndicate, 2008. www.project-syndicate.org


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text:
The Bean Validation API in Spring Roo Framework

This article is based on Spring Roo in Action, to be published Summer-2011. It is being reproduced here by permission from Manning Publications. Manning publishes MEAP (Manning Early Access Program,) eBooks and pBooks. MEAPs are sold exclusively through All pBook purchases include free PDF, mobi and epub. When mobile formats become available all customers will be contacted and upgraded. Visit for more information. [ Use promotional code ‘java40beat’ and get 40% discount on eBooks and pBooks ]

also read:

The Bean Validation API

Validation is a difficult topic for any application architecture. You may ask yourself a bevy of questions, such as:

  • Where do I perform validation, at the web layer, in the middle tier, or in my database?
  • How do I validate? Should I use a validation rules engine, scripted code, data-driven rules, or annotations?
  • How will my errors be returned? Should I localize the messages?

There are many APIs available to implement validation rules. Spring MVC has its own validation API, but it is MVC based and doesn’t necessarily suit the embedding rules within the entities. We want to do this because it helps us to encapsulate the behavior of validation within the entity tier. A more object-driven approach is needed. Enter the Bean Validation API.

The Bean Validation API is a recent standard. It was created by the Java EE Expert Group to address the lack of a standard validation API on the Java EE platform. This API uses Java annotations to define specific rules, which are attached to the attributes of a Java Bean. Some validations are built into the framework, such as @NotNull, @Null, @Min, @Max, @Past, @Future, @Pattern, and @Size. You can also define your own classes for validation purposes and register them using @AssertTrue or @AssertFalse.

Let’s get started with the Bean Validation API by building a simple example. We’ll define a Java Bean annotated with validations, and then we will use JUnit unit tests to exercise the Bean Validation API and generate validation errors. Later, we’ll show you how to use Bean Validation from Roo, and how to customize validation messages and build your own constraints. But, first, let’s set up our project.

Generating our project

Let’s jump on and take the Roo Shell for a test drive by generating our project. The first step is to create a directory for our project:

$ mkdir tracker

Go into the directory—this is where Roo will generate the project directories and artifacts:

$ cd tracker

Start Roo:

$ roo

Notice Roo’s shell prompt is simply:

This prompt will change based on the last command issued. Let’s keep an eye on the Roo prompt as we move forward. Now let’s start creating our project by typing pr and pressing the [TAB] key twice:

roo> proj [TAB] [TAB]

When we use the [TAB] key, Roo will automatically select the matching command with the first required option project –topLevelPackage, requiring us to only then type the project’s top level package. When we press the tab key, Roo will display the list of commands based on the starting characters typed. If there is more than one command, we will be given a list of matching commands. In this case, we get project because it is the only command starting with pr. Roo then prompts us with any required elements. For our project, the only required element is the top level package. Let’s choose a package name of org.distracted.tracker.

roo> project --topLevelPackage org.distracted.tracker

The last element in the package defines the name of the application by default—tracker. This is due to the package and not the physical directory name. It also configures:

  • The application’s location using the default URL of http://localhost:8080/tracker
  • The project name display in SpringSource Tool Suite as tracker.
  • Maven Group Id: org.distracted.tracker.
  • Maven Artifact Id: tracker.
  • Maven Project Name: tracker.
Created /code/roo/tracker/pom.xml
	Created SRC_MAIN_RESOURCES/META-INF/spring/applicationContext.xml
	org.distracted.tracker roo>

Notice the capitalized path elements that Roo has created? These are constants that are used throughout Roo commands. Now, let’s set up our database.

Setting up the database

To make this project easy to deal with, we will assume you don’t have a database installed on your machine. No big deal, there are a number of embeddable and standalone databases you can use. In our case, let’s use the Hypersonic SQL standalone database. Here is the persistence configuration setup command to run from the Roo shell.

roo> persistence setup --database HYPERSONIC_PERSISTENT --provider HIBERNATE

Remember, in the Shell, you can type the first two or three characters of this command—for example, per [TAB]—and Roo will complete the command for you. This goes for your options and values as well. You can type — [TAB] to see what options are available, and when an option is selected such as database, you can hit [TAB] to get the available options.

Now that we’ve created the project and installed Hibernate and JSR-303 Validations, we can move onto our discussion of the Bean Validation API.

Defining a validated bean

Using the Roo shell, we will create a ValidationExercisor class, which will allow us to experiment with the Bean Validation API:

roo> class --class ~.validations.ValidationExercisor

This command just creates a class in the org.distracted.tracker.validations package in src/main/java. In listing 1 below, we edit this class and define a simple JavaBean with some attributes that hold validation annotations. We define the class with the @RooJavaBean annotation so that the Roo shell will automatically generate getters and setters for us. We also define three fields—a String, a Date, and a BigDecimal, and we define several validation annotations for each one.

Listing 1

package org.distracted.tracker.validations;
import java.math.BigDecimal;
import java.util.Date;
import javax.validation.constraints.DecimalMax;
import javax.validation.constraints.DecimalMin;
import javax.validation.constraints.Future;
import javax.validation.constraints.NotNull;
import org.hibernate.validator.constraints.Length;
import org.springframework.roo.addon.javabean.RooJavaBean;
@RooJavaBean #1
public class ValidationExercisor {
	@NotNull #2
	@Length(min = 1, max = 10)
	private String myString;
	@DecimalMin("0.0") #3
	private BigDecimal myNumber;
	@Future #4
	private Date dueDate;

(#1) Generates getter and setter methods for this class in a file named ValidationExcercisor_Roo_JavaBean.aj
(#2) The myString attribute cannot be null and must be between 1 and 10 characters in length.
(#3) The myNumber attribute may be null but, if specified, will range between 0 and 9999999.9.
(#4) This date, if specified, must be in the future from the time when the validation is performed.

Although this isn’t an entity, we wanted to start out our discussion of Bean Validation by showing you that you can use it pretty much wherever you like it.

Roo entities

Roo Entities are JPA-annotated classes that map data to a database and specify data-type constraints and validation rules using annotations such as @NotNull, @Past, and @Size.

Spring supports Bean Validation annotations in a number of places, such as in web form validation, entity validation, and in plain JavaBeans.

Roo annotations—not just for generated code

If you create classes below your top-level package, the Roo shell will automatically look at them each time they are saved and generate any AspectJ ITDs required to add the features that you want. That’s why we can use the annotation @RooJavaBean above and can easily add features such as @RooToString to automatically generate a toString() method. Look for add-ons to be developed that take advantage of this feature, adding support for a wide variety of features without requiring you to write code.

Later on, we’ll see how we can customize validations by adding our own messages and validators but, for now, let’s get started and test our validations.

This article is based on Spring Roo in Action, to be published Summer-2011. It is being reproduced here by permission from Manning Publications. Manning publishes MEAP (Manning Early Access Program,) eBooks and pBooks. MEAPs are sold exclusively through All pBook purchases include free PDF, mobi and epub. When mobile formats become available all customers will be contacted and upgraded. Visit for more information. [ Use promotional code ‘java40beat’ and get 40% discount on eBooks and pBooks ]

Testing the Validation Framework

Validation is performed using an implementation of the Bean Validation Framework specification (JSR-303). Spring Roo comes configured with the Hibernate Validator, which also happens to be the reference implementation of the Bean Validation Framework. Although Spring Roo automatically executes Bean Validation for us, we wanted to show the mechanisms behind Bean Validation so that you can understand what happens behind the scenes.

Let’s build a JUnit test to exercise those methods. Listing 2 is a completed JUnit 4 unit test class that interacts with the Bean Validation API.

NOTE:This test has to be created manually via the IDE in src/test/java/org/distracted/tracker/validations because the current Roo framework supports generation of test entity-based unit (mock) and integration tests only. Using the class command will put the test in the wrong parent directory, src/main/java rather than the src/test/java directory, where the maven build can recognize the testing annotations.

Listing 2 Testing the validator

package org.distracted.tracker.validations;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Set;
import javax.validation.ConstraintViolation;
import javax.validation.Validation;
import javax.validation.Validator;
import javax.validation.ValidatorFactory;
import javax.validation.groups.Default;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
import org.junit.runners.JUnit4;
import org.springframework.mock.staticmock.MockStaticEntityMethods;
public class ValidationExercisorTest {
	public void testMethod() {
		ValidatorFactory defaultValidatorFactory =
		Validation.buildDefaultValidatorFactory(); #1
		Validator validator = defaultValidatorFactory.getValidator();
		ValidationExercisor exercisor = new ValidationExercisor();
		exercisor.setDueDate(new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - 1000));
		Set<ConstraintViolation<ValidationExercisor>> constraints =
		validator.validate(exercisor, Default.class); #2
		for (ConstraintViolation<ValidationExercisor> constraint : constraints) {
			System.err.println(constraint.getMessage()); #3

#1 Configure the factory
#2 Invoke the validator
#3 Process violations

Of course, a true JUnit test would verify that the errors were triggered appropriately, but this test simply illustrates how the Validation Framework processes and delivers violations. When executed as a Unit Test in SpringSource Tool Suite or via the operating system command line mvn test, the validation constraint messages are returned in the standard error output for our two validation errors:

must be in the future
	may not be null

Since setting up and calling the validator by hand is a bit tedious, let’s see how we can get Spring Roo to wire it up for us and make our lives easier by executing validations automatically against our entities.

Using bean validation in Roo entities

Spring Roo supports automatic validation of Roo Entities, if annotated with Bean Validation annotations. The Roo entities are automatically validated when a persist or merge method call is executed. Any errors will result in the throwing of a ConstraintViolationException, which contains all ConstraintViolation instances for errors encountered during the validation process.

Turning our ValidationExercisor into a JPA Entity is simple—you just need to add three annotations, @Entity, @RooEntity, and @RooToString to the class (the @Entity annotation is from javax.persistence). Editing the ValidationExcercisor class from listing 1, we simply add the annotations to the top of the class definition:

public class ValidationExercisor {

Fire up the Roo shell and watch it reconfigure your class. In general, when working on Roo-managed classes, you should leave the shell running so that it can automatically reconfigure your class, especially if you are working on your project using the SpringSource Tool Suite. When Roo is done making changes to the classes, type quit to exit the shell.

The ValidationExercisor is now an Entity, which means it will create and manage a table, validation_exercisor, containing three database fields—my_string, my_number, and due_date. Although this is an academic exercise, it shows how trivial it can be to pull a Java Bean into the JPA platform and start managing it as a JPA entity.

Let’s create a Roo-generated Integration Test for our entity and modify it to perform our validation. The command to set up our integration test is:

roo> test integration --entity ~.validations.ValidationExercisor

Our Roo-friendly integration test is shown here in listing 3, modified adding the testValidatorAutomatically() method to trigger and verify bean validations.

Listing 3 Roo integration validation test

package org.distracted.tracker.validations;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Set;
import javax.persistence.EntityManager;
import javax.persistence.PersistenceContext;
import javax.validation.ConstraintViolation;
import javax.validation.ConstraintViolationException;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.springframework.roo.addon.test.RooIntegrationTest;
@RooIntegrationTest(entity = ValidationExercisor.class,
persist = false) #1
public class ValidationExercisorIntegrationTest {
	public void testValidatorAutomatically() {
		ValidationExercisor exercisor = new ValidationExercisor();
		exercisor.setDueDate(new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() - 1000));
		try {
		exercisor.persist(); #2
		} catch (ConstraintViolationException cve) {
			Set<ConstraintViolation<?>> constraintViolations =
			for (ConstraintViolation<?> violation: constraintViolations) {

(#1) Disable the built-in test of the persist method.
(#2) In Roo, calling persist() automatically fires validation as part of pre-persistence processing.

For each error, an individual instance ConstraintViolation is returned. The ConstraintViolation object contains the attributes defined in table 1.

You can gain access to these fields when catching the ConstraintViolationException. Here is a more detailed code fragment with a deeper interrogation:

try {
} catch (ConstraintViolationException e) {
	Set<ConstraintViolation<?>> constraintViolations = e.getConstraintViolations();
	for (ConstraintViolation<?> cv : constraintViolations) {
	System.err.println("Invalid Value : " + cv.getInvalidValue());
	System.err.println("Property path: " + cv.getPropertyPath());
	System.err.println("Message " + cv.getMessage());
	System.err.println("Message Template: " + cv.getMessageTemplate());
	System.err.println("Root Bean" + cv.getRootBean());

Not only can Roo manage JPA Entities using the Bean Validation Framework but it can generate automatic error handling for form elements, populating the page with messages when errors occur. Further, Roo generates client-side validations based on the built-in annotations, which will appear whenever a user attempts to enter an invalid value.

Let’s see how we can use Validation in our current application, the Task Manager. We’ll assign validation rules to the Task entity.

Validating our Task entity

It is easy to add validations to our Task object. We merely have to add the annotations to the fields we wish to validate. The modified class is shown, with Bean Validation annotations, in listing 4.

Listing 4 Task with validations

package org.distracted.tracker.model;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Set;
public class Task {
	@DateTimeFormat(style = "S-")
	private Date dateCreated;
	@DateTimeFormat(style = "S-")
	private Date dateDue;
	@DateTimeFormat(style = "S-")
	private Date dateComplete;
	@NotNull #1
	@Size(max = 1000) #2
	private String description;
	@Min(1) #3
	private int priority;
	private Boolean completed;

#1 Cannot be null on persist or merge operations.
#2 The description field cannot be longer than 1,000 characters long.
#3 The priority field can range between 1 and 5.

Now that we’ve seen how we can assign validation rules to our entities, we should review the validation annotations built in to the Bean Validation Framework.

Built-in validations

The validations in table 2 are built into the Bean Validation API and can be used by any Java Object.

Some of these validations may not make sense on the surface—why would we want to define a @Null validation if it makes the field unsettable? That’s because, in the specification, the Bean Validation framework supports the concept of validation groups. In the current release of Roo, the only validation group supported is called Default, so, unless Roo Entities begin to support validations with multiple groups, this particular validation won’t really be easily used.

So far, we’ve looked at implementing validations and we’ve seen how Spring Roo automatically executes validation checks before saving an entity. Now let’s take a look at how to customize the error messages provided by the annotation.

Custom validation messages

The Bean Validation API is an official Java JSR (JSR-303). The specification states that messages can be customized and localized. Let’s take a look at the customization process. The Bean Validation Framework provides for customization of messages, either in the annotations themselves or in externalized property files.

To define your own validation messages within the annotations themselves, use the message attribute:

@NotNull(message = "last name is required.")
	private String lastName;

You can include the value of any attribute supplied to the annotation. Substituting parameters that are set by the annotation is easy. Just wrap them with braces as in this numeric range validation example:

@Length(min = 1, max = 10,
	message = "The value must be between {min} and {max}")
	private String myString;
	@Min(value = 0, message="must be greater than or equal to {value}")
	@Max(value = 5, message="must be less than or equal to {value}")
	private int priority;

You can use any attribute defined in the annotation itself. Currently, the Bean Validation Framework does not supply the value of the object itself to the validation error.

You can see in the examples above that the @Min and @Max annotations take a single value, specified as the parameter named value. An annotation with a single required parameter can be specified without the parameter by name, such as in @Max(5), so you need to be explicit with parameter names when using more than one parameter.

But you don’t want to put messages inside of your code. As with Spring’s property placeholders, the Bean Validation Framework supports externalizing messages to localizable property files.

This article is based on Spring Roo in Action, to be published Summer-2011. It is being reproduced here by permission from Manning Publications. Manning publishes MEAP (Manning Early Access Program,) eBooks and pBooks. MEAPs are sold exclusively through All pBook purchases include free PDF, mobi and epub. When mobile formats become available all customers will be contacted and upgraded. Visit for more information. [ Use promotional code ‘java40beat’ and get 40% discount on eBooks and pBooks ]

Externalizing message configuration

The default message definitions file for implementing custom messages for the Bean Validation Framework, as specified in the JSR, is / Let’s create this file in the root of src/main/resources, so we can validate using customized messages. A sample follows.

nullValidationMessage=cannot be null.
	minValidationMessage=must be greater than or equal to {value}
	maxValidationMessage=must be less than or equal to {value}

The updated annotations for the ranking field can reference these names using braces:

@NotNull(message = "{nullValidationMessage}")
	@Min(value = 0, message="{minValidationMessage}")
	@Max(value = 5, message="{maxValidationMessage}")
	private int ranking;

Replacing the default message for a given annotation is also easy. First, using SpringSource Tool Suite, CTRL/CMD-Click on the @Max annotation to view the source code. You will see a line that looks like this:

String message() default "{javax.validation.constraints.Min.message}";

Your customized message can replace the default, built-in message by defining a replacement message for the javax.validation.constraints.Min.message field.

// the annotated field in a JPA entity:
@Max(value = 5)
private int ranking;
// in
javax.validation.constraints.Min.message=can be no larger than {value}

What about localizing our messages? That is also simple. Since Roo uses Java resource bundles, we merely have to supply localized versions of our file, such as

Testing your Locales can be an interesting challenge. On the Mac, for example, you can use the System Preferences Languages pane to drag/drop your target language to the top. More information can be found at

So far, we’ve seen how to annotate our entities with validation constraints and how to customize the validation messages, including the default messages for validation.

Custom validation

So, what about writing our own validation annotations? In some cases, the built-in validation annotations will not be enough for our needs. As an example, consider something as complex as ISBN validation. To make this a bit simpler, let’s assume we are using the pre-2007 10-digit ISBN because the 13-digit one is more complex. The 10-digit ISBN checksum is validated by summing each of the first nine numbers in sequence and multiplying it by 10 minus the current position. The sum is divided by 11, and the modulus is taken. The modulus is subtracted from 11, and the result is the checksum.

To build this custom validation, you first have to define a custom validation annotation. In the ISBNCheckDigit annotation in listing 5, we’ll define our validator as a no-argument validation annotation and add the @Pattern and @NotNull annotations, which will require the ISBN is always supplied and exactly 10 digits long.

Listing 5 ISBNCheckDigit validation annotation

package com.chariot.jpademo.model.validation;
import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE;
import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.CONSTRUCTOR;
import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.FIELD;
import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.METHOD;
import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.PARAMETER;
import java.lang.annotation.Documented;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;
import javax.validation.Constraint;
import javax.validation.Payload;
import javax.validation.constraints.NotNull;
import javax.validation.constraints.Pattern;
// these are required, and help document the validation to the
// validation engine. Note the validatedBy entry, which ties the
// annotation to a validator
@Constraint(validatedBy = ISBNWithCheckDigitValidator.class)
@Pattern(regexp = "[0-9]{10}") #1
public @interface ISBNWithCheckDigit {
	String message() default "{message-isbn-valid}"; #2
	Class<?>[] groups() default { }; #3
	Class<? extends Payload>[] payload() default {}; #3

#1 Add Regular Expression-based pattern validation—10 digits
#2 Externalize message
#3 These are required

The groups() and payload()annotations are required, as are the @Documented, @Target, and @Retention annotations. The Constraint annotation defines what Java Bean will perform our validation for us. The validator class must implement a templated ConstraintValidator interface, which requires us to implement the initialize and isValid methods, as shown in listing 6.

Listing 6 The ISBNCheckDigitValidator

package com.chariot.jpademo.model.validation;
import javax.validation.ConstraintValidator;
import javax.validation.ConstraintValidatorContext;
import javax.validation.constraints.AssertTrue;
import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
public class ISBNWithCheckDigitValidator implements
ConstraintValidator<ISBNWithCheckDigit, String> {
	private static Logger log = Logger
	public void initialize(ISBNWithCheckDigit constraintAnnotation) { #1

@AssertTrue #2
public boolean isValid(String isbn, ConstraintValidatorContext context) {"ISBN is " + isbn + " with length of " + isbn.length());
	int checkSumAccum = 0;
	int factor = 10;
	int actualCheckSum = Integer.parseInt(Character
	.toString(isbn.charAt(9)));"actual checksum = " + actualCheckSum);
	for (int i = 0; i < isbn.length() - 1; i++) {
		int val = Integer.parseInt(Character.toString(isbn.charAt(i)));"value for position " + i + " is " + val + ", factor = "
		+ factor + ", result = " + factor * val);
		checkSumAccum += factor * val;
		factor--;"accumulator is now " + checkSumAccum);
	int modulus = checkSumAccum % 11;
	int checkDigit = 11 - modulus;"Checksum accum is now modded by 11, and is: " + modulus);"The checksum digit is 11 - modulus, which is " + checkDigit);
	return checkDigit == actualCheckSum;

#1 This method is a required method from the ContraintValidator interface
#2 Perform validation
#3 Accumulate sum of check values
#4 Perform the modulus and subtract

Yes, that was a complex example! In the real world, validation may take place using external resources such as a database or other Spring Beans. Technically, since Roo entities are marked as @Configurable by the @RooEntity annotation, we can also include references to other Spring Beans using the @Autowired annotation. Please be aware of the overhead that the calls to outside beans may incur and don’t try to dig into child collections because they may end up resulting in additional fetches or may throw exceptions.

To wrap up our discussion on validations, let’s look at writing a rule using arbitrary code within our entities. These rules can be defined using the @AssertTrue or @AssertFalse validations.

Using the @AssertTrue validation

Take a very arbitrary example of a popularity-ranking engine. Let’s say you want to delegate your Author popularity check to a Spring Bean, which can be implemented in a number of ways. In one implementation, the author needs to be interrogated, for some strange reason, to make sure anyone with the last name of Rimple or Dickens automatically has a high popularity rating. Pretentious, moi?

In this case, we are going to use another annotation, @AssertTrue, which lets us code the validation inside of our entity object. This validation rule expects to annotate a method named isValid(). During validation, the results of the validation determine whether this validation rule is fired. See listing 7.

Listing 7 Validation within an Entity using @AssertTrue

public class Author {
	@AssertTrue(message="Must be a 5 if it's the guys from Roo in Action!")
	private boolean isValid() {
		if (lastName == null) return true;
		if (lastName.startsWith("Dickens") ||
		lastName.startsWith("Rimple")) {
			return ranking == 5;
		} else {
			return true;

(#1) Establish the validation with the @AssertTrue annotation. Provide the message for the error, if this method returns false.
(#2) The method that implements @AssertTrue has to have the signature private boolean isValid().

In this example, our isValid() method is annotated with @AssertTrue, using a custom message. Since our method is executed on the instance of the bean itself, it has access to other fields within our entity during the validation process.

Let’s look at an integration test fragment that exercises this logic. Review listing 8 below.

Listing 8 Testing the @AssertTrue validator

public void testRooInActionAuthorsWithError() {
	AuthorDataOnDemand dod = new AuthorDataOnDemand();
	Author a = dod.getNewTransientAuthor(0);
	// should pass
	// should throw our exception
	a = dod.getNewTransientAuthor(2);
	try {
	} catch (ConstraintViolationException e) {
	}"We should have fired a validation exception.");

This example uses the class AuthorDataOnDemand that gets generated using the –testAutomatically flag when we created the entity. Don’t worry if you forget to do this, you can always generate a data-on-demand class using the dod Roo shell command, or get one built for you when you build an integration test using the test integration command.

This mechanism is much easier to deal with than the alternative mechanism for rule-based or multifield-based validation, which is by building validation annotations at the class level. For more details on the Bean Validation API, visit the documentation for JSR-303 online.

If you have a problem with your entity integration tests once you code custom validations, you’re not alone. While this may be corrected in a future release, the JSR-303 validations aren’t completely supported by Roo, and your custom validations will never be. One way to handle this is to open up the DataOnDemand class in your integration test package and implement the getNewTransientEntityName method, replacing it with one that returns valid values for your bean. Spring Roo will remove the method definition from the AspectJ ITD file automatically.

So, if you need to validate your beans before persisting them, you can use the Bean Validation Framework. Try to stick to a few simple rules:

  • Validation by Composition—When building validation for a particular bean, go ahead and stack validators on a field. If you’d like to compose your own grouped validation, just build a validation annotation that is comprised of the others you need. You can get a lot done by using a combination of @NotNull and @Pattern, for example.
  • Be sparing in your processing power—Just because you can call a stored procedure behind a service to validate an entry in that list, do you really want to? Realize that if you’re saving a collection of objects, this validation will be called on each item within the list, thus causing many calls to the same procedure.
  • Use @AssertTrue and isValid() for multicolumn checks—A quick way to get your complex, logic-based validation to work is to build an isValid() method within your entity, annotating it with @AssertTrue. Within this method, you have access to other fields in the entity.

also read:

In this article, we’ve discussed the Bean Validation Framework API and how Spring Roo uses it to validate data. We showed you how to use Bean Validation from Roo and how to customize validation messages and build your own constraints.

About Krishna Srinivasan

He is Founder and Chief Editor of JavaBeat. He has more than 8+ years of experience on developing Web applications. He writes about Spring, DOJO, JSF, Hibernate and many other emerging technologies in this blog.


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Dishevelled and Wnt signaling: is the nucleus the final frontier?

Raymond Habas1 and Igor B Dawid2*

Author Affiliations

1 Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Department of Biochemistry, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA

2 Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD 20892-2790, USA

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Journal of Biology 2005, 4:2  doi:10.1186/jbiol22

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at:

Published:17 February 2005

© 2005 BioMed Central Ltd

The phosphoprotein Dishevelled (Dsh) is an essential component of Wnt signaling pathways and transduces signals into three separate branches, the canonical, non-canonical and Ca2+ pathways. How Dsh focuses signaling into these branches remains mysterious, but a new study reveals the importance of nuclear localization of Dsh for pathway-specific activation.

Wnt signaling

Wnt proteins comprise a large family of secreted glycoproteins that regulate key developmental processes including cell-fate determination, proliferation, motility and the establishment of the primary axis of the body during vertebrate embryogenesis [1-3]. Defects in Wnt signaling are also implicated in a host of pathologies including cancer and neural tube defects. Wnt ligands can transform cells, and mutations in components of the Wnt signaling pathway, such as β-catenin, have causative roles in colon cancers in humans, while mutations in Dishevelled (Dsh) are implicated in neural-fold closure disorders [1,4]. To date, 18 Wnt ligands have been identified in humans [5,6]. This large number of ligands is paralleled by an equally impressive number of receptors and co-receptors, which are encoded in the Frizzled and low-density-related lipoprotein receptor 5/6 (LRP5/6) gene families, which have ten and two members, respectively, in the human genome [1,6].

Through intensive studies spanning over two decades, a molecular pathway for Wnt signaling has emerged (Figure 1). Upon binding of Wnt to its receptor, either Frizzled or a complex comprising Frizzled and LRP5/6, a signal is transduced to the cytoplasmic phosphoprotein Dsh. There are three Dsh proteins in mammals (Dsh-1, Dsh-2, and Dsh-3), and Dsh family members in all organisms are comprised of three highly conserved domains: an amino-terminal DIX domain (named for Dsh and Axin), a central PDZ domain (named for Postsynaptic density-95, Discs-large and Zonula occludens-1), and a carboxy-terminal DEP domain (for Dsh, Egl-10 and Pleckstrin) [7]. At the level of Dsh, the Wnt signal branches into three separate pathways, the so-called canonical, non-canonical or planar cell polarity (PCP), and Wnt-Ca2+ pathways (Figure 1) [1,8,9]. In all three pathways Dsh is a key transducer of the Wnt signal that operates at the plasma membrane or in the cytoplasm. But now, a new study [10] suggests that Dsh also functions within the nucleus. To put this study in context, we must first review what is known of the three pathways.

thumbnailFigure 1. A schematic representation of the Wnt signal transduction cascade. (a) For the canonical pathway, signaling through the Frizzled (Fz) and LRP5/6 receptor complex induces the stabilization of β-catenin via the DIX and PDZ domains of Dishevelled (Dsh) and a number of factors including Axin, glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) and casein kinase 1 (CK1). β-catenin translocates into the nucleus where it complexes with members of the LEF/TCF family of transcription factors to mediate transcriptional induction of target genes. β-catenin is then exported from the nucleus and degraded via the proteosomal machinery. (b) For non-canonical or planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling, Wnt signaling is transduced through Frizzled independent of LPR5/6. Utilizing the PDZ and DEP domains of Dsh, this pathway mediates cytoskeletal changes through activation of the small GTPases Rho and Rac. (c) For the Wnt-Ca2+ pathway, Wnt signaling via Frizzled mediates activation of heterotrimeric G-proteins, which engage Dsh, phospholipase C (PLC; not shown), calcium-calmodulin kinase 2 (CamK2) and protein kinase C (PKC). This pathway also uses the PDZ and DEP domains of Dsh to modulate cell adhesion and motility. Note that for the PCP and Ca2+ pathways Dsh is proposed to function at the membrane, whereas for canonical signaling Dsh has been proposed to function in the cytoplasm; a recent study [10] implicates nuclear localization of Dsh in this pathway. See text for further details.

For canonical signaling, which mediates gene induction events (Figure 1a), Wnt signaling utilizes the DIX and PDZ domains of Dsh to induce the stabilization of cytosolic β-catenin; this allows for cytoplasmic accumulation and subsequent translocation of β-catenin into the nucleus [1]. Regulation of β-catenin stability is mediated via a complex of proteins including Axin, glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3), GSK3-binding protein (GBP) and casein kinase 1 (CK1). In the absence of Wnt stimulation, β-catenin is targeted for degradation through the proteosomal pathway via the β-transducin repeat containing protein (β-TrCP), but β-catenin is stabilized when a Wnt signal is received [1,6,11]. In the nucleus, β-catenin forms complexes with members of the LEF/TCF family of transcription factors and other factors, and mediates transcription of Wnt target genes [1].

The non-canonical or PCP pathway mediates cell polarity, cell movements during gastrulation, and other processes, by signal transduction through the PDZ and DEP domains of Dsh, leading to a modification of the actin cytoskeleton (Figure 1b) [8,12]. At the level of Dsh, two independent and parallel pathways lead to the activation of the small GTPases Rho and Rac. Activation of Rho requires the formin-homology protein Daam1 that binds to the PDZ domain of Dsh, leads to the activation of the Rho-associated kinase ROCK, and mediates cytoskeletal re-organization [8,13,14]. Rac activation is independent of Daam1, requires the DEP domain of Dsh, and stimulates Jun kinase (JNK) activity [8,15,16]. Other Dsh-binding molecules that influence the PCP pathway include Strabismus and Prickle, but their mechanisms of action remain incompletely understood [8,12,17].

The Wnt-Ca2+ pathway (Figure 1c) is thought to influence both the canonical and PCP pathways [9]. Wnt signaling through Frizzled receptors leads to the release of intra-cellular Ca2+ in a process mediated through heterotrimeric G-proteins and involving numerous other molecules, including phospholipase C (PLC), calcium-calmodulin-dependent kinase 2 (CamK2) and protein kinase C (PKC) [9,18]. The Wnt-Ca2+ pathway is important for cell adhesion and cell movements during gastrulation.

Signal specificity

With such a daunting number of Wnt ligands and Frizzled receptors, two challenging questions that remain unanswered are whether (and if so which) Wnt ligands are specific to particular pathways, and how signals are channeled to each pathway. Notably, some Wnt ligands are known to activate both canonical and non-canonical pathways such as Wnt3a, whereas others such as Wnt5a appear to be specific to non-canonical signaling. Equally elusive is the understanding of how the signal is transmitted from the receptor/coreceptor complex to Dsh, although two recent studies have revealed a direct interaction between Dsh and Frizzled [19,20]. Most importantly, the way in which Dsh couples and distributes Wnt signaling into the three signaling branches remains at best poorly understood.

Dsh occupies a key position at the crossroads of all branches of the Wnt signaling cascade. It has been proposed that both the subcellular localization of Dsh and the choice of effector molecules downstream of Dsh govern the selectivity of specific pathway activation. Dsh-localization studies in Drosophila [21] and recently Caenorhabditis elegans [22] have shown a correlation between localization of Dsh at the membrane and activation of the PCP pathway. Indeed, mutations in the DEP domain, which is required for PCP signaling, show impaired membrane localization that is correlated with impaired PCP signaling [16,21]. These studies have furthered the hypothesis that the membrane localization of Dsh is required for at least one output of Wnt signaling. In unstimulated cells, Dsh localizes to punctate vesicular structures in the cytoplasm [23] by a process that requires the DIX domain; in response to certain Wnt ligands, Dsh translocates to the plasma membrane or to the perinuclear/nuclear area, and the membrane localization in all cases studied requires the DEP domain [24,25]. The significance of nuclear/perinuclear localization remained unclear, but it is noteworthy that a number of components of the canonical signaling pathway, such as APC, Axin, and GSK3β, appear to traffic between the cytoplasm and the nucleus along with β-catenin [26-28].

This multitude of studies forms the background for the current paper by Sokol and colleagues in Journal of Biology [10], which identifies two additional domains in Dsh that modulate both its subcellular distribution and its ability to activate canonical Wnt signaling. The first newly identified domain, located carboxy-terminal to the DEP domain, modulates localization of Dsh through its action as a nuclear export signal. Dsh protein lacking this domain or harboring a mutation in a critical lysine residue strongly accumulates in the nucleus of both Xenopus embryos and cultured mammalian cells. Surprisingly, however, these mutant proteins retain their ability to mediate canonical signaling as effectively as wild-type Dsh. Pharmacological agents impeding nuclear export, and cellular fractionation studies, further provide evidence that endogenous Dsh enters the nucleus, supporting the view that Dsh shuttles between the cytoplasmic and nuclear compartments. The authors then identified a second domain, located just carboxy-terminal to the PDZ domain, that is required for nuclear localization; the sequence of this domain is atypical for a nuclear localization sequence (NLS). Mutation of this second domain abolished nuclear accumulation of Dsh in the presence of nuclear export inhibitors and, remarkably, impaired the ability of Dsh to induce β-catenin stabilization and to transduce the canonical Wnt signal. Interestingly, replacement of this atypical NLS with the prototypical NLS of the T antigen from the simian virus SV40 redirected Dsh to the nucleus and largely restored Wnt signaling. The authors further bolster their findings by demonstrating that stimulation of cultured mammalian cells with Wnt3a results in the accumulation of a portion of endogenous Dsh (Dvl2 in this case) in/around the nucleus.

Making sense of nuclear localization

So what is the role for Dsh in the nucleus and is the Wnt field ready to accommodate such a role for Dsh? This new finding [10] comes as a surprise, because Dsh has been studied extensively over the past two decades and its nuclear localization remained unappreciated. To support their conclusions the authors showed that Dsh is found in nuclear fractions, but this approach is not fully conclusive for one may argue that Dsh exhibits perinuclear localization and co-fractionates with the outer nuclear envelope. The strongest evidence for a nuclear role for Dsh comes from experiments in which nuclear import and export are manipulated, showing that import is critical for function. Yet, when the basic conclusion of a nuclear localization and function of Dsh is accepted, several questions remain. If Dsh function is required in the nucleus for canonical Wnt signaling, why is no hyperactivation of the pathway observed by targeting Dsh to the nucleus? The authors note this point and postulate that a 'steady state' rather than just localization is required for function. However, one would at least be compelled to posit that β-catenin, which should be stabilized by such Dsh-targeted approaches, should increase signaling, and this was not observed.

Perhaps a more salient question is why many studies have observed Dsh translocation to the plasma membrane in response to Wnt stimulation or Frizzled expression [8,12,17,29], but have not detected Dsh in the nucleus. It is possible that a small but selective pool of Dsh translocates to the nucleus to mediate canonical signaling while most Dsh goes to the membrane. Yet, if this is the case, is the membrane relocalization of the majority of Dsh just a gratuitous cellular behavior without meaning? Finally, what is the function of Dsh in the nucleus? It is possible that nuclear Dsh acts in transcriptional regulation independent of β-catenin to mediate Wnt signaling, as Sokol and colleagues have previously suggested for the Dsh-binding protein Frodo [30]. These remain important questions that no doubt will stimulate future studies. Perhaps the nuclear localization of Dsh will indeed provide clues to elucidate the final frontier of understanding the diverse mechanisms of Wnt regulation of gene transcription in the nucleus.

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Many Renouncing Citizenship Because Of IRS Action On Foreign Assets

Due to the IRS action of taxing foreign assets owned by US citizens, a number of Americans have decided to relinquish their citizenship to avoid paying taxes. Among the more prominent ones is Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook. Last year, 1,780 Americans gave up their citizenship while the year before only 1,485 did so. In 2009, number was 731 and the year before that, only 226.

Since 2009, the IRS has intensified its efforts of tracking down American-owned taxable assets lodged overseas. This action has resulted in thousands of taxpayers being caught and prosecuted for tax evasion because they have not declared their offshore assets. The number of US citizens renouncing their citizenship started to spike in 2009 after the infamous case of UBS Bank of Switzerland that was fined $780 million in compensation for its role in helping its US customers hide their taxable assets in their bank accounts.

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The number of those relinquishing citizenship is expected to increase next year when more legislation is put in force. Among them is one that makes it mandatory for foreign banks to inform the US government of Americans opening bank accounts with them. Some foreign banks are already prohibiting Americans from opening accounts.

One of those in the list of people announced by the IRS who had renounced their citizenship is Eduardo Saverin, the 30-year old billionaire co-founder of Facebook, that is about to make its shares public. Facebook expects to raise as much as $11.8 billion through its coming IPO, the biggest for an Internet company. Saverin’s share in the company is about 4% which would stand to earn Saverin about $3.84 billion after the IPO. All this money will not be subject to tax now that Saverin has given up his citizenship.

But Saverin will still be subject to an exit tax on the capital gains from his stock holdings, even if he does not sell the shares. Saverin plans to become a resident of Singapore, where he intends to live indefinitely. Singapore does not have a capital gains tax but it does tax certain “foreign-sourced income”.

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