April 2005 Archives I get knocked down...April 08, 2005 — It's not like I try to get hurt. It just seems that no matter how hard I try to stay safe, I still manage to get some type of wound, cut, scratch, scrape, burn, or bruise. At any given moment, it's more likely than not that there's a band-aid somewhere on my body. And you'll notice I did not use the expression "on my person." To me, that's about as bad as "moist" or "panty." This weekend I had the momentous occasion of falling off my bike and getting hurt. And when I say bike, I mean bicycle. Believe it or not, there had been some confusion about that. I was riding along the far right edge of the trail, which was an inch or two higher than the grass on the side. I got distracted for a second, the front tire went off the trail, and I lost my balance. So there I was lying on ground, slightly shocked, trying to assess my injuries. As I lay there, thinking about how much this sucked, two guys came to help me. Although they did not have any much-needed band-aids, one guy offered me his sweat rag to clean myself up. I, of course, said thanks but no thanks. It then occurred to me that I already had two band-aids on other fingers due to a recent mishap while cutting up some food for a party. This was less severe than my previous party injury where I burned a chunk of skin off my finger when it touched the oven's heating element. Anyway, I reused my existing band-aids to cover up my new wounds until I got home. I also wiped blood all over my John Mellencamp t-shirt. Man, it hurt so good. While I was initially disappointed and frustrated, I soon become somewhat proud of my injuries. I felt pretty tough. As I looked down at my blood-stained shirt, the blood dripping down my legs, and my scraped up hands and knee, I thought "Whoa. Cool." The next day at work I told everyone about what I did. It's funny what an injury will do to you. While I typically adhere to some level of professionalism in the office, I stood there with my pants rolled up, declaring "yo, check it out." While discussing this reaction, it became clear that it's not just kids that love to show off their injuries. Adults do too. Heather, certainly no stranger to injuries, said that she did the same thing when she got hurt. So in true spirit of being proud, I present this photo, which I took right when I got home, before I started cleaning it up.  April 10, 2005 — We saw The Kissers play in Madison for St Patrick's Day. Here are some pictures.
April 10, 2005 — A recent trip to San Diego with Mike and Aseem. Here are some pictures.
April 18, 2005 — As always, it was a fun and interesting carnival. The pictures have now been posted.
April 18, 2005 — If you haven't yet gotten arrested, you really should. The experience will change the way you look at things and wherever you go, whatever you do, you will think about it. Just look at Aseem. Talk to that kid for ten minutes and you'll have no doubt -- he got arrested. Beads. Bees? Although Arrested Development is one of the funniest shows on television, it is in serious danger of being cancelled. You can help save it by going to their website (Get Arrested), signing their petition and, of course, by watching the show (Sundays at 8:30/7:30c on Fox). The show's writing is witty, clever, and hysterically funny. The acting is suburb. Watch an episode and you'll laugh your ass off. Watch a few and you'll marvel over how masterfully jokes and themes are tightly woven across episodes. Now watch those episodes again and you'll pick up things you never saw before. It's definitely a show for smart people -- and that's probably why it's not doing so well. You won't imagine how funny jean cutoffs, driving a staircar, and sipping on juice boxes can be. Hey, brother. Watch a blind Julia Louis-Dreyfus get the book thrown at her, see Zach Braff host "Girls with Low Self Esteem" and come out as a never-nude, and see Liza Minelli suffer from vertigo and entice the Bluth boys. Her? Skip's scrambler, frozen banana stand, blue man group, secular love, motherboy, loose seal, he's not gonna make it... Oh, it's all just so funny. What are you waiting for? Get arrested! Where do I enter my username and password?April 20, 2005 — The following phrase is becoming more and more common in TV commercials: "Log on to our internet Web site at [website].com" The obvious annoyance is "internet Web site." While I suppose this language could be used to distinguish between an inTRAnet site and an inTERnet site, I'm pretty sure that's not what they are getting at. Either the commercial directors are clueless or they think their audience is. It's kind of like when Tom Ridge speaks about "students downloading their David Matthews MP3s." Let me demonstrate the redundancy of the "internet Website" by using a so-called "bricks-and-mortar" example: "visit us at our physical store on Main Street" or "call us on our public telephone number: 555-5555." The bigger annoyance to me, however, is this "log on" language that is becoming more and more popular. There was a time when the term "log on" either meant or at least had strong connotations of using some type of authentication means to get into a computer system. In other words, it meant entering your username and password. Google definitions agrees with me. It irritates me when all these sites that have no log on are telling me to log on to their sites. "Log on to cnn.com for the latest..." I do not need to log on to cnn.com. In can't log on to cnn.com. I can only "go to", "visit", or "navigate to." Heck, I'd even accept the semi-obnoxious "point my browser at" or even "launch." But not "log on." It's just not right. Geek Talk: Back to the FutureApril 24, 2005 — Computer programs are sometimes distributed as shareware, which generally means you can download a program, try it out for a certain period of time, and then pay for it if you like it. Since these programs usually expire, some people use the sneaky trick of setting their computer clock to a prior date so they can continue using the program. Apparently, shareware developers have caught onto this common trick and now account for this when checking if a program has expired. When I received the following error message after performing the date trick, I chuckled. I'm not quite sure why I chuckled, but it was probably a combination of having gotten caught and enjoying how the message was phrased. "The current system time is set to before the last time this program was run, which is impossible." Being the literary stickler than I am, I can't help but point out that the "impossible" language is rather silly. Since it actually happened, it is not possible for it to be impossible. The current system time was set to a time before the last time I used it. I think they meant to say, "which represents an invalid, illogical, and unrealistic scenario." But that's just me being a stickler. If I were them, I would have had some fun with it. Something like "gotcha!" would have been perfect. Or, if they were really clever, they could have done a whole "Back to the Future" thing where certain parts of the program start fading away. Because that's what happens when you mess with time.
April 25, 2005 — Let me start by saying that I cannot write or spell in any language other than my native tongue (Engrish). And if it weren't for the red and green squiggly lines in Microsoft Word, I probably wouldn't do too well in that either. So I'm certainly in no position to pick on others. But since I make the rules in Seth's World, I must confess that one of my favorite parts of the Chinese restaurant experience is looking for typos and funny phrases on the menu and in fortune cookie messages. After a very Seinfeld-esque Chinese restaurant experience with my parents last weekend, I decided it's time to post some of what I've encountered. Here are a few things that amused me while reviewing the take-out menus we had in the house:
Next are some funny fortune cookie messages. While they're usually just honest mistakes, I'm amazed they don't proofread something that will be mass produced.
April 27, 2005 — I've recently been accused of being negligent in posting pictures of work people. That's probably because I don't really like them. Well, that may be a hard sell considering I've sliced my finger, learned about cheese, and bought going away gifts at the arcade for these people. So, to quote Megan, "here's to work friends so good, they're just friends." And here's to cream puff pictures they're so good, an animated GIF is required. Here are pictures of the Madison party and Heather's going away festivities. We'll miss you, Heather! April 29, 2005 — Looking at the current Birthday Alerts, I see that Megan and Alex have the same birthday and so do John and Emily. I'm tempted to exclaim, "what are the chances?" But of course I know better. Like anyone else who has ever taken a statistics class, I am quite familiar with "The Birthday Problem." If you are not familiar with it, definitely check out that Web site and play with the simulation. Even if you don't like math, it's interesting just because it demonstrates that most people's instincts are contrary to the laws of probability. Here's the other thing about birthdays I'm really interested in. The Birthday Problem is based on the assumption that there is an even distribution of birthdays throughout the year. The question I have never been able to find an answer to is whether or not this is a valid assumption. This issue inevitably comes up in conversation every few months. While recently driving by Madison's Birthday Bar (The Nitty Gritty), someone made the comment that it's always crowded there with people celebrating birthdays! So I replied "well, 1/365 of people do celebrate their birthday today!" I got some strange looks, as if what I said was completely preposterous. I am willing to concede that the distribution may not be completely uniform, but it probably doesn't vary all that much either. There could be any number of mitigating factors such as people try to get pregnant during specific months or perhaps time of year could affect fertility. There's also those ridiculous theories that nine months after a big snow storm or blackout, there is a large jump in births. I'm pretty sure that one is bullshit. Doesn't the premise seem a bit strange? People can't go outside so they just stay in have lots of non-birth-controlled sex. These same people, when the weather is nice, spend all of their time outside and never get it on? Anyway, my point is that I'd really like to see some type of article or report that has scientific proof of whether there are seasonal trends in birthdays. I thought I was pretty good with Google but I haven't been able to find anything. Anyone want to take a look and post their findings? |
