Cats eat anything (1) Aug 20, 2007
Sometimes I sit around and watch my cats, trying to figure out what's going on in their little brains.  I imagine there's some sort of method to their madness, that they don't just wander around aimlessly and perform actions based on instinct alone.  Something like, "Hmm, I wonder where the humans went.  Maybe I'll look out this window for a bit and meow at the birds.  Then I'll go see if more food appeared in my food dish." 

But one thing that consistently surprises and amazes me is the method cats use to eat random objects off the ground.  To summarize what I believe is going on in the mind of a typical cat sniffing around for things to eat, I've prepared a basic flowchart: 
  1. Walk around, observing the ground.
  2. If an object appears, sniff it.
  3. Does it smell bad?
    1. No - Eat it.
    2. Yes - Play with it.
  4. If it doesn't continue to move after playing with it, repeat step 3.
  5. Do I feel sick?
    1. No - Repeat step 1.
    2. Yes - Sit on carpet or couch and wait for object to come back up.
I've heard and read in many places that cats have gentle stomachs.  I think they're just stupid.  On a related note, here's a Get Fuzzy comic that touches on the same subject. 
[Image: getfuzzy20050316.gif]
#nature
NASCAR sponsors Aug 17, 2007
I'm not in any way a fan of NASCAR.  But as a citizen of these great United States of America, I can't avoid this monotonous pseudo-sport.  When I see cars on TV or on billboards, I can't help but notice all the advertising and sponsorship.  Sure there's the food and the car products people, but two sponsors don't sit right with me: 
  1. Alcohol.  I've been told alcohol and driving shouldn't go together.  But NASCAR claims Budweiser, Diageo (wine), Miller Lite, Busch, Crown Royal, and a host of other alcoholic drinks as its sponsors.  There ain't nothin' wrong with a little whiskey, but plastering its billboard on the side of a car seems to break some sort of unwritten moral rule.
  2. Military.  The Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the National Guard all sponsor a NASCAR car.  And they're proud of it.  The thing about the armed forces is that they're totally and completely funded by the federal government, which in turn is funded by your tax dollars.  So pat yourself on the back; you're an official NASCAR sponsor.
#entertainment
Audio books (5) Aug 16, 2007
I drove down to Virginia last week, and I didn't really feel like listening to 7 hours of music, even if they were my CDs.  It occurred to me that I could listen to an audio book, the ideal solution for people who (a) don't read and (b) have lots of time to kill.  But audio books are expensive, sometimes two or three times as much as the actual book.  I'm not a fan of spending money, so I almost gave up.  But in a moment of shear brilliance, I realized that I could freely borrow audio books from the local library, which is funded by my tax dollars.  Cha-ching!  I found out there's a branch of the county library located about 5 miles from my house, so I went to check it out.  I signed up for a library card and signed out two audio books.  My drive to Virginia was excellent, and now my commute to and from work is better too (ever since they got rid of Free FM, there's no more worthwhile talk radio).  Now I'm a fan of audio books and libraries. #entertainment
Modern wars (2) Aug 16, 2007
I was watching a show on the History Channel last night, and it was all about the World War II and Cold War efforts in the U.S. to produce nuclear weapons.  That's how wars used to work:  You dump all kinds of money and people into an effort to produce the most advanced, most numerous, and most powerful technology that would cause the most damage to your enemies.  Whoever gets there first, essentially wins. 

Wars these days are quite different.  The U.S. is certainly the leader in terms of military might and defense spending, but somehow the nation hasn't actually won a war since World War II (I don't think conflicts like the Vietnam War count as wins, though this can probably be argued).  Modern wars largely consist of guerrilla efforts led by decentralized, rag-tag groups of unskilled, untrained, uneducated people.  Larger nations with larger weapons can surely drop large bombs from large distances, but this would cause too many innocent civilian deaths.  So fully-equipped, combat-trained soldiers are forced to leave their heavily-armored tanks and fighter jets and drive around cities in lightly-armored vehicles looking for bad guys.  The winner is the side who can last the longest.  And when nations with large defense budgets also have things like bills of rights, the battle becomes more about public opinion than an actual battlefield. #psychology
People are weird (1) Aug 15, 2007
People, in general, are weird.  And I've reached the point where I'm not surprised by any amount of weirdness.  Sure, it can be said that everybody's weird in some way or another, but I like to think there are at least a few people on earth who can be considered normal.  The rest are weird. 

Some people are known by others to be weird.  "Watch out for him; he does this weird thing."  I often won't notice that weird thing if I was meeting the person for the first time.  Sure, I notice it, but it's not even a big enough deal to make a point of it.  I met a guy a few weeks ago who kept doing his impression of Optimus Prime from Transformers.  I thought it was a bit odd for a guy in his mid-20s to be repeatedly (and poorly) imitating a voice from a movie largely geared towards children and teenagers (though it was awesome!), but I didn't dwell on it too long.  "Oh well, he's weird."  I was later told somebody should've warned me about him.  I said, "Don't worry, I'm not surprised by weird people." 

I think at least part of the reason I'm not surprised by weird people anymore is because two major parts of my life are overrun by weird people.  First, I'm an engineer.  By definition, there's no such thing as a normal engineer.  We're all weird.  We're socially awkward.  We smell.  We can't match our poorly-fitting clothes.  We walk funny.  We talk funny.  If you think you know an engineer who isn't weird, that person is either (a) a fake engineer who will later in life turn out to be a manager, or (b) a real engineer who's good at hiding his/her weirdness.  Watch this person closely, their true colors will show eventually. 

Second, I'm a Christian.  This is at least slightly mean, but it's completely and entirely true:  The Christian church attracts and encourages weird people.  On a deeper level, that's part of the appeal:  There's hardly a place on the planet a weird person can go and be totally and completely accepted, without the need to put on a facade or act a certain way.  Because of this radical acceptance, weird people are encouraged to be even weirder, and new weird people show up every day. 

Weirdness might be a mean word for all this, so let's call it oddness.  If we assume Joe Smith is the ideal person, capable of social interaction, exhibiting no accent, having good manners, and working a 9-5 job, oddness would be his opposite.  So whether you have a stutter, a limp, a birth mark, an annoying habit, one leg that's shorter than the other, an unevenness in the way your hair grows, asthma, shifty eyes, trouble holding a conversation, or an irrational fear, you're odd.  But in the end, if everyone is odd in some way or another, the only really odd people are the normal ones. #psychology
DVD kiosks Aug 15, 2007
There's a machine in the local Pathmark that rents out DVDs for $1.59 for 24 hours.  You browse through their electronic system, press a few buttons, and a DVD pops out.  A receipt is emailed to you.  After you watch the movie, you bring it back and stuff it in the machine.  That's it.  It's that simple.  There are no hidden charges (although $1.59 is probably $1.50 plus sales tax or something) or any other caveats.  When Blockbuster keeps coming up with new reasons to charge $4.76 for a rental, it's nice to find a way to watch a movie for $1.59.  On the recent journey to Montana, I noticed a similar DVD kiosk in a Safeway.  Pathmark uses DVDXpress and Safeway uses DVDPlay.  I'm a fan.  I highly recommend it. #entertainment
Cuba (3) Aug 15, 2007
It'll be interesting when Americans are allowed to vacation in Cuba, which could possibly happen after Fidel Castro finally kicks the bucket.  That country will be booming. #travel
Sandwich orientation (2) Aug 14, 2007
I firmly believe that sandwiches have a top and a bottom.  I'm amazed when people don't agree with me.  The correct way to stack ingredients in a sandwich is as follows: 
  1. Bottom piece of bread
  2. Primary meat
  3. Secondary meat
  4. Vegetables
  5. Condiments
  6. Top piece of bread
I had a sandwich the other day that had the primary and secondary meats switched -- the bacon was underneath the turkey, and there was lettuce and tomato on top of the turkey.  After each bite, I would flip the sandwich upside down, hoping it would taste right the other way around.  No matter how I held it, it felt wrong.  What a disgraceful sandwich. 

I think there's a reason behind all this, besides my obsessive compulsive anal retentiveness.  I don't think the human palette was meant to experience ketchup and mustard as the first ingredient.  I don't think lettuce and tomatoes deserve to be the first thing to touch my tongue after a bite of a sandwich.  And although I like bacon, it's a secondary meat when it's on a sandwich, except when it's in a BLT.  I think the reason sandwiches are made the way they are is because the tongue was meant to experience the sandwich in a certain order.  It's called a turkey sandwich for a reason.  It's not a "lettuce and tomato sandwich with turkey". #food
Dead bugs down the toilet (5) Aug 9, 2007
I flush dead bugs down the toilet because I have an irrational fear that they'll come back to life and take revenge on me by crawling in my ears, nose, or mouth while I'm sleeping. #psychology
Gender-specific colors (2) Aug 9, 2007
I wonder if color-gender relationships are universal (international), e.g. blue is for boys, pink is for girls?  I just saw a non-American guy on a purple mountain bike.  He didn't seem to mind. 

Some internet research claims that blue and pink were actually reversed in their gender representation as recently as the 1940s or 50s.  Boys wore pink because it's essentially watered-down red, which is a fierce, bold, dramatic color.  Girls wore blue for some unknown reason. 

Wikipedia has a little information on the subject, noting that while purple is often associated with royalty in certain cultures, most Asian cultures have adopted yellow.  And while black is often a symbol of death in western cultures, the Chinese use the color white. 

Update (2007-08-21 9:09am):  A recent article talks about the same thing. #psychology