December 31, 2006
Voice of God ET
I like the History Channel but usually change the station when the UFO shows come on. Recently I was watching when "UFOs in the Bible" was broadcast and actually waited a few minutes before looking for another program. I was trying to decide which was more impressive, God leading Moses or aliens traveling across the vast expanse of the universe to help the Jews.
December 30, 2006
The Week (and a Half) in Review
Someone thoughtfully gave me an early Christmas gift, a cold (also known as slow lingering death). About a week and a half ago I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever of 102.something. Fortunately I had finished most of my gift shopping but it really limited my annual Christmas cookie baking.
My Christmas present to the cats this year was a Litter-Robot. We got the black one and named it "R2-PU".
It was a big investment but it comes with a money-back guarantee if your cats don't like it. The cats weren't sure what to make of it at first but they all use it with no problem now. Because it waits seven minutes after it's used before it goes through the self-cleaning cycle it's less likely to startle them and create a negative reaction. Even with the delay the cats appeared to be able to figure out there was some sort of cause-effect thing happening. For about a week after we got it, after one of them used the Litter-Robot, they would all gather around and wait to watch it until it finished cleaning itself.
I received the notice from our local sheriff's office that I could pick up my new CCW permit about the same time my temperature was peaking so between that and Christmas I wasn't able to pick it up until a few days ago.
I doubt that I'll make use of the permit on a day-to-day basis but it's nice to know that I can carry (a gun, butcher knives, shurikens...) if I want. I decided to take the class for the permit just to see how well I would do. I scored 100% on both the written and shooting portions of the test at the end of the class. I would like to pretend that this is impressive but it's not. The written portion just makes sure you understand what you can and cannot do under the law and the shooting portion just requires you to be able to hit a large silhoutte with 11 out of 20 rounds at 21 feet. (I hit it all 20 times, but still, it was only 21 feet away and it's a big target.)
A few days before Christmas I got a letter from one of my second cousins. My mother and grandparents left England and moved to the U.S. when she was a young child and I had never met any of their (our) relatives. Now I've found relatives in Canada and England. Or, rather, they found me.
This is one of the best Christmas presents I've ever gotten. I'm an only child and each of my parents had only one sibling, both of whom live in other states so finding out about more relatives is especially exciting for me.
I hope to be able to take a trip to Yorkshire and Derbyshire to meet some of my relatives and see where my mother's family is from.
December 18, 2006
Sorry Keith, Danny's My Favorite Now
This morning Right Wing News listed the 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes Of 2006. I left a comment about #28 - "It seems to me like 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75% of their targets, that feels like a conspiracy theory. It raises a lot of questions." -- Charlie Sheen I said that I would like to see a showdown between Sheen and Danny Bonaduce. I already have an idea how it would go from watching this video of Bonaduce and John Conner.
According to a comment I read about the video, the "unclassified" information that Conner mentions (a plan to commit a terrorist act in the U.S. and blame it on another country) was from the Kennedy administration. I haven't varified it but I would assume that a change from classified to unclassified would take at least 10 years so it wouldn't be anything from the current administration. Not that we should let facts get in the way of the "truth".
Enough With the "Best Of" Lists
The 100 Worst Album Covers - I think some of them are there more for the concept than the cover (Ethel Merman Disco Alburm) but I don't see any that doesn't deserve to be there.
December 17, 2006
What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
| Your Personality Is Like Acid |
 One moment you're in your own little happy universe... And the next, you're on a bad trip to your own personal hell! |
December 16, 2006
That's Just Dumb
High IQ link to being vegetarian - A Southampton University team found those who were vegetarian by 30 had recorded five IQ points more on average at the age of 10.
Five whole points. Men who were vegetarians scored 106 compared to 101 and women vegetarians scored 104 compared to 99 for non-vegetarians. These are what the BBC considers high scores? A score of 100 is "average" and measurements of IQ are presumed to have a five point margin of error. So, other than showing that the BBC considers IQs within the average range to be "high", I'm not sure what the point of the article is.
Just so you know what passes for intellectual thought at the BBC - "Twenty years after the IQ tests were carried out in 1970, 366 of the participants said they were vegetarian - although more than 100 reported eating either fish or chicken."
December 14, 2006
Zachzry Taylor Cemetery: Wreaths Across America
This afternoon, Trevor and I attended a Wreaths Across America ceremony at the Zachary Taylor Cemetery in Louisville. Some Civil Air Patrol cadets served as color guard and placed a wreath to honor each of the five branches of our armed forces. A sixth wreath was dedicated to MIA/POWs.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States when men were free. - Ronald Reagan
December 13, 2006
When I Want Your Opinion, I'll Give It to You
The city of Louisville was founded in 1778. I think discussion of new bridges between Kentucky and Indiana began about a year later. (It's really only been discussed for the past 20 years but it does seem as though it's been going on for centuries.) The plans have been to build two new bridges - one downtown and one in the east end of the county. The choice of designs was narrowed down to three each this past summer. There was a poll where people were asked to vote for which of the designs they preferred.
This week, the selected designs were announced. In both cases, the designs selected were the public's second choices. both of the chosen designs were the least expensive ones for their locations.
I'm not complaining about the choices, I'm just wondering why they bothered with the poll.
December 12, 2006
Top Videos
BlogPulse is now listing the most-linked videos of the previous day.
Hmmmm, YouTube's not loading for me this morning. This isn't good since the majority of the top videos seem to be from there.
33 Names of Things You Never Knew had Names
I've heard of a few of these before but most of them, "scroop" for example, are new to me. I'm looking forward to trying to fit them into conversations. "Spraints" is going to be a tough one. I think I'll save it for the next time my kids start talking about something disgusting during dinner.
When people say parents should set an example for their children they should specify "good" example. I blame a lot of problems I create on lack of clarity by others.
December 10, 2006
December 07, 2006
Date of Infamy
I found these in my grandmother's attic when I was (much) younger. Unfortunately they had already been folded so there are creases and small tears in them. I thought they were still worth sharing.
The Louisville Courier-Journal
The Louisville Times
Other bits from inside the papers-
Goebbels turned out to be wrong then but his quotation is worth thinking about now.
I would like to see some of the newspapers from the days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Judging by this letter to the editor, The Louisville Times appears to have been supporting neutrality in the war. What a difference a day makes.
December 06, 2006
It's a Wonder That We Bought Anything...
What could be better than commercials from the 1980s?* '80s commercials with snarky comments.
*The real answer is "just about anything that doesn't cause physical pain", but I decided to bend reality a bit for the purpose of this post.
December 05, 2006
Teens and Choices
Last night I was reading an article, "Is the Teen Brain Too Rational?", in the latest issue of Scientific American Mind. (I'll give you a moment to stop laughing at the idea of teens being too rational.)
A section called "Why Programs Fail" begins, "Traditional intervention programs emphasize the importance of giving teens information about risks and allowing them the freedom to decide for themselves what to do. These programs encourage teens to trade off potentially deadly risks against often transient benefits and assumes that they will see the light" just tell them the risks of HIV infection and unwanted pregnancy, these programs assume, and teens will not engage in unprotected sex."
It goes on to say that the success of these programs is limited and even that is shortlived. Teens do weigh the evidence of risk versus benefits but give more weight to the benefits. Also, if they take a risk without there being any immediate negative consequences, they tend to assume that the risk is lower than it may actually be.
This section is mainly about sex education...and has no mention of programs that promote abstinence. I guess the current theory is that it's still easier to train teens to make good choices (in this case avoiding unprotected sex) than to train parents to be parents. After all, if parents act like parents, it might get in the way of being the teen's buddy and infringe on the teenager's rights.
Newsflash, they have enough buddies and the only right they need is to grow up without messing up their lives. It's the parent's job to teach proper behavior, set down rules, and monitor what they do to make sure they follow the rules. It wouldn't be a 100% fix for the problem. I doubt there is one. But letting them know what you expect and why it's important would be a good start.
It Would Be a "One Use" Product Around Here
You may have heard about the rolling alarm clock - I think I first read about it on Gizmodo - but here's one that's even better. (If by better you mean potentially more annoying.)
My Star Trek Ornaments are Way Cooler
Spencer Gifts has p0rnaments on sale for Christmas. (Link via Scared Monkeys.) Read VW's post about how it's the female reindeer that has antlers in winter and then look at this ornament. (Warning: reindeer games shown on ornament are for adult audiences only.)
Who's laughing now? Well, not me because I think the ornaments are tacky but I did snicker just a bit at all the people who bought this without knowing about the antler thing. I blame my inner child geek.
And Google has 171,000,000 Results for "Diet"
According to this, the average US woman is 5' 3.8". This means I'm just about a couple of inches shorter than average. Entirely within the normal range to my way of thinking...although it's clear that some of you are just freakishly tall.
I mean that in a good way.
The article also says that the average weight for a woman in the US is 163 pounds. I don't think I came close to that even when I was pregnant but I have nothing snarky to say about those who do...you all could totally kick my butt.
I mean that in a most respectful way.
It's interesting that the more we (as a country, not you and me personally) concern ourselves with being thin, the more weight we tend to gain - up 11 pounds on average in less than a decade.