1.31.2004
Three things that will never happen aboard the Starship Enterprise.
(apologies where necessary)
1. The crew of the Enterprise discovers a totally new life form, which later turns out to be a rather well-known old life form wearing a funny hat.
2. A power surge on the Bridge is rapidly and correctly diagnosed as a faulty capacitor by the highly-trained and competent engineering staff.
3. A major Starfleet emergency breaks out near the Enterprise, but fortunately some other ships in the area are able to deal with it to everyone's satisfaction.
--Posted by s. on Saturday, January 31, 2004.
1.29.2004
THE INQUIZITION OF SOCIALIST AVIATORS FORMERLY ASSOCIATED WITH AN AWARD WINNING HIGH SCHOOL QUIZ BOWL TEAM (WHOM ALSO HAS A DEEP PLEDGE TO LOCAL GROCERY STORES).................
And now let it begin, 4 comments can surely be outdone!
Dr. Henry Parsons
Senior Inquisitor
To every season we burn, burn, burn..............to everything we burn, burn, burn!
--Posted by Kelly D. Norris on Thursday, January 29, 2004.
1.28.2004
CONGRATULATIONS!
Dr's Sven, Henry, and Olga spent today answering questions for the annual POI Academic Quiz Bowl (along with other notable members of our community) and came home with Gold Medals! Nothing like a bunch of geeks (wearing the official Team Shirt, natch) with buzzers, eh? I, of course, spent many happy years of my childhood playing Trivial Pursuit (as a contact sport), so I fit right in.
For posterity's sake:
*There was, in fact, a question that mentioned Wernher Van Braun. "That's not my department!"
*There were several questions concerning glaciers, Nellie Bly, and sentence structure.
*The Team and their shirt-cons:
Dr. S. - There are 10 kinds of people: Those who understand binary notation, and those who don't.
Dr. Henry - Everything I need to know about Iife I learned from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Dr. Olga - Isaac Asimov : Science Fiction :: Douglas Adams : Life
Bryan C. - My teacher told me to brainstorm, but all I'm getting is sort of a small trickle.
Lucas D. - Calculus turns me on
Jennifer I. - I'm worth my weight in Spam!
Chandra B. Entropy Happens
Kyle L. - Will think for food
*We watched a hypnotist over lunch. Isn't that interesting?
*Rubik's Cube!!!
*Dr. Olga has been in a deep relationship with an EMT book. That was quite helpful.
*There was a question concerning State Quarters that I knew from the episode of Jeopardy! yesterday (or perhaps the day before). There was also a question on Jeopardy! today (which, natch (I read H O'h's article in the paper today. She's a fascinating and intelligent human being, and she uses the word "natch" quite frequently. I guess I just picked it up from her), I watched when I got home!) that I knew from the questions at the competition.
*Forget the Super Bowl, the Presidential nomination race. . .this is where it's all at.
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, January 28, 2004.
1.27.2004
...and a good day to you, Mr. Schimmelpflutzer!
Today is, of course, the big day in the granite state. I guess Granite State is better than some state nicknames. . I've never figured out the "show-me state".
Here in the Hawkeye state, it's mostly just really really cold.
And I'm being driving crazy by the people I hold most dear, because locked inside the same building they're really kind of annoying.
--Posted by s. on Tuesday, January 27, 2004.
1.26.2004
My personal opinions on the presidential candidates:
John Edwards would be the best president but may not be electable.
John Kerry, after turning his campaing around, makes (obviously) a pretty darn good candidate but that doesn't mean he will make a good president.
Howard Dean is the most fun to watch.
Dennis Kucinich is a loser (no slander intended - just stating the facts). I wish he'd give it up.
--Posted by s. on Monday, January 26, 2004.
1.22.2004
On the State of the Union Address. . .
Mr. Bush faced a tough situation. Entirely regardless of what he actually said, half of the audience had already decided to disagree with him. The Bush administration has taken extreme stances on most issues, making our current president the target of jokes, caricatures, and insults from other nations as well as the left side of American society.
In the State of the Union Address, President Bush did not try to win many new voters. The rift between sides is to great for that. Bush is betting on his loyal republican base to keep him in office, and the issues he raised were mostly issues that excited the GOP.
A good portion of the beginning of his speech was used to further justify the War on Terrorism. Mr. Bush envisions America as the world’s peacekeeper, valiantly ridding the world of evil. The president thinks that the continued search for terrorists and terrorism organizations and the renewal of the Patriot act will make American and the world safer.
Bush also mentioned the amendment of the constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman only, to prevent gay marriage. Marriage is one of the oldest institutions, according to the speech, and it falls to America to protect it for fear it should become corrupted by the arbitrary decision of activist judges.
Apparently, right up there with terrorist attacks and the defense of the sacred institution of marriage is the use of steroids by professional athletes. President Bush called for the teams, coaches, and players of professional sports to send the right message to the young people of the nation by ending the use of performance-enhancing steroids.
The right-wing Repubs loved it, the Dean-loving democrats hated it. President Bush has gone beyond preaching to the choir. He’s titillating them.
--Posted by s. on Thursday, January 22, 2004.
1.21.2004
I'm feeling slightly disillusioned.
Someone stole my frickin' illusion, and for the love of pete I want it back!
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, January 21, 2004.
1.19.2004
John Kerry, neh?
And not even really that close.
I'd like to state my opinion, which is that the Iowa caucus system is as close to hands-on democracy as you're likely to get.
That's it.
--Posted by s. on Monday, January 19, 2004.
I love Jeopardy - some of you know that.
I would like to, someday, see somebody win with $1.00, so that the following day when they announce him or her they say "whose one day cash winnings total . . $1.00". It would amuse me to no end.
--Posted by s. on Monday, January 19, 2004.
1.18.2004
They're back!!
--Posted by s. on Sunday, January 18, 2004.
1.15.2004
It gets warmish in Iowa in January . . .
What IS a Caucus-race? said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
Why, said the Dodo, the best way to explain it is to do it. (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (the exact shape doesn't matter, it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no One, two, three, and away, but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out The race is over! and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, But who has won?
--Lewis Carroll.
--Posted by s. on Thursday, January 15, 2004.
1.13.2004
here's why.
Sorry.
--Posted by s. on Tuesday, January 13, 2004.
1.12.2004
An apology - i don't know why our comments are gone.
am working on the problem, but hey, they're free and I guess you get what you pay for.
--Posted by s. on Monday, January 12, 2004.
Paradox and Self-Reference.
This sentence is false.
WHAT??
There is a certain beauty in a well-crafted paradox. The kind that makes people knit their brows and smile because they can’t figure it out.
Could it be, perhaps, because we recognize it in ourselves?
The human individual is perhaps the most magnificent paradox that exists. We cannot understand ourselves because we are destined to look at life from the inside. We stumble about blindly, unable to determine our place in the big picture because it is all too big - the dance of life too complex to comprehend.
We don’t even understand what we create - we can sometimes take a stab at the how’s but the why’s are still out there. Even if we can say that every action has an equal but opposite reaction and energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared and the natural tendency of systems is for the amount of disorder to increase, we still can’t say why such things happen - and we can’t begin to account for the times that they don’t. We say that there is always an explanation - which in terms of chemical reactions and positive and negative charges there may very well be - but why do the charges exist in the first place? Whence come the four fundamental forces, the logic system that rarely fails to find its way into the chunk of gray matter inside our skulls.
It’s impossible to get ahead by merely doing what is expected of you. And you don’t have to push boundaries when you are the one who sets the standards.
When I as a human consider myself, I am being self-referential. There’s no getting around it.
--Posted by s. on Monday, January 12, 2004.
1.07.2004
A certain band director was standing outside on a metal ladder during a concert, when a thunderstorm broke out.
Amazingly, he wasn't hit by lightning, but the music was awful - it seems he just wasn't a good conductor.
*groan
--Posted by s. on Wednesday, January 07, 2004.
1.06.2004
Phrases I wrote in this Blog entry, for whatever reason.
- Simon Says
- Coming Thru the Rye
- Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim
- Weapons of Mass Destruction
- 'sup, homie?
- I believe in yesterday
- Wonderfully pithy
- Worth its weight in spam
- Intriguing fatigues
- The important thing is to know what you're doing rather than to get the right answer
- Lexie Luck
- Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen
--Posted by s. on Tuesday, January 06, 2004.
1.05.2004
And all this time it was Iris foetidissima "Fructo Alba"................................
--Dr. Henry Parsons
Don't you dare call me a botanist you lying scion ofArctostaphylos!!
--Posted by Kelly D. Norris on Monday, January 05, 2004.
1.01.2004
Life is full of disappointments. . .
I thought I was going to get to watch Jeopardy today, but they're showing the Brian Boitano Figure Skating Spectacular instead.
--Posted by s. on Thursday, January 01, 2004.
If there's one thing I do not understand at all in this world, it is the College Bowl setup.
I understand football by itself, sort of. I admit that my testosterone levels are a bit on the low side, so I don't appreciate the idea of monstrously oversized persons (usually of the male persuasion) knocking themselves about to reach one end or the other of a bit of grass, but from a sociological and cultural perspective, I understand its appeal.
In the NFL and HS "systems", teams compete with each other and eventually enter what is commonly called "The Playoffs" (da da da). This means that two teams play each other and the loser is out. It isn't always fair (that is, the team that I want to win doesn't always), but at least it's consistent. Eventually, the top two teams battle it out for the top honors. There is one defined winner, whether we like it or not.
College teams have no less than TWENTY-EIGHT "Bowl Games" including the Outback Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Humanitarian Bowl, the Insight Bowl, and the Continental Tire Bowl, none of which are really necessary and none of which really return a Champion. Why the excess? Money. The winning school gets money. The hosting city gets money. The announcers get money. It gives us someting to bet on (to make money). For some reason, Americans are willing to spend money to buy tickets (not only to the game, but also for transportation to the game), food, face paint, "authorized merchandise", teddy bears wearing Iowa Hawkeye jerseys. Throw in parades (which no one really cares about (really, does anyone actually enjoy watching a parade?), but people spend money to go to), halftime shows (ditto), and souvenir vendors, and you've made yourself a handy chunk of change for a bunch of guys practicing organized violence.
The beauty of the game (and yes, it can be beautiful to an eye that has been properly trained - as a mathematical proof or a five-part fugue or a well-written book can be beautiful to persons who have learned how to properly experience it) is masked by the commercialism that infests it.
Unfortunately, that's America.
--Posted by s. on Thursday, January 01, 2004.
The Ornery American
Check it out!
--Posted by s. on Thursday, January 01, 2004.
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