Sleepwalking urinater stabbed Jun 25, 2009
I almost spit out my coffee when I read this headline:  KC man urinating while sleepwalking stabbed.  It just doesn't get much better than that.  What we have here is the tri-fecta, or perhaps the penta-fecta, of good news stories: 
  1. A drunk man
  2. Was sleepwalking
  3. And urinating
  4. In a closet
  5. Then was stabbed
Today is a good day for news. #entertainment
Sponge in sink Jun 24, 2009
Somebody at work likes to leave their sponge in the kitchen sink, and it truly disgusts me.  Maybe it's because a sink typically isn't a very clean place to begin with.  Plus, the sponge keeps getting wet when people use the faucet, so it's a breeding ground for mold.  And then there's the fact that the sink is used for washing dirty things, which spreads the dirt throughout the sink.  It kind of defeats the purpose of washing dishes if you're using a dirty, moldy sponge. #health
Improper measurements (1) Jun 24, 2009
I get confused when the wrong method of measurement is used to quantify something, as in, "The human body is X liters."  Generally you expect measurements concerning the human body to be in weight or height, not volume.  The volume of a solid is hard to visualize, as is the weight of a liquid.  Such is the case with this news report about an overturned beer truck:  "Police say a truck carrying 40,000 pounds of beer overturned in Vermont and closed a highway for several hours."  How much is 40,000 lbs of beer?  I have no way of comparing that to something I know.  I understand a pint.  I understand fluid ounces.  But pounds?  I'm assuming either the police or the reporter simply read the number on the side of the truck that referred to how much weight it was carrying.  It could've been 40,000 lbs of metal or 40,000 lbs of water.  Either way, the truck couldn't carry more than 40,000 lbs of anything.  And yes, I realize that, knowing the density of beer is something close to water (~1 g/cm3), I can calculate that the volume of 40,000 lbs of beer is somewhere around 4800 gallons.  But I wouldn't have to do that calculation if, like every other liquid on earth, this beer was measured in volume. 

It's the same with ketchup.  A bottle of ketchup lists its weight in ounces, which again is odd because I would consider ketchup a liquid, not a solid.  And yes, that's ounces of weight, not fluid ounces, which further points out the ridiculousness of English units. #science
Punny names (7) Jun 24, 2009
Somewhat similar to my marriage name rules (Kelly Kelly, Julia Gulia), here are a few puntastic names: 
  1. My sister's last name is Barrow, and when trying to decide on a name for her first child, the most common suggestion from family members was Will Barrow.  Har har.
  2. Wendy works with a girl whose name is Julia Choi, and Julia married a guy whose last name was also Choi.  Her co-workers now call her Julia Choi-Choi.  But that's not all.  She recently had a child, and another co-worker's suggestion for a name was ... wait for it ... Buck Choi.
  3. I work with an Asian girl whose first name is Yin.  If she married this other Asian guy at work, her name would be Yin Yang.
#sociology
Glowing rectangles Jun 24, 2009
The Onion reports: 
90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles

At work, special information rectangles help men and women silently complete any number of business-related tasks, while entertainment rectangles--larger and louder and often placed inside the home--allow Americans to enter a relaxing trance-like state after a long day of rectangle-gazing.

According to researchers, these rectangles help to notify citizens about which brand of domestic detergent to buy, what direction to drive their vehicles in, and how many more seconds a food item must remain inside its revolving radiation chamber before it can be hurriedly consumed.
I'm staring at a glowing rectangle this very second. #technology
Me x 10 Jun 23, 2009
I would describe myself as, among other things, cheap and difficult to talk to.  Last week I spent some time with people who have these same qualities, but times ten.  I have to say, I'd rather eat my own pinkie than spend another second waiting for someone to decide between the regular fries or the $0.40-extra curly fries, or standing around trying to make small talk that keeps degenerating into awkward topics like dismemberment and terminal illness.  I'm a weird and flawed person, but there are people out there who are worse than me. #psychology
iPhone naming convention Jun 23, 2009
Just admit it, Apple.  You screwed up.  The naming convention for the different variations of the iPhone is stupid.  First there was the iPhone, which was fine.  Then a year later, there was the iPhone 3G, which confusingly was a second generation phone on a third generation network.  Now another year later, we have the iPhone 3G S (or is it 3GS? -- even Apple can't decide) which, not to be confused with the plural of iPhone 3G, refers to speed.  Quite the snafu from the company that can do no wrong. #technology
Lost senses Jun 23, 2009
Consumerist wrote two articles recently about losing senses:  Zicam products are associated with loss of smell, and pine nuts are known to cause a temporary loss of taste.  On a related note, Scott Adams ponders the question of which of the five senses he could live without.  I've had this conversation several times before and I always firmly decide I'd rather not lose any of my senses. #health
Palm Pre review Jun 22, 2009
I got a Palm Pre a week and a half ago.  I'm not usually an early adopter of technology, so this purchase was a bit unusual for me.  But to be fair, my contract with Sprint was up so I was looking for a new phone anyway.  Here are my initial thoughts: 

Pro:
  1. Google Sync is awesome.  I'm really glad to be done with Outlook syncing.
  2. The operating system seems to block a lot of the options and preferences that were available in Windows Mobile, but I'm seeing this as a positive thing because, like Apple and the iPhone, this device seems to be more about the interface than the hardware or software.
  3. The default ringtones were composed by UCLA music professor Roger Bourland, and they were recorded live with human musicians.
  4. There's no stupid little startup sound when you turn on/off the phone.
Con:
  1. The Notes application, which I used to jot down a few ideas for this review, is quite ugly and stupid.  It's growing on me, and the whole "post-it notes on corkboard" idea is cute.  But I like order, not cuteness.
  2. The keyboard is good, but not great.  The top row of keys is almost unusable because they're so close to the rest of the phone.
  3. The speakerphone isn't loud enough.
  4. Battery life is abysmal.  I have to charge it every day, maybe every other day if I hardly use it.  Coming from a Treo 700, which I charged maybe once every five days, this is quite a change.
  5. I often have trouble determining which end of the device is the top.  This makes me sound stupid, but my old phone had an antenna and an always-present keyboard, so there was no question.
  6. The sliding mechanism is a little loose and makes the phone feel kinda cheap.
  7. There's no way to turn off the data connection, which might have something to do with the abysmal battery life.
  8. The screen has a slight yellow mark on the lower left corner, and it seems to appear either after extended use or while charging, which makes me think it has something to do with heat and might just be a problem with my particular phone.  I might try to get a replacement.
All in all it's a cool phone, and I'm sure it'll get better with software updates and I'll get more used to it over time. #technology
Square Root Day (2) Jun 22, 2009
Similar to Odd Day is Square Root Day, where the month and day are the square roots of the year.  This happens nine times each century:  01/01/01, 02/02/04, 03/03/09, 04/04/16, 05/05/25, 06/06/36, 07/07/49, 08/08/64, and 09/09/81.  No, today isn't a Square Root Day, but today was the first I heard of it.  Being the nerd that I am, I had to post this. #math