Good article on the economics of farming

If you're an econ geek like I am, you'll find this one really interesting.

The Illogic of Farm Subsidies, and Other Agricultural Truths

Baby FTW!

So for those few who don't know already:

Sue and I are having a baby!!!!!!

That's right; Soon there will be a little Eric or Susanne running around our house. Imagine a kid as smart as me and with as much common sense as Sue:) He/she could rule the world!

This comic pretty much sums up my thought about the miracle of the birthing process:

http://xkcd.com/387/

Here is our current baby FAQ:

Are you excited?

Are you crazy? Of course we're excited! We're having a F#@KING BABY!!!!!

How far along are you?

Six weeks as of today.

And that would make you due?

We are currently expecting our bundle of joy on or about March 24th.

Do you know what you are having?

Its a little early for that sort of thing. Ask again at the end of September and we may have a better answer.

Do you have names picked up?

Negotiations are at a delicate crossroads and are ongoing at this time.

Was this an "accident"?

No. Sue and I have been trying for a few months now.

Are you going to get a minivan?

Sue has made me swear that we will NEVER get a minivan. Luckily, our Mustang actually includes the extra latches for the baby seat so we should be OK on that front for a while.

Are you going to change/disappear once you have the baby?

We will do our best not to. In fact, you will probably get sick of seeing us and the baby:) You'll want a nice quiet day where my kid isn't following us around asking "Why is the sky blue?" or "Can we get ice cream?".

Sue's Birthday!

It's Sue's Birthday today!

Everyone call her and tell her how awesome she is as she crosses into her 30s.

Time for some Campaigning

Its that time again.

jibjab.com: Time for some Campaignin

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe E3 Game Trailer

Saw today that they are making a Mortal Kombat game where you take on the characters from the DC universe. Which is all well and good I guess, expect that Superman is in the game.

Ummmm...ok, stupid question time, but how in the hell does Sub Zero (or anyone else from MK) hurt Superman? He's all impervisous to harm and stuff!

Nuke the Fridge

Remember a few month ago when we were making fun of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Especially that scene with the A-bomb and the fridge?

Well, it turns out we weren't the only ones: Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary both have entries for the phrase "Nuking the Fridge", used to describe the movie equivalent of "Jumping the Shark" in TV.

I especially like the definition from Urban Dictionary:

A colloquialism used to delineate the precise moment at which a cinematic franchise has crossed over from remote plausibility to self parodying absurdity, usually indicating a low point in the series from which it is unlikely to recover. A reference to one of the opening scenes of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which the titular hero manages to avoid death by nuclear explosion by hiding inside a kitchen refrigerator. The film is widely recognised by fans as a major departure from the rest of the series both in terms of content and quality.

Weekend soon!

I'm excited for this weekend. Luau on Saturday at Mike's (why does "luau" NEVER look right to me no matter how much I type it?), followed by Wicked on Sunday at MSU's Wharton Center (yea, yea, yea...I like musicals. SUCK IT BITCHES!)

Fuck it's taking forever to get here...

Stupid work. Why does work have to be all stressful and hard and stuff?!?!?!?!?!? Although since lunch all I have done is get a good buzz on, win 3 games of Wii bowling and called into a conference call. Luckily I was sober by then ;-)

Oil Prices

I've said before, everyone in the US should have to take a macroeconomics class. But lately I think that's not enough. People always seem to want a simple answer to every problem. Even if they understand that stuff is complex, they don't seem to want to think about it. They want to blame it on the first scapegoat they can so they can focus their anger and get their government to DO something.

Oil is the latest example of this; Everyone is on the "speculators are to blame" bandwagon. McCain, Obama, the media, everyone. Except for... oh...the government themselves!

NYT: Speculators Aren’t Driving Up Oil Prices, Report Says

And then there is the ever present drive to drill along the US coast. Now don't get me wrong, I'm actually in favor of it. But politicians would have you believe that if just started drilling today everything would go back to the way it was by the end of the week. But wait! Once again a government report would beg to differ:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ae/otheranalysis/ongr.html

“The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030....Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant."

Batman was Awesome

The Dark Knight was awesome. Heath Ledger's Joker stole the show. Dark and evil and a perfect psychopath. Scary stuff all the way around.



SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the movie, you want to stop reading now!



Paul and I were discussing the scene where the two ships are rigged to explode based on what the other ship did. Call me cynical, but I have trouble believing that both would do nothing. I just can't imagine that among 400+ passengers not one would stand up and turn that key in order to protect their....whatever (spouse, children, etc.). If it was just me on the boat, I like to think I couldn't pull that trigger. But to protect Sue, you can bet that I would have turned that key...

But I wonder what everyone else thinks they would have done. Obviously its impossible to say for sure, but what is your gut reaction?

Going to see Batman tonight

Eric and I are going tonight since I had to work all weekend. I am very excited. Christian Bale is hot and awesome and I have loved him since this:







The Best movie ever!! With a lot of hot boys! Christian Bale is a triple threat! Mmm!

30 days to Here

And this makes 30 (days anyways). If you took the "miss 2 posts" square in your office pool, congrats!

Once More, My Nerdiness is your Entertainment

Astrodome Hit With Code Violations

When I read this headline my first thought was "I wonder what sort of computer code they use to run the Astrodome?"

Sigh...

Dr. Horrible

Neil Patrick Harris? Awesome.

Combined with Joss Whedon writing and directing? Awesome

In a musical? Trifecta baby!


Apparently Whedon was REALLY bored during the writers strike and came up with this idea for a supervillian musical.

Important Note (from their FAQ):

ONE WEEK ONLY! AN INTERNET MINISERIES EVENT!

"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" will be streamed, LIVE (that part’s not true), FREE (sadly, that part is) right on Drhorrible.com, in mid-July. Specifically:

ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.

ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.

ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.

All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)

Ann Arbor Art Fair

We went out to the Ann Arbor Art Fair today. Just like every year since we have been back, we go, walk around for four hours and don't buy a thing.

Part of the issue is that at the Ann Arbor fair, the typical painting (the only art I'm usually looking for) starts in the $800-$1200+ range. That's just tough for me to justify, no matter how much I may like an artist's work. To make up for that, whenever I find something that really speaks to me for some reason, I do try to actually tell the artist. I like to think they find that almost as nice as getting paid for their work.

I'm always curious why paintings are so expensive. I can imagine its something like the market for jewelry: I don't sell very often, so I need to make a fair amount on each sale to justify all of my fixed costs. Combine that with the fact that there is a very limited supply of each artist's work and I guess I can understand it. Still, I always question if asking for half as much would help you sell more than twice as many.

South park vs reality

Compare these videos:





For me, the South Park one is really funny; the second (original) is just plain creepy.

Its not just me right?

Fun at Showboat!

Eric and I went to Chesaning Showboat again this year in my hometown yesterday. We went with my sisters and my friend Mo, her hubby Tim, and Tim's brother Phil. It was tons of fun! Chesaning actually gets good bands now.

The opening band was the Sick puppies who were awesome!! I think they put on the best show of the night. I really enjoyed their music. Plus they had a hot woman bassist that all the boys wanted a piece of. She was dressed in black and red goth garb, yeah for ladies in rock!!

Next was Finger 11, who were pretty good. I really do like their music, but the show they put on was really mellow. The lead singer was clearly drunk which was funny. The drummer was very entertaining too, he did little tricks and poses.

The last group was Seether, which Eric and I love. They put on a pretty good show as well, but again the show was very mellow compared to their albums. It would be upbeat for a few songs but then back to extreme mellowness. All in all it was a good show. The funny thing was that Seether who is a goth, alternative rock band and they decorations were icicle Christmas lights, seemed a bit pansy.

We had a lot of fun and got to see our great friend's Mo and Tim and as an added bonus Phil! We wish they lived closer. Wisconsin is just far enough away. Afterwards of course we went to the Family Tavern (bar) in Oakley, the even smaller town next to Chesaning, for $4 pitchers of Amberbock! Oh yeah! Cheap beer rocks!!

Miss USA Falls Again

Didn't I just get done making fun of this last year?

3 year to be less useful

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-07-12/

There was a time when I thought about getting a MBA degree; I minored in business after all. I'm actually really glad I minored in it. Micro and macro economics were probably the single best classes I took in college in terms of broadening my outlook a lot on how the world actually works (as anyone who's heard my long ramblings about the role of government in regulating pollution or how cutting taxes to increase growth is a good idea in the short term but a horrible long term idea). Hey, don't roll your eyes! I like this stuff!

Still, I think I'm firmly on the tech side of the equation now. Management is for other people. I make a horrible manager. For one thing, organization is not my strong point. Two, like most true engineers/geeks I tend to flip that bit in my head that records "You are an idiot" pretty easily. That makes it tough to manage other people without sounding like a dick:)

Get Smart

Sue and I saw Get Smart last night. Funny movie. Steve Carell is hilarious.

And when did Anne Hathaway become hot?! Lots of leg for the guys who like that, although when Steve Carrell kissed her it did feel a little weird (and not the good weird in my happy place).

Then there is this shot which is so quick you can't even really see it in the movie. But leave it to the internet to get a still shot of it up a day after the movie is out. Apparently the devil wears sexy underpants!

Wilhelm Scream

I was reading on the Freakonomics blog the other day about the "Wilhelm Scream", one of the the most repeated stock sound effect in movies. Watch this video for a bunch of examples:

One missle too many

NYT: In an Iranian Image, A Missile Too Many

Scroll to the bottom of this article for an amusing look at why you can't always trust pictures, even when they appear in the LA Times.

401(k) blues

God damn it... I got my 401(k) quarterly statement today and man did it suck. It looked something like this (numbers made up):

Totval value: X
Total deposits: $1000
Change in share values: -$1050
New total value: X - $50

SON OF A BITCH!

Bisexual Music

I know its been out for forever, but I can't believe I haven't commented on Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAp9BKosZXs

I love this song!

Any music that encourages bisexual curiosity in women is automatically "awesome" in my book. Its a shame more music doesn't take this tack.

Note the important thing about this song is the curiosity. I don't like lesbians. They're useless to me. I like ladies who are into dudes but are OK with occasionally making out with a girl if they are drunk enough or its their man's birthday:)

Yet another missed post

Dang it this whole posting every day thing is HARD!

I've got nothing to post today. Nothing at all. Maybe tomorrow.

Off to Ohio

Had a lot of fun at Mike and Joyce's yesterday. And lets just forget that I cried out like a girl when I was zapped by Jay's machine (did that sound dirty to anyone else?)

Sue and I are off to Ohio today for my nephew's birthday. Should be fun, except for the whole "I have to get up at 5:00am to drive down" crap.

On the plus side, I'm up early enough for McDonald's breakfast! mmmmm......McGriddles.....so bad for me and soooo delicious...drool.

Darwin Still Hard at Work

AP: Teen Decapitated at Six Flags amusement park

I would feel sorry for the kid, but really its just natural selection hard at work. Any retard stupid enough to have "hopped two fences and wandered into a restricted area where he was decapitated by the Batman roller coaster" really shouldn't be reproducing.

I like this part especially:

"All authorities know is that the teen hopped the fences to take the shortest route to the Batman ride from where he was..."

Fucking genius.

By the way: how the hell do you not notice the roller coaster car barreling at you at 50 miles an hour? Wouldn't you at least think, "hey, I wonder what all these big metal tubes are for? Maybe I should look around BEFORE I walk under them."

Abridged Indiana Jones 4

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: The Abridged Script

Hilarious!

Real Evolution in a Lab

Biology was always my worst science subject (physics for the win!). But this was just too interesting not to post:

arstechnica.com : Tracking adaptation as bacteria evolve

A scientist with way more patience then I could ever muster has been tracking the evolution of 12 strains of E. Coli in his lab since 1988. He has now had over 44,000 generations play out.

The most fascinating thing was a change in one of the cell lines at around 33,000 generations:

The bacteria are growth-constrained by low levels of glucose, and most lines have evolved so that they burn through the glucose as quickly as possible, then wait for the next daily infusion. About 33,000 generations in, however, one line of bacteria did something else entirely: it began to digest the large amounts of citrate present in the media. This is more startling than it sounds, as E. coli is sometimes defined by its inability to metabolize citrate.

So now we have real scientific proof that a trait can evolve in a organism that wasn't present before through only mutation. That's a HUGE deal for the evolution camp.

Makes me want to run out and buy this shirt from xkcd.com:

Californication

(Can you tell its summer and we are trying out different shows to fill the NetFlix void?)

Another show we just finished watching is Californication.

Another show that I just love. Its witty, dry, angry, and sexy; full of characters that hate themselves, ruin their own lives, but always have something interesting to say. Watch it. You'll love it.