Equalibrium

I'm impatient.

Damn, that took too long to type.


I'm not as funny as you think I am.

Here's a brief, real example of what I mean.

The other day, I was bringing the trash to the curb for pick up when I noticed something small moving slowly in the road. It moved in a weird way, almost like the wind was doing most of the work. I set the recycleables down and walked into the road to see what it was. It was a little squirrel. It appeared to have been involved in an automobile accident. Fortunately, it was only stunned--it's legs, back and head were all fine--it was only still a little scared. It looked like a young squirrel based on it's size and the roundness of it's face, but I really couldn't tell. I lifted my leg up enough to feel the stretch in my pants. Saddly, I admit, it was actually a little bit tough on my muscles, and it helped me realize I am a little out of shape and unflexible. I waited a moment with my leg in the air like some sort of yoga master. The sun made my shadow look long and funny. Then, suddenly, I dropped my foot, and my leg followed. Smash! The squirrel's head was crushed. I picked it up and drank it's blood, celebrating my victory over nature.

No! I'm just kidding, I didn't drink it's blood, that would be gross.


The point is, I'm only funny sometimes, and sometimes I'm not funny. When I'm not funny, I'm here. I probably won't update much, but I'll try real hard.

You might wonder how I can find the time to jibber-jabber all over these blogs, and I wonder how you have time to read them. Mostly, I don't do much at work, and my friends avoid me with clever excuses. If I really spent time with them, why would I need a blog to tell them what I'm always doing sometimes? They'd be there watching me do whatever it is that I always do sometimes!

There is a guy who makes marbles. He starts with some glass (which I guess is just sand) and melts it in a real hot oven of some type. He rolls the glass around, letting gravity shape the glass into a ball. He heats other colored glasses into long rolls, like logs. He scores the logs and breaks then. He heats the pieces up and layers them onto the glass ball. Then he heats the whole thing up again, rolling it around to let gravity make the shape into a ball. Then he adds more colors, sometime logs of colored glass, sometimes fragments or slivers. Then he heats it up again and rolls. The process repeats any number of times until he's satisfied with what he's made. He said that no two marbles are the same, with all the layers and rolling and heating.



I keep one of those marbles for a brain. That's why I'm so dumb.

Huh?

I noticed on my visitor tracker that a lot of recent visits came from people searching for koala swimwear, as I recently named a post after that. If you've never seen a koala swimsuit, I suggest you check it out. Do an image search on Google and make sure the safe search is off. Try searching at work, or church, or when little children are nearby and paying 100% attention to what's on the computer screen. Better yet, check it out with your mom in the room.

SCRATCH THAT! Don't do any of that stuff! If you really must see a koala swimsuit, do it when no one is around, unless you want to get fired or arrested or slapped.

That brings up something that I always wonder about sometimes: How many inside jokes do I use on this blog that only a small handful of you readers actually know? I would guess almost every post has some joke in it that only one or two of the readers he actually understand. (Right, Sniffy?)

Or for that matter, how many of you actually even care? And why would I even think that any of you would want to read about me? Seriously, I suck. I'm only mildly handsome. I can't break a 4 minute mile. I can't quite benchpress 450 lbs. I can't even hit the high F in Minnie Riperton's Loving You. I don't do anything remotely important.

With YouTube: Broadcast Yourself ^TM, MySpace, me.com, and Windows Live Space, everybody in the world today thinks they are special and better than average. They also think that everyone else actually cares about what they think and have to say. Fooey!

You should stop reading this right now and go outside. One day you're going to die, but right before that happens, you'll think, "Sheesh, I wish I went outside instead of thinking I cared about what Mike was always doing sometimes. I am such a numbnuts."

Actually, don't stop reading just yet. Check out this guy first. He actually is doing something important and he actually is better than average. Plus, I think he can hit that high F.

Letters are in words, (and bitches in my hot tub!!)

So, we all know there are letters in words. Like the © in £ubb3® or the @ in §naffeckg.

But what about letters that sound like words. For example, if you say the letters MT it sounds like the word empty.

I can think of few, but I wonder how many we can come up with. Let's say that the words should be more or less regular words that you use everyday like higgagobbaboo! A few are a bit of a stretch, but I included them anyway because I can.

1 letter:
B = bee
C = sea, see
G = gee
I = eye
J = jay
P = pea
R = are
T = tea
U = you
Y = why

2 letters:
SA = essay
MT = empty
IV = ivy
EZ = easy
TP = tepee
BD = beady
OK = okay
ED = erectile disfunction
DK = decay
KG = cagey
NE = any
IC = icy
NV = envy
CD = seedy


3 or more letters:
NME = enemy
DVS = devious
SKP = escapee
TDS = tedious (a bit of a stretch)
XLNC = excellency


If we include numbers too, we can make even more words like B4 (before) and 4D (forty).

Give it a try.

Marshall Brain

I'm sure you've heard of How Stuff Works. If not, you should check it out.

Anyway, the guy who started HowStuffWorks.com as a hobby back in 1998 is actually really named Marshall Brain. Weird huh? What's more, he's the kind of nut who thinks that by 2055 robots will have forced 50% of the US population into unemployment. It's always easy for the rich to be philanthropists and even easier for them to suggest you do the same.

But, while his ideas may seem a little out their, he's a smart guy and backs up all his ideas with statistical data, trended information and well thought out postulates.

Give it a read and then get out of the unskilled labor field.

Robotic Nation

Dog turd

Immeasurable and unknown are the requests to cease the obtainment of knowledge strictly for the purpose of displaying loosely a marginal grasp of concept and understanding. My desires lie wholly and unequivocally on emotional insistence of which my energies be spent with pen to paper such that my lips might grace your ears, and perhaps most importantly, your imaginations, with accounts of wonder, amazement and perils unidentified to us in our ordinary lives. Solemnly, I yearn the capability to prohibit the prerequisite of fiscal responsibility. How I long for the days in-between then and now to move in haste. This is the end I arduously engage in. I pledge this to you.

Real Riddles

Riddle is a vague term.

Sometimes, when someone says riddle, they mean joke. Like, "Why did the chicken cross the road?...To get to the other side!...Ha ha ha!"

Sometimes riddles are puzzles, like the things The Riddler from Batman does.

I'm not sure what riddles really are, but for the purpose of this post, "Real Riddles" have the following qualities:

1. They pose a question, or other such device, that elicits a solution.
2. The solution is not ambigous, usually it's unique, and once discovered, the solution is clearly correct without the need for further verification (99.9% of the time.)
3. A real riddle can be solved with only the information provided in riddle.
4. A real riddle is not a trick question.

Here's a Real Riddle:

Your lost in a forest, and walking along a path when you come across a fork in the road. Somehow you know that one way leads to a certain, painful death and the other way leads to safety and your way home. Once you head down one path, there is no turning back. How will you ever choose a path that will lead to safety? Luckily for you, there are two guides at the fork to help you. But, they will not be as helpful as you'd like.

Here's how they will help:
-You may ask them one question, and only one question.
-Only one of the two will answer you.
One of the guides will deliberately lie to you.
One of the guides will deliberately be honest to you.
-Unfortunately, you have no idea which guide is which, so you may get an answer from the liar or you may get an answer from the honest guide.
-It's perfectly exceptable for the answer to be, "I have no idea what you are asking me." Therefore, your question to them must be simple enough to be easily understood.

What one question can you ask that will point you in the correct direction?

I may have asked this of some of you in the past. If not, try to figure it out. You might start by thinking, "What kind of question do I ask to determine if the guide answering me is honest or a liar?" But step back an think about it, do you really need to know which guide is honest and which guide is a liar to know which path leads to safety? Okay, enough hints. I'll post an answer in the comments to this post.

So, where have I found some real riddles?

At Brent R. Reeves Real Riddle site.

For the most part, the riddles here are in line with the conditions for real riddles that I outlined above. The best part is, he doesn't provide answers!

Next time you need a challenge, or need to feel stupid, try one out.

Good luck.

Darth Vader's Emotions

I stumbled upon this site a few weeks ago. Basically, a guy from Canada, (I think), wanted to generate more traffic to his website during the weeks leading up to the release of Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. He created a blog in the form of a diary of Darth Vader, in the time frame of the original trilogy.

There are two initial reactions one might have:
1) Star Wars fans will consider this degrading to the character of Darth Vader.
2) Non-fans will just find it stupid.

But the opposite is actually true. This guy is a terrific writer and he gets into the head of Vader without weakening his character or making him appear "cheesy." The diary adds to the story somewhat in that it deals with the complex emotions Darth Vader might be experiencing due to the new knowledge of his son, and his son's blind faith in the good that may or may not still exist in a man once called Anakin Skywalker. Even if you're not really a fan, it's hard to not appreciate the style of the author and his ability to share emotions so well from a character who seems emotionless.

I suggest starting at the beginning, reading the HTML or PDF version choronologically. The blog ran from April 11, 2005 to May 18, 2005, and was updated more or less daily.

It has inspired me to start working on a project I had conceived a few months ago. Maybe by mid-summer, I can begin sharing that with you. (It's not musical.)

A Star Wars note: In a month or two, Star Wars will die down a little and I promise I won't talk about it too much anymore.

COMING TOMORROW: My new guitar arrived today, but, because of a busy schedule today, I won't be able to play until later tonight.