357 - IT'S - - - - - Redneck week!!!!! Day 1

I want one of these.
Redneck Wheelchair -


Been a bad Redneck kid? You get a Redneck timeout.
(Red Green would be proud)


How do you know when you're staying in a Redneck hotel?
When you call the front desk and say, "I gotta leak in my sink", and the clerk replies, "Go ahead".

Did you hear that they have raised the minimum drinking age for Rednecks to 32?
It seems they want to keep alcohol out of the high schools.

356 - Quote and me

Went to John's quote site to get some wisdom.

BUDDHA
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."

This pretty much eliminates the rest of the world.

Link - wise-men-say
.

355 - National debt

Again, another picture from the comment section of the wootoff. It's amazing what you can learn from a wootoff. Click on the picture to make it real big and scary.

354 - New electronic gadget

Like I said on my previous post the comment section can be more entertaining than the actual woot going on. I saw a new fangled device that I think is a must have for all electronics aficionados.

353 - WOOTOFF!

Wootoff today! If you've never seen a wootoff you have to visit it for a while. Instead of one item for the day it's one item after another. As one sells out another comes up. But the real fun is the comment section. Especially when a wootoff item is slow in selling out.

If this isn't today the wootoff is over.

Link - Woot
.

352 - Pass this test

A Wisconsin State Trooper pulled a car over on I-94 about 2 miles east of the Minnesota/Wisconsin state line. When the Trooper asked the driver why he was speeding, the driver answered that he was a magician and a juggler and he was on his way to Madison to do a show that night at the Shrine Circus and didn't want to be late.

The Trooper told the driver he was fascinated by juggling, and if the driver would do a little juggling for him that he wouldn't give him a ticket. The driver told the Trooper that he had sent all of his equipment on ahead and didn't have anything to juggle. The Trooper told him that he had some flares in the trunk of his patrol car and asked if he could juggle them. The juggler stated that he could, so the Trooper got three flares, lit them and handed them to the juggler.

While the man was doing his juggling act, a car pulled in behind the patrol car, a drunk from Minnesota, got out and watched the performance briefly, he then went over to the patrol car, opened the rear door and got in. The Trooper observed him doing this and went over to the patrol car, opened the door and asked the drunk what he thought he was doing. The drunk replied, "You might as well haul my ass to jail, cause there's no way in hell I can pass that test."

351 - Blue teeth

Well I finally broke down and got a cell phone. I'm still not used to it yet. I'll find myself thinking about getting home so I can call someone when I've got the stupid thing in my pocket. And the transmission is off and on bad just like I knew it would be. I actually took the first one I had back and got a different brand because of bad transmission.

The one I've got is ok but it's not up to land line standards. I can tell when I'm talking to another cell phone because the sound is worse than a cell phone to a real telephone, let alone real phone to real phone.

Then there's the blue teeth. I took a few pictures with my new toy and thought, how do I get them off of this thing? I guess I could "media send" them to my computer at $100 a piece but the pictures were not that good. Hey look! It's got a USB connection, with a proprietary connector of course - go back to store - hear sales person say 'we don't carry that' - go to radio shack - 'we don't have that' - go on internet - cord only, no software - quit on USB. It's got blue teeth! Go back to radio shack. 'Do you have a USB blue teeth adapter'? 'Nope!' Point to hanging box. 'What's that?' 'Well I'll be darned, we do have it'. And it has software!!

So I install the software and slug my way through the very vague instructions and finally get it to work. Then I download my pictures - one at a time. If there's a way to download them all at once it will have to be figured out at a later date because I tired of screwing with this %$#&!!!
.

350 - Redneck lock

Remember the redneck tree swing in post 322.

Well here's a redneck door lock for your car.


It's from the site below. This site does have some .5X rated stuff on it but most of it is pretty tame. If you've got a few days to look at everything let me know if there's more good stuff out there.
Link - Wimp.com
.

349 - April 15th - coming soon

It seems like once you send someone a joke it reminds them of another joke they heard and on and on. I got this in the ..... by email today. (why is it 'in the mail' and 'by email'?) Anyway, here's one obviously written by a irritated jewish person. (well maybe not, but it's a good guess) ... (and I'm not picking on little people, it's the joke writers fault!)

-------------------------------------

As April 15th approaches, we can all appreciate and enjoy this one: The Internal Revenue sends its auditor (a nasty little man) to audit a synagogue.
The auditor is doing all the checks, and then turns to the Rabbi and says, 'I noticed that you buy a lot of candles.'
'Yes,' answered the Rabbi.
'Well, Rabbi, what do you do with the candle drippings?' he asked.
'A good question,' noted the Rabbi. 'We actually save them up. When we have enough, we send them back to the candle maker. And every now and then, they send us a free box of candles.'
'Oh,' replied the auditor somewhat disappointed that his question actually had a practical answer. So he thought he'd try another question, in his obnoxious way...
'Rabbi, what about all these matzo purchases? What do you do with the crumbs from the matzo?'
'Ah, yes,' replied the Rabbi calmly, 'We actually collect up the crumbs, we send them in a box back to the manufacturer and every now and then, they send a box of matzo balls.'
'Oh,' replied the auditor, thinking hard how to fluster the Rabbi. ' Well, Rabbi,' he went on, 'What do you do with all the foreskins from the circumcisions? '
'Yes, here too, we do not waste,' answered the Rabbi. 'What we do is save up all the foreskins. And when we have enough we actually send them to the Internal Revenue Service.'
'Internal Revenue Service?' questioned the auditor in disbelief.
'Ah, yes,' replied the Rabbi, 'Internal Revenue Service. And... about once a year, they send us a little prick like you.

348 - The life of a joke.

A friend of mine told this joke tonight. I didn't think I'd heard this before so when I got home I looked up 'Magician' and 'Parrot' on google. I got 166,000 hits. I don't know about all the hits but all the first page was the joke I was looking for. There were many different versions of it. Some long, some short. I think this is the best of them.

--------------------------------------

A magician needed a break from the stress of city living, and so took a job on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The pay was average, but the perks were good, and as the audience would be different each week, the magician didn’t have to practice to hard: he could repeat the same tricks every week.

However, over time, a small problem developed. The captain's parrot saw the shows each week, and began to understand how the magician did each trick. The parrot began squawking during the show…
"Look, it's not the same hat"…
"He's hiding the flowers under the table"…
"Hey, why are all the cards the Ace of Spades?" …

The magician was furious, but, of course, he couldn't do anything about it. The captain would not have been happy if anything had happened to his parrot. One day the ship that the magician was working on ran into trouble. After running into rocks near Jamaica, the ship tragically sank. There were few survivors.

As it happened, the magician found himself sharing a piece of wood floating in the Caribbean Sea with the parrot. They stared at each other with hatred, and neither uttered a word for many days.

Finally, the parrot broke the silence: "OK, I give up. Where's the boat?"


Link - Magician and Parrot search
.

347 - Blues and Bleachers

Two cartoons I liked yesterday.
The first one is a sad truth of life these days.

How about a new saying - "A penny saved is a waste of time." I just read where it cost the government 1.6 cents to make a penny and war time steel pennies are going to make a come back.
Link - Baby Blues

Then comes this twisty pun on words.


Link - In the Bleachers

346 - Planning ahead can be a problem

A while back (a long while) I bought a pack of 30 cd's for 6 bucks (a deal) and set them aside for use "later". So the other day I'm looking for a cd and find the 30 pack. Hey, look at all the cd's I've got! Well they say cd on them but they should have said "coaster".
I tell the computer to "format cd". Computer says "I don't think so". I order the computer to "FORMAT CD". Nope. "FORMAT THE DAMN CD!!!!!!!!" Computer says "please remove your coaster from my cd/dvd player".
Try another cd. (See previous paragraph)
Repeat
Repeat
Anybody want to buy some cd's? Cheap?

345 - Missouri sucks a big one

I hate to waste such a good post number (345) on such a bad bit of information but the story must be past on. It seems the Missouri Supreme court has 6 assholes and 1 normal person on it. Read the following story and try not to get to pissed off. The little guy loses again.

--------------------------------

INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE

901 N. GLEBE ROAD SUITE 900 ARLINGTON, VA 22203 (703) 682-9320 FAX (703) 682-9321

HOME PAGE: Institute for Justice
March 18, 2008

Missouri Supreme Court Rules Against Dentist Fighting To Save His Business From Eminent Domain Abuse

Ruling Underscores Urgent Need for Eminent Domain Reform

Arlington, Va.-Today, the Supreme Court of Missouri held, 6-1, that both large (“chartered”) and small (“non-chartered”) cities have the power to use eminent domain under the state’s redevelopment or “TIF” laws to take land from private owners to hand over to developers.

The case concerns the fate of Homer Tourkakis, a dentist from Arnold-a suburb of St. Louis-whose offices have been condemned so private developers can build big-box stores. Last year, a judge ruled in favor of Dr. Tourkakis and dismissed the land grab as unconstitutional.

“Missouri cities are among the worst abusers of eminent domain in the nation,” said Institute for Justice (IJ) Senior Attorney Scott Bullock, the lawyer who argued the landmark eminent domain case, Kelo v. New London, at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005. The Institute filed a brief in the Missouri Supreme Court on behalf of IJ and the newly appointed state eminent domain ombudsman, Anthony Martin. “This decision, which leaves the door open for any city in Missouri to take homes and businesses for private development, underscores the vital need to reform the state’s eminent domain laws,” said Bullock.

The specific issue in this case was what type of Missouri city has the ability to use eminent domain in so-called blighted areas. A state law dating from the 1940s permits large urban areas to engage in “slum clearance,” which often has had disastrous results. Now, however, small communities across the state also use eminent domain not to remove blight, but so city officials might possibly gain the tax dollars generated by private commercial development. Until today’s decision, it was unclear whether smaller cities could use eminent domain for these purposes.

The Court did make it clear, though, that it was not deciding any other issue in the case, including whether the property owned by Dr. Tourkakis was in fact blighted or whether the taking was for a public or private use. Dr. Tourkakis can still bring those challenges.

The decision will have statewide consequences. For instance, on the other side of Missouri, in the small town of Sugar Creek, the Marth family has been closely watching the outcome of the Arnold case because the city has threatened to take their home, which has been in the family since the 1920s, so a private developer can build a big-box shopping center.

“Unless the law is changed, this decision will make countless Missourians completely vulnerable to government-sanctioned land grabs for the benefit of private developers,” added IJ Senior Attorney Bert Gall, one of the authors of IJ’s brief.

There is an effort underway in Missouri, spearheaded by Missouri Citizens for Property Rights, to place an initiative on the November ballot that would end eminent domain for private development purposes.

# # #

Christina Walsh
Castle Coalition Coordinator
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
703) 682-9320
Link - Institute for Justice
Link - Castle Coalition

-----------------------------------------

There are two petitions going around to fight the miss use of eminent domain. I've signed both of them.
And then I visited John's quote sight and what timing on a Dalai Lama quote.
.

344 - What day is it? Well it depends.

I missed posting this on the Ides of March. Which really only means the middle of March (the 15th). There is also an Ides of May, July, or October on the 15th. The Ides of January, February, April, June, August, September, November, and December are on the 13th on those months. (because the Romans said so) And February used to come before January.

Do you know what a Julian date is? A lot of people do. How about a Lilian date?

Do you know what the brainiacs have in store for the future calendar? I'll send you to the Christian calendar to start but the side bar has links to every type of calendar, old and new, that you can imagine. The top bar has links on how the year is calculated and why they don't know why the week is 7 days long.

Link - Christian calendar
.

343 - Eyes + micro movements

The following is an article from Discover magazine from 2003 but I just read something about this again recently. It might explain why some people can't see anything but doctors can't find anything wrong with there eyes.
The article I read recently also said this phenomona is also the reason you can't look in a mirror and see your eyes move when you shift your gaze from one eye to the other.
If you want to find out more cut and paste "eyes" "micro movements" into google.

----------------------------------------

Your brain cells are sometimes like hyperactive children that get bored quickly. For instance, without a constant change of scenery, neurons in your visual system will literally tune out incoming information in search of fresh stimulation.


Experiment 1
Fix your gaze on the black "eye" in the center of Figure A for 20 seconds, while trying not to blink. After six or seven seconds, the dotted circle will begin to fade in and out of your awareness.

Called Troxler fading, for Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler, a Swiss scientist who described the phenomenon in 1804, the effect is believed to be caused by a rapid decrease in the eye's response to images that are stabilized on the retina. Notice that if you scan your eyes back and forth across the black eye, causing slight shifts in the images on your retinas, the dotted circle will not vanish.

You might wonder why the fatigue that makes the dotted circle disappear when your gaze is stabilized doesn't also cause the eye in the center of the figure to fade. The most likely explanation is that even when your eyes are locked on a fixed point, the stability of retinal images is affected by involuntary micro-movements in your eye muscles. Relatively large voluntary eye movements prevent the fading of the dotted circle at the periphery of your gaze, where visual details must be large to be noticed. In contrast, tiny, involuntary eye movements block fatigue in the center of your gaze, where very small objects are visible. Observe that when you stare directly at one part of the dotted circle, positioning it in the center of your vision, where very small details can be resolved, that this segment of the circle does not fade.


Experiment 2
The previous test supplied indirect evidence that micro eye movements exist, but direct evidence is hard to come by because the sensors that must detect such movements—your eyes—are the same sensors that are constantly being repositioned by the micro-movements. It's like trying to catch your eyes moving in the mirror. Under very special circumstances, however, micro-movements can be coaxed out into the open.

Stare at the red dot in Figure B for 15 seconds, then quickly shift your gaze to the blue dot. The negative afterimage of the black-and-white grid will jump around relative to the blue dot. Because the negative afterimage is perfectly stabilized on your retina, any motion of this afterimage relative to the live image of the blue dot must be caused by small movements of your eyes.

These micro-movements may simply be, in part, an unavoidable consequence of the background noise inherent in the human neuromuscular control system. But without these seemingly involuntary movements, nothing you lay your eyes upon would ever be clear.

Link - Neuroquest
.

342 - Anticipated verbal feedback induces altruistic behavior

Hey, I didn't write the title. But anyway, here's an abstract from another article on how people react when they think they're getting cheated or not. If you decide to order the article let me know. I want to come watch your head explode while you try to read it.

-------------------------

Abstract
A distinctive feature of humans compared to other species is the high rate of cooperation with nonkin. One explanation is that humans are motivated by concerns for praise and blame. In this paper we experimentally investigate the impact of anticipated verbal feedback on altruistic behavior. We study pairwise interactions in which one subject, the “divider,” decides how to split a sum of money between herself and a recipient. Thereafter, the recipient can send an unrestricted anonymous message to the divider. The subjects' relationship is anonymous and one-shot to rule out any repeated interaction effects. Compared to a control treatment without feedback messages, donations increase substantially when recipients can communicate. With verbal feedback, the fraction of zero donations decreases from about 40% to about 20%, and there is a corresponding increase in the fraction of equal splits from about 30% to about 50%. Recipients who receive no money almost always express disapproval of the divider, sometimes strongly and in foul language. Following an equal split, almost all recipients praise the divider. The results suggest that anticipated verbal rewards and punishments play a role in promoting altruistic behavior among humans.

Link - A little more info
.

341 - Oportunity knocking? Or not.

Sometimes being late can work out for you. I usually check Woot and Sellout Woot pretty soon after midnight because on rare occasions something that I might want is sold out in 10 to 15 minutes. Such was the case tonight. A 500 gig hard drive for $70. I was kicking myself for being late to log on tonight.
Then I started reading some reviews of the hard drive. Whoooooa Batman! Seems like there was a good reason this thing was on Sellout Woot. Here's a review and there were more like this one.

----------------------------------------------------------
Netgear 500GB (2×250GB) Storage Central

Pros: there are no positive things to say about this brick.

Cons: rarely works, drive(s) gets dropped all the time, have to install terrible software on every machine on your network, the beauty really came when i went to update the software to 3.06 and it told me the uninstall the older version and reboot. guess what when it rebooted win xp constantly crashes now even in safe mode probably due to the drivers it messed up in the uninstall. Netgear's site tells you not to update to the software 3.06 if you already have 2.43, but their lame software doesn't stop you from doing it. Thanks Netgear now I have to try and repair windows and will probably have to manually remove that driver.

Other Thoughts: this product will make you pull your hair out. AVOID!!!

340 - Two things

To start off I'd like to wish everyone a happy pi day. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, check today's date.

Second, I checked a Bilbo quote and found it was not an original. Just one I'd never heard before. But as usual when checking the dictionary or looking up quotes because of him, I'll run across some site that I wouldn't have found otherwise. This time was no exception. This site has jokes I've never heard before and pictures I've never seen. Here's Bilbo's quote, some pictures to lure you to the site and the link. It will take a while to take in this site.

Quote - "There seems to come a point in a marriage at which sex is usually practiced doggie style: the husband sits up and begs, and the wife rolls over and plays dead."



Link - Good laugh (lots of pop ups)

Oh and don't forget pi day.
.

339 - Today

I forgot to remind everyone that today is Friday the 13th. It sneaks up on you when it's not on a Friday. I hope nothing bad happened to anyone today.

338 - Short subject

First read the story.
--------------------
Short people should pray for a return to the Seventies fashion of stack heels, for the power of jealousy depends on how tall you are, the British weekly New Scientist says. Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and University of Valencia in Spain asked 549 Dutch and Spanish men and women to rate how jealous they felt, and to list the qualities in a romantic competitor that were most likely to make them ill at ease. Men generally felt most nervous about attractive, rich and strong rivals.

But these feelings were increasingly relaxed the taller they were themselves. The more vertically challenged the man, the greater his feelings of jealousy. For women, what counted most in jealousy was the rival's looks and charm, but these feelings were less intense if the woman herself was of average height.

This makes sense in evolutionary terms, says New Scientist, in next Saturday's issue. Taller men are most successful with women, and women of medium height enjoy the best health, fertility and popularity with men. On the other hand, a woman of average height could in certain circumstances fall afoul of the green-eyed monster if their rival were taller.

"Taller women are more dominant and have greater fighting abilities than shorter women," says the study, which appears in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
---------------------
Now you have to ask yourself, short compared to whom? I'm 6'1" and would be considered tall by peers my age. My son is 6'4". I'm short compared to him. How tall are his kids going to be? It's all relative. (not a pun John)(well maybe)

Link - Short subject
.

337 - Is your second toe longer than your big toe?

Well is it? Take off your shoes and look. If it is it means you're smarter than most people. Is this true? It must be. I have a longer second toe! But if you want to read what some of the naysayers have to say, visit the links.

Link - survey
Link - results
Link - traits
Click on "mortons toe"
Link - inheritance
.

336 - How to live to 100

Here's one way to live to 100, read the newspaper.

Centenarians are likely to be engaged in current events and take an active interest in what’s happening in the world around them. Becoming disconnected, isolated or withdrawn can mark the beginning of deterioration and loss of function. Staying connected and current keeps your brain working and increases your sense of purpose.

For 9 more tips here's the link to Parade magazine's article.

335 - Google WHAT?

I got to thinking after my last post that there was a word for low google hits. It turns out the word googlewhack is for two words hits, not a phrase. But having a new and original quote is still a great thing!

So I kept looking at googlisms. (I thought I made a word up. Turns out there's a whole site about them.) I found a very interesting one that if you want to play with your registry (not recommended) you can get a look a some internet stuff for free. Go to googlebot in wikipedia and read the section on mediabots.

334 - Quote

I love stealing other people material when I'm stuck for a post. I googled this to make sure it was an original quote and got "ONE" hit. That's right folks 1, uno, not dos, singular, etc, etc. (now there will be two)

You can legislate freedom of speech, but not freedom of smart. - Bilbo

333 - Time

What time is it? I used to have a shortwave radio that could pick up WWV. I had the most accurate clocks around when I was a kid. Now the National Bureau of Standards .... I sorry, the National Institue of Standards, is a little bigger than it use to be. Here are a very few links on the NIST site.

Link - Central time
Link - Time facts
Link - NIST main site
.

332 - Radioactive steel

News story found on the Terrorist map - as if we don't have enough to worry about from China.
-----------------
Italian police said Monday they have seized 30 tons of Chinese-made steel that had been contaminated by a radioactive substance. The environmental protection police squad said the steel was destined for the industrial production of chimneys and pulleys, and long-term exposure could have been dangerous for workers handling it.

Police said in a statement that the shipment had come from China's TISCO company and had arrived in the northern port town of La Spezia in May last year.

The steel had been accidentally mixed during production with cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope of cobalt, police said. Officers seized it last week after radiation turned up in tests on metal scraps at companies across Italy that had used part of the shipment.

China's exports have come under intense scrutiny in the past year after potentially deadly chemicals were found in goods including toothpaste, toys and seafood.

Link - usatoday

331 - Tracking trouble

One of the links I have on the side is the terrorist tracking map. Well in checking out my links to see if the T people are still being tracked, I found out we're tracking more than terrorists these days. We're tracking illegals and lost kids too. And soon we can track flu outbreaks and school incidents. If you're not paranoid after visiting these maps ..... well I'm paranoid thinking that you might NOT be!

FYI, you can click on the maps to make them bigger so you can click on overlapping alert icons.

Link - Terrorists at work
Link - Tracking Illegal problems
Link - Amber Alerts

330 - Reorganization

Well I decided to go screw with my blogs' template. What the hell, right? What can go wrogn. So I went and stole some ... I mean added some blogs that I have been going to from other people sites. Might as well have them on mine too! And I got a little anal and put the links in alphabetical order, like some other bloggers I know. I know, it's only fair.
That got me looking at some sites that I don't visit often enough. I found a link to a site about the Canadian health care system written by someone in Canada (I think). So the first link is to WMD's blog where I found it and the second link is to the article on Canadian health.
Link - WMD
Link - Canadian health care

329 - Art for arts' sake

There was a Wiley cartoon that I posted a while back about minimalist art. Now Jef Mallett has come up with an abstract art theme.



Link - Frazz

328 - Lock 'em up

This can be interpreted as a bad thing or good thing. On one hand we have the most people locked up of any nation. On the other hand, if they were in a different country how many of them would have just been killed rather than locked up.


Link - Mike Keefe
.

327 - Simple quote

They are many quote sites around. They all have a core sample of quotes from famous quotable people but then you find a quote that isn't common to all the sites.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. – Albert Einstien

Link - Brainy quote
.

326 - Norman's right

I never thought about names in books like this before but if you reeealy think about this Norman does make a good point!


Link - Drabble
.

325 - Cheap CD and DVD cases

What's that above? It's a CD case made from a 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. Go to the link to see the origami type process of making a free CD case (no tape involved).
Link - Paper case
.