Things that I would never think of in a million years I would never, ever, be walking along on day and suddenly realize that it might be possible to use a human head as a bong. Who thinks of this stuff? Regardless of who thinks it up in the first place, exactly what kind of person would think that it was such a good idea that they would then go to a cemetery and dig up a casket to procure the aforementioned head? I mean, really.
This is officially the oddest thing I've read in a while. And I read some pretty weird stuff.
Alarm clocks screaming / monsters calling my name Umm.... so this sounds like the worst idea ever. Who would sign up for this? If someone ever said to me, hey, let me take the worst most terrifying moments of your life and recreate them in virtual reality so you can relive them... I would run, far far away. I have no idea of the therapeutic value of such things... but yeah, it seems like a really bad idea.
Got up on the wrong side of life today... I'm in a really odd, kind of rant-y mood today. No idea why. Really. These are (a few) of the random things that have bothered me today:
The word data is plural. Data is literally a bunch of "things" not just one. So why do we say "the data is on the server" as opposedto "the data are on the server"? You would never say "The dogs is onthe porch" (unless you were from some geographic regions, in which case you probably aren't concerned with whether data is singular or plural.
Why is the world so concerned with having "stuff"? You know, things, stuff, toys, items that you don't need that cost extra money and then you may or may not use them... I'm fast becoming less of a "stuff" person (we'll assume books don't count, here). I'm really tired of the materialism, the "how much do you make?" implying that making more money makes you more valuable as a person. And when did living within your means go out of style?
I think the pop-up previews that outlook puts up when you get a new message are the worst invention ever. Not because I don't use them.... I do, all the time. But because too many people overuse them. Read the whole e-mail before you respond, not just the one line that displays. I try to keep it short, but really, you could take the time to read it.
Scrum uses the most bizarre terminology ever. I dislike being dubbed a "chicken" (although the alternative title, "pig", wasn't much better). And what are "sprints", anyway? Why can't they call them "iterations", like everyone else?
I'm annoyed by "news" that isn't newsworthy (imho). Bridges collapsing = news. Pregnant celebs choosing county lockup over city lockup != news. Especially when the story ran yesterday, and was rewritten (with no new information) for today's news. Stuff like this is what clogs up the tubes of the intarweb. Srsly.
I really hate the term "starting a family". Um, I already have a family started, yo. Chad + Deedee = family. If someone asked me, "do you have any family?" I would say, "yes, I'm married, my parents/siblings live in Alabama, and my in-laws live in Mississippi". Not "no, I haven't got around to starting one yet".
And since that rounds out six points, I will stop ranting.
Pancakes piled up til they reach the sky... IHOP bought Applebee's?... I'm not sure if this means good things for IHOP, bad for Applebee's, or both. Although, I would like to see Applebee's start serving pancakes. (I say this, but I actually can't remember when the last time I was at an Applebee's was...)
John Backus died Saturday... which is sad. He invented Fortran, but I'm more familiar with him due to his work on the Backus-Naur form, which is a formal language to describe programming languages (similar to Chomsky's grammer for natural languages).
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Just in case you wondered, I'm now coming down with whatever Chad has. Sypmtoms are fever (I just took asprin to head mine off before it gets much higher, but Chad's has been spiking over 103 even with contant tylenol), aches, amazing headache, barking cough, conjestion, sore throat and fatigue. It is not (according to Chad's doctor) a) the flu, b) pneumonia, or c) bronchitus. What is it? They have no idea. They gave Chad antibiotics, but I'm not sure that's the answer.
and 50 million cool points to the perosn who can name where my post title came from.
So I've been reading all this stuff about the coast, and specifically New Orleans, in the news. Some of it is optimistic (Mardi Gras might hapen in a very scaled down way this spring), some of it isn't (city will never be the same, etc.). And most of it is pretty sad.
But someone said something that really shocked me the other day. They said that it was about time that New Orleans was modernized a bit, and this might just force them to do that.
Modernize? New Orleans? Why? A "modern" New Orleans would be boring... it would be just like every other big city in the US. I always thought that New Orleans was an odd mix of modern and not modern... high tech fancy hotels and casinos, old buildings and cemetaries and trees... I don't know what would be left if you "modernized" the city.
This quote, from this article on a recent muder charge in Pennsylvania, has to be one of the stupidest things I've heard anyone say in a long time. Maybe not the stupidest, though...
"I mean, you have many, many stab wounds and those 'Dungeons and Dragons' fantasy games involve swords and knives and daggers and things of that nature. There may be a connection but I can’t say for sure."
Proof to the point, I guess, that guns don't kill people. Gamers kill people. (although I think the point was originally meant to apply to video gamers... we're all cut from the same cloth).
I wear a black trench coat. I listen to metal. I was poor growing up. I was teased a lot in high school. Most people considered me a loner (and still do, to some extent). I know how to fire a gun. I have in my possesion two different (electronic) versions of the anarchist's cookbook. I was once invited to join the National Aryan Alliance (I declined, of course). And I own at least 20 books on Hitler and the Holocaust.
Apparently, that makes me the type of person that turns into a "school shooter". At least according to the media at the moment. Go figure.
grrr. So. I was watching the news today, and they (CBS) had a big special on how Bugs Bunny, along with the rest of the Looney Toons, are getting a makeover that will "bring them into the 21st century." They said it hit the blogs today, and was the topic of discussion.
I can't find it. The only mention of this thing I can find is a paragraph in Dan Rather's preview of tonights news broadcast. Not an article on cbsnews.com, nothing crawled by google as of yet... no slashdot. nothing. I would like an alternate source. And some pictures. Grr.
Edit (11:15pm): The story broke in the Wall Street Journal. So like a dork, I had to drive to campus and get one (the business students all get them, and Chad didn't get his today). The new "Buzz Bunny" looks like Batman. The animated Batman. Scary. And dark. Aparently, the story is the Buzz and his crew (the Looney Toons gang, redrawn and renamed) will fight something (evil? good?) as a team, and the show is supposed to be set in like, 2775 or something. The goal, they say, is not to replace the originals, but to liven them up and make them more modern (and increase ratings). It'll be interesting to see what everyone else has to say on this, when I can find more internet sources :-P
Yay for Valentines day... Chad and exchanged gifts, cards and chocolate yesterday, but we're doing the whole dinner / possibly mushy movie / general romanticish type stuff tonight (so if I don't answer my phone, I'll call you tomorrow...). But yeah. Chad liked his gifts, and I really liked mine, so it was all fun and awesome. Yay for fun gifts.
In other news... there really isn't much other news. I'm mostly caught up on homework... mostly caught up on sleep... Chad and I only have like, 7 DVDs left before we finish CSI, which will be very sad, and we'll have to find a new show to watch obsessively. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do in December when I finish my Masters... I managed to add several possibilities to the list of options, though, which I guess is something. Chad keeps reminding me that, if nothing else, I can take up watching soap operas and eating BonBons. *rolls eyes*.
I have, however, taken up watching the evening news. It turns out (according to CBS), people who watch CSI make better jurors. So... By watching CSI, I'm doing my civic duty and preparing myself for jury duty. I love America.
Michael Jackson has the flu. Or something. And went to the emergency room. On the way to court. I think that he's pushing things... delaying jury selections, delaying the trial. But maybe he's not that smart... He is calling Kobe Bryant as a character witness. Yeah.
And omg... civilian inspectors aren't allowed into Top Secret government areas... I mean, I bet they don't even let most people who have tope secret security clearance waltz through there... it's like that part of the laboratory is on a need-to-know, need-to-access basis. Amazing. What is the world coming to?
Mississippi News for the day: Dante Walker was sentenced to 22 years in prison yesterday. A couple of those are for possession of marijuana, but the bulk were for possession of cocaine. He was playing some ball for Birmingham (I was actually unaware the Birmingham had a team), and is apparently fighting the conviction.
I'm just glad they didn't let him off because he played football. I mean, really. In SEC world, it happens way too often.
Other world news: Apparently, North Korea has Nukes. They have them, not because they really want to rule the world, but because the US is oppressive. So the big question of the moment is... are we going to oppress them, and take their nukes away? Or stand down, and get nuked?
Actually... the question of the moment seems to be (I'm watching the CBS evening news)... What would Diana think of Charles marrying Camilla? Which is, of course, the only question that matters. Here's my answer: She would either do what everyone else in England is doing, and smile through her teeth and say she hoped they were happy... or she would tell us all what (I think) she really thought, that he should have married Camilla in the first place, and then we wouldn't have to deal with all this "Princess Consort" shit.
The world. Is a mess. But at least the Pope is back in the Vatican. Something, if only one thing, is in it's place, and makes sense.
WTF? I mean, really... so many questions about that... like, how? What was he wearing? Did he wake up one morning and decide he wanted a chicken neck, and take a cleaver and cut the first thing that looked sort of like it? Or did he actually have a chicken neck, and something else got on the cutting board by mistake? So weird...
Great. The last thing I need while driving is a mechanical version of my mom sitting in the seat next to me. I wonder if they equip the thing to grab on to the door and gasp if it thinks you're going around a curve to fast...
ok... so I have a problem with this. While I will admit that having sex behind the wheel of a car is not a safe driving practice... the driver of the other car most likely *fell asleep* at the wheel. And veered out of his/her lane. Thus, the accident is not the fault of the couple (one of whom, the man, died during the accident), but of the other driver. Possibly, the accident could have been avoided if the couple were like, paying attention to the road instead of each other... nevertheless, fault lies with the other driver.
Two different links from Yahoo News... The first isn't terribly workplace friendly... but then again, it's Yahoo News, so you might could get away with it. I just found it to be interesting... The second link proves that Vietnam has a few good ideas we don't.
Anyway. I guess that's my comments on the world at the moment.
Quote from an article on FOXNews.com "There's nobody who works at NASA who isn't passionate about it... You work here because you love it, not because it's a paycheck."
Oh yeah... and to quote William (since his blog is password protected):
People that find jokes about what "NASA" really stands for to be funny, need to go somewhere.
and they can take the people that think we should go back to the apollo capsules with them.
I mean really... making jokes about NASA and the Columbia Disaster at this point is a little out of place... A lot out of place. Maybe in a couple of years, it would be less not-ok (it may never be ok)... but right now, when emotions are still raw? You cannot forget the fact that seven people died... seven people who had families... not nameless robots. People. Like me.
And Apollo capsules were not only less efficient, they were still dangerous. and they barely fit three people. And we threw them away after every mission. And started over. Go back to the dark ages where you belong.
We lost the Shuttle. For a great deal of time this morning, they didn't know where it was... but it's gone. Columbia is no more. There were no survivors.
What caused it? No one knows, as of yet, but rumors are flying. The media is having a field day... talking about possible terrorist attack, problems with the Shuttle transportation system in general, debris falling from the sky, human remains... until you can't figure out what happened or what's going to happen...
So what does this mean? It means seven people lost their lives... Six of the seven astronauts were married, and five of them had children.
it means NASA will halt for a time while they figure out what went wrong... it may mean a lot of things. Again, rumors are flying. I haven't decided what I think is going to happen... I'm still in shock.
I remember Challenger... unlike most people my age (I was three). I lived in Orlando... I remember seeing it on TV... over and over and over... and not understanding exactly what was going on, but seeing my mother cry... and crying for the pictures to go away... I remember the first time Discovery launched, everyone holding their breath to see if it would make it... and being so excited when it reached orbit. The space program has always been something my family kept track of.... And so my mother called me this morning and woke me up so I could watch the news... and I called Chad... and watched the news all morning. I even watched the president's speech... which was the best speech i think I've ever heard him give...
Here's the text of the president's speech:
My fellow Americans, this day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country. At 9:00 a.m. this morning, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with our Space Shuttle Columbia. A short time later, debris was seen falling from the skies above Texas. The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.
On board was a crew of seven: Colonel Rick Husband; Lt. Colonel Michael Anderson; Commander Laurel Clark; Captain David Brown; Commander William McCool; Dr. Kalpana Chawla; and Ilan Ramon, a Colonel in the Israeli Air Force. These men and women assumed great risk in the service to all humanity.
In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket, and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the Earth. These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.
All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.
The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.
In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing."
The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.
May God bless the grieving families, and may God continue to bless America.
This is my brain..... in part, at least.
