Trivial Tuesday

It's Halloween, and time for a few holiday traditions. Trick-or-treating as we know from The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VIII, originated during 17th century witch trials when the witch sisters, Marge, Patty and Selma went door to door eating children until Maude Flanders offered them gingerbread children as an alternative. From then on, every house they went to offered them treats in exchange for not eating their kids.

Bobbing for apples, on the other hand is a tradition that dates back far before the first trick-or-treaters cut holes in bedsheets to pretend to be ghosts. With the early bobbing for apples, something was to happen to the first person who managed to retrieve an apple. What was this fiendish, frightening thing happened to the person who won the game that has become a Halloween tradition?

Halloween Tricks and Treats

Like movies? Like brainteasers? Like wasting time? Good. Here is a perfect site for you. It's actually a dark chocolate M&Ms page, but advertising or not, it's fun.

There are 50 different "dark" (i.e. horror, thriller, etc.) movie titles hidden in the picture on the site. Each one is represented by a visual riddle and it's up to you to find them and figure them out.

What happens if you get all 50? I don't know. I'm stuck at 42 45 48.

Go on play it. It's fun.

If Jimmy Cracks Corn and No One Cares, Why Does He Bother?

Ok, I haven't had a tremendous amount of time to write, so you'll get nothing and like it.

In case you need more proof that my mind is a little warped, here's a story from work yesterday. I was talking to a few of my coworkers and we got onto the subject of Randy Johnson hitting a bird with a baseball back in 2001. (Don't ask how we got to that subject. Like most conversations with me, it traveled from one subject to another to another in a seemingly random fashion. Those of you who know me well, know exactly what I mean.) Anyway, as I was walking along later during the day, I realized that I was whistling as I walked. I stopped for a moment and then it occurred to me that I was whistling "When Doves Cry." Yeah, even my subconscious has a sick sense of humor.

Two more completely random things.

Related to the post earlier this week, where I mentioned that I believe certain things should only happen at certain times: Yesterday I went to pick up lunch at Jimmy Johns and saw that the signs for the mall already have gigantic Christmas bows on them. I can't tell you how much that bothered me. I realize that they want people to start Christmas shopping soon, but surely someone at some point said, "You know, we may want to wait to put Christmas decorations up until after the Halloween decorations come down."

I'm starting to get a little concerned that I may be crazy. Like, put me in a straight jacket and take me to an institution crazy. When someone (even if it's me) says something, I feel the urge to say it again with a couple of the words transposed. For example if it's time to put the Chewie in his crate, Melissa might say "Chew, Go to bed." I will then have the urge to reply "Bed, Go to Chew." I can usually resist enough that I don't say these things out loud, but I still have to think it. So, tell me, am I nuts?

Trivial Tuesday

Certain species of whales are typically filter feeders despite their size. The filtering of large amounts of water is made possible by the large comb-like plates in the mouth of the whale. What is this filtering apparatus called?

Apropos of Nothing

I had an all-day training session yesterday. We have to do this thing once a year, and I'm pretty sure it actually gets worse every year. This year, we changed venues to a smaller auditorium. However, we could still fit the same number of people in, because the seats were half the size. Even the people who weren't as fat as me had a hard time wedging themselves into these seats.

We got to sit in these too-small seats while enjoying a movie that we had apparently put together ourselves (we, meaning people who worked at our site). I can honestly say that it was the worst movie I've ever seen...and I've seen Spice World and The Master of Disguise.

On other work-related subjects, we often have people telling us what to do if there is any sort of chemical spill at work and explaining what constitutes a "reportable" spill. They give us guidelines like X amount of liquid or Y amount of any solid. I pride myself on not laughing (out loud at least) when they say that any release of gas into the environment, outside or in a building, must be reported. I bet they hate it when people go to Taco Bell for lunch. The phone must be ringing off the hook.

It snowed again last night. I know I'm picky, but I like for things to be a certain way and to be done at certain times. I have a specific set of rules when it comes to the Fall/Winter holiday season. You can't decorate for Thanksgiving until after Halloween (unless your Canadian, but that's because the celebrate things backwards), you can't play Christmas music any earlier than the week of Thanksgiving, and you can't have snow until at least November.

Save the cheerleader. Save the world.

I first heard about Pandora from Invisible Lizard, but I didn't look at it right away. Once I started listening, I realized that I love this thing. Unlike many streaming music services that will recommend or play music based on comparing what you like with what other people like, it actually compares the features of the music you like to features of other songs. What does this mean? Instead of hearing what other people might recommend, you hear things that have a sound similar to what you like. I realize that this makes the music player smarter than me, but I'm ok with that...as long as it doesn't try to take my job.

If everything goes the way it's supposed to, we'll have a new car on Friday.

Finally: Via Melissa's blog, and through the magic of YouTube, I present evidence that Chewie has gotten huge, but that he just refuses to learn from experience.

Empty Headed Ramblings

Before we start, a warning. Only random thoughts on random things lie ahead. Those looking for a coherent post should look elsewhere.

A Red Robin restaurant opened up near us not too long ago and we've gone there a few times to eat. Recently, I discovered that one of the appetizers they serve is a gigantic plate of chili-cheese fries. Simply calling them chili-cheese fries is misleading though. It is a massive pile of fries topped with chili, at least two types of cheese, jalapeño slices and bacon. I love these things, but I have to admit that I'm curious as to whether they could take the entire mass, batter it and drop it in the deep fryer. That's gotta make it even better right?

In related news, my heart hurts.¹

I found out recently that stonewashed jeans aren't typically stone washed anymore. The original process involved tossing the fabric in with some pumice but was apparently not cheap, environmentally friendly or all that nice to the fabric. A newer process uses various molds like Trichoderma to essentially eat a little bit of the cotton and give the jeans the color and texture of being already "broken in." Now, this may show why I'm a scientist and not a marketing executive, but shouldn't you stop calling them "stonewashed" when you remove the stones from the process? Maybe fungal-digested denim doesn't have as nice of a ring to it. If it were up to me, I'd be bragging about the things and marketing them with names like Levi's 501 Fungipants. Can you honestly tell me that wouldn't be a big seller?

Heard on Jericho last night: "The internet was created by the military. It was made to withstand nuclear war." Ok, so if the internet was invented by the military² and designed to withstand nuclear war, why is it that I can't get online if there are 10 mph winds?

I was looking through some of the unfinished posts I have and realized that I have a draft in my Blogger account from March. If I've waited this long to finish it, should I just go ahead and delete it now? I feel like that would be giving up, but at the same time I'm not sure how good the idea for a post was, so I might not ever finish it either.

Every once in a while, I like to do a google search using my name to see what comes up. I have an uncommon last name, so pretty much anything that comes up actually involves me. It's essentially the same four or so things every time, but I go back and check to see if there is anything new. First of all, is that weird? Second, why isn't there a good term for googling ones self. This will be my new quest: to come up with a name that can be used in regular, polite conversation for this process.

That's all I've got for you folks. My head is as empty as that Jack O' Lantern you scooped out in preparation for Halloween.

¹ I don't have to tell you guys it's a joke, right?³ I mean, it should be obvious that if I'm actually dying, I wouldn't sit around blogging about it instead of calling 911⁴.

² Aren't you impressed how I sidestepped that Al Gore joke masquerading as a dead horse.

³ It's also a line from the Simpsons. We see Homer sitting at a table with Bart telling him that "as long as you live in my house, you live by my rules. Now butter your bacon." Bart puts butter on his bacon and eats it. "But Dad, my heart hurts." "Bacon up that sausage, boy!" Bart wraps bacon around his sausage link and eats it. (This isn't a perfect version of the scene, but you get the point.)

⁴ Get, get up. Get, get down. 911 is a joke in your town⁵.

⁵ Not really, I just felt like using the lyrics to that song. Then again it might be for all I know. I don't know your town. It could have a perfectly wonderful 911 system or it could be a joke.

Trivial Tuesday

As I have briefly mentioned on this site before, I am a fan of college football. The traditions, the rivalries. I love it all. There are a lot of good rivalries in college football, including some with catchy names. Oregon and Oregon State play in the Civil War each year. Alabama and Auburn meet annually in the Iron Bowl. Two teams that are separated by only 70 miles, play in a rivalry that is known simply as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. What are these two universities?

Perhaps More Aptly Named "Baby A Little Too Alive"

I saw a commercial for the new version of Baby Alive about a month ago during Saturday morning cartoons (leave me alone, it was early and College Gameday wasn't on yet). Since then I've been searching YouTube for the ad, but without much luck. The reason I've been looking for it is that I actually had to ask Melissa later if I had dreamed it, because I couldn't believe someone really made the doll and then advertised it on TV.

The commercial describes the doll as realistic and talks about the things she can do. She talks to you and tells you when she wants to play or nap. She even eats some sort of disgusting pretend baby food and then informs you that it's time to change here diaper by saying, "Uh oh, I made a stinky." They then showed a child changing the doll's diaper which now had what can, if we're being honest, only be described as a skid mark in it, because the pseudo-food had passed all the way through the doll and into its diaper. Hopefully, you see now why I wasn't so sure that this was real.

As if to confirm that I am not insane and imagining that we are currently marketing defecating dolls to children, we came across a display of these dolls in the store a few days ago. Fortunately, we had the cameraphone with us to capture proof.

First, Baby Alive herself.

Now, a closer look in case you couldn't read the label on the first picture. Note that the packaging tells us that "She really 'EATS' her doll food & 'POOPS'!" I love the use of all caps and the exclamation point.

Finally, the back of the box, where we see Baby Alive saying "Uh-oh, I made a stinky!" while a child gleefully changes her diaper.

What does this say about us as a society? I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that I don't want to think about what it says about me, that I felt the need to take pictures and tell all of you about it.

October Surprise

I woke up this morning and let the dogs out, only to find this out there. (Actually, this picture is from later, after the car had been warming up. Can't find the earlier picture.)

No, it isn't a lot of snow, but the point is that it's the first snow of the year. It's already starting. After taking this picture, I went inside an hit Melissa with the first snowball of the year, which was about the size of a peanut M&M.

I guess I should jut be glad I don't live in the U.P. where they were predicting a foot or two last night.

On a different subject, as much as I liked the season premiere of Lost, last night's episode was even better.


Noon Update: Snowing harder now. It's not really sticking, but it's snowing hard and blowing around, making it awfully hard to see to drive.

Next Day Update: Total of 4 inches of snow. It's not even Halloween yet, much less Christmas, and it's already beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Trivial Tuesday

While there have been several people who rose to the office of President of the United States without being elected to that office (e.g. John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson and Chester A. Arthur who were all elected as Vice Presidents, but never as President, and four others assumed the office of President then went on to be elected President), there are only two people who have ever become Vice President of the US without being elected to the post. Who were these two men and under what Presidents did they serve?

First correct comment wins bragging rights.

Things to Love About Heroes

The more I watch Heroes, the more I like it. The real question is why? What makes me like it so much? Here I list a few of the reasons I feel it's worth watching.

Last night's episode was written by one of the show's producers, Jeph Loeb, who is a comic writer and a former producer for Lost.

The artwork we see that was done by Isaac the painting prophet is actually done by Tim Sale.

Loeb and Sale collaborated in the past on many comics including the best Batman graphic novel to date, The Long Halloween. (Yes, I realize that I'm going to get called out for not saying Batman: Year One, but I prefer TLH.)

It's sort of like X-Men, only not. It's darker, grittier and definitely not made for kids. (Though sometimes a bit too gory. Claire waking up after the autopsy? Yikes.)

When Claire, the Cheer-verine, gets her neck broken and twisted so that her head is on backwards for a moment before she turns it back around and is completely fine, I get to wonder if that was a small reference to the film Death Becomes Her.

Hiro. He's great. A geek stuck at a desk gets the super powers he's always wanted. He reacts just like a geek should. Besides, he referenced the X-Men story Days of Future Past in episode 1. He's already trying to figure out how to use his powers for good. First, he saves a child from getting hit by a truck, and now he's going to try to save a city from destruction.

We don't know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy yet. Sure we know some things, but at this point, most people who appear good could be bad and those appearing to be bad could be good. (For example: Niki is not exactly looking like a good guy right now, but we don't know enough to say which side she'll be on.) Then again, we don't know enough to know if there is a good side and bad side.

These are just ordinary people to start with. Cops, high school cheerleaders, office workers. Once they begin realizing that they have powers, everything changes.

Mostly importantly for a serial drama like this, it gives that feeling of "how much longer until the next episode?"

I hope the show continues to improve and that we keep learning more about these people. While their powers are what brought me to the show, it's the characters themselves that will keep me.

The Way Back Machine: Push It

It's story time once again, so sit back, relax and let yourself be transported to a simpler time, a time of school bells and note passing, a time when "Push It" was the most offensive thing you had to worry about children listening to.

Once not too long ago (about 2 decades) I was a 6th grade student. One day during class, a teacher came upon a note folded up on the ground. She picked it up, and as teachers often do, began to read it aloud.

I've never really understood the point of this. Reading it out loud rarely embarrasses the writer of the note. More often, the person humiliated by the reading of the note is neither author nor recipient, but the student who was the subject of ridicule in the note. Nonetheless, this teacher, as so many others before her, decided to read the note to the class.

She unfolded the note and got everyone's attention. "You, come here and give me a kiss. Better make it fast or else, I'm gonna get. . . WHOA!!!!!" She stopped in shock at the next word and looked around at the class wondering who was writing such things. Much to her dismay, the class looked up at her and almost as one shouted, "That's Push It." Yeah, thanks to Salt-N-Pepa, there was no point in worrying about whether or not the kids hear the word "pissed" when reading that note.

They Take Their Football Seriously in The South...Apparently Their Video Games, Too

Today, I present to you a link to a news story from my old hometown. I will now use this as evidence when disagreeing with anyone who says that my attitude toward college football is unhealthy.

The best part of this story? That the sheriff (the same sheriff as when I lived there over 12 years ago) used the phrase "I wouldn't have bet a plugged nickel" when describing the victim's chances of survival.

I'll avoid challenging anyone on the PS2 when we go down there next month.

So, I Guess I'm Out of the Book Club?

Lost is finally back, and I've got so many things bouncing around my head about it that I doubt I'll be able to give this any structure. So, here you go, a bunch of random thoughts on Lost.

How cool was the beginning of that episode? The Others have a little Other civilization complete with little Other houses. They even have their very own book club, and just like many book clubs, people get upset when someone picks Stephen King. (Did anyone happen to notice which King book it was? I couldn't tell. Update: Thanks to Angel Cohn of tvguide.com for pointing out that it was Carrie.) FauxHenry has a real name (Ben) and appears to not like Stephen King and have some sort of history with Juliet the Other. Seeing their reaction to the crash of Oceanic 815 was great and finally gave us a complete picture of what happened on that day.

Jack's flashbacks gave us a whole new insight to his personality, and he's not always the nice guy we've seen so far. He's obsessive, maybe just flat out crazy. We even found that his father had actually stopped drinking before Jack attacked him and accused him of sleeping with Sara. Perhaps Jack had a little more responsibility than we thought for his father's death. I still think he did the right thing when he turned him in for conducting surgery drunk, but he certainly didn't help him get sober.

Jack, Sawyer and Kate are still prisoners. With a little help from another prisoner we've never seen before, Sawyer managed to escape, only to be tasered. Eventually, he earned a fish biscuit from the device in the cage he was held in, even though the bears (polar?) only took two hours. Kate was treated nicely because "the next two weeks are going to be very unpleasant." She even got to shower and clean up. (Was Tom/Mr. Friendly/Zeke/The Gortons Fisherman implying that he was gay or did he just mean Kate wasn't his type?) Jack took Juliet prisoner and found out that opening the door to the underwater hatch was a really bad idea. It even appears that the Others has dossiers on everyone on the island. They obviously have some contact with the outside world, but what and how remain to be seen.

It was a good episode, but I couldn't help wondering if we could at least get a glimpse of the rest of the Losties or Hurley's hike back across the island. What about Penny Widmore and her search for Desmond? What about the three stuck in the hatch when it blew up? Did Walt and Michael really escape? As always with Lost, there are so many questions yet to be answered, but there is nothing to do but hang on and enjoy the ride.

Why I've Been Gone and Why I Love Camera Phones

OK, I apologize for not posting much recently. In my own defense I have either had people at my house or been out of town for a large portion of the past two weeks. This past week, my parents came up to visit, and after talking for a bit we decided it would be nice to take a quick trip over to Niagara Falls. More on that in later posts, but first a word to any Canadian readers:

Dear Canadians,

You guys are great, and I always enjoy visiting Canada. I mean, yeah, you are a bit too tolerant of the mullet and I cannot buy my precious Diet Mountain Dew (yeah, I really need to cut back on the caffeine.), but these are things we can get past. However, there is one thing I really don't understand, and I was hoping you could help me with this. What exactly does one do with a 4 liter bag of milk? (See below and please ignore the fat guy holding it.)



Any explanation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

Craig

Trivial Tuesday

There is always plenty of talk about renewable sources of energy. One such source is hydroelectric power. One of the first places where hydroelectricity was harnessed and sent over a distance was at one of the world's greatest natural wonders. Where was this early work on hydroelectricity done?

First commenter to give the correct answer wins this week's bragging rights. Play by the rules, and have fun.

Congrats to Invisible Lizard who guessed correctly that the answer was Niagara Falls.