They're Back.

Once in college I was attacked by ladybugs. Its more surprising and unpleasant than you'd imagine. Just now I was looking out the window and there on the other side, in the middle of the otherside, away from everything else on the other side... was a lady bug. Now I'm not saying this was a scout (although as soon as he saw me spot him he flew off); that they're looking to finish the job; and I'm not saying this is an indication of imminent ladybug invasion. Alls I'm sayin is stay alert, don't let them get the jump on you. They're more organized than you know.


Coccinellidae - Wikipedia

Self Medication

I've been on about this for years.  I even have my own treatment plan to offer as an alternative to doping up little Jimmy.  Its called "sit down and shut the hell up".  Don't tell him that he's got some disorder that keeps him from behaving and learning, or it'll just become his excuse for being a moron.  Not that I'm opposed to excuses for being a moron (mine's called alcohol) I just think kids should have to come up with their own, not get handed one on a silver platter.  I wanna see some creativity when someone asks why they're such a spaz.

New Scientist News - Prescribing of hyperactivity drugs is out of control

Its Not Paranoia If They're Really After You.

You know that compulsion you had when you were little when you mailed a letter? You just had to open the box again and make sure that the letter went down. No matter how hard you tried the worry consumed you and you just had to check. OK, maybe that was only me. And maybe I still do it. Shut-up. Its kinda like when I wonder "hmmm... are my keys in my pocket?" and although I can rationalize every reason in the world why they're in there, its just easier to check and put my mind at ease. Anyway, I just went downstairs and mailed my "Yes, I E-filed and yes, I want direct deposit" letter to the Federal Government. (don't even get me started on that) The mailbox was jammed so full of letters so that they wouldn't drop down. This would have blown my mind if I were still 8 making sure my letter to Santa was posted. Luckily there's another box immediately adjacent so I could mail my letter properly, I just can't imagine who would've put those last few letters in there and felt secure about their fate.

I'm Good Over Here, Thanks.

I have a healthy fear of heights. Its not irrational, just enough to keep me from plummeting to my doom. I'm pretty sure I'll never feel the urge to do this. Its a glass walkway that will extend 70 ft out over the Grand Canyon. Its going to be able to support 72,000,000 pounds of weight; but somehow as much as they try to reassure me, its not working. I stood on the clear floors of the sky tower and I didn't much like it. Mark my words - no good shall come of this.

Damn Interesting » The Grand Canyon Skyway

Update
Hmmm... 220 feet or 4,000 feet. Don't worry I'm not contemplating anything, see above re: fear of heights.

Superior Structure.

I knew there was a reason for my brilliance. Turns out it has to do with the thickness of somethingorother...

news @ nature.com suggest IQ scores reflect brain structure results reignite intelligence controversy.

You Just Leave That In The Parking Lot?

(Dee S. Nutts #2)
Apparently Bentlys are expensive. (like $208,650)

I Think It Was Red...

(Dee S. Nutts #3)
I'd say this looks like a viper

Cooking like gods.

Why has no one told me this exists? Imagine how much more delicious everything I make would be with super-butter. Tastier than a speeding bullet, more creamy than a locomotive, able to flavor tall buildings in a single bound.

Plugra butter

Watch Out Fer Them Books...

They's dangerous.

Official Tolerance

Ok, I'm not really sure what to make of this; whether we need to change some laws or ticket a crap-load of people. Anyway I was driving somewhere recently on a two lane closed-access road with a 45 mph speed limit. On the side of the road was one of those mobile light-up message boards. Not the kind in the picture that's shooting radar, the kind that usually tells you about upcoming construction and lane closures. The sign said, and I quote: "Speed kills" "Speed Limit 45 mph" "Please slow down" Odd, huh? I looked down and I was going 75. But so was everyone else. And we were all 10-15 feet away from each other, people merging and changing lanes to make room. No problems at all! No one tap-tap-tapping on the brake causing countless backups, no one in the right lane going 50 making a bottleneck of pissed off drivers. It was amazing. Now I have to assume this is a fairly common occurrence. After all, someone decided to put that sign there because they knew that people are always speeding there. It just seemed kinda sad; that sign was pleading everyone to slow down, and without conferring we unanimously decided to ignore him.

State Traffic and Speed Laws

I'll Trade You A Ball For A Liver.

You heard me.  Scientists in Germany have grown embryonic stem cells from samples of mouse testicles.  They're hopeful that the process will transfer to humans allowing for an "ethical" source of cells.  This might allow the manufacture of "tissue matched cells" for replacing organs or tissue.

“We can turn these into all kinds of tissue, from beating cardiac and vascular cells to neurons, skin cells and liver cells,”

Does this mean they could turn rocky mountain oysters into fillet?  I know the implications would probably be more world-changing than that but I think I'm still a little uncomfortable with the whole "collection" procedure.

New Scientist Breaking News - Mice testicles yield 'ethical' stem cells

Pipes

Does this seem a little excessive to you?

Grand Challenge Coverage Next Tuesday!

Oh baby! I knew something like this would come out. Seems like people would be pissed off if Super Bowl coverage was delayed like this. Its times like these I'm glad I can remotely program my tivo so I don't forget about things.

NOVA | The Great Robot Race | PBS

It’s a public-safety issue.

Since just before the 1,000th suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge, the media have been downplaying jumpers. Its good not to glamorize it and entice people into killing themselves, but we still need to hear about some things. Read this article when you have time. Its well written and is very interesting.

The New Yorker: Fact

I had a feeling...

Red light cameras and speed cameras don't reduce violations or accidents. Actually this study of the Winnipeg program found that the police just cooked the books to make photo ticketing appear successful. In fact collisions increased 58% at intersections with the devices. They also claimed that speeding violations were down because of mobile speed cameras, but actually they were just issuing less citations because of staffing trouble. Nice guys, where's your "its not about the money, its about public safety" argument now? And wow, check out these reports on other areas. How much more ammunition do we need before they start yanking these things?


Winnipeg, Canada Report Shows Accidents Increased with Cameras

Fast-play!

Sweet!  Disney must have realized that I get pissed off with all the mandatory previews and "don't steal movies" warnings.  (psst, I bought the movie, if I pirated it I would have cut out all your B.S. warnings to save space)  So what did they do?  They spent long hours in dark smokey rooms and finally came up with a "fast-play" concept.  Super!  Now you have the option to select "fast-play" or main menu when the dvd starts up.  Don't get your hopes up though, apparently this cute new technology is just "slow-as-balls-play" rebranded to make you think you're getting something better.  It took the tester 7 minutes 10 seconds to start playing the movie as opposed to 1 minute 20 seconds from the main menu.  I'm not saying this isn't good, to separate the play modes into "show me a bunch of crap" and "don't"  I'm just saying they got the buttons mixed up.  Oh, and if you're in a big damn hurry, cut to the scene selection screen.  That only takes 28 seconds to get to the wheat. Makes me kinda want to finally pop in that Lady and the Tramp dvd I bought a month ago.

The Robservatory » How to (not!) Fast Play a Disney DVD

Foreign News in 11.2 seconds.

I guess it depends on how fast you read, so that 11.2 is all up to you. Lets go:

* Nigerian census officials attacked with acid and machettes.
* Mexico says bird flu is NOT at the US border.
* U.N. Peacekeepers return to ivory coast after fleeing January riots.
* British rescue hostages in Iraq, spark retaliatory bombings.
* Students in France refuse to work, choke streets.
* Senior Anglican Bishop and Pope meet to talk about being gay.

Well the... the real humans won't uh... won't burn quite so fast in there, mw-hai.

So we had a fire drill last night. It wasn't scheduled or anything, just loud and rude. I went driving around to get some coffee or something (all the places has just closed) instead of standing around in the cold. After a few minutes firetrucks began to race through downtown and I got a call from someone who lives a few floors up. She said there was smoke coming from the building. Before that I pretty much assumed that the building wasn't on fire, in my experience they hardly ever are. I thought "Well crap, I should have brought my TV with me." I then continued to consider the repercussions of my apartment being incinerated. "Dammit, I'll have to buy all those dvds again." All this is internal monologue so I guess it went by pretty quickly and you don't really pick what comes next. "And I just bought a new bottle of bodywash." Apparently those are my priorities: TV, dvd's and bodywash. Who would have thought? Over all I'm kinda perplexed at how calm I was at the prospect of losing my stuff. My main emotion was "huh, that would suck" Word in the building is that it was some po-theads who got a little liberal with the incense. So it turns out there wasn't really a fire, and I don't have to start rebuying all my dvds. Whew.

'Well, one of the gypsies took it.'

This is kinda cool looking.  Gypsy is Veedub's concept of a complete in-dash computer.  Various menus for music, email, phone, and (i assume) directions.  I'd like to see a little more voice integration though and it might be a really good idea to limit options based on the speed and position of the car.

[video] A dashboard that is really a PC | CNET News.com

WooHoo!

My Growler came!!! Hmmm... two liters seems like a lot more beer before I consume it. Maybe I should get a green one too.

Homebrew.com: Wide Mouth Growler - Amber - 2 Liter

Die Lotosblume Angstigt

Looks like Dee S Nutts #2 had a good day yesterday as well. I like the orange better.
Lotus side view.

Fresh Cayman Anyone?

Guess what I saw yesterday. Its wasn't a small alligator. After much deliberation I've decided that I could live with the haunches at the rear wheels on this car. I was also worried that it was just the same back end as the boxter (weak) but I think its different enough not to aggravate me.

Come on, Mexico City!

Check this noise out.  Live flight tracking.  That's cool.  Now click the link to load up the data in Google Earth.  This picture is a Southwest flight from Jacksonville to BWI that's in the air right now. Little bit more effort and we've got an online version of Kramer's "betting on the arrivals and departures" game. It updates once a minute, so its not real-time. But its pretty good.

Aeroseek: Real-Time Flight Tracking

Update
Whoa baby! Its a real barn burner between USA2163 and CHQ3038 into National. Looks like the little airbus has the win locked up though, you hardly ever see a sudden overtake at the finish.

Update
Check out these guys. The ones on the right are competing American and US air flights to National out of Dallas Ft Worth. Oh, man! You can't see but UAS1642 just took a 90 degree turn straight at DC! AAL1330 is hurting to catch up, but he made the exact same turn and is lowering altitude. He's still going 25 knots faster than the leader... Oh man. Its a nail biter.

Update
Disaster for all you American Airlines fans out there. The Us Air flight threw a zig towards Virginia and then pulled a hard bank to head due north into the landing grid. The pursuer bit hard on the fake and took a full six and a half miles to rectify. Nice moves 1642, well won victory.

I never learned how to use chapstick.

So I had a couple ultimate games over the weekend and it was windy as a mo-fo out there. As a result I ended up with windburned lips; which basically exhibits itself as chapped lips, it just takes longer. Normally my course of action and home remedy for chapped lips is... nothing. It goes away when its ready. But today in the grocery I saw this three pack of Blistex and decided to give it a go. There are three flavors: "uplifting", "renewing" and "relaxing." Now I'm pretty sure each one of these should taste like an imperial pint of Guinness, but I doubt that any of them will. Just goes to show this kinda thing is marketed for people that know how to use it. I've realized that it might take a bit of finesse to apply this stuff correctly. I mostly end up with something that tastes like starburst smeared on me, which I quickly consume. But honestly, that's not my fault. If they'd been trying to sell this to me my whole life, I might have learned how to use it. You see the vicious cycle?

Spa Effects

Yeah, I never read 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' either.

Or 'Of Mice and Men.'  Or 'The Scarlet Letter.'  Or 'Jurassic Park.'  Or the 'Malleus Maleficarum.'  What?  I got the jist of them all.  That's what books are for, right?

Seems like this movie is taking forever.  I mean come ON!  How am I sposed to pretend that I read the book and get caught on an obvious inconsistency during a heated debate?

Bits of News - New 'Da Vinci Code' Trailer Online

Open the Vault!

I did always kinda want a piece of Scarlett...  Ahem.  Anyway, Hasbro is hosting a bunch of old cartoons.  You know back when they didn't suck.  Ok, fine they sucked.  But its a different kind of sucking.  You can tell the difference right?

action - video

But you can't ride it

Ok, file this under waste of space.  A bunch of 8th graders in California have taken up their entire gym with a 1/4 scale roller coaster.

"Twenty-four feet tall at its highest point and occupying 10,000 square feet, the fully-functional ride towers over the 135 eighth-graders who are its designers, builders and decorators."

Decorators?  What, is that for the kids who aren't good at anything?  'Well Billy, I don't trust you with a saw and you're too stupid to design anything, so you can just put stickers on what the other students made.'   What does "fully functional" mean?  It looks like plywood strapped to scaffolding; do you even have a passenger restraint system?  And what're you guys gonna do with it now?  Sell tickets to 1/4 scale people with death wishes?  Is someone going to take this thing home like the class hamster at the end of the year? Why don't you go build a deck instead of wasting space, money and time?  Take that crap down and use your gym for running around.  Retards.

Update
Wow, that site with the original picure got dugg hard. He must've had some pretty tight upload restrictions. Here's the digg link and a page with the roller coaster photo gallery.

Misplaced Glory.

Calvin is my role model.

Ping!

Who wants to bring back 'pocket spittoons'? I know we don't really have a rampant consumption problem anymore, but I think it'd be pretty funny if everyone walked around with a jar of their own phlem. Although trends based on self-deprication could be trouble to get off the ground. I'd say we should start a chewing fad, but that's just disgusting and selfish. Giving people