22 December 02012: One Last Thought On The Music Of December
For all the people whose outrage is anywhere on
the charts over the whole "Merry Xmas/Happy Holidays" kerfuffle
(that, by the way, is the Greek letter "chi" in front of the "mas"
there), I offer the following:
This
song was originally released in 01963. The
"HH" phrasing is scarcely a new phenomenon. Indeed, it's
older than I am.
Time to go look for some real problems to solve. I
assure you, it won't be a long hunt.
M-->
21 December 02012: Io Saturnalia!
The [Northern Hemisphere's] Winter
Solstice (6:12 AM EST today) has come and gone, so 1. We're
officially into winter, which kind of justifies the snow falling
right now., 2. The days are now getting longer., and 3. The
Mayans, as we all knew all along, were wrong.
Reality once again proves itself to be better than any delusion.
M-->
20 December 02012 (T + 18): A Holiday Music Update
After ACME-9 went up last week, Jennifer from
Livonia, MI emailed and asked if I was getting my Christmas comedy
selections from some sort of Pandora
channel.
I'm not.
In the time between that email and today, though, Pandora has
launched what they call a "Holiday Cruise Control Comedy"
channel. I don't know what the point of that channel is, but
it's not Christmas comedy.
Also on the Pandora holiday channel lineup, however, is something
I've been enjoying called "Today's
Christmas". When I'm not tuned into Hawaiian radio and their
take on the holidays, my I'net browser has a tab committed there
these days. Not a source of laughs, but there's some pretty
good recent music there. It turns out that if you silence
the vocalists, thus eliminating the pseudo-operatic bellowing to
which I am opposed in the sounds o' the season, a lot of holiday
songs become much more bearable--even occasionally pleasant.
This does not, however, apply to "Do You Hear What I Hear?", nor
yet to "The Little Drummer Boy" (see "Holiday Hit List" from The Markives, 2 December
02004*). When the singers are allowed to play, I retain my
objection to "Sleigh Ride" with lyrics as well. While
Pandora limits the use of the "skip" function, I am more than
willing to use my limited skip options on versions of those three
musical assaults.
M-->
*--Now a/k/a "ACME-1".
19 December 02012: Scandinavian Surprise
As a general rule, I have a certain amount of
respect for the Swedes (and the other four Scandinavian nations)
as a culture, but I'm rethinking that these days, now that I've
learned that approximately one
out of four Swedish households has one of those SodaStream
home carbonators.
25%.
Rather astounding. I've been amused by the commercials for
this device that have recently been airing in my corner o' the
world; the actors in these ads seem way too impressed about the
possibility of enjoying "fresh soda".
In my time on this planet, I have yet to encounter anyone
complaining about stale soft drinks. This is, once again, a
solution in search of a problem, and it dismays me a bit that an
ostensibly sensible culture such as the Swedes' has 25% market
penetration for this device.
Unless there's something in the water in metro Stockholm that I
don't know about, that is.
M-->
10 December 02012: ACME-9--Something Old and Something New
In writing the 02012 annual Christmas music
entry, I find myself reconsidering my stance against "The Twelve
Days of Christmas" in these yearly missives. Norm
MacDonald's take on the song is one thing that's turned me --well,
maybe not around, but certainly aside:
Also contributing to this reassessment is
the Allan Sherman collection My Son, The Box*, in
which we find that his version, "The Twelve Gifts of
Christmas", was censored at original release. Here's a
21st-century take on the original:
With that song--in its original form--kicking off this year's
holiday lineup, here's the rest of the best for 02012:
2. Christmas
Can-Can, Straight No Chaser. SNC also has an
interesting take on "12 Days". This song title and
artist have been scrawled on a Post-It on my desk for about 12
months now--just after ACME-8 went up last year. It
could have made for an interesting puzzle if someone, in the
event of my untimely demise, had been cleaning out my office
and found it.
3. Christmas
In The Sand, Colbie Caillat. New for 02012
is this reminder that a white Christmas might very well refer
to sand and not to snow. It's got an entertaining video
as well.
4. Christmas
Kiss, Meaghan Smith. This showed up, rather
unexpectedly, in my Pandora
feed about 6 weeks ago. Properly promoted, I submit that
this could be a "Call Me Maybe" for the holidays. It's
got the right level of flirtatiousness without descending to
Maudlin Town. Ms. Smith also does a rendition of "The
Little Drummer Boy" without all the
"pa-rum-pum-pum-pum"s. It doesn't make the song better
except in that it makes it shorter, but it's an interesting
idea. Once.
5. Do
You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?, Nina Van
Pallandt. Yes, it's a holiday tune from a James
Bond movie (On Her Majesty's Secret Service). The
universe can still amaze me sometimes. This turns out to
be a fairly complicated little number, in a good way and a way
that a lot of more well-known holiday tunes are not.
6. Let's
Have A Drug-Free Christmas, Tim Cavanagh.
Nice sentiment in the title, plus one must admire the wordplay
in the lyric "Spend the day on Grandma's farm/Not on
pharmaceuticals".
7. Happy
New Year, Spike Jones & The City Slickers.
Fulfilling the "old" in the title, this one has an odd
personal connection for me. The song is a recitation of
various Slickers' New Year's resolutions, and one near the end
is a commitment to better comedy leading up to the line: "I
resolve not to tell a corny joke." A telephone then
rings, and Doodles Weaver's side of the conversation goes
"Hello. What's that? The church burned down?
Holy smoke!".
An epic fail for the resolution, of course, but...I actually
got to use that last line, completely in context, once, upon
hearing of a church fire here in the current hometown of The Markives.
Definitely a moment to be remembered.
And now for something in a more classical vein:
8. Throw
The Yule Log On Uncle John, PDQ Bach. I am
not for a minute advocating this course of action, but just in
case, it might be best if Haley, Sarah, Megan, and Natalie
didn't click through on this one.
Io Saturnalia!
M-->
*--MS,TB was released in 02004. Though I
bought it right away, I'm a bit slow in talking about it
here.
21 November 02012 (17 years later): Photo Page
Some of my better pictures from Mom & Dad's 50th anniversary
festivities are now ready for the world to view. Formal shots
are here; less formal ones are here. Enjoy.
M-->
18 November 02012: Mail Call
Ron from Palm Beach Gardens, FL, writes:
Any thoughts on the whole new school - old
school debate for the American league MVP? It seems
strange to me (admittedly an old school baseball fan)
that many baseball guys are going on and on about WAR for Trout.
Sorry, I can understand the numbers, but Cabrera won the
Triple Crown. Wondered where you stand.
I have two lines of thought on this
subject. As something of a traditionalist, I fall in with
those who think "Triple Crown = MVP", especially when combined
with the common opinion that leading your team to the playoffs
makes you more valuable than someone with an outstanding season
who is nonetheless sitting at home in October. I am
occasionally impressed with and frequently amused by the new
flood of baseball statistics that sabermetricians have unleashed
on baseball, but in my opinion, they have not come up with
anything that encompasses the spirit of the game any better than
the old numbers. In a sport as mindful of its
history as baseball, this matters.
Of course, some of the more ardent sabermetricians are also
those who would overthrow over a century of baseball history and
rewrite it according to their new standards. I understand
their point, but I do not share their opinion.
My other view of the Miguel Cabrera vs. Mike Trout debate is
that it's somewhat geographical, and that Cabrera's
accomplishments are being downgraded because he dared to achieve
them somewhere other than New York, Boston, or California.
If Trout had been a Tiger and Cabrera an Angel, I suspect that
this would have been far less controversial, and that the
sporting press would have lined up behind the "Triple Crown =
MVP" theory.
M-->
8 November 02012: GatorWait II
It's about 11:00 AM Eastern around here, and as
near as I can tell, Florida's electoral votes have still not
been awarded.
I find this oddly amusing.
If an entrepreneur was peddling some sort of remedial training in
how to conduct an election, there's a ready market down there.
M-->
6 November 02012: I'm As Ebenezer As They Come...
but it will be nice to see Christmas advertising replace the
political nonsense that's been infecting the airwaves this year.
I honestly think that only about 20% of the country will be elated
and 20% disappointed when everything shakes out
tonight/tomorrow/next Thursday. The rest of us will just be
happy it's all over.
In the meantime, it's time for voters in 49 states to cancel each
other out so that the voters in Ohio can decide who the next
American President will be.*
M-->
*--That is how the election is run, right? It certainly
seems that way from the media coverage.
29 October 02012: I'm Not The One On The Right...
but the resemblance is uncanny. That's
Zach Galifianakis and some of the cast ofHangover
3 at an early voting event in Nevada.
Adding the visor just makes this whole doppelgänger effect
that much more amusing.
M-->
29 October 02012: On To The Weather
I don't believe that they will, but it almost
seems like the weather experts and "experts" who are throwing
about words like "superstorm" will be very disappointed if
Hurricane Sandy doesn't live up to its considerable hype.
M-->
23 October 02012: World Series Notes
One nice thing about the Giants taking out St.
Louis last night is that we won't be exposed to as much bias from
Fox's announcing team, both of whom are former Cardinals
employees.
One less-than-nice thing about that is that San Francisco is now
6-0 in elimination games this postseason, and so if the Tigers
should manage to win three games, the sporting press will give
them less than no chance to close out the Series.
M-->
14 October 02012: Short Thoughts
1. Today, only one Big Ten team is bowl-eligible. At this
point of the season, that might not be all that surprising, until
you realize that it's Northwestern.
Needless to say, there is joy over this development out here at
the home of The Markives.
Add in 11 scoreless frames from Fister and the
relievers not named Valverde, and the Tigers took a big early step
in this series.
'Nuff said.
3. On a much lower level, I discovered yesterday that I can still
run 96 yards at a dead sprint if the occasion calls for it.
While not exactly high on my list of useful skills, this is at
least good to know in the event I'm in an emergency and find
myself 96 (or fewer) yards from safety.
I could probably even go 97 if I had to.
Here's what happened: I was working the down box at yesterday's
Albion-Kalamazoo football game. Albion had 1st and goal at
the Kalamazoo 1-yard line, so I was standing on the sideline at
the 1. Albion fumbled, and a Kalamazoo defender recovered the
fumble and took it all the way to the other end for a touchdown.
After a touchdown, the down box holder needs to set up on the
3-yard line for the conversion try--and that line was 96 yards
away. So I ran. Successfully. Made it in plenty
of time for the players and officials to set up, and the game was
not delayed.
M-->
2 October 02012: On Recent Baseball Developments
It's not my usual practice to lecture the next generation on how
much better they may possibly have it than us older folks.
However, I need to point something out to all of my nephices who are
at least Emily's age:
For the third time in your relatively young
life, your local major league baseball team has qualified for
the playoffs.
That didn't happen for me until I was 20 and living in Illinois
for 3/4 of the year.
This may not resonate completely at Brennan Central, in light of the
appropriate loyalty to the recently-vanquished Chicago White Sox
that prevails there, but that doesn't make it less true.
Technically, this ought to apply to Sarah as well, but she spent the
fall of 02006 living in Georgia, and Atlanta didn't make the
playoffs that year.
M-->
1 October 02012: Matters Mechanical And Medical
This falls into the category of "Yeah, I
suppose that's true, but it's not something I would have thought
about before it happened to me": Apparently the rear bumper on a
4-door Ford Focus is different from the rear bumper on a 2-door
Focus.
I don' think I'd've guessed that, but it turns out to be
true. Last week, the ordering of the wrong bumper meant that
my car was tied up at the body shop (recovering from the incident
of 29 July) for a couple of extra days last week. Following
some back-and-forth between the garage and my insurance company,
and evidently several hundred extra dollars paid out by the
latter, I should have my car back today.
Now to medicine: I have thought about this more than is healthy,
and I have decided that there's really no good timetable to take a
pill every six hours. And it's not like I sleep that well.
Background: I had a root canal a couple of weeks ago, for which I
was prescribed Vicodin both before and after the event, with the
directive to take one pill every six hours as needed. Trying
to fit that in on a 24-hour day is rather a challenge.
I'm usually awake at 1 AM, but I'm not usually awake at 7 AM, and
that's the best overnight schedule I could come up with.
Temporal inconvenience was not the only reason I cut out the
painkillers after two days, but it wasn't an insignificant
consideration.
After all of this drama, I'm not exactly sad to see September end.
M-->
27 September 02012: The Continuing Travelogue
5. One of the more useless geographic
adjectives has to be "Pacific", as in "Pacific Northwest".
Is there an Atlantic Northwest that I've missed?
Maybe in Greenland, or the British isles, but here in the USA,
it's redundant.
6. The drive from Las Vegas to Reno, NV along US-95 is undeniably
scenic, but this is in no small part because there's next to
nothing along that road. There are a couple of intersections
that barely qualify as towns, but the main sign of human life
seemed to be the unusual number of Federal Express trucks.
If the proposed I-11
between Phoenix and Las Vegas ever gets built, continuing it up
that corridor is probably an idea worth pursuing. There's
certainly room for an interstate highway out there.
7. Here's an observation that I'm only starting to put together in
my mind: When the border between two states is a land line rather
than a body of water, it almost seems like both states give up on
any real commercial or other activity within a few miles of the
border itself. There may be a rational explanation for this,
but I found myself observing the trend rather frequently as we
passed among the western states. This is not without its
advantages as an indicator of an upcoming state line, as is the
case when passing from Utah into Colorado, when you're off the
interstate highway system and so cannot simply count down the exit
numbers.
An occasional exception is Nevada, which in many places has a
casino ready within mere feet of its borders.
M-->
10 September 02012: The Road Remembered
After 4217 miles of driving in the American
(and ever-so-slightly Canadian*) West last month, a few stray
observations.
1. While in Klamath Falls, OR, we stumbled onto the Oregon Tech campus, where a banner
proclaimed it the "Home of the Hustlin' Owls". "Owls" is a
fine nickname, but someone needs to tell the folks at OIT that,
except for colors, adding an adjective to the nickname of a sports
team doesn't improve things. "Red Wings" is fine.
"Mighty Ducks" didn't cut it.
2. Crater Lake National Park may well be the Katrina and the
Waves** of national parks. One big hit--the lake itself--but
only sporadic other attractions. Part of the reason for
that, and also part of its charm--is that it's rather challenging
to get down to the water.
Not that being a one-hit wonder is a bad thing. In this
case, it's a very good hit.
3. For the vast majority of the time, and to the extent that this
matters, I am a strong supporter of the efforts of western
Virginians during the Civil War to break free from their
Confederate colleagues and establish the new state of West
Virginia. However, I cannot help but note that had that not
happened, we would have successfully spotted license plates from
all 49 states on this trip. 98% may qualify for an "A", but
I was shooting for 50 out of 50, as we missed that mark in
02010. That year, the sole straggler was Delaware, which we
spotted this time in a parking lot at the University of
Utah. I may have gotten a little too excited about that
sighting.
4. In what I suspect is either an unusual outreach program or an
effort to make I-90 a little more bearable, the state of
Washington has taken it upon themselves to raise signs along a
14-mile stretch of the road running through agricultural land with
the name of the crop that's being grown beyond the fences. I
will freely admit that I would not have known the difference
between alfalfa and timothy hay when passing them at 70 miles per
hour, so this was certainly not useless. Indeed, it rose to
the level of bonus entertainment: "What's gonna be growing
next? Ooh...field corn!"
More to come.
M-->
*--After over 48 and a half years on this planet, I finally
made it to my second Canadian province (Alberta). At this
rate, I should get around to them all by my 250th birthday.
**--A phrase that has taken on a new and much darker meaning
since 02005.
24 August 02012: Two Quick Notes
1. Due to various misdeeds on both sides, the 02010 Ohio State-Penn
State football game has no winner because both sides have
now vacated the game. I find this amusing.
2. Yes, I was in Las Vegas last weekend. No, I was not
shooting pool with Prince Harry. Just thought I'd clear that
up. More tales of the road to follow.
M-->
31 July 02012: One Before The Road
When finding a dead bat inside your Winter Camp insulated drinking
glass is only the third biggest irritant of your day, you're
either really suffering or curiously unlucky.
I think I fall into that second category.
On that note: If you drive a red Focus, one of the worst things
you can hear called out loudly in a restaurant is "Does anyone in
here drive a red Focus?".
Turns out someone in a black pickup truck backed into my car,
paused briefly, and then left without further contact. Said
collision was witnessed by two people who got the license plate
number, which has been tracked by the local police to a 02013
Chevy registered in Detroit. I doubt that I'm going to hear
back from them. Fortunately, the damage is minimal and
really more of an annoyance than anything else.
By itself, that would have been "annoying, but tolerable", to
quote Sherman T. Potter. Coming on the heels of multiple bee
stings from running over yet another in-ground hive while mowing
the lawn, and being followed up by the bat discovery--well, let's
just say that Sunday was not high on my list of favorite days.
Fortunately, vacation beckons.
M-->
24 July 02012 (Happy XL birthday!):
I'm Not Tank McNamara, But Here's The Norts Spews
By request (really*), some
thoughts on the Penn State situation:
Having digested about everything I could find online about the
resolution announced yesterday, I am even further convinced that
the punishment handed down to Penn State yesterday (which I think
was actually a reasonable and proper response to things) is the
NCAA's equivalent of a Rorschach Test: people will see in it what
they want.
I don't see a lot of minds being changed by this. Those
folks who wanted the program dismantled; the stadium torn down,
crunched to gravel, and dumped in the ocean, and the ground salted
so that nothing will ever grow there again; and all evidence of
the former coach erased from campus will continue to be unhappy,
as will the folks who think the university has suffered enough and
needs to be allowed to let the healing begin. This latter
group tends to focus, with some justification, on the players
currently in the program, whom they say shouldn't have to suffer
for the sins of the past.
Of course, since the announced punishment (to which the university
has already consented, a fact lost on those calling for PSU to
appeal this thing) allows players to transfer immediately without
penalty, that concern rings a bit hollow now.
Prediction update: I had heard about the massive fine the night
before, so I can't claim credit for guessing that. I was
more or less on target about the postseason ban and scholarship
cuts, and I did come up with the idea of penalty-free
transfers. None of that is earth-shattering success.
Vacating 14 years of wins? I had not predicted that, but I
think the NCAA made a good call there.
On my next trip to Las Vegas, I now must remember to put a large
bet down on Wisconsin to win the Leaders Division this fall.
With Ohio State and Penn State ineligible for the title, this
seems like another
no-brainer of a prediction.
M-->
*--I was somewhat surprised myself.
20
July 02012*: Some Thoughts On The Summer Of '12
...while I try and figure out the apparent contradiction of a
pulse rate of 60 and blood pressure of 138/98. (I'm leaning
toward "misfunctioning device or poor math skills").
1. Despite the ongoing drought, the water table in my backyard is
running high, to the extent that there's a couple of feet of water
in the backyard well (which was dry for the first 8+ years we
lived here) and a curious lawn growth pattern. Far from the
river, there's brown grass in abundance, but toward the
river? Unusually lush growth here and there, that really
doesn't match the rest of the grounds.
2. There was a leftover bag of gummy candy after summer camp this
year that found its way to my car. Said candy has now melted
into an amorphous blob in the summer heat, which I probably should
have expected. On the other hand, everything did stay in the
bag, which is good. Scraping candy off of CD's is not
something I want to be entangled in.
3. I bought a new air conditioner yesterday to replace one that
gave out after 21 years of service, and the weather has promptly
grown more temperate. I should have done this weeks ago.
M-->
*--Happy birthday yesterday to Robyn with a Y, and today to
Steven with a V.
25 June 02012 (Happy Leon Day!):
Too Many Choices: Not Healthy
The title of today's entry* is
something approximately said by George Carlin, and a point driven
home to me rather sharply last week when I was making my way home
from the big adult summer camp that is AP Calculus grading.
I had stopped for lunch in Altoona, Iowa, at a restaurant that
shall not be named here. A curious feature of this
establishment is that their soft drink service is a self-serve
operation, which is not unusual, served by a 100-flavor Coca-Cola
dispenser, which is.
One machine, 100ish flavors, one restaurant. This machine
was not the simplest to operate--there were multiple levels of
touchscreens involved, which proved quite baffling to some of the
crowd and certainly led to the fact that the line was almost
always 8-10 people deep. Fortunately, the list of soft drink
emergencies that one might face is pretty short, and a bit of a
wait wasn't too much of a problem. More significantly, I
cannot help but wonder exactly how much some of the lesser flavors
were chosen. I myself had a glass of Fanta grape and one of
Fanta lime**, but I am a known soft drink thrillseeker. My
suspicion, based on watching a fair number of customers while
standing in line, is that there was an awful lot of Coke,
Diet Coke, and Sprite being consumed, and not so much of the more
exotic stuff.
I will freely admit that the touchscreen menu system may be
responsible for some of that. Still, I'd like to see the
numbers.
M-->
*--Not the bit about Leon Day. That's just something
I heard on the radio this morning. Leon Day recognizes
that Christmas is 6 months away.
**--Fanta lime is a pretty good flavor, with a nice citrus
kick to it. Highly recommended.
6 June 02012: Pre-Olympic Thoughts
Before Kansas City
In the news recently was this
item about how the United States Olympic Committee and the
International Olympic Committee have settled a feud and cleared
the way for American cities to bid for future Olympics, starting
with the 02022 Winter Games. Much of the coverage is local
to Chicago and focuses on 02024, but my mind is focused on two
years earlier than that.
This is convenient, if for no other reason than someone has come
up with a new way of going down a mountain, and I don't see
Annecy, France incorporating it into their Games bid. I
refer here to Crashed
Ice, a Red Bull-fueled sport that, aside from needing a new
name to be palatable on a bigger stage, seems perfectly poised to
take its place along other snow and ice sports somewhere in the
world in ten years.
I suggest "downhill skating", as "icecross" doesn't quite make
it. Here's a look:
Snowboardcross (The Markives, 17 February 02006) suddenly seems
a bit tame.
A big advantage of downhill skating that may make it more
palatable on the international stage is that it's not dominated by
Americans. Of the top
ten skaters in the recently-completed season, none are from
the USA. Word is that Reno
and Lake Tahoe are plotting a joint bid for the 02022
Olympics, and something seems very right about this debuting out
there.
And on that note, I'm off for ten days in Kansas City, to spend
some time with people who think that high school students should
take challenging math classes.
M-->
25
May 02012: By Request, Some Thoughts On Mathematical Snacking
Kristie from Allen Park, MI pointed out this
article from CNN about the best shape for a snack
chip. For those not clicking through, this article quotes a
California mathematician who opines--and rightly, in my
opinion--that hyperbolic paraboloids are a better shape for snack
chips than parabolic cylinders.
I trust that that made things clearer for those of you who don't
follow the links.
Quick math lesson: A hyperbolic
paraboloid is the technical term for a saddle-shaped
surface, such as a Pringle. At the center of the seat of the
saddle, it's possible to identify a point that is a minimum in one
direction and a maximum in another direction. Such a point
is called a saddle point.
The term is also used in game theory, where it represents a
strategy that's optimal for both players in a two-player game.
He is, of course, correct. He is also somewhat behind the
times. It's been twenty years that I've been bringing
Pringles into the classroom when I talk about quadric surfaces (a
standard multivariable calculus topic), and I also use them in my
upper-division geometry class when we talk about the state of the
universe. A fundamental question to be addressed in that
course is "If the universe is shaped like a Pringle, then
what does a rectangle look like?" The answer is that it
doesn't--in an axiom system known as hyperbolic geometry*, which
can be modeled by considering a "plane" to be the surface of a
Pringle, rectangles do not exist.
Of course, if you can eat the universe, petty things like
rectangles matter a lot less. However, the dorm hallway
chatter at my current employer has embraced this demonstration so
much that my geometry students have come to expect it.
M-->
*--A subject that I've taught successfully for those same
two decades despite never having studied it myself. I've
actually got a somewhat long list of subjects like that.
18 May 02012: (Ron) Shock
Treatment
Whatever sort of afterlife there
might be is hearing some great stories today. Comedian Ron
Shock passed away yesterday* after a brief battle with a
very aggressive form of cancer.
I've been a fan of Shock's since his early appearances on Comic Strip Live in the
01990's and his first appearance on The Tonight Show, where he was the last comedian
to make his debut while Johnny Carson was hosting. I finally
got a chance to see him perform live in 02007 at the Silver Legacy
in Reno, Nevada--which, in a slightly depressing coincidence,
filed for bankruptcy
protection yesterday. I remarked that night that I had
not laughed that hard in years, and I haven't laughed that hard
more than a few times since then.
But in addition to being incredibly funny, the man could tell a
story with the best of them. Here are a couple of clips, one
very serious, one far less so.
M-->
*--If we add in Donna Summer and Americans
Elect, the whole "deaths come in threes" myth was
fulfilled within a 24-hour span yesterday. However, I put
no stock in that silliness.
27
April 02012 (Happy International Plaid Day!): A Study In Lego
Longtime readers of The Markives may remember a parallel
Web page, Monday Moanin',
with Dan's take on the world. As it's been nearly 4 1/2 years
since the last new content was posted over there, you could be
reasonably forgiven for thinking that his posting had ceased.
Not so fast. I received a couple of emails from Dan last night
which, in his words, are "[n]ot exactly a return to posting...but it
could mark a return of sorts". The major content was this
version of the current family picture*:
It's genuinely impressive how many of these folks are actually
recognizable as family members. I'll let Dan take it from
here:
The software, which is available
for Mac and PC, can be found at http://ldd.lego.com/ Once the model is built, the
program provides a set of assembly instructions. I'd not be
surprised if there is a place to click through to order all the
pieces included in the model.
I see several productively wasted
hours in the next several weeks.
M-->
*--This is actually version 2.0 that's been released to
me. There's an earlier version where I look somewhat more
like Rubeus
Hagrid.
17 April 02012: An Idea For Tax Day
If I'm ever in charge of things
over at the Internal Revenue Service
(which seems highly unlikely, but work with me here), my first act
would be to change the rules so that tax returns could be mailed
postage-free.
As if the frustration of preparing income taxes wasn't annoying
enough, it then becomes necessary to fork out a few more cents
(or, for some, dollars), just to send everything in. Salt,
meet wound.
Our government can do better than that, and we'd be spared at
least some of the late-night post-office posturing that will be
going on tonight as midnight local time approaches across
America. I will freely admit that this will be a diminishing
benefit as time goes on, given the ever-advancing rise of online
filing, but that could also be a selling point.
(Full disclosure: As is my nature, my federal taxes were done in
February.)
M-->
10
April 02012: Today's News
It's snowing in Albion this morning--not a lot, and certainly
nothing that will stick, but there are flakes a-descending.
This confirms a prediction I made during the heat ripple (not
fully a wave), but I can't claim that that took any keen sense of
meteorology. Those 80-degree days of last month didn't last,
did they?
Meanwhile, over at Geekologie,
we find new
frontiers in pizza technology awaiting a trip to American
shores. Apparently stymied in their quest to cram even more
cheese on a pizza, the good folks at Pizza Hut have rolled
out--wait for it--hot
dog-stuffed crust pizza. But only in the UK, at
least for now. I, for one, can wait. Even a "free
mustard drizzle" is not enough to make this palatable to me.
I have to be honest, this feels like an April Fool's Day prank.
M-->
28
March 02012: Two Posts Inside A Week--I'm Back And I Mean
It
A couple of comments on advertising today, but first some feedback
from the last post: Steve from Allen Park, MI has alerted me to this
Web page describing something called "baby name regret", a
phenomenon manifested, as the name would suggest, in parents who
come to have second thoughts about their kid's name.
I'm guessing that this malady doesn't afflict too many parents of
Davids and Rebeccas.
Don't miss the comments section of this page, which contains as
concentrated a deposit of good sense from multiple people as one
is likely ever to see on the I'net. ("No kid's name should
include an apostrophe"? Good idea.) That having been
said, the mind reels at the thought of a baby name book with
140,000 different entries. That number is not a
misprint. Of course, 32,500 of those are probably just
different ways to spell "Katelyn".
Now, and speaking of names...
1. It is tribute to the power of Internet marketing that the folks
behind the DVD release of The
Muppets can get away with calling their product the "Wocka
Wocka Value Pack". If ordering this movie is a simple
matter of clicking on a few Web links, the name poses no
barriers. If every potential purchaser had to go into a
physical store and ask for this by name, however, I'm guessing
that many people would find that their threshold of embarrassment
is too high to clear, and opt for another season of The Simpsons or something
less-creatively named.
2. There's an ad for Nutella that's running in pretty high
rotation on a TV station I frequently watch, so I've been filled
to the brim with the propaganda they're pushing for their
chocolate hazelnut spread. What amuses me--and not
necessarily in a good way-- is that the actress playing the mother
feels compelled to remind us all that she's still over-obsessing
about healthful food by pointing out that Nutella goes well with
"whole-wheat waffles" and "multigrain toast". God forbid
anyone should eat this stuff on a slice of Wonder bread.
Frankly, this "healthier than thou" attitude makes me want to
enjoy a thick layer of Nutella spread on a Twinkie. The one
thing that's stopping me* is that I'm not a big fan of
Nutella. Aside from the trendiness, it's just a pale
imitation of Koogle,
as far as I'm concerned. (Note for those not clicking
through, Koogle is just described in that commercial as being good
on bread or crackers--there are no allegedly healthful**
modifiers.)
Paul Dickson refers to this type of annoying person as a "gourmet parent: someone who
would have toddlers studying Russian, claim their children would
rather be at the National Gallery of Art than Disneyland, and
would opt for a good nutritious lentil soup over a Whopper and
fries". That term is dead-on accurate in this case, and it's
not the first time that his words have filled a yawning gap in the
language.
I'll bet that this hypothetical mother suffers from a serious case
of baby name regret.
M-->
*--Besides the fact that this would be going a bit too far
trying to make a point, and not succeeding, of course.
**--To paraphrase George Carlin: Foodstuffs are
"healthful". An eggplant is only "healthy" if it's doing
pushups.
23 March 02012: Say, Didn't I Used
To Post Things Here?
Yep. The world has pulled me
in other directions this past month, and many of my adventures are
not suitable for description here. But I'm back, with one
quick observation.
If The Hunger Games is
to be believed, we're still going to be giving children ridiculous
names in the future (Peeta? Really?) Fortunately, it does seem that
we're going to lose the curse of the superfluous Y's that has
infected names recently--although I fear that 21st-century THG fans might start naming
kids things like "Katnyss" and "Prymrose" (or worse yet,
"Prymmerose") in an effort to be "really unique" (which is a
superfluous modifier).
This is, of course, the same kind of mentality that will be
filling American kindergartens with Bellas in the next year or
two, and my classrooms in 18-20 years.* I'm in no rush for
that.
M-->
*--Yes, I expect still to be teaching in 02032.
29 February 02012: One Quick
Observation About The Michigan Primary
For what it's worth, it seems to me that once you've been
governor of a state, you lose the right to call any other state your
"home state" unless you're living (and voting) there.
M-->
19 February 02012: 219: Just A
Thought, One Week Out
I want to get this out there
before the love-in for The
Artist that most observers are saying this year's Academy
Awards ceremony will be:
Movies
were improved by adding color and sound.
I would not claim for a moment that every color film or movie with
sound was automatically better, respectively (or not) than every
black and white or silent film, but the alleged wave of nostalgia
surrounding The Artist
is a bit too much for my tastes. It is vaguely possible, as
I read somewhere today, that acclaim for that movie is simply
Hollywood's blind love for itself coming into view yet again, as
was the case when Who Framed
Roger Rabbit? swept the Oscars.
Wait.
It didn't?
Oh, that's right--The Academy's distaste for comedy trumps its
adoration for navel-gazing.
In the interest of saving time and breath next Sunday, I suggest
that my mantra up above be reduced to a numeric code, as with
"111". Since today's date trips off the tongue nicely, I
further suggest that "219" be the numeric abbreviation for "Movies
were improved by adding color and sound."
So let it be written and all that.
M-->
1 February 02012: On The Recent
Weather And Pennsylvania's Upcoming Exercise In Animal Sadism
If this is winter, I'm fine with six more weeks of it.
I'm actually a bit surprised that the alarmist faction of the global
warming "community" (which is not the entire crowd, although it
seems that way sometimes) hasn't been out in force this past week.
M-->
19 January 02012: A Dark Day
I didn't participate in the whole "shut down/black out the Web to
protest SOPA" thing yesterday. I share Mark Evanier's reasons for
doing so:
I
am not shutting this website [www.newsfromme.com] down in protest of the SOPA bill
because no one will notice and no one will care. But I’m against
the bill and hope it does not become law.
I did like College
Misery's take on yesterday's events, though. While I
have never caught a student plagiarizing from Wikipedia, I warn
students that I don't consider it a reliable source for serious
academic work and try to discourage them from using it as a
reference.
16 January 02012: N = 1 Is Bad
Statistics, But Still...
I take a lot of shots at Christmas music in these parts, but the
music that's on the air today for Martin Luther King Jr. Day is
making "Sleigh Ride" with lyrics seem considerably less unpleasant
by comparison. One can only sit through "Pride (In the Name
of Love)" so many times before rebelling, and today that number,
for me, is 3.
One song, three times, one on-air shift. That's not the only
MLK-influenced or -augmented tune today, but it's where I hit my
breaking point. Time for some Pandora.
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The
opinions
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The
Markives for 02012
