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Tinkr Lnks for 5/19/09
- Cheesus of Nazareth
- Lookit!
- Julia Dales: beat boxing champion
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Tinkr Lnks for 5/18/2009
I usually only have something to blog about a couple times a week, but I am always throwing stuff up on my tumblelog. I have been looking for a plugin to post some of that content onto my blog, but can’t seem to find one. For the time being I am going to try and post daily digests of my tumblelog. Who knows if I will be able to keep it up. Hopefully I will find a plugin that will do it for me, because you know, I am lazy.
- Faith Is Retarded
- Hubble’s final servicing mission [Pics]
- An Open Letter to Oprah
via Cult of Dusty -
Pet Peeves
Living with a bunch of house guests this past month had really exposed a bunch of pet peeves that I have.
- I hate when the toilet seat is left up.
- I hate when the toilet paper roll is put on wrong. (paper goes over, not under).
- I hate when lights and TV are left on when nobody is watching them or in that room.
- I hate when someone fills the dishwasher wrong and nothing comes clean.
- I hate when someone puts dishes away in the wrong places.
- I hate when knives are facing the wrong way and are in the wrong spot on in the knife block.
- I hate clutter and things that aren’t in their proper place.
It sounds like I am full of hate, but I’m really not. I just like everything in order and in it’s place. If it’s not it drives me crazy.
We are heading to Denver on Friday for my Sister college graduation. Everybody will still be here when we leave, but they should be moving back to the Wife’s Aunt’s house this coming weekend. I am looking forward to everything getting back to normal after our weekend in Denver, but still keeping my fingers crossed.
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Green Day
I don’t know what it is, but I still like to buy CDs. I couldn’t tell you the last time that I actually put one in a CD player and played it though. Now days, they just get ripped and put in the closet. Today the piece of plastic I bought was the new Green Day CD. My Green Day tickets also came in the mail today. I have seen them once before, and it was the best concert ever. I had tickets last time they were suppose to place Fargo, but they canceled. They will be here in July, and I can’t wait.
I have been a Green Day fan forever. They along with Nirvana were my gateway bands. they got me listening to a lot of great music. Back when Green Day were on Lookout! Records there were so many other great bands on Lookout!. I would pick up CD just based on the record label, and I was never disappointed. Now days with the Internet any MySpace it’s not really the same. Long gone are the days of picking up a CD and not know what it’s going to sound like. I don’t know if it’s better or worse, it’s just different. I don’t know if it’s that I am getting older, but I find myself listening to music less and less. I still go out of my way to find good music, and seldom like anything on the radio though.
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Hoping For Normalcy Soon
Hopefully things will get back to normal around here soon. We are hoping that the Wife’s Aunt gets back into her house today. The water has gone down enough that the backway should be travelable soon. I don’t mind having houseguests, but her Aunt has been here since Easter, and Grandma and Grandpa have been here for two weeks. It’s getting a little long.
Yesterday it was just me and the Grandparents at home all day. I am not much of a people person to begin with, but how much do I have in common with an 80 year old? I didn’t have much to talk about. Grandpa pretty much watched TV all day as I sat on my computers. Grandma isn’t doing so hot, but the cancer hasn’t spread as far as they had feared. She had surgery Wednesday, and is on a feeding tube now. Grandpa was in charge of keeping her fed.
I on the other hand was in charge of keeping Grandpa fed. He is obviously from a different generation than me. He has nothing to do with the kitchen. He wont cook. He wont even nuke leftovers, or even make coffee. He is totally a nice guy, but all his life the kitchen as been the “women’s place”. Plus I am sure he feel out of place, and doesn’t know where anything is in our kitchen. I didn’t really know what to cook, so we had leftovers for lunch, and I just ordered a pizza for supper.
It was a little weird when lunch time came, and right at noon he walked into my computer room and told me it was time for lunch. He is pretty much programed to eat the same time every day. Not that that’s a big deal, I know I have my little quirks too.
Today should be another busy day. More of the wife’s family is coming to visit from the east coast. They will only be here for the day to visit though, as they fly back tomorrow. I am really looking for things to get back to normal around here soon.
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Two Great Podcasts
I love podcasts that you can learn from and get you to think. Two of my favorites are Skeptoid and the Stuff You Should Know podcast. They both had great episodes this week. Skeptoid had an episode about the placebo effect, and Stuff You Should Know had an episode about high fructose corn syrup. Really good stuff.
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First of May
Well, it’s the first of May already. It’s the day when I listen to one of my favorite Jonathan Coulton songs.
It’s also No Pants Day. So if you’re wearing pants take them off.
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Numbers are Hard
Currently everybody is going crazy about the Swine Flu. Sure it’s scary because it’s new and we don’t know much about it, and it seems to be spreading, but really, it’s not much of a threat yet. Right now I think it’s mostly hype. News now days all seems to be about hype. It’s more about getting good ratings rather than getting the facts out there.
Less than 200 people worldwide have died from Swine Flu. Sure, death is never good, but that number is miniscule, 35,000 people die every year just in the US from the ordinary flu. Obviously the world wide numbers are even much greater.
It’s just like the terrorist scares. How much money has been spent to make us “supposedly” safer? Your own appendix, your car, and yes, the common flu are all much more likely to kill you than a terrorist.
People are just bad at understanding statistics. All the casinos, and people that play the lottery proves that. My Mom can go to Aruba on her timeshare, but she said she would never go there because they kidnap people down there. What? Sure there was a sad story of a kidnapping down there that was plastered all over the news for ratings, but I am willing to bet there are more kidnappings and even higher crime rates here in the US.
I am not a huge fan of flying, but I am not scared for my life. I realize I am much more likely to get killed on the drive to the airport, than I am in a plane crash. Flying is the quickest and safest way to travel. It also makes great ratings on the rare occasion that a plane goes down. It’s stupid to live your life in fear of things you can’t control.
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Bad News
The roads are still flooded by my Wife’s Aunts house. It sounds like she is going to be living with us a few more weeks until the water goes down. This weekend we learned some bad news that is going to bring even more house guests for who knows how long.
My Wife’s, Grandpa’s Wife has esophageal cancer. It’s going to be pretty tough on my Wife’s Grandpa. His previous Wife died of cancer 20 years ago, and now he has to go through it all again. She probably isn’t going to last long though. It’s in her esophagus and as spread to her lymph nodes, lungs, and possible her liver. That would be tough for a young person to fight off, let alone an 80 year old.
They are from a small town in northern Minnesota, so they will be staying with us for a while as she is going to have treatment done at the Roger Maris Cancer Center here in Fargo. It will inconvenience us a bit, but it’s the least we could do to help the family out.
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Sister-in-law Annoyances
My Sister-in-law drives me nuts. In a month the Wife and I and my Brother and his Wife are heading out to Denver. Our Half-Sister is graduating college, so we thought we would head out there and make a long weekend vacation out of it. Last time we were in Denver nine years ago we took a day and went down to Colorado Springs to see Pikes Peak. We took the Cog Railroad up it the top. It was am amazing view from the top, and a nice relaxing train ride up to the top.
We thought it would be cool to do it again, plus my Brother wants to go too.
Well, his wife is pregnant and is all worried that the higher elevation is going to be bad for the kid. WTF? I understand being careful, and not wanting to do anything that will harm the kid, but I really doubt spending two hours in a higher elevation than you are use to is going to do anything. It’s not like she is ready to pop either. I think she will be three months along when we are in Denver.
But whatever.
She is also super religious, doesn’t trust doctors, refuses to take any kind of medications, but takes tons of “natural” herbal supplement crap. I wouldn’t be surprised is she is one of those nut-jobs that doesn’t believe in vaccinations.
She is a nice person, don’t get me wrong, I get along with her just fine. She just has total opposite believes than I do. It’s a little annoying spending time with her. She has some quirks that I am not use to. She wont ride in elevators, has to sit in the front seat of cars, and always has to sit on the end if in a row of seats.
But whatever.
It should still be a fun vacation in a month.