| Word games | May 22, 2007 |
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Besides my love of all things math, the thing that most makes me a dork is my interest in word games. I thoroughly believe the myth that says crossword puzzles help prevent Alzheimer's*. Whenever I travel, I spend all my downtime playing crossword puzzles because they're freely and readily available in newspapers and airline magazines. USA Today even has them online. My newest word game interest is Super Text Twist (direct link - click link, click mouse in address bar, press enter), which asks you to come up with as many different 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-letter words as possible, given a set of 6 letters. I'm not usually the kind of person who plays "learning" games in the first place, so I don't quite understand this fad. Either way, I'm so not getting Alzheimer's. *While trying to think of this word, I had to stop everything and stare blankly into space. This is bad. #entertainment |
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| Big bills | May 22, 2007 |
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In February of 2007, 1300 residents of Weatherford, Texas received electric bills saying they owed billions of dollars. In April of 2006, a Malaysian man received a $218 trillion phone bill after he canceled his deceased father's phone line. #money |
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| Bike to work (1) | May 22, 2007 |
I'm thinking about riding a bike to and from work instead of driving. I can think of at least 7 reasons why this would be a good idea:
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| Eyesight (1) | May 22, 2007 |
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I have frighteningly poor eyesight. I'm nearsighted, meaning I can't see things that are far away. I have no trouble reading or staring at a computer screen all day, I just can't see words on street signs and the faces of people down the hall. I often wonder if I continually make enemies with people I work with because I can't recognize their faces. When I look down the mile-long hallway at work (seriously, my building is phenomenally long and straight), I sometimes see people in the middle or at the other end. Or at least I think they're people. They're basically just people-shaped blobs with no colors or distinguishing features. When I see people that far away, I usually look down or look away so I won't feel obligated to attempt to identify them. To a person halfway down the hall, that could definitely look like a "hey I know you but I don't want to acknowledge your existence" kind of look. If I get beat up one day on the playground after work, I'll know why. I used to cheat on eyesight tests in high school. I knew I had horrible vision, but I wasn't willing to acknowledge the fact that I needed glasses. I functioned perfectly fine without them (minus the road signs and distant facial recognition thing) in most areas of life, so there was really no need to carry around a fragile, expensive object that would either make me look smart or gain me nicknames (I'd lean towards the latter). So whenever I got my vision checked, I would wait until the test administrator (usually the nurse) turned to look at the chart, and I would remove the eye cover and look at the chart with both eyes (my left eye is pretty much useless). This got me through at least 2 or 3 years of regular physicals. Sometime in college, I finally admitted that glasses might help. I couldn't see road signs when I was driving at night, so I would get hopelessly lost and be late to things. I couldn't see the chalkboard in class, but thankfully this didn't affect me since no learning takes place in a college classroom. I got my eyes checked and got glasses, and now I can see. The only problem is that I leave them in the car so I can use them while driving at night, so all other times when glasses might be useful happen without eyesight. This is especially bad when two good eyes are a requirement, such as 3D or IMAX movies. #health |
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| WikiClock | May 21, 2007 |
| WikiClock is like any wiki site: It's user-edited. "Please update this page with the correct current time UTC." Funny in a stupid way. (via Cynical-C) #technology | |
| Scotch-Brite Delicate | May 19, 2007 |
| I used to use the traditional green and yellow Scotch-Brite Heavy Duty Scrub Sponge, right up until I was alerted to the fact that it destroys pots and pans. It's really good at cleaning off hard-to-clean objects, but it's essentially sand paper, so it gradually degrades the surface of whatever object it's cleaning. That's when I was introduced to the Scotch-Brite Delicate Duty Scrub Sponge. It has essentially the same cleaning power, but it doesn't cause any permanent damage. As the resident dishwasher in my house, this sponge is my best friend. #products | |
| Pig Pile | May 18, 2007 |
| I'm not usually one for card or board games, but I sometimes make exceptions. Pig Pile is one of those exceptions. It's a simple card game that requires a little bit of luck and very little skill. It's similar in play to Uno, with the added benefit being the prize given to winners: Little plastic pigs. Not only do you get "satisfaction" from winning, you get a physical reward that serves as a reminder to your opponents in subsequent rounds. #entertainment | |
| Sink drop (1) | May 17, 2007 |
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I dropped the lid to my coffee cup in the kitchen sink this morning. To most people, this probably isn't a big deal. But have you ever looked at the stuff in the kitchen sink? It's really disgusting. Food particles, dirt, debris, cat hair, grime, unidentifiable masses. It's really a horrific environment. What other area in a house takes that amount of abuse? We wash our paint brushes. We clean our cats' food dish. We wash raw meat off plates. We pour grease down the drain and hope it doesn't clog something. We pour expired liquids down the drain while holding our noses and trying not to puke. We wash out cans that contain everything from peanut butter to chicken broth. It's one thing to mix all these activities in a central location. It's another thing to let it all sit there, rotting, growing stuff, spawning. I swear I've heard little voices coming from the bottom of the sink. Or that could have something to do with the harsh cleaners I use (another substance to add to the mix). I considered calling it a day at that point. What more can come of a day that starts out like that? Instead, I picked up the lid, rinsed (not washed) it off, and kept right on going. If you don't hear from me in the next few days, assume the worst. #psychology |
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| Door scare | May 17, 2007 |
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I've mentioned before that I sometimes get startled when opening a door when another person happens to be on the other side. Thinking about this further (since it just happened again), I'm absolutely amazed that this happens at all, let alone as much as it does, based on the probability of an event like this happening. Even though I'm a creature of habit, my routine isn't exactly the same from day to day. Sometimes I walk through a doorway at 9:15am, other times at 9:18am. The probability of me walking through a specific doorway at a specific time is quite small. Now multiply that probability by the probability of another person walking through the same specific doorway at the same specific time. Oh, and they're walking through from the direction opposite me so that I can't see them. The chances of this happening are so incredibly small, I'd be amazed if this happened once. But it didn't happen once. I would say it happens about once a week on average. Granted, the doorway I'm talking about is the one to the bathroom, possibly the most heavily trafficked room in the building. But still, the chances of me encountering a person at the exact moment I open the door and not 2 or 3 seconds before or after is mind boggling. #psychology |
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| Garbage collection issues (2) | May 17, 2007 |
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I respect garbagemen (I feel I can use the masculine form because I've never seen or heard of a garbagewoman). They have a relatively thankless job that would cause some minor problems and major inconveniences if it didn't exist. We routinely accept the fact that if we put garbage out on the curb in the morning, it'll be gone by the time we get home from work at night. What a concept. I wish the vacuum cleaner or the steak dinner worked the same way. However, I have two complaints about garbage collection. 1. How hard can it possibly be to put the can back in the driveway?  I feel like this should go without saying: Leaving the can in the road causes problems. First of all, it causes traffic problems. People come close to getting in accidents because of trash cans left in the road. There's a can on a road near my house that's about half a mile from the nearest house, and it's crushed and beaten. That's what happens to an abandoned trash can. Second, according to the laws of physics, the can will inevitably either (a) roll away to the farthest location physically possible or (b) roll to the center of the road, and even if it's on its side, will stay directly in the center of the road. This can neither be argued nor avoided. Oh wait, yes it can. It can be avoided by putting the can back in the driveway. Logic tells me that an empty trash can weighs much less than a full one, so throwing it back in the driveway should be infinitely easier than lugging it to the truck. 2. How do you get the lid off my garbage can?  Seriously, I don't understand. The can is equipped with a very sophisticated locking system that can really only be undone with careful maneuvering. Yet somehow, the lid is always off my garbage can when I get home. The last thing I want to do after a long day of work is come home to a disassembled garbage can that I need to reassemble. The reassembly process is at least 5 steps long:
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