My new favorite song!

Maybe a good lullabye... ;) I love this song, in rock form anyway. I like when rap is made into rock. SO much better that way.

More Motivational Posters

Yet more proof I should move to Denmark

The Economist: How people in various countries view the theory of evolution

The image from this article depresses me (Click to see a larger version)



Even worse is this stat from the article:

In 2008 14% of people polled by Gallup agreed that “man evolved over millions of years”, up from 9% in 1982.

I have a long, angry post about how completely insane this is and some comments about people thinking that fossils were put there by the devil, but I'm too tired to type it all out. Fill in your own angry thoughts here.

Comcast's not the Only Company Offering a Rebate

MSNBC: Pink Visual Offers Compensation for 'Superbowl Porn' Mishap

You've got to love a porn company that can make a joke:

Adult entertainment studio Pink Visual announced today that it is offering its Tucson, Arizona-area customers $10 off subscriptions to its flagship mobile and "mega pass" adult sites to compensate Comcast customers who might have wanted to see the rest of the porn movie that interrupted Sunday's Superbowl broadcast.

"We feel really bad for the customers that were just getting into it when Comcast rudely switched back to the football game before the clip could really get going," joked Kim Kysar, brand and product manager for Pink Visual...

"Having seen the clip which interrupted the Superbowl uncensored and uncut, I can imagine that many fans were left wanting to see a lot more of Evan Stone," Kysar said. "Perhaps they even wished they had access to a private, mobile adult site where they could get a bit of 'alone time' to get fired up after the game, and to release the frustration they felt after watching Arizona lose in the game's final seconds."

Lamaze Class #2

2 down, 2 to go.

This week was all about the few weeks before labor, and the first stage of labor where you're cervix opens to 6cm. Things we learned:

- Pregnancy is just plain gross. There are plugs that have to fall out. Sacs to be punctured. Fluid to spill everywhere. At one point the teacher suggested that you may WANT an enema (something I could never imagine anyone requesting). Like Sue said after we left, "People talk about how beautiful birth is. Those people are stupid. Before birth is gross. The baby is gross when it comes out. And after the baby comes out is gross."

- Apparently nipple stimulation is a good way to get labor moving along. Just to be safe, I thought we should stimulate both our nipples. You know... to cover all our bases.

- We learned two breathing patterns to help get you through the early contractions. I'm coming around to the idea that these at least might help to dull the pain a little bit; Take the edge off of it as our teacher says. Time will tell I guess.

- A big part of class was working on learning to relax parts of your body. That way when you are stressed (read: having a baby), you will be able to relax your muscles and release tension. At one point she walked us through an exercise where she sounded like a stage magician trying to hypnotize us all. Is it weird that I want to cluck like a chicken every time I hear the word "baby" now?

How NOT to Talk Dirty

WARNING: The audio is not safe for work.

Less than two months left!!

This is a little late but look, less than two months left to go!! Hopefully the baby won't come too late, he probably will be at least 8 pounds as it is!!!

Lamaze Class #1

Sue and I had our first Lamaze/birthing class yesterday. I don't really believe for a second that some relaxing breaths will make this any less painful, but the other information we get in these classes is helpful. Sue and I have repeating that line from Gone with the Wind over and over lately: "I don't know nothing about birthing no babies!" These classes help suppress that feeling a little bit.

I truly believe in the "it's a small world" theory now for 2 reasons: 1) Scott Weeks, a guy I went to high school with, was in our class and 2) I was in Boy Scouts with our instructor's son.

Next week we start the lying on the floor and breathing and all that jazz. This week was just walking through all the stages of the birth. BTW: I didn't really need to see how much my wife's cervix will have to stretch to get that kid out (10cm for those playing at home).

Did you know the average labor is 18 hours long??? Crap. And apparently they don't want you even coming to the hospital until you're most of the way through it. They say its because you can be more comfortable at home. NEWS FLASH DOC: I would be more comfortable with $100 million dollars of monitors and machines hooked to my wife during that!

New Plan

As a follow up to my last post, maybe we could try this. You know... just in case my kid turns out to be a dinosaur of some sort:)



From http://xkcd.com/531

Babies R Us

So its getting closer to baby time and I'm finally starting to freak out about it a little bit. I mean, its a freaking BABY! A little person. And more importantly its OUR little person. How the fuck does this work? I mean, the baby is going to come out; we get like a day in hospital to figure everything out, and then its "so long, good luck with that!".

Before our baby class this week, I was really kind of mellow about the whole thing. Since that class, its like a switch has been flipped in my head. All I've been thinking about is all the ways I could really screw this up. Nothing specific. Just a general dread that this is all going to end very badly.

Someone tell me this is normal.

New Years Car Repair

I had another chance to show off my man powers again today by changing the spark plugs on our Pontiac. As usual, my man powers were mostly thwarted by the engineers at GM.

I want to punch each and every one of the guys that designed the engine of my car in the balls. Everything is working now, but I knew I was in trouble when my father (who is a mechanic) first looked under the hood and said "where the heck are the spark plugs?" (questions similar to "what/where the heck is that?" seem to occur a lot with this car). After we found the spark plugs under a metal plate on top of the engine, my father heads off leaving me to swap out the spark plugs.

Everything was going fine until I tried to put that plate back. It took me 40 minutes to get the f$#@ing cover back on the spark plugs because between the plate and each spark plug was a rubber gasket. Because of all the other hoses and pipes around the top of the engine, getting that plate in was a bitch. Every time I would try to get it into position, I would knock one of the rubber gaskets off that connect the spark plug to the ignition system and have to start over! The neighbor actually came over to have a look at why I was swearing in my driveway :)

Third trimester!

W00t, I am in the third trimester today!! Three more months and we can finally meet this baby that likes to punch and kick me all the time ;) Can't wait to meet the mini us!

Healthcare begins to feel the econmic crisis

I saw this article on Cnn.com and it is from Time:

US Hospitals Feel Debt, Credit Troubles

Beaumont was even mentioned in this article and I knew they were having issues from friends that work there. In November we were told at U of M that they were starting to have problems and they are cutting non-patient care jobs as needed. As a nurse we think our job is safe but if things get rough enough then even our industry can feel it. The problem is that elective surgeries and elective diagnostic procedures are down but then these people show up later in the ER very sick and unable to pay. We will have to see what happens... Up until Christmas our unit was crazy busy with a full house and more patients needing to come in. Hopefully we will pick up again after the Christmas slow down.

Whatever you Like

100 days to go

We are getting down to the home strech. Only 100 days to go! Go Sue!

Groundhog of Auto Industry

The US Senate has decided to skip a bailout for the auto industry.

I feel like I'm watching a six and twisted version of the Groundhog Day celebration, with the US Senate as Punxsutawney Phil. Can't you just see Governor Granholm standing on a throne of ice shouting:

"In a few days, the US Senate shall emerge from its burrow in Washington. If it sees its shadow and returns to its burrow without giving the auto makers a loan, I decree we shall have 6 more years of recession in Michigan!"

Rule one: Always check you have key

Detroit News: Dearborn police needed to free handcuffed wife after 'adult time'

Thoughts:

1) Make sure you know where the key is BEFORE letting your significant other handcuff you to anything.

2) The cops were summoned at 7:15am. That means that either the couple oped for some early morning bondage (kinky) or she was handcuffed all night and they finally gave up at 7:15 in the morning. Which do you think is more likely?

3) Way to ruin a good thing dude. How long do you think it will be before this woman will EVER agree to handcuffing again?

MSU in Capital One Bowl

So its offical: MSU is going to the Capital One Bowl (a.k.a., the Citrus Bowl). I can see some pros and cons with that:

Pros:

- New Years Day Bowl? Those are when REAL bowls are played!

- MSU gets $4.25 million just for showing up. That's not a bad deal.

- This is the same bowl UofM played in last year when they beat Florida.

Cons:

- We play Georgia, a team that is nearly as good as Ohio State or Penn State.

- Unlike Big Ten teams, SEC teams typically don't mind running up the score. You think losing to Penn State 49-18 is bad? It could be 60+ with Georgia.

Wednesday Bar Night

We had a really good bar night on Wednesday.

Highlights:

My junk was cold for most of the night.

Joyce was a really cheap date.

Kien was my early 90s rap partner (House of Pain for the win!)

Wandering Eric showed up for a bit; I think there was a bet about whether I would use every seat at the table at least once (I only used 4).

At no time did I have the urge to sing karaoke.

Kasia and I competed on sexiness. She won.

And finally: I made it home without throwing up.

All in all, a good night:)

Minty Happiness

My favorite time of year is here again!

That's right: It's Mint M&M time again!

I bought my first bag of the season today; it was everything I remembered and dreamed it would be.

Cheesy girl post!

Saturday, Eric (the loving awesome husband that he is), took me to see Twilight. I have wanted to see this movie ever since I heard it was going to be made. I read all of the books by Stephanie Meyers and the books are very well written. I haven't been so into a series of books in such a long time. Eric wasn't too disappointed in seeing it. The first movie is a lot of background story so it is not as exciting or as sexy as some of the later ones. Can't wait for the next 3 movies.

I highly recommend these books. I was recommended them and loved them!

Justin Timberlake rocks SNL.

Justin Timberlake always rocks on SNL and I am so sad he had to cnacel next week. At least we got this a skit after it...

Bailout Big 3?

I'm curious what my readers think of bailing out the Big 3. Part of me thinks that one of them needs to fail, so we should just let it happen. Its probably going to happen sooner or later anyways. That's what recessions are for really: replacing companies that cannot compete with more efficient ones.

And part of me thinks that the worst possible thing that could happen in what already looks like a recession is to put a couple hundred thousand more people out of work.

What do you guys think?

Facebook Controls You

You think you control your facebook profile, but really, it controls you!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

One More Reason I like Obama

He thinks the one thing to change in sports is adding a playoff to college football. I couldn't agree more! Skip to about 1:15 in this video to see the quote:

First Bad Recession in our Adult Lives

It appears we are heading into a bad recession, the first one I have ever encountered in my adult life. While I tend to think I'm in a pretty safe job, I also thought that the last time I was laid off way back in during the start of the 2001 recession. Is anyone else worried?

One of the things that always interests me is the response companies have to a recession. Almost uniformly, they will cut jobs. But that actually just makes the recession worst because it lowers demand (if you're out of work, you stop buying stuff). That in turn forces more people out of work, which forms this sort of vicious cycle of layoffs and drops in demand.

I don't know what the right answer is, but I hope our new government has some interesting tricks up their sleeves.

Customers don't like Reality

"This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers"

As an engineer, I should not be allowed to be unsupervised on the phone with customers. Engineers have no ability to sugar coat things for a customer. Take this wonderful conversation I had with about 8 people from our biggest customer.

Them: We have two PCs in the remote lab. On one of them, the application starts in 40 seconds. On the other, it starts in 90 seconds. Why do you think that is?

Me: <short pause> well, it could be a lot of reasons. Off the top of my head...

Them: I think its your application.

Me: Well, lets look at it rationally: What is different between the two PC? Are they running the same software? Are they using the same configuration?

Them: Yes

Me: Well, then I don't think its the application. Maybe its your network...

Them: No its your application.

Me: <speaking as if talking to a 3 year old>I don't know what to tell you. If the app is the same and the configuration is the same, it can't be the application. They are running the same stuff! The results should be the same.

<Long Pause...>

Them: Well, there is one difference. On the fast one we load the software from the hard drive. On the other, we load it across the network.

Me: (thinking to myself: are you people retarded? You don't think that MIGHT be the issue?) Well, I think that explains it. The long pause is the time it takes to load the software.

Them: It can't be. Our network is great.

....

It devolves from there into me repeating that whatever is different between the PCs is the problem and them repeating it must be something in the software. I'll spare you the details.

...

Me: look, we can't both be right. Either it really is running the same software and really is using the same config or sometime about your PC/network is the issue. You go and figure it out and let us know. (Thinking in my head: In the mean time, I'll be sitting in my office not worrying about this because I already know your network is to blame).

Stretching: The Truth

Interesting article for those you who actually work out on occasion:

NYT: Everything you know about stretching is wrong

From the article:

If you’re like most of us, you were taught the importance of warm-up exercises back in grade school, and you’ve likely continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes’ warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but actually bad for you. The old presumption that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds — known as static stretching — primes muscles for a workout is dead wrong. It actually weakens them. In a recent study conducted at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, athletes generated less force from their leg muscles after static stretching than they did after not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent. Also, stretching one leg’s muscles can reduce strength in the other leg as well, probably because the central nervous system rebels against the movements.

Whorecraft

So I was just surfing around the internet this evening, minding my own business. Totally not looking for porn. I swear! Anyway, I came across the following site that I knew all the male nerds who read this blog would like:

Whorelore: Swords, Sorcery, and Sex

Do I even have to tell you that this is not safe for work?

Event more nerdy: apparently this site used to be called "Whorecraft". Awesome.

Sue and I did get a good laugh at the name of the most current episode: The Rage of Bonan.

Bonan...hehe...

For the Michigan/Obama Fans out there

http://www.urtshirts.com/?gclid=CKbZrqOgz5YCFQsQagodQSlj1g

Paris for President?

Warning up front: you can practically feel brain cells dying in anguish as you watch this.

YouTube: Paris For President (Sort of safe for work)

Worst part: I first saw this on CNN! What the Fuck CNN? I know 24 hours is a lot of time to fill, but THIS?

Getting Closer

My FF team is starting to come together. I cracked 100 points this week!

That brings me one step closer to my only real goal when playing FF: not losing to a girl. Kasia's loss this week puts us in a tie. Sure, we both suck at 3-5 and she has 50 more points then me, but the point is:

SHE IS GOING DOWN!

hmmm...maybe that wasn't the best phrase to use...OK, how about this:

SHE WILL GIVE ME A BLOW JOB!

no no no...that's worse. Lets try one more time:

SHE WILL BE FORCED TO ADMIT THAT I AM BETTER AT CREATING AN IMAGINARY TEAMS OF FOOTBALL PLAYERS.

See, that just doesn't have the punch I'm looking for.

Readers, help me out with better trash talk :)

From R's down south blog ( now with harder to read colors; Sorry R, I liked it better the way it was before)

Weapon of Choice: How I've always said election should be

Facebook Frenzy

So yea, I've got what I'm calling "Facebook Frenzy (tm)".

I like facebook way more than myspace so far. For one thing, facebook doesn't let people make those god awful sites that even their Mom thinks suck.

The People You May Know feature however is just this side of useless, at least for me. I get entries like this pretty much whenever I log in:

Bob Boberson
You and Bob both went to Michigan State University.

Yea. So did 40,000 other people. Each year I was there. Not really likely that I ever met them...

It's a Boy!!!

That is right, our baby is a boy! We just had the ultrasound and it was very exciting!! He kept holding his junk so it took forever for the lady to see what was down there! It is Eric's son ;) He also likes to move and shake a lot ;) Here are the first pics!!

Happy 3oth Birthday to Eric!!!!

Wedding weekend

Sue and I had a good weekend attending one of her high school friend's wedding. I took full advantage of my 9 month designated driver:) I made her drive me to two separate bars, plus drive me all the way home from Corunna (not to be confused with Corona, which I did several times).

Plus, it meant that I missed watching most of the ass whooping that MSU took on Saturday, which was also nice.

In other news: tomorrow is the big day! No not my birthday (I get to turn 30???? Oh goodie....). Tomorrow is our first sonogram picture. Cross your fingers and send our baby good thoughts about having the correct number of arms, legs, fingers, and toes.

My High School is Famous!

Detroit News: Pinckney Girl's nude cell photo roils school

Not exactly what you want your high school's town to be known for...

Also, just how stupid do you have to be to believe that won't be passed around faster than herpes at Woodstock? These are 14 year old boys she was sending the picture to! For the love of God! That's like giving a two year old who you have been keeping awake for 2 days with pixie sticks a giant ice cream cone on a hot summer day, putting them in the back seat of your brand new car, and thinking everything will end up squeaky clean at the end of the day.

Stupid...

Fantasy Football update

My fantasy team has won the last two week and is slowly turning things around. Thank God too, because if I lose to Kasia I may never hear the end of it:) I just need her to lose a few more now...

Black Thursday

Yesterday was the day I have been dreading all quarter: the day my 401(k) statement came.

DUN DUN DUN!

<queue ominous music and lightening crashes>

And I was right to be afraid. I lost 12% of my retirement in one quarter! 12%! Eight years to save up that 12%. One quarter to lose it all! FR@#K! Stupid subprime idiots!

I guess I have to look at this as a good time to be buying cheap stocks, but that's small comfort. A little better comfort is that I won't be retiring for almost 40 years anyways (who am I kidding? I'll work until they pry my keyboard and mouse from my old crooked fingers...)

Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals

Eric's Law Of Extension Cords

I'm hereby laying claim to what shall hereafter be known as "Eric's Law".

Eric's Law: no matter how you wrap up or lay down an extension cord longer than 25', you will be able to pull it no more than half the length of the cord before it will form into some sort of knot that will not be able to get out simply by pulling harder.

1st Corollary to Eric's Law: this knot will happen such that the cord will reach just 5' less than you need.

2nd Corollary to Eric's Law: You will pull harder anyways, thereby making the knot worse.

MSU is ranked!

MSU is ranked in the top 25 (19 or 23, depending on which poll you read)! Like every year where this event marks the peak of our team's performance before we badly screw up our season, I'm going to be getting my drinks in this week.

Random Stuff

It's been a while since I posted anything, so I thought I would throw together some random stuff:

- As of last Tuesday, we are officially in second trimester territory. Only two more trimesters to go!

- Why must my fantasy football team suck SOOOOO hard this year? I'm in dead last in our league with a 0-4 record and the lowest point total of any team. At the beginning of the season it was all injuries, but now its just horrible performances by my top picks. F#$king A!

- MSU's D looked weak against the spread offense again on Saturday. The good news is we won't face that again until the UofM game. The bad news is that we will face it during the UofM game. One good thing was that Hoyer looked better this week. Almost all of the missed passes were the receiver's doing bone headed things (this is football, not volleyball you idiots!).

- I can't believe UofM won that game against Wisconsin! 19-0 at the half and they manage to somehow to get 27 unanswered points? And then for Wisconsin to lose because they didn't line up correctly on the line of scrimmage?

Heroically Annoy Me

Heroes is really starting to annoy me. I don't ask much of a sci-fi show, but I expect you at least keep them logically consistent for at least the duration of an episode.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD If you haven't seen the latest episode of Heroes, stop reading!

Did anyone but me notice the huge gaping plot hole in the first episode of the season? The plot (as drilled into us by the constant references to the butterfly effect), was supposed to be as follows:

1) Future Peter comes back in time and shoots his brother Nathan.
2) Future Peter talks Claire out of coming to help her Dad.
3) Since Claire now doesn't go and help her Dad, she is at home when Sylar shows up and gets her powers when he is not supposed to.

OK, except for the fact that if Peter never came back, wouldn't the exact same thing have happened?

1) Claire is at home. Sylar shows up and gets her powers.

How would that NOT be the future?

Rivalry E-Cards

http://www.bergwood.net/#/e-cards

(Warning: Allstate advertisments are part of the deal).

My favorites are:

"I'd like to tell you things will get better, but they won't"

"Maybe you should find something else to do with your Saturdays, like macrame"

"Sorry you had no reason to high-five on Saturday"

"Remember Saturday? When you lost? It still makes me laugh"

Election Projections Done Right

If you've ever wanted up to the minute electoral college results, this is the site for you:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Tub vs. Can

Although my answer has lost in the "Tub vs. Can" poll, I simply think most everyone is wrong:) To prove my point, I turn to the Oracle of All Things: Google.

Searching for "tub of frosting" on Google returns about ~1,700 web pages.

In contrast, searching for "can of frosting" on Google returns more than 6,800 web pages.

Google is always right:)

I'm Almost a Winner

Yesterday I played in my first Texas Hold'em tournament in a while and managed to come in 2nd place. Sure it was only 9 people and I only won $20 bucks, but its still nice to know that I am more of a winner than 7 other people at least:)

Pray We Stop Something

Sorry, I'm having a cynical day today. Please excuse this post in advance.

Detroit News: Crowd prays to heal Detroit's economy

I'll never understand stuff like this. What exactly are these people hoping God will do? Magically create money out of nowhere? Remove voter free will and cause a majority to elect non-corrupt officals? Or remove free will from investors so that they pour money into Detroit related projects even if that isn't the best use for the money?

If you're going to pray, at least pray for things where God isn't removing our abilty to make decisions, OK?

NFL Teams invest where it makes sense

NY Times: N.F.L. Salaries: Believe in the Blind Side

Interesting bunch of factoids about NFL salaries.

Did you know that the left tackle on most teams makes more money on average than any other player on the field other than the QB?

New favorite song

Heard this on 89x this afternoon. Its officially my new favorite song of the week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_WwsA_Ky-k

Heartbeat

Today Sue went in for the first checkup with her doctor.

First off: just so no one is concerned, everything is going perfectly well.

The big news was that we heard the heartbeat for the first time today.

I don't quite know how to describe it. To say it was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard would have been an understatement (yea, I know that sounds sappy; Bite me).

My thoughts went something like this:

"That's my baby!"

"Holy crap that heart is beating fast. Thank God Sue told me that was normal or I would seriously be freaking out"

"I love you Sue for doing this with me"

"I think it would be hard for me to be more proud or happy than I am right now"

"Wait! I was listening to that. Don't turn that off!"

Look up price of your home

A co-worker pointed me to this site that lets you look up the current value of your home, as well as rough values for all of the houses around you.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/map

According to this site, our house is down 11.5% since I bought it!!!!!! FUUUUCKKK!!! That makes me almost as angry as MSU's performance last Saturday.

Give McCain Credit

You have to give John McCain and his team credit: they know how to pick a VP.

NYT: John McCain selects Sarah Palin, the Republican Governor of Alaska

Sarah Palin has a lot of good things going for her as far as the Republicans are concerned:

1) She's a woman: What better way to try and drive those woman who are angry that Hilary Clinton did not get the nomination to the Republicans?

2) She is young: She's only 44 and will probably help to balance the criticism that McCain is as old as the dirt itself.

3) She's not in Washington: Alaska is about as far from Washington as you can get.

4) She is a staunch anti-corruption and anti-pet project crusader: You remember that Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska that everyone constantly made fun of? She was the one who cancelled the project. She has also been helping with the investigation into Ted Stevens (he's being investigated for letting oil companies pay for some construction on a house he owns).

1984

I just finished 1984, THE classic book about what society would be if we gave up all our personal freedom.

First thought: It's fucking depressing.

I mean, I knew it was going to be. You can't write a book about "big brother" watching literally everything without it being depressing. But still...

Its the sort of book that makes you want to immediately go out and yell "FUCK THE GOVERNMENT" at the top of your lungs just because you can.

1984 is worth the price of admission solely for it's take on how government works (even government today), why we need a giant military complex in the US, and why privacy is important even if you don't have anything to hide.

College Football this Saturday

College football officially starts this Saturday. I was curious what the readers think about MSU and UofM's chances this year.

My predictions:

MSU - 7-5 would be a good season. I just can't see us beating Cal, OSU, Wisconsin, or UofM. Beating any of those would be a huge coup for us. Penn State is the big question. Last year's game was fantastic. I hope for the same this year.

UofM - 9-3. UofM will probably lose to OSU and perhaps Wisconsin. UofM is harder to figure out, since they have a new QB, RB, and totally new offensive system. Their game with Wisconsin in week 4 will be the big test. If they really do have a working spread offense, they could beat every team they see. UofM still has the defense to beat any team.

Bob injuried

Poor Bob is injured. The vet is not 100% sure what is wrong with him, but he seems to have hurt something around his left shoulder. He can't seem to jump or climb stairs. Even laying down seems to really hurt the poor guy. Yesterday I watched him try to lay down three times before he finally found a way to do it without hurting himself:(

Countdown to Babies

Yesterday I wrote the little countdown application you see to the right. I'm pretty proud of it, even if it is only 30 or so lines of code (of course, just as I was going to post this I noticed the count was off by a day).

McCain + Wedding Crashers

Last weekend Sue and I were catching up on some Netflix movies when I had a truly horrible thought:

Is it possible that we as a nation could REALLY elect a guy who was, even for the briefest moment, in The Wedding Crashers?

Olympic Fever

I have Olympic fever in a bad way.

And not just for the big name events like gymnastics or swimming. I love watching all these different events that I've never heard of otherwise. Yesterday I was enthralled by rowing. The day before it was volleyball. The day before that I was watching water polo (did you know they can't touch the bottom for 8 minutes straight?) I didn't even know there was a event called steeplechase, but it sure is cool to watch! Even ping pong and badminton can hold my attention for a while.

Anyone else like to watch the less hyped events?

George Lucas is the Destroyer of Fun

This comic sums up my feelings on Star Wars:

http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/sillies.php?d=20080814

Cinderella Under Arrest

CNN: Cinderella, others arrested in Disneyland labor protest



Wow. Seeing that would be a really good way to screw up a kid for life.

No post in a while

I've been lazy about posting the last week.

Sue and I went to Chicago Sunday through Tuesday with Sue's family to see the sights and big city. It was fun, although a little more walking then I like:) Pictures will be coming soon.

America Today

This is exactly how I feel our foreign policy has been the run the last 8 years:

http://overcompensating.com/posts/20080714.html

3OH!3

Heard this song on 89x last night.



We have to all agree to hate this band right now for two very good reasons:

1) "3OH!3" IS NOT A FUCKING NAME! That looks like you had a seizure while typing your band name in.

2) Just on principal, I have to hate any band that comes up with, and then has the balls to release a song with, the following lyrics: "Do the Helen Keller & talk with your hips" (at about 2 minutes in).

89x online radio is odd

I've taken to listening to 89x online lately. One of the joys of working at home is that no one cares how I waste my bandwidth;)

One of the odd things about the online feed is that they don't play commercials in the streaming feed with one exception: a single Esurance commercial over and over again. Note to advertisers: hearing one commercial over and over and over again tends to make me HATE your product, not run out and buy it. Other than that anomaly, all they play during that time is loops of some of their theme music. So now I hate both their theme music and that commercial.

Also, you never realize how many commercials they play on the radio until you are listening to nothing but theme music for the entire time. It's sad that I would actually PREFER commercials.

Does anyone know why they don't just play their regular commercials during that otherwise dead Internet air time? I can't even figure out how they pay for keeping the stream running at this point.

Alcohol Makes Me a Bad Friend

On Sunday I introduced everyone to "Wandering Eric".

Wandering Eric is what I call the guy I become when I drink in social settings where I don't know everyone. The guys at Mike's bachelor party had already met Wandering Eric. I think it was a first for the ladies though.

Wandering Eric looks and sounds just like me, except that he has the attention span of a 2 year old and even less fear of other people than me. He wanders from conversation to conversation and injects questions or statements with no mind about whether he knows any of the people talking; in fact, he tends to favor people he's never met.

As a side note: Wandering Eric tends to throw up on the ride home from the 2+ beers he had to finish while playing that last game of Beer Pong (of which he is the greatest player ever!).

The Deep V

I came across this ad the other day. Apparently American Apparel is now selling Douchebag neck t-shirts. And they got the perfect model for it too. Doesn't that guy look exactly like what you think of when you think "douchebag"? Except for the purple shirt one. That one screams, "I just came out".

Actually, most of those pictures scream that...

McCain reaching now

Watch this ad from John McCain (particularly the first 5 seconds):

McCain: Celebrity Ad

Are you kidding me with this shit? Celebrity? That's an attack point now?

Worse, it then cuts to pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get the implication: "Obama is just like these celebrities. Any day now pictures of him in a skirt with no underwear, drinking Red Bull at a party, and then crashing into a paparazzi's car will appear in the tabloids."

What worse, they don't even deny that was the point. When asked whether the campaign intended to imply that Obama is as "frivolous and irresponsible" as Spears or Hilton, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers replied, "I think that's exactly what we've been saying."

In the old days, you would have at least had the good sense to pretend you had no idea that it was bad to link him with those two. To come right out and say it like that? That's impressively evil.

Who doesn't know what a safe word is?

2 people in my poll voted that they didn't know what a "safe word" was, so as a public service I give you the definition below. If you're ever in a situation where you need a safe word, now you'll know. And if GI Joe taught us anything, it's that knowing is half the battle (the other half involves violence):

A safeword is a codeword or series of codewords that are sometimes used in BDSM for a submissive (or 'bottom') to unambiguously communicate their physical or emotional state to a dominant (or 'top'), typically when approaching, or crossing, a physical, emotional, or moral boundary. Some safewords are used to stop the scene outright, while others can communicate a willingness to continue, but at a reduced level of intensity.

Safewords are agreed upon before playing a scene by all participants. Many organized BDSM groups have standard safewords that all members agree to use to avoid confusion at organized play events.

In BDSM, the safeword is generally used so that the 'bottom' can scream "no, stop", etc. as much as he/she wants without really meaning it, and still have a way of indicating a serious desire that the scene stops. Accordingly, in theory a safeword is usually a word that the person would not ordinarily say during sex, such as red light, big tree, Rumba, scrambled eggs, Alabama, aardvark, or rhubarb.

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.