| An insight into Palin's qualifications |
[20 Oct 2008|11:27pm] |
Okay, I am rarely one to display my opinion about politics unsolicited, but I am watching The Daily Show and did some quick research and I realized something about Sarah Palin.
Okay, let's see what she's done. She was elected Governor of Alaska and assumed office in December 2006. Okay, so she was governor of Alaska for about 18 months before getting stuck with the VP race.
And before that she was mayor of Wasilla for like ten years! That sounds like a long time.
BUT ALASKA HAS NO SOCIAL SERVICES AT THE TOWN LEVEL. Below the state level in Alaska, all the government is organized at the borough (or county) level, never at the town level. So being a mayor is basically like being on the PTA, except that you still don't have jurisdiction over the school system.
Plus, Wasilla is nowhere near the parts of Alaska that you can see Russia from. Psshhht.
So I just thought that was a goofy tidbit. I'm no reporter; I'm totally biased and I'm going to vote for Obama just so people won't be able to lecture me on voting when I tell them I don't like to vote. But I thought that was an interesting fact about Alaska and everyone's favorite Alaskan celebrity. (Come on, even if you hate her, she's still more entertainment than anything else out of Alaska.)
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| Supernews! |
[24 Sep 2008|03:26pm] |
Anthropomorphized phones are SO MUCH BETTER than real phones!
I love SuperNews.
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| Child-naming *twitch* |
[03 Sep 2008|11:03am] |
Sarah Palin has five children: sons Track (born 1989) and Trig (born 2008), and daughters Bristol (born 1990), Willow (born 1995), and Piper (born 2001)
I can't even make fun. It's just so ridiculous, this set of names.
Sorry, not names - words. They are all in the dictionary (although, to be fair, Bristol is the name of a number of places and not a common noun like the rest of the names are).
Why are all their names nouns? Somebody should name their kid "fast" or "running." Those seem just as logical as nouns.
*twitch*
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| Wikipedia for the win. |
[29 Jul 2008|03:55pm] |
This is what we find out when Jeff has free time. Time for a lesson in pi!!!
"A value [of Pi] truncated to 11 decimal places is accurate enough to calculate the circumference of the earth with a precision of a millimeter, and one truncated to 39 decimal places is sufficient to compute the circumference of any circle that fits in the observable universe to a precision comparable to the size of a hydrogen atom."
So on earth we only will ever need 11 or 12 decimal places for pi. And in the WHOLE FUCKING UNIVERSE, we couldn't possibly need more than 40 places. Neat.
"Akira Haraguchi (born 1946), a retired Japanese engineer, currently working as a mental health counsellor and business consultant in Mobara City, is known for memorizing and reciting digits of Pi.
He set the current world record (100,000 digits) in 16 hours, starting at 9 a.m on October 3, 2006 and having recited up to 83,431 digits by nightfall, stopping with digit number 100,000 at 1:28 a.m. on October 4, 2006. The event was filmed in a public hall in Kisarazu, east of Tokyo, where he had five-minute breaks every two hours to eat onigiri rice balls to keep up his energy levels. Even his trips to the toilet were filmed to prove that the exercise was legitimate. Haraguchi's previous world record (83,431), was performed from July 1, 2005 to July 2, 2005."
You can't tell me I have too much free time on my hands, because I am just READING about this guy. He has spent years of his life memorizing the most useless part of a useful number.
Plus, he's a mental health counsellor.
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| :-( |
[23 Jun 2008|02:23am] |
Fuckin' George Carlin died.
Fo' real.
Bummer.
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| Two entries in one week? WTF? |
[22 May 2008|12:33am] |
I just have to write about this, you don't have to read it. You probably won't understand it if you don't know much about baseball (but see the two-sentence version at the end).
I went to see the Red Sox play at Fenway on Tuesday (May 20). The Royals were in town, and the Sox ended up winning 2-1. It was supposed to rain but it didn't rain at all, which was nice. Here is the thing. In the top of the 8th it was already 2-1, and Okajima was pitching as one might expect. He gave up a ground-rule double, and the man on second got to third on a groundout. So when there was a man on third with 1 out, I stood up and clapped when Okajima had 2 strikes on the batter. I was the only one doing so, which kind of surprised me. I mean, the batter can get the tying run home with an out, but if Okajima strikes him out, then the Royals would need a hit to score, and not just an out. So it is an important out, not like it would be if the man were on second or whatever. There were two at bats in this situation (Okajima walked the first guy), and Okajima DID strike out the second guy (swinging), and the Royals didn't end up scoring. If Okajima had retired that guy with a ground out or fly out, the man at third could have scored and the Sox might not have won. But I was the only one standing an applauding for Okajima with 2 strikes on the batter with one down.
And my frustration increased (irrationally) when there were two outs, because then EVERYONE stood up to cheer when there was two strikes. Any fuckin yokel can cheer for the pitcher with two down, apparently. I cheered too, because it is still appropriate, but with two out it doesn't matter how the guys is put out as long as he's out. I was frustrated with the ignorance of the fans, as I generally attribute more subtle baseball knowledge to the fans at Fenway.
Recap for those who don't get it: I cheered for the guy by myself at one point, and everyone cheered for him at another point. The guy had to do something MORE difficult when I was cheering, compared to what he had to do when everyone else was cheering.
I also don't do the wave. I show my appreciation for the players based on specific principles. The wave mocks my principles.
As a fun aside, on the way out of the park we saw a guy drumming on buckets and a sink and stuff, and he was joined by a guy playing the bagpipes. It was pretty awesome.
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| A random atrocity |
[18 May 2008|09:50pm] |
It looks like this (title) is becoming a series.
I'm hoping to get a response from Cheryl, an actual PA.
I just saw Iron Man. A fine film, it had one absurd flaw. In a montage about Tony Stark's advancement to head of his father's company, a magazine cover was shown (Time?) with a headline that read, "Stark Takes Reigns at 21."
"Stark Takes Reigns at 21."
This is a bush league spelling mistake, people.
A reign, as in "reign of terror," is a period when one rules (when one reigns). So they could have said, "Stark Reigns at 21," referring to his ruling the company.
A rein is a strap that is part of a (horse's) harness, which is used to steer the animal. So they should have said, "Stark Takes Reins at 21."
But they didn't, they made a mistake that we all should have stopped making in fifth grade.
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| A random atrocity |
[09 Feb 2008|03:07pm] |
Okay, I am supposed to be doing a paper, right, so naturally I am looking around Wikipedia, and I stumble on to the AFI's list of the 100 greatest movie quotes. And its absurd. There was one quote from 2001: A Space Oddyssey, at number 78:
Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
WHAT THE FUCK?!?! In case you are not very familiar with that film, the next line is:
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
HOW IS "Open the pod bay doors" A BETTER OR MORE-RECOGNIZED LINE THAN "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afriad I can't do that" ????
So that is undeniably absurd.
In addition, there are 7 quotes from Casablanca, which I would not normally complain about, except there's this at #32:
Round up the usual suspects.
While this one is at #67:
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
This is compared to only one quote from Forrest Gump, at #40:
Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
And they don't have any of the following:
Mamma says stupid is as stupid does.
Run Forrest....Run!
And that's all I have to say about that.
So my point I guess is that I completely disagree with this list. It sucks. Just FYI.
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| 13-year-old Jeff |
[13 Jan 2008|06:24pm] |
Its like everything that I thought was awesome at age 13 was magically unified in a perfect universe...
::gets misty eyed::
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| What? Climate Change? |
[27 Oct 2007|01:50pm] |
Yeah, I don't actually care a whole lot about the climate change debate. I don't make public policy and I don't claim to have access to the kinds of scientific resources that Al Gore and/or his opponents have. But if you do feel strongly one way or the other about the debate on global climate change and what to do about it, watch the video at the link below. This guy makes a clear argument, and I like the way he is attacking the problem.
http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html
Update worthy stuff: The Red Sox are about to win the world series again. That the most significant thing that's happened to me in the past year.
Yes, I am that boring.
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