An orgy of cross-posting!

(Or, since Mel & I are the same person, would it be more like masturbation?)

She makes some excellent points about New Year's Resolutions. And, in the interest of repetitive redundancy, I'll repost some of my thoughts from the comment I left on her post.

I mentioned that I took to making lists of "to-dos" between semesters with the express purpose of not doing anything on the list. That made me wonder, maybe I should make anti-resolutions. It might include things like, "Do not buy every album released by Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys."

Randomness

The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks made the Blogs of Note list today! This is far more exciting to me than it ought to be. Or rather, it is "far" more "exciting" to me than it "ought" to "be." iscanbe. Money.

I was contemplating something on the way over here this morning, something that was a "ponderable" or a "musing," (not to be confused with "amusing," though the two characteristics might intersect at times, and share ancestry), and it's completely gone now. One imagines it was something about school, or cities, or something else that's been on my mind a lot of late.

One of my classmates has passed out blank CDs to the rest of us with the request that we burn her a disc of our favorite music. While I presently lack the technology, I've started a list (every time I hear a song that I want to include, I write it down), and after the first few days, I had to get a 2nd disc from her. I might need to snag a couple more before this little side project is finished - which might not even happen until Christmas break.

I saw that billboard again this morning that says "Embryos are just tiny babies!" All I can think when I see that is "and you can sprinkle them on salads or breakfast cereal, just like Bacon Bits(TM)!"

I was thinking the other day about making a bumper sticker that says "Jesus Loves You - Unless You're Black or Gay." I don't think I'd put it on my car though....

odds 'ñ' ends, cont.

(here's that thing i remembered)

... Ad heard on the radio: "Attention piano buyers: If you're thinking of buying a piano...."

Also, remember that thing I said a few days ago about undergrads? High school girls are worse by several orders of magnitude.

Call Alanis

One of my classmates has a tendency to talk. And talk. And to keep talking, and talking, and talking. And she doesn't really have anything to say, but just has to keep talking. She can tell you about how she had trouble parking her car, and that will lead her to talk about her boyfriend, and then she'll talk about a random medical procedure, and her drawing class, and a pair of shoes that's really uncomfortable.

Today, she came into our studio and said she'd called to get cable installed at her apartment. And the cable guy wouldn't stop talking. It took her 20 minutes to get off the phone, because he just kept talking.

Fortunately, I didn't have to leave the room, since everyone else was laughing too.

odds 'ñ' ends

...Today on the campus shuttle I saw something that I'm still trying to process. A fairly heavy person of indeterminate sex (probably female, so I'll use the feminine pronouns, but I'm not certain) stepped onto the bus. Her hair was buzzed on the sides, and the top was short - between 1 & 2 inches - and bleached to a yellower shade of blond. She might have been pierced, but if so it was only moderate. Maybe a nose ring or something - nothing outrageous. To complete this picture, dress her in standard college student garb - jeans, t-shirts in layers, sneakers. Make the t-shirt Coke-red with the words "Chick magnet" in black, accompanied by a cartoon drawing of a bespectacled, scrawny nerd, shirtless and flexing. I still don't know what it means. It may well keep me awake for a night or two.

...[I can't remember this item... if I do, I'll write it down so I can share it later.]

...From Heloise, she of the Helpful Hint, two tidbits (from the Strib, 9/17/07):

Plastic Grocery Bags
Dear Heloise: Please let your readers know that plastic grocery bags can be used at inner-city churches that have food pantries and clothing for the needy. I also take my bags to area nursing-home residents. SUE, via e-mail
For what? So they can tie one over their head and end their suffering? Or maybe the eccentric ones like to store things like their toenail clippings and feces.

Sound off
Dear Heloise: I refuse to use the "self checkouts" in grocery stores! Why should I pay the same price for my groceries, doing all the work myself, as the next person, who gets service? Give me at least 10 percent off my total grocery bill, and I might think about doing it myself. I know I am not the only one who thinks this way. BOB in Texas
Well, Bob, I'm not sure what to do with your helpful hint, but here's a couple of other things that might get you riled up: The newspaper used to cost a penny, and you still had change to buy a phosphate at the local malt shop! Plus, young people use curse words! And the whippersnappers have the gall to congregate in public places! When I was your age, computers used punch cards! You don't even know what those are!

Rock, paper, scissors, dynamite, tornado, cockroach, quicksand, law, peace, snake, ...

Ahh, the old game of Rock-Paper-Scissors... perfect for making those tough life decisions: Who's going to make dinner? Whose turn is it to ask for an abortion? Which person gets a new desk? But what if we threw a couple more choices in there?

RPS-25 was created to provide a more complex game with more possible outcomes. Each item is dominant over 12 others, and the result is 300 possible outcomes. But why stop there? The inventor of RPS-25 took things 76 steps further & gave us RPS-101. Each gesture defeats 50 of the remaining 100, the result being a total of 5,050 possible outcomes.

Some of my favorites:
DYNAMITE explodes BABY (actually, DYNAMITE explodes a lot of stuff....)
SPIDER in your BEER
BEER diffracts LASER
MATH confuses PRINCESS
MATH enrages MONKEY
SCISSORS alert AIRPLANE security
and any of the BRAIN ones....
BRAIN invents BUTTER
....... foils VAMPIRE
....... performs MATH

Only slightly more useful than a minor in Basketweaving

I saw in today's Minnesota Daily that we have a Center for Interdisciplinary Applications in Magnetic Resonance.

School = blog

When the semester started, I'd expected my rate of posting to drop to nearly unity less itself. Oddly, I'm still posting as often or more so than during my vacation time. How odd, I said to myself.

The Star Trek Horror Picture Show

Pharyngula posts this video. Worth a look.

Are you psychotic?

What the crap?

I caught this show on the Sci Fi channel (no, not their new Flash Gordon series). It's called Mind Control with Derren Brown - he's a British guy, looks to be about my age, and he does "psychological magic" where he gives the impression of psychic power and/or mind control, but without pretending to be psychic. He doesn't explain all the tricks - no good magician does - but his show's website does reveal some of the psychology behind them.

On tonight's show, he has a psychologist do "word dissociation" with him. He says a word, and the shrink is supposed to say a word that has nothing to do with the original word. But, before he says the "source" word, he writes a different word on a piece of paper (outside the sight of the shrink, who takes residence on his own couch). They go for five rounds.

Round 1: He writes orange, he says suit, shrink says apple.
Round 2: He writes trash, he says picture, shrink says horse.
Round 3: He writes water-ski, he says eating, shrink says water-ski.
Round 4: He writes school, he says tie, shrink says school.
Round 5: He writes buffalo, he says [nothing], shrink says buffalo.

No clue how he pulled that off.... unless he really is psychic, and is just pretending to not be! That would be a brilliant scam.

In the news

I went to the City Pages web site to search for an article about the Heritage Park housing project northwest of downtown Minneapolis. On their front page, I saw that yesterday's Morning Communiqué notes "a recent study links diet soft drinks with obesity." We learn that researchers were surprised at the "unexpected" finding that drinkers of diet soda have health risks similar to those of their sugar-guzzling compatriots. (I thought scientists were supposed be smart. I guess this is where we differentiate between "book larnin' and "common sense." Maybe they just lack imagination?)

The results may simply signal that the diet-soda drinkers in the study were less healthy to start with [Really? You mean diet soda doesn't instantly cure what ails ya? But I've been chugging "Uncle Coke's Diet Tonic and Elixir" for years! Rats!], and they had turned to sugar-free beverages to help with weight loss or because they had diabetes. The study investigators, who oversee the respected Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts, noted also that the type of person who drinks diet soda may be more likely to eat less-healthful foods [DUH, anyone?]. But they also cited research suggesting that artificially sweetened beverages may affect a person's satiety or cravings for sweets.

The other neat thing I found was "Playing the popular Chinese tile game mahjong can lead to seizures, Hong Kong researchers say, calling the phenomenon 'mahjong epilepsy.'" Video gamers are vindicated!

Then there's: "Judy Hagan caused a stir among plot owners in the Uniontown (IN) City Cemetery when she put up a tombstone for her and her departed rat terrier, Shithead."

And, finally: "A man named Johnson underoges a vasectomy in exchange for getting permission from his wife to purchase an iPhone."

Error message

From Microsoft Excel(TM):

A document with the name 'Book1.xls' is already open. You cannot open two documents with the same name, even if the documents are in different folders. To open a second document, either close the document that's currently open, or rename one of the documents.

No such problem with Microsoft Word(TM).

Should I be confused, or just assume that this is Microsoft Standard Asshattery?

I'm like Diogenes, but ...

... instead of an honest man, I'm looking for something worth adding to my "Random Links." And instead of a lantern, I'm using teh internets. But otherwise I'm exactly like Diogenes. Really.

Blogger.com features a "Blog of Note" each weekday, and oftentimes they're interesting enough to merit attention and placement on that list. I saw one the other day called The Caffeinated Librarian and thought it might be promising. When I went to check it out, I was bombarded with post after post about Harry Potter. Well, so much for that.

Today I decided to check again. The first one that caught my eye was Guerrilla Busfare, and I thought, "That might be interesting - it sounds like it could be someone who is pro-mass transit, and that's cool." Then I read the brief description at the top of the page: "There's a fine line between criticism and haterism. Tread lightly." Well, so much for that.

Then there was a link labeled Yeah, That Vegan ****. Hmm. Let's see what this is aboot. Description: "Vegan recipes that will make you scream with unbridled pleasure." I like food, and while I'm a dedicated omnivore, I have no issues with animal-free meals every so often. Plus, I know no fewer than 4 vegetarians. (Hay guys!) Looks like we have a winner!

i can has jeebus?

Pharyngula links to this hilarious item. Make sure you check out some of the comments on that post - hilarity and brilliance abound!

More quality TV

A while back I noted the quality programming available on The Learning Channel. Remember "The Man Whose Arms Exploded" and "When Sleep Goes Bad"? I figured out their programming philosophy based on those programs and tonight's line-up: "I Eat 33,000 Calories a Day," "World's Heaviest Man," and "Help! I'm a Hoarder!" I'm pretty sure that philosophy can be paraphrased as: "Sensational exploitation of people whose lives are miserable."

I have some ideas for them:
...."Isolated From Reality. A documentary examination of home-schooled kids."
...."Edward Rubberhands. A Pennsylvania family shares a genetic disorder that gives them rubbery skin and stretchable bones."
...."Circus Freaks, Nothing But Circus Freaks. You get the idea."
...."I Can't Stop Masturbating! Profiles of people with painfully chafed genitalia."
...."Manimal. Looks at the case of a man with a cat growing out of his torso."
...."Miscarriages, Miscarriages, Miscarriages! A woman who has had over two dozen miscarriages discusses her continued attempts to reproduce."
...."Satan Incarnate: The Secret Life of Dick Cheney. Geraldo Rivera leads an exclusive investigation into the Dark Lord's secret underground lair. (Asbestos suit advisory)"

Okay, that last one doesn't quite fit in with the aforementioned credo, but maybe we should include people who make others miserable?

"Do as I say, not as I do"

I was thinking last night that I'm a big fan of that philosophy in most cases. While I totally understand the opposing viewpoint of "Physician, heal thyself," I don't necessarily think it's the most helpful in dealing with real-life issues. If a bum on the street approaches me and asks for a dollar so he can get food or booze or whatever, and he tells me, "You should be saving up for your retirement," does his poverty negate the value of the advice?

Everyone is great

Over the past [unit of times], I've been futzing around with the PersonalDNA personality test. I've noticed something: All of the personality types, as far as I can tell, are "positive" in their connotations. There's apparently no way to get a result of "Anxious Flake," "Narcissistic Asshole," "Sadistic Egomaniac," or "Self-absorbed Bitch."

It's all about "Generous Creators" and "Benevolent Artists" and "Considerate Leaders" and "Imaginative Visionaries" and "Cautious Analysts" and "Reserved Dreamers" and "Assertive Idealists." If the world was really made up of only these types of people, wouldn't we have solved more social ills long ago?

Other results I'd like to see:
"Concerned Bigamist"
"Maladapted Hypochondriac"
"High-tension Power lines"
"Nagging Sycophant"
"Zealous Fundamentalist" (aka "Religious Nutbag," aka "Sectarian Violence")
"Charming Software Pirate" or "Modern-day Robin Hood"
"Dominating Chauffeur"
"Sensible Shoes"

Oh look!

There's a puppy in that car!

"Embryos are....

just tiny babies!" according to a billboard I saw on my way home today. And I thought, "Tiny, delicious babies, that you can sprinkle on a salad!"

Inappropriate use of vernacular gestures

This video at YouTube is not explicit, but probably not appropriate for the workplace. Nonetheless, it's completely hilarious, if slightly vulgar. Okay, more like moderately vulgar.