I've already come to the conclusion that mustaches are no longer acceptable in today's culture, with the one exception being men who have had mustaches since mustaches were cool.  Other than that, there's no excuse for this facial atrocity. 

When I see a guy growing a mustache, I can think of the following possible rationalizations: 

1. "My electric razor ran out of batteries right before I could shave above my upper lip."
2. "I got punched in the face, and it left me with a big cut above my upper lip, preventing me from shaving there."
3. "I lost a bet."
4. "I've given up on life."

I really can't think of any other reason a person would grow a mustache. 

Part of my hatred comes from watching the mustache-growing process in action.  Knowing a person pre-mustache and post-mustache means you were around for the intra-mustache stage.  It's a hideous thing to witness.  For a few days, it looks like they missed a spot.  You figure they'll realize how ridiculous they look and shave it off right away.  After a week or two, you notice they haven't shaved yet, and it doesn't look like they'll be shaving anytime soon.  What's funny about the intra-mustache phase is that every distinct moment in the phase is excruciating to watch.  From the first moment they have stubble, to the final moment they have a half-inch long mustache, the thing growing on their face never looks good.  And it still doesn't look good at the end.  All you can do is sit there and wonder what's going through the mind of the mustache-grower, longing for an opportunity to get home to your own bathroom and shave again just for good measure. #lifestyle

I'm a geek.  Professionally.  I went to geek school, majored in geek, and now am employed full time as a geek.  Oh, and I watch the show Numb3rs, which is on Friday nights at 10pm.  Clearly the producers of that show know who their target audience is. 

I noticed two pretty major errors in last week's episode.  One was Charlie Eppes saying something about physical forces, one of which he said was mass.  Mass is not a force.  It's a quantity.  Weight is a force.  The two words and ideas are similar in meaning and are often used interchangeably (usually by non-geeks).  But this was famed mathematician Charlie Eppes, child prodigy and current FBI consultant.  Surely he must know the difference between mass and weight! 

The other error was when they tried to calculate the size of the murderer based on how much water was displaced in the bathtub.  The theory is correct:  You can calculate the volume of a solid object by submersing it in a liquid and measuring the change in volume.  From that volume, you can calculate the mass of the object if you know its density.  Submersing a human in water and measuring his/her displaced volume will allow you to calculate his/her approximate mass based on an approximate density.  The problem with the method on the show was that they assumed the murderer was fully submersed in the bathtub.  This is a bit of a stretch since the murderer would've likely drowned if he/she was in the bathtub with the victim.  The volume of displaced water they were measuring was likely due to a combination of the murderer's feet, legs, hands, and forearms.  If they calculated a mass of anything more than say 50 lbs, I'd be a little surprised. 

C'mon, Numb3rs.  You're clearly targeting a specific audience.  Now, measure up! #entertainment

I played golf on Monday for the first time since 2004.  It was great.  I started off a little rough, getting the "maximum score" for the first two holes, but I ended up getting a couple of pars and only losing two or three balls all day, none of which were in the water.  A golf score in my book takes into account not only the actual number of strokes it took to complete the round, but also the number of balls and tees lost, the number of balls and tees found, and the number of water and sand traps missed.  This is why I only play golf once every three years. 

The other reason I rarely play golf is because I was sore the next day.  As if the act of playing golf didn't make me enough of a non-athlete, I got sore muscles from playing this non-sport.  It had something to do with the fact that my body doesn't normally experience that kind of swinging motion on a daily basis.  It also had something to do with the fact that I, like any testosterone-filled individual, swung as hard as I possibly could.  If you're gonna lose a ball, you might as well make it worthwhile. #sports

As I've mentioned before, I'm a fair-weather fan.  Years of rooting for loosing teams have left me jaded and cynical.  At least I admit it.  I don't claim to be a Colts fan or a Patriots fan.  People who do this are below scum in my opinion.  Unless you can prove you liked either team before they got good, you're a fair-weather fan too.  You just haven't been around long enough to ditch them when they get bad (largely because they never get bad; Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are godlike).  It's easy to like teams that always win.  It's also shallow.  So there you have it:  Two insults in one paragraph. 

For this reason and a few others, I've decided to adopt a "no favorite team" policy.  I've been teetering on the edge for over a year now:  I claim to like the Eagles, but I show absolutely no loyalty to them.  They win some, they lose some.  I'm apathetic.  To be quite honest, it's extremely difficult to like a team that's not from your area (or if you live in a dual-team region) because their games are rarely televised.  It's a heck of lot easier to like the local team simply because it's a heck of lot easier to watch their games.  And go to their games.  And fraternize with their fans.  And buy their merchandise in stores. 

But again, I have no favorite team.  I'll watch the local team.  I'll also watch their division rivals.  I'll watch last year's Super Bowl champions.  I'll watch this year's likely Super Bowl champions (Pats).  I'll watch that old guy from Wisconsin.  I don't really care.  I like watching football (by the way, this post is entirely about football because I don't watch or care about other sports ... perhaps I should've mentioned that at the beginning ... oh well).  I like watching good football.  Watching Tom Brady systematically get first downs and score points is amazing.  The man doesn't make mistakes.  I enjoy watching stuff like that.  Watching my favorite team fumble the ball and stumble down the field is disheartening at best.  It would be easier if my favorite team was a good team, but it's not and has rarely ever been.  So yes, I'm essentially giving up. 

The advent of fantasy football has really helped my decision.  With a fantasy team, I manage players from all over the NFL.  Some are on good teams, some on bad.  The success of a specific team often has nothing to do with the success of an individual player in fantasy football land.  This makes it easier to watch games that would otherwise have no impact on me or my favorite team.  I have a wide receiver from the Jets and a kicker from the Cardinals (my kicker is oddly a reliable point-scorer).  Do I like the Jets or the Cardinals?  No, but I'll watch their games because I like some of their players. 

I have to admit the idea of not having a favorite team didn't occur to me until a few weeks ago.  When asked what his favorite team was, a guy I know said he was undecided.  He made it sound like he didn't know much about the sport and was still formulating an opinion.  I have a feeling he knew exactly how he felt and intentionally chose to not have a favorite team.  I liked the idea and latched onto it. 

So that's how it's gonna be.  I'm not basing my decision entirely on fantasy football, mainly because I just started about a month ago.  That interest may fade.  But my disinterest in a favorite team probably won't. #sports

1.  Pink towels:  I saw a towel draped over a player's shoulder pads, and it didn't look clean and white, but it also wasn't completely red.  I figured it might've been a fluke.  I saw another one and thought, This is an NFL team.  Don't they have enough money to get clean towels?  After I saw the same thing in several other games, at different times, and on different networks, it finally all came together:  It had something to do with breast cancer awareness. 

2.  Let's travel back in time to the last 5 or 6 games of the 2006-2007 season, where Jeff Garcia was the Eagles quarterback in place of an injured Donovan McNabb.  Garcia managed to take a below-.500 team to the playoffs, beating the division rival Giants, and losing in the 2nd round to the Saints.  When asked what he would do next season concerning McNabb, coach Andy Reid said he'd bench Garcia and put McNabb in as soon as he was healthy.  My immense knowledge of football and everything else said, If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Jeff Garcia is a game-winner, McNabb isn't.  Andy Reid surprisingly wasn't able to read my mind and consequently didn't take my advice, and now look at the Eagles.  They're a joke of a team even with a healthy McNabb.  And they got rid of Garcia.  This is why I don't like the Eagles, even though I tell people they're my favorite team. 

3.  I think it's funny how teams that do well one year end up doing poorly the next year, and vice versa.  I can think of three teams off the top of my head:  the Saints, the Bears, and the Chargers.  All three teams had incredible records and made it to the playoffs last year.  They had Pro Bowl players and managed to consistently win and get better each week.  In all three cases, not much changed from last season to this season in terms of personnel, both players and coaches.  Yet all three teams are borderline atrocious so far this season.  Sure it's only week 5 and there's still a ton of time to turn things around, but the obvious question is:  What happened between last year and this year?  What changed?  If your players are generally the same, your coaches are generally the same, and the league is generally the same, what could possibly be different about this season to make you lose so many games so poorly?  Did you get lucky last year?  Were you overrated?  The "vice versa" is also true.  The example that comes to mind is Green Bay.  The team was so bad last year, it almost forced Brett Favre to retire.  But he decided to stay, as did most of his team and most of the coaches.  So what exactly changed from one year to the next to turn a terrible team into a pretty good team?  Who knows.  Maybe Brett Favre is like wine and gets better with age.  But what happened for the last several years when he wasn't good?  Maybe that was his valley and now he'll get exponentially better each year until he retires as the league's MVP at the ripe old age of 65. #sports

Of the different ways to forward RSS to email, I've found that simple systems like RssFwd and Rmail are easier to work with but less configurable, while full-featured systems like FeedBurner and FeedBlitz are more complicated because they're so configurable.  All in all, RssFwd did the best job of simply delivering RSS items via email in a relatively timely manner, though there were delays of several hours in some cases.  FeedBurner and FeedBlitz are too full of cruft and self-promotion, and they generally lack any useful configurable options (like when to send what, how it should look, etc.).  Of course, the internal, site-specific solutions like Subscribe2 for WordPress work the best because they email new things as soon as they're published, not as soon as a 3rd-party site's robots notice new material. #technology

I grew up on a plot of land that had 8 apple trees and 3 pear trees, all of which were "organic" and wild, meaning they required (or rather, received) no help from us yet grew and produced fruit annually.  There were at least 3 different varieties of apples, including a small red variety with a shiny skin, a medium-sized red variety with a rough skin, and a small green-skinned variety.  The pear trees were all the same type:  Bosc, which is a brownish-colored variety with rough skin.  Every fall, there was a pretty sizable fruit harvest in our backyard, but we rarely partook of very much of it.  I would usually go around to my favorite trees (the small, red-skinned apples and the bosc pears) and knock a few down with a soft soccer ball.  My parents would usually get a few buckets from two of the medium-sized red trees and make a few gallons of apple sauce.  But other than that, the rest of the fruit was left to feed our plethora of backyard wildlife. 

Ever since I've been in the habit of buying fresh fruits and vegetables, I've bought red delicious apples.  I think it's because they're the least like the ones I grew up with.  They're big, sweet, and shiny, unlike the ugly, sour apples that fell off our trees.  I've also developed a habit of buying and eating bosc pears, which used to be rock-hard and unpleasant to eat.  They're still pretty rough fruits, but their hardness prevents them from rotting quickly, and they're much more palatable when cut up.  It feels weird paying for something I used to be able to get for free. 

I've gone apple picking (for money) a few times in the recent past, and I can't help but feel bad about it.  Growing up, I had essentially unlimited access to all the free apples I could eat, but I often didn't take advantage of it.  One good thing about apple picking, however, is that the smell of an apple orchard with apples lying on the ground brings me right back to every September of my childhood. #food

I've implemented a new feature on this here website:  Updates via email.  If you don't like visiting my site (and/or don't know about RSS) but would like to be notified when I post something new, you can subscribe to updates via email.  It's easy to subscribe and unsubscribe, and I won't sell your email address to spammers or send you spam myself. 

Edit:  Never mind.  I got rid of it.  It's stupid. #technology

I have just one thing to say:  Ezekiel 4:9 cereal is disgusting.  It tastes like a mixture of sand and sawdust, neither of which are good ingredients for food. 

Ok, I'll continue. 

Two things appealed to me when I saw this cereal on the shelf: 

1. It's organic, so it appeals to Wendy's championing of all things organic.
2. It has a Bible verse in the title, so it appeals to my championing of all things with Bible verses in their title (this is the only one I know of).

It turns out the Bible verse isn't about God or Christianity or anything similar.  The verse says, "Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself."  It's not exactly earth-shattering or life-changing, which really should've given me a clue as to how the cereal would taste.  And what the heck are millet and spelt?  I'll assume that's where the sawdust taste comes from.  The sand taste is more of a texture, as the cereal is dry and gritty. 

What annoys me about this situation is the following: 

1. I payed like $8 for this minuscule box of cereal, and I knew after one tiny little bite that I didn't like it.
2. Why do food companies make food that tastes horrible?  I can't understand how some dude (or dudette) in a kitchen thought of this wild concoction of grains and came to the conclusion, "Ya know what?  It's finished.  It's finally an edible food that people will surely like."  It's wretched.  It's inedible.  It's tasteless and gritty.  How in the world did it get past any amount of taste testing or quality control?

To be fair, this isn't an isolated incident.  I had pretty much the exact same experience with Grape Nuts Trail Mix Crunch.  I overpaid for a small box, knew after one bite that I didn't like it (it had the same sand-and-sawdust taste), and haven't touched it since. 

I'll admit, this is at least partially my fault.  I make all my food decisions based on sight, and both cereals look quite appetizing on the box.  With that in mind, I shouldn't be disappointed when things don't taste as good as they look.  But at the same time, I feel like I've been lied to.  Sure the actual product looks quite similar to the advertised product, but something's missing.  It's called taste.  Please, cereal makers, create food that has an actual taste. #food

As opposed to other traffic lights where you can optionally go on red or green, this light requires you to wait for green.  #travel