Southernisms Volume 2: Duct Tape on My Car

I now feel like a complete Southerner. Yesterday, I unfortunately realized the hard way that my sunroof in my 1996 Geo Prizm was leaking. I have now joined the legions of Southerners that I have seen in Nashville that chose to fix a problem on their car with duct tape. I got the finest black duct tape Pep Boys had (to match the black paint on the car) and taped the sunroof shut. Hasn't leaked today, but then again, it hasn't rained. Also doesn't look that bad as the black matches the black of the car.

However, I'm looking forward to getting it fixed.

Not Much Mexican Cuisine in Memphis

From the Associated Press:

In an unusual case of mistaken identity, a woman who thought a block of white cheese was cocaine is charged with trying to hire a hit man to rob and kill four men. The woman also was mistaken about the hit man. He turned out to be an undercover police officer.

Jessica Sandy Booth, 18, was arrested over the weekend and remains in jail with bond set at $1 million on four charges of attempted murder and four counts of soliciting a murder.

According to police, Booth was in the Memphis home of the four intended victims last week when she mistook a block of queso fresco cheese for cocaine — inspiring the idea to hire someone to break into the home, take the drugs, and kill the men.

An informant described the plot to police, who arranged a meeting between Booth and the undercover officer.

The undercover officer gave Booth some nonfunctioning handguns, bought ammunition for her because she was too young, and the two proceeded to the home under police surveillance.

Booth told the officer that any children inside the house old enough to testify would have to be killed, police said.

A search of the home with the permission of the occupants revealed no drugs — only the white, crumbly cheese common in Mexican cuisine.

"Four men were going to lose their lives over some cheese," said Lt. Jeff Clark, who heads Project Safe Neighborhoods.

"Hip Hop Yoda"

On the DVD for Star Wars Ep 3, insert disc 1. Select the OPTIONS link. Then press:

"11" and enter (no quotes)
"3" and enter
"8" and enter

Funny stuff!

Heat Pump

In my house I have a heat pump air conditioning/heating system. It's a pretty cool thing, it extracts heat from the outside air and transfers it inside. There is always heat in the air, even when it is about 30 F outside. Air stops having heat at absolute zero, so there is actually a lot of heat to extract at normal earthen temperatures.

Anyway, I was just looking up stuff about how they work online tonight and I thought I'd share it with you. My heat pump is made by Trane. Their motto is "You can't stop a Trane"

The Tennessee 3 at a bookstore

One of the perks of living in Nashville is being able to see historic musicians in odd places. Such was the case last week, when we went to a booksigning at a local bookstore and Johnny Cash's backup band just set up in the store and played through some of their greatest songs.

Pretty cool.

However, it was not without its oddities... there was some sort of music exec-leech guy running the whole thing who was very annoying. He thought it was prudent to offer stuff for giveaway. Stuff such as shirts given to him by Johnny Cash that Johnny didn't want. (They were pretty ugly). Basically, something that should have been really cool was turned into a kind of circus event by a smarmy music exec dropping names to validate his position in the world.

Anyway, the music was good.

Filesharing

http://www.thefactz.org/economics/phd/innovation/misc/p2p_summary.xml

This is a good article about the effects of filesharing on the music industry. Interesting that the bottom 3/4 of artists (based on sales) sell MORE when their songs are shared. The top 1/4 sell less.

Filesharing is a great grassroots way to get your stuff out there...

A Nice Poker Experience

Ever wanted to stick it to someone who was acting like a turd? I finally was able to this weekend at a poker tournament at my graduate school Cancer Biology Retreat.

There was a poker tournament with a $5 buy-in that was a donation for Gilda's Club Nashville. We got a dealer, a 6th year grad student who was a bit over-zealous for the rules. Given that we had people at the table who had never played poker before, everyone felt that we needed a relaxed atmosphere. This guy would have none of that. Needless to say, it wasn't very fun. So I decided that at the first opportunity I would bet all of my chips, hoping to lose so I could get up and go do something else. Anything else.

The dealer was also playing, and his strategy was to fold on every hand, so he could keep all of his chips until most of the other players had lost all of theirs. However, after about 10 to 15 hands of folding, he decides to bet a huge stack of blue chips (the highest demonination). Even a grad student could see the guy was bluffing, so I called his bluff. I figured either way I would win.. if I win, he's out of the game cause he's betting all his chips, if I lose, I'm out of the game and I could do something else.

I bankrupted him and won.

He was a bit of a sore loser, and started yelling at me saying "you have no idea what you're doing! No one should bet that much on what you have!!" (I had ace high).

I reminded him that whatever I had, it was better than what he had and that he could go ahead and deal the next hand.

Felt good.

The guy proceeded to get wasted on Bud Lite (there was a keg of Newcastle Nut Brown Ale, but I guess he likes his Bud Lite) and hit on a girl who had some sort of fetish with wrestling, since that seemed to be her major topic of conversation. I heard him ask her "Name your 5 favorite Zeppelin songs... NOW!" What decade are we in? I felt like I was living in a bad 70s movie. Unfortunately, she answered.

I wonder if they hooked up. If they did, I bet it was in the back seat of his Camaro.

Why are all waffles Belgian?

Why are all the cheap waffle makers Belgian style? I don't want a waffle with the big squares (picture on the right). I want a waffle that is round and has little squares, like an Eggo (picture on the left). I can get a Belgian waffle maker (big squares) for $9.99 just about anywhere. Where are the other waffle makers? Do you see any? No. They are all more expensive and harder to find. At least $30. Not like it's that expensive, but it just makes me wonder if the cost of downsizing the squares is really that much. Maybe they charge by the square. Logically then, Belgian waffles probably have 1/3 the number of squares as the round waffle maker.

Waffles. I think Homer Simpson eats his wrapped around a stick of butter with a side of liquid smoke. (http://www.recipezaar.com/8792)

Updat on the Free iPod from Charles Schwab

Well, it looks like the free iPod shuffle post I had up a few weeks ago is legit! UPS tried in vain to deliver a package from "Charles Schwab" to my house last night. While I haven't gotten the package yet, at least they tried to send it.

In other news, I downloaded the Doom 3 demo the other day. So intense! I haven't played a game that intense sine Resident Evil:Code Veronica on the Dreamcast.

The Difference between Men's and Women's Bikes

I have always wondered why the difference between men's and women's bikes. Why do women get a lower bar then men? Well, today I think I figured it out. It is so women can wear a skirt and bike at the same time. On a man's bike, with the higher bar between the seat and handlebars this would be hard as the skirt would get caught on it, but with a lower bar, it is possible for the skirt to flow freely.

That is my revelation for today.

Posthumously Baptize any Jews Lately?

As you, my loyal 3 readers, know I am in Salt Lake City right now for the American Society of Human Genetics meeting. We had a few hours to look around the city today and I wandered around, eventually coming across Temple Square. I went on the tour, conducted by two very nice women from the Phillipines. In fact for some reason all the tour guides were female. I'm fairly sure this was not by chance, as all of the travelling missionary Mormons are male, something I never really thought of until today.

They presented a very nice picture of the Mormon faith, including a 10 minute movie of Jesus healing some Native Americans in 34 AD (when they believe Jesus visited the North American continent to set up a church). Jesus was very white looking. All-in-all the tour was nice. There was actually a very pretty room painted with planets and stars with a statue of Jesus in the middle. The art was very not accurate (apparently earth is right next to something resembling saturn), but it was cool to look at.

By the end all of this niceness got to me and I bacame very angry at their practice of posthumous baptisms of non-Mormons. I did not know who to ask about this as everyone I went up to greeted me with a smile that was kind of eerie. There are even articles in the local Salt Lake City papers of this practice, going as far to say that Jews had been baptized in the same group as Adolf Hitler. Apparently the Mormon church said they had stopped doing this, but the article said diferently. I am not sure who was right and I wish that I had found the right person to talk to about this.

If I am wrong about this, and someone is in the know, please post here and tell me. I am going to try my best to find out if this practice is real. If it is, it stands against everything my fellow Jews have fought for to get to where we are as a people today. While I am not a "Super Jew", I still very strongly believe that a person's faith and relationship with God is their own business and other humans should not be involved with it unless the person is willing (informed consent anyone?). If a person died a Jew, they obviously wanted to be a Jew and worship God as a Jew. Not have someone yank their spirituality away from them after passing on.

I highly doubt that the Mormons would like it if another faith did something involving their spirituality after they could say nothing about it.

Anyway, thanks for the ranting time. I guess that's what these blogs are for... ranting and writing stuff down so you have an account of it. It's a great idea.

Greetings from the Great Salt Lake

Well, I'm here in Salt Lake City for he annual American Soceity of Human Genetics conference. It is a beautiful place, however I guess due to jet lag I can't really sleep right now.

The trip started off crappy cause I lost my CD wallet with a bunch of movies and music in it on the flight. If anyone finds a grey CD wallet with some Buffy and Angel DVDs they're mine!

SLC is nesteled in a valley with mountains all around. The Great Salt Lake is both gigantic and salty. I can tell its gigantic because from the plane, well, it was big. I can tell it's salty becuase there were deposits of salt all over the land on the sides of the freeway. Pretty cool.

Iget to stay in a Hilton. Pretty nice, and there's a cool clock that I can plug my cd player into, so I can hear my own music in the room. Nice touch Hilton. I was also pleasantly surprised there are no pictures of Paris Hilton anywhere in the establishment. Probably the only place on earth where you can avoid that person is in Hilton hotels. How ironic, and not Alanis Morrisette style ironic. Actual irony here at the Hilton hotels!

Anyway, I'm going to try to get back to sleep.

Cheerio-

Yaspan's Music Reviews - Coldplay (X&Y)

This finally came in from the library (Nashville has a GREAT public library, you can check out almost any CD out there. They have about 14,000 or something like that, all requestable over the web). The little bits of Coldplay I've heard are not really my cup of tea, but Coldplay is getting so much press I figured I'd check it out. Plus every time I look at a music player in a promo shot (like an mp3 player) it's playing Coldplay for some reason (see pics). Or looking at them together, it might just be that Coldplay has some sort of deal with XM Satellite Radio. Anyway, I just wondered why they were always playing this band.

Anyway, on to the (very) short review. It's a very dreamy, relaxing sound they have going on X & Y. I haven't heard any other of their albums so I can't compare, but this one sounds like a cross between Vangelis (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner movie scores) and U2. I read that the singer and Gwynneth named their kid Apple. If they had twins, would the other one be named Jack? Sauce? Pie? Orange? I'd vote for Rhubarb myself. That's a cool name. A friend of mine told me he wanted to name his kid Cilantro. Cilantro Pandey. That's a damn cool name.

Marios a plenty!

Luckily for you I photoshopped out the naked Mario. Gotta keep the blog suitable for the youth.

Southernisms #1 - Noodling

Ever stuck your hand in goo and then shoved it into a cave tryig to get a fish to bite it? Well, me neither. From the Wikipedia site on Noodling -

"To begin, a noodler goes underwater to depths ranging from only a few feet to up to twenty feet. Placing his hand inside a discovered catfish hole, a noodler uses his arm as bait to entice the fish. If all goes as planned, the catfish will swim forward and latch onto the fisherman's hand and arm."

Free iPod shuffle

https://promo.schwabon.com/AD046/AD046Home.asp?campaign=ccip05&mp=ccip05g4x1

You can sign up for this credit card and make one purchase and you'll get a free iPod shuffle...

UFO Sightings Near You

The power of burred vision and Google maps are now one! Check to see if there was a UFO sighting near you. Surprisingly, there was only one sighting last month in New Mexico...

http://www.ufomaps.com/

What is this?

What is this? I got it in the package for an ebay auction. It is obviously patriotic, but what is the blue blob? The little blobs sticking out of the edges sort of look like states, but the one that might be Florida resembles an appendix more than anything else. Any and all suggestions as to just what the blue blob is would be greatly appreciated!

Some ones that come to mind:
1) Southeastern USA
2) Rorschach ink blot
3) Ketchup dripped on a flag and then photoshopped to be blue
4) Malformed body appendages

Yaspan's Movie Reviews - The Fly 2!

The Fly 2! I watched this movie today with Eric Stoltz as the genetically afflicted insect-man-boy and Daphne Zuniga (from Spaceballs) as his love interest. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad until the trite ending. However it did have its share of cool bad-horror-movie staples... the woman alone in the lab with the thing, lots of screaming, an evil corporation, and some obligatory gross fly vomit scenes. Best was the guy who gets his fingers ripped off and then shows it to the camera, screaming. Pretty cool though. There were about 10 screenwriters, but one of them was Frank Darabont, who later went on to do The Shawshank Redemption.

Of course it's going to be compared to the 1986 remake of The Fly starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, and in terms of the prior movie, this one isn't too good. Not too good at all. But if you are hankering to watch a movie with fly vomit, you really don't have much of a choice now do you?

Now that I've figured out how to add images from the web...

Here's a fun one...

So if we start breeding pirates, the temperatures will go down. Also, parrots will have something useful to do with their lives.

Well, I'm sick

Yay, I'm sick. What a yukky feeling. However, I get to watch bad movies like Human Nature, about feral man-beasts and women with too much body hair that can sing (http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=60022936&trkid=189530). It was a "Netflix Recommendation" and since I never tried one, I thought I might as well give it a try. They rhymed something with "follicles". That's all I'll really say.

There are other advantages to being sick. One is that if someone is mean to you, you can threaten to cough on them. I never do it, but it's fun in my head to play out the scenario.

Me: Stop being mean or I'll cough on you with my GERMS
Howard Hughes: AARRGGHH!!! Where's the Kleenex boxes?

Where does the time go?

Well, I know where it goes.. I check email, check my yahoo! check cnn.com.... too much checking. I hereby vow to stop doing that and do some stuff that shall be deemed "important" by myself and a panel of 5 celebrities. (Celebrities to be named later)

Hot Hot Heat

It's hot here. Bloody hot. How did it get this way? Are we THAT much closer to the sun now then a couple weeks ago? It had to be about 100 today. Anyway, it made for a hot day. I conquered the elements though by making iced cream. It had chocolate in it, and it was really really tasty.

I was also fortunate to watch some of the Live 8 concerts yesterday. I thought it was pretty sweet to watch full motion video and CD quality sound over the internet. I think it wil be remembered as the first big event to be broacast over the internet. Too bad it didn't work so well sometimes (lots of stalling and pauses.)

OK, nowit's time for dinner. Laters.

B

One more thing I am sick of

If I have to look at one more ad to "Watch the Paris Hilton Commercial" I will go insane.

I am also sick of Sony. Their Sonic Stage software is the biggest hunk of crap that I have ever dealt with. Even the junk I wrote in Basic on my C64 worked better than this. Their tech support was useless and his only recommendation was to uninstall everything and then reinstall it so that their software would recognize their minidisc hardware. I finally got it to work though. Gheesh.

Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble

This is Groda. The mascot of Kandoo wipes. He Kandoo it!

Feralicity

Today we found a little kitten in our alley. He was a little orange cat and we gave him some food and water. He was a feral cat, so we named him Feralicity. He had a very distended belly, so we took him to the vet. The vet said he had a disease called FIA or something like that, and his belly was filled with fluid. The vet said the best thing to do would be to put him to sleep. Goodnight Feralicity.

Batman again

Saw Batman tonight. What a good movie. Had a twist that I didn't see coming, and it made the Batman myth seem very real. Odd for a comic book movie, but anyway. It had a lot to do with fear and how to be in control of it. Scarecrow was a perfect villan for it. Fear is a powerful weapon and I think whoever controls the fear in any situation has a huge advantage.

Also of odd note, a friends house got broken into tonihght. It's a bit freaky because it's in our neighborhood and all. Nothing was stolen, just stuff moved around a bit. The bad guys usually have the fear, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Some good in the world, or infinite evil

Well, Michael Jackson is innocent as of 4:20 pm CDT. This is important on several levels. On a societal note, it will be interesting to see what people think. The cynical and the "too cool to like Michael Jackson" will probably think that it was another example of the rich squashing the poor like a small, insignificant bug. The fans will think that justice has been done. I'm not sure yet, I think we'l have to see what happens in the future as the events play out, but I think at the very least we'll have an interesting album to listen to in a years time or so (if he gets back into the recording studio --- with Quincy Jones)

Another theory of mine is that Michael Jackson's career started going downhill as soon as he stopped working with Quincy Jones. Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad.. all with QJ and in my opinion all great pop albums. Whatever the others were called, they weren't with QJ and they pretty much sucked.

I guess now that I've written this, I should explain the title...

Good - an innocent man doesn't have to go to jail (and be eaten alive in the process)
Evil - a guilty man with $$ bought his freedom as many other rich people in this country tend to do

Chicken Burrito Recipe

Here's a good easy chicken burrito(e) recipe:

Get some boneless skinless breasts and cut up into bite sized pieces. The size of the pieces would probably depend on how big your bite size is. Then place the pieces of chicken in the pan, and cover with 1/2 salsa and 1/2 water. Boil away the water until you have chicken in a nice sauce. Voila! Chicken filling for burrito.

You can also make beans, sauteed onions and peppers, etc..

I will go eat this now

Well Im back

Hi again, it's me. I totally forgot that I had ever done this! Anyway, I'll try to make it more of a habit. Passed my quals after some dismay and now I'm waiting to take my phase 2 exams. Not feeling so well today, so I think I'll sit at home and watch movies.

I guess I don'thave as much to say now as I thought I did. I will write more though