Funmurphys: the Blog

For Those Who Like Their Bones Neat

The real McCoy, and nothing but.

Sci-Fi Sounds From My Youth

Kevin Kelly posted "The Scifi Sound Effects That Take Over Your Brain" and brought back a lot of happy (and scary) childhood memories. Sounds, like flavors, can trigger a memory and/or an emotional state much more than a picture. Listen to all of them but the Alien Heat Ray and the Alien Probe from the 1953 version of War of the Worlds. brought back some scary memories. The original Star Trek transporter sounds like wonder and awe to me. It was a very cool visual effect as well.

Three Words for My Singing in Church

1. Awful
2. Offkey
3. Sprechstimme

Cheeseburger in a Can

What will they think of next! How do you improve on cheeseburger in a can? That will increase attendence at our scout campouts.

I admit I was intrigued by the other product mentioned, Peronin:

Peronin is easy to consume during the contest, is readily assimilated by the body, and enters the bloodstream immediately. In addition, in extreme situations, it eliminates the risk of suffering the much-feared fatigue caused by a lack of oxygen in the blood and it minimizes bowel movements.

Amazing But True. Maybe

OK, I read this amazing fact on the internet so its true. Maybe.

Corgis can outrun a cheetah, inch for inch.

I'm guessing the inches refer to leg length, and not body length.

Cue the reproachful dog picture:

PETA vs. Polar Bears

Is PETA torn over polar bears? On the one hand, they're animals; on the other, they eat meat and wear real fur.

The Narita Family

If you enjoy photography and/or scale models, check out the Narita Family. Simply beautiful work.

Expanding The Carbon Offset Business

While waiting for the Libby Trial jury to come back with a verdict (my mind's made up, what's taking them so long?), Tom Maguire has been forced to write, ever so briefly, about other things, like cigarette offsets. Not being a smoker, I don't think he's on to anything there.

However, he has the kernal of a good idea, and so I'm willing to partner with anyone who wants to form a fat offset firm. Yep, we sell people weight offsets - whether you want to lose weight but stay at your current weight, or pork up while being able to claim you haven't gained a pound. So if somebody mentioned Al Gore's weight gain, he'd be able to retort that in fact he'd lost weight when you factored in his fat offsets. I'm sure we could really clean up in Hollywood.

Oh, for any prospective partners, I consider access to anorexics a clear plus.

A Different Kind of Kodak Moment

Who knew Howard Beale works for Kodak?

How do you motivate a large company that had huge historical success but needs to keep up with the times? You make a video and post it on the net, of course. Maybe I should make one for the very large corporation of America that I work for. On second thought, probably not.

Their Pain, Your Gain

File this under too much time on their hands, but at least it keeps them in shape. I especially like the ice skating part.

As seen on King of Fools. And what a lovely one he is.

Up, Up, and Away

Somedays I'm more proud of my Swiss ancestory than others -- and today is such a day. Yves Rossy flies like a bird, or at least as close to a bird as you can with composite wings and kerosene powered engines. It's not man powered, but it is wearable. He straps on the 10 foot wings, jumps out of a plane, and flies using his body as the control system. Yikes! Of course he has a web site: Jet-Man.com.

So I salute you, Yves Rossy, truly a Real Man of Genius.

Christmas Carols For The Disturbed

Schizophrenia --- Do You Hear What I Hear?

Multiple Personality Disorder --- We Three Kings Disoriented Are

Dementia --- I Think I'll be Home for Christmas

Narcissistic --- Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

Manic --- Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and.....

Paranoid --- Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

Borderline Personality Disorder --- Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

Personality Disorder --- You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why

Attention Deficit Disorder --- Silent night, Holy oooh look at the Froggy - can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder --- Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle,Bells, Jingle Bells, ...

A mental health professional sent me this one.

Pamela Is Available

Giving hope to men everywhere, Pamela Anderson is back on the market. I think that's what caused the meltdown on the real market yesterday.

Sienna Miller Available

Sienna Miller is back on the market. I'm letting you know as just another part of the total information awareness package here at Funmurphys.

Funmurphys Meets You Tube

We got a new computer (another iMac), and the Fruit of the Murphy Loins found Photo Booth first thing. Then it was on to iMovie HD so we made a movie. Not a good one, it's a bit silly. OK, it's far too silly, but it's my only movie, so here it is.

That's 2 minutes of your life you won't get back.

Reese Witherspoon Available

For you guys out there interested in this sort of thing, Reese Witherspoon is back on the market.

Sandra Bullock sounds like she's not going back on the market, but then that's the way Kirstie Alley once talked, and look at her now.

I'm just saying.

The Right Was Right

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I've been warning you people about this, but nobody listened. Now that the election is over, the left is just rubbing our faces in it.

Via Boing Boing

Faith Hill Momentarily Reveals Truth

In other important news yesterday, people are reacting angrily to Faith Hill reacting angrily to losing an award. I am now reacting angrily to them, and please feel free to react angrily to my angry reaction.

Faith claims it was just a joke. Personally, I wish she would have said that her disappointment got the better of her and sorry Carrie, you deserved to win. After the election season, I'm craving a little honesty. Since I don't care for Country music, I have no idea who deserves to win, nor do I care. I mean, after Patsy Cline, what's the point?

I'm wondering if Tom McMahon will create a four block with stupid joke (Kerry, Hill) and who believes it after this one.

PS just in case you haven't heard, Brittany is available again.

I Have A Dream

Here's a Democratic platform I can get behind. Too bad it's only satire, although I don't doubt that Scott Ott also wishes it wasn't. Could a Democrat today say with a straight face:

"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty."

Mad Dogs And Englishmen

Just to prove I don't have sex on the brain, here's another story about pointless science or technology and this time it has nothing to do with sex (unless you believe in the Watson Conjecture). It's all about the UV index, and how we so called Homo Sapiens Sapiens, which literally means 'man wise wise' are too stupid to figure out how bad we're going to get sunburned without some weather person telling us how bad the UV is. I mean, it's not like I can open my eyes, gaze into the heavens, and arrive at my own estimate as to how much UV is making it through the clouds or clear skies as the case may be.

But now the European Space Agency, ESA, has gone high tech with it. Yep, they have developed "safe sunning" technology using satellites to determine and inform you of the UV index:

Thanks to an innovative service called HappySun, the UV Index can be delivered directly to mobile phones via SMS or can be accessed on the Internet. HappySun calculates the UV Index throughout the day by using ESA satellite data on radiation, ozone and cloud coverage. The service has just completed its two-year-long test phase and has received positive feedback from users.
"HappySun is a tool for the primary prevention of skin cancer," Franco Marsili, Director of the Dermatology Clinic at the Versilia Hospital in Italy, said. "The aim is to educate people about the intelligent ‘use’ of the sun."

We really should change our offical name to Homo Stupidus Stupidus.

New Meaning To Dress For Success

After reading this story about how researchers investigated how women dressed differently during their menstrual cycle and discovered, I kid you not:

A new study shows that young women in relationships may dress a bit more enticingly as they reach the ovulation phase of their monthly fertility cycle — the time when they are most fertile.

First, who thinks up these studies - nerdy men who want to meet college women? This really addresses a burning question about human behavoir.

Secondly, I'm not surprised that women would dress "more enticingly" and that's because women are a lot hornier as ovulation approaches. I'm wondering when that bit of research gets done.

Bonus tip: Men are always horny, except when sporting events are on TV.

A Jug Of Wine, And Thou

You can get a grant for a study like this?

Studies to date looking at the association between alcohol consumption and risky sex, however, have largely used potentially biased clinic-based samples or alcohol venue-based sampling strategies [2,4,10,13,16,17]. In addition, risk factors for heavy alcohol use itself with regard to sexual behavior have not yet been adequately characterized. Finally, there are few data on whether the relationship between alcohol and risky sex is the same for men and women, and on the interplay between alcohol, intergenerational relations, and sex exchange. We therefore set out to assess the following in a large, population-based sample covering rural, urban, and semi-urban areas in Botswana: (a) the prevalence and correlates of heavy alcohol consumption; and (b) gender-specific relationships between heavy alcohol use (as a primary independent variable) and a number of HIV transmission risk outcomes, including having unprotected sex with a nonmonogamous partner, having multiple partners, and paying for or selling sex in exchange for money or resources.

The Return Of Sea Buckthorn

I just couldn't resist the title: Ghengis Khan Wonder Berry Could Conquer Heart Disease. OK, mix one old folk remedy with modern technology and voila: a headline I can't resist. Hope it works, but perhaps we should just eat the berries, drink the wine, and spend more time getting excercise in the great outdoors.

Nah, just give me the extract so I can sit on the couch and watch sports.

News You Hope Is True

File under News You Hope Is True: Chocolate Chip cookies that lower cholesterol. My mother, who still believes something has to taste awful for it to be good for you (ahh, the joys of cod liver oil) would not approve. Find out all about them at the Right Direction Cookies website.

The New Phonebooks are Here!

The Nobel prize winners have been in the news lately, and so here is a complete listing:

ORNITHOLOGY: Ivan R. Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles, for exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

NUTRITION: Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, for showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters.

PEACE: Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.

ACOUSTICS: D. Lynn Halpern (of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and Brandeis University, and Northwestern University), Randolph Blake (of Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University) and James Hillenbrand (of Western Michigan University and Northwestern University) for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.

MATHEMATICS: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed

LITERATURE: Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."

MEDICINE: Francis M. Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, for his medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage"; and Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan, and Arie Oliven of Bnai Zion Medical Center, Haifa, Israel, for their subsequent medical case report also titled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage."

PHYSICS: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.

CHEMISTRY: Antonio Mulet, José Javier Benedito and José Bon of the University of Valencia, Spain, and Carmen Rosselló of the University of Illes Balears, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, for their study "Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature."

BIOLOGY: Bart Knols (of Wageningen Agricultural University, in Wageningen, the Netherlands; and of the National Institute for Medical Research, in Ifakara Centre, Tanzania, and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna Austria) and Ruurd de Jong (of Wageningen Agricultural University and of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Italy) for showing that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.

That would be the Ig Nobel prizes, that is. They are awarded to those who first make people laugh, then make them think. Something we strive mightily for here at funMurphys, but without the coveted award.

Some winners got into the spirit, as this press release shows.

Overflowing With Good Health

In honor of Tom McMahon and his comment about healthy gals on Telemundo and Univision, I give you Iris Chacon, the healthiest gal of them all.

The Four Ecumenical Truisms

It is important for those of all faiths to recognize these four religious truths:

1. Muslims do not recognize Jews as God's chosen people.

2. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the Leader of the Christian
world.

4. Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.

Alton Brown Speaks

I am so jealous - Alton Brown is my favorite guy on the Food Network, and oddly enough there are several good shows on the network (Iron Chef and Emeril are not included). The thing I like best, even more than the light hearted humor (I especially liked the show where he shooed the women away making origami for a moment so he could show us men how to properly make our own deep fried corndogs and sliders) is the sheer inspiration as I always want to cook after watching his show. Yes, I want to get in touch with my inner man and provide food for my family.

Well, Jeff Harrell lucked into a couple of tickets to hear him speak at the Smithsonian (who knew they hosted anything relevant and happening?):

First things first: Alton Brown is both taller and chunkier in person than he looks on TV. It befits the host of a popular show about food and cooking to measure a few extra nautical miles around the equator, so to speak, and Brown carries the excess tonnage well. It’s all part of his slightly-larger-than-life persona, from his trademark wire-rimmed glasses to his spiky blond hair to his effervescent attitude.

Okay, enough of that writerly crap. On to the good stuff.

Alton Brown is funny. Seriously, he’s a funny guy. And he knows it too. His lecture — and I’m using the word “lecture” here in its most abstract sense — was a performing-without-a-net operation from the very beginning. He took the stage to enthusiastic applause and confessed that he was going to fulfill two lifelong dreams tonight: He was going to lecture at the Smithsonian Institution — “the frickin’ Smithsonian,” he said with unrestrained glee — and he was going to appear on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” with James Lipton.

I'd always heard the camera adds a few pounds, but apparently not (or perhaps Mr. Brown has put his weight on while on the road and after shooting episodes for his main show, Good Eats).

And as far as Ted Drews goes, that's a St. Louis institution of longstanding. It would be nice if it got some national recognition.

I Want My Nintendo

Will Nintendo beat Sony and Microsoft in the next round of the gaming console wars? This guy thinks so. My vote will go to whichever company can provide me their latest console loaded with hot software to test and report on. (Yes, I'm still waiting on a wall mounted Plasma TV to review). Because I don't want to end up like this guy - writing about really old video games with fondness. I want to be able to say that back in my day, the games were lousy, and I'm glad I have the latest gear. I want to say I'm glad the designers of today only care about how good a game looks and don't care what it plays like.

Video Games Of My Lamented Youth

Mark is offering a walk down video game memory lane and he's focusing on the console. Poor benighted soul that I am, I've never owned a video game console - although Father's Day is coming up.

I have played plenty of video games, especially in my youth, when they had game parlours -- the forerunners of places like Dave & Busters. So my trip will be a bit different, and I'll start off with my senior year in college, because I lived off campus (across the street is still off campus) at 555 B Stanford Ave. (which I see from the magic of the internet needed repairs for dry rot in 1998) and spent my lunch time playing video games downstairs at Tresidder - I imagine the games and bowling alley are both long gone by now. That was when we had games like Tempest which was just amazing when it first came out. Coin ops give a completely different feel than the home console - in part because having a good game could lead to free games - I still remember the day I kept playing Tempest on one quarter because I kept winning free games. By that time Pinball was on the way out, and the machines were kept segregated although I often crossed over and took a walk on the Pinball side.

But my favorite game, and that of my brother too, was Beserk which we had to go to some place in Menlo Park to play, which was followed by it's successor Frenzy, which was just a way cool game and if I remember right was available in Tresidder only after I graduated.

The 50 Best Books to Movies and Me

Since I'm drawing all my inspiration from Mark at Kaedrin, here is my take on the Guardian's best 50 book to movie adaptations:

1. [BM] 1984
2. [BM] Alice in Wonderland
3. American Psycho
4. [M] Breakfast at Tiffany's
5. Brighton Rock
6. [BM] Catch 22
7. [BM] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
8. [BM] A Clockwork Orange
9. Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
10. [BM]The Day of the Triffids
11. [M] Devil in a Blue Dress
12. [M] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
13. [BM] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
14. [BM] Doctor Zhivago
15. [B] Empire of the Sun
16. [M] The English Patient
17. Fight Club
18. [M] The French Lieutenant's Woman
19. [M] Get Shorty
20. [M] The Godfather
21. [BM] Goldfinger
22. [M] Goodfellas
23. [M] Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
24. [BM] The Hound of the Baskervilles
25. [BM] Jaws
26. [M] The Jungle Book
27. A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
28. [BM] LA Confidential
29. [M] Les Liaisons Dangereuses
30. [M] Lolita
31. [BM] Lord of the Flies
32. [M] The Maltese Falcon
33. [BM] Oliver Twist
34. [BM] One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
35. Orlando
36. [B] The Outsiders
37. [BM] Pride and Prejudice
38. [M] The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
39. The Railway Children
40. [M] Rebecca
41. [M] The Remains of the Day
42. [M] Schindler's Ark (aka Schindler's List)
43. Sin City --- does the Dark Knight count?
44. [M] The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
45. [M] The Talented Mr Ripley
46. [BM] Tess of the D'Urbervilles
47. Through a Glass Darkly
48. [BM] To Kill a Mockingbird
49. Trainspotting
50. [M] The Vanishing
51. [BM] Watership Down

Yes, they really did include 51. Please don't ask me why, I'm not a journalist.

Looking at the lists I can find via Mark, nobody has seen or read Brighton Rock or A Kestrel For a Knave. I do think there is a bit of a British bias to these choices as well.

Obvious Appeal

Here's an idea I can get behind: The Jayne Mansfield 44 cent stamp. There's certainly no room to get in front of it.

Little Red Riding Hood?

There once was a young person named Little Red Riding
Hood who lived on the edge of a large forest full of
endangered owls and rare plants that would probably
provide a cure for cancer if only someone took the
time to study them.

Red Riding Hood lived with a nurture giver whom she
sometimes referred to as "mother", although she didn't
mean to imply by this term that she would have thought
less of the person if a close biological link did not
in fact exist.

Nor did she intend to denigrate the equal value of
nontraditional households, although she was sorry if
this was the impression conveyed.

One day her mother asked her to take a basket of
organically grown fruit and mineral water to her
grandmother's house.

"But mother, won't this be stealing work from the
unionized people who have struggled for years to earn
the right to carry all packages between various people
in the woods?"

Red Riding Hood's mother assured her that she had
called the union boss and gotten a special
compassionate mission exemption form.

"But mother, aren't you oppressing me by ordering me
to do this?"

Red Riding Hood's mother pointed out that it was
impossible for womyn to oppress each other, since all
womyn were equally oppressed until all womyn were
free.

"But mother, then shouldn't you have my brother carry
the basket, since he's an oppressor, and should learn
what it's like to be oppressed?"

And Red Riding Hood's mother explained that her
brother was attending a special rally for animal
rights, and besides, this wasn't stereotypical womyn's
work, but an empowering deed that would help engender
a feeling of community.

"But won't I be oppressing Grandma, by implying that
she's sick and hence unable to independently further
her own selfhood?"

But Red Riding Hood's mother explained that her
grandmother wasn't actually sick or incapacitated or
mentally handicapped in any way, although that was not
to imply that any of these conditions were inferior to
what some people called "health".

Thus Red Riding Hood felt that she could get behind
the idea of delivering the basket to her grandmother,
and so she set off.

Many people believed that the forest was a foreboding
and dangerous place, but Red Riding Hood knew that
this was an irrational fear based on cultural
paradigms instilled by a patriarchal society that
regarded the natural world as an exploitable resource,
and hence believed that natural predators were in fact
intolerable competitors.

Other people avoided the woods for fear of thieves and
deviants, but Red Riding Hood felt that in a truly
classless society all marginalized peoples would be
able to "come out" of the woods and be accepted as
valid lifestyle role models.

On her way to Grandma's house, Red Riding Hood passed
a woodchopper, and wandered off the path, in order to
examine some flowers.

She was startled to find herself standing before a
Wolf, who asked her what was in her basket.

Red Riding Hood's teacher had warned her never to talk
to strangers, but she was confident in taking control
of her own budding sexuality, and chose to dialogue
with the Wolf.

She replied, "I am taking my Grandmother some
healthful snacks in a gesture of solidarity."

The Wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a
little girl to walk through these woods alone."

Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark
offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because
of your traditional status as an outcast from society,
the stress of which has caused you to develop an
alternative and yet entirely valid worldview. Now, if
you'll excuse me, I would prefer to be on my way."

Red Riding Hood returned to the main path, and
proceeded towards her Grandmother's house.

But because his status outside society had freed him
from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style
thought, the Wolf knew of a quicker route to Grandma's
house.

He burst into the house and ate Grandma, a course of
action affirmative of his nature as a predator.

Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist gender role
notions, he put on Grandma's nightclothes, crawled
under the bedclothes, and awaited developments.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said,

"Grandma, I have brought you some cruelty free snacks
to salute you in your role of wise and nurturing
matriarch."

The Wolf said softly "Come closer, child, so that I
might see you."

Red Riding Hood said, "Goddess! Grandma, what big eyes
you have!"

"You forget that I am optically challenged."

"And Grandma, what an enormous, what a fine nose you
have."

"Naturally, I could have had it fixed to help my
acting career, but I didn't give in to such societal
pressures, my child."

"And Grandma, what very big, sharp teeth you have!"

The Wolf could not take any more of these specist
slurs, and, in a reaction appropriate for his
accustomed milieu, he leaped out of bed, grabbed
Little Red Riding Hood, and opened his jaws so wide
that she could see her poor Grandmother cowering in
his belly.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Red Riding Hood
bravely shouted. "You must request my permission
before proceeding to a new level of intimacy!"

The Wolf was so startled by this statement that he
loosened his grasp on her.

At the same time, the woodchopper burst into the
cottage, brandishing an ax.

"Hands off!" cried the woodchopper.

"And what do you think you're doing?" cried Little Red
Riding Hood. "If I let you help me now, I would be
expressing a lack of confidence in my own abilities,
which would lead to poor self esteem and lower
achievement scores on college entrance exams."

"Last chance, sister! Get your hands off that
endangered species! This is an FBI sting!" screamed
the woodchopper, and when Little Red Riding Hood
nonetheless made a sudden motion, he sliced off her
head.

"Thank goodness you got here in time," said the Wolf.
"The brat and her grandmother lured me in here. I
thought I was a goner."

"No, I think I'm the real victim, here," said the
woodchopper. "I've been dealing with my anger ever
since I saw her picking those protected flowers
earlier. And now I'm going to have such a trauma. Do
you have any aspirin?"

"Sure," said the Wolf.

"Thanks."

"I feel your pain," said the Wolf, and he patted the
woodchopper on his firm, well padded back, gave a
little belch, and said "Do you have any Maalox?"

A Different Kind of Jobs Program

Yesterday, Opinion Journal's Best of the Web linked to this article about Saudi Arabia replacing male clerks with female clerks at lingerie shops with a remark about Maureen Dowd.

Maureen Dowd!?! I'm thinking "Lingerie Shops in Saudia Arabia!?!" Isn't that like a liquor store at a Baptist convention? Or Karaoke night at the Trappist monastery?

This move isn't a response to Saudi men around women in scanty dress, but a jobs program for women. Next women sales clerks will take over other clothing stores. The government hopes to create 200,000 jobs for women. There must be a lot of lingerie stores to support those kinds of numbers.

Since the female form is so absolutely lust inducing to men that women must go covered head to toe, where exactly do they keep purveyors of lust enhancing clothing? I'd assumed carefully guarded locations, but nope, according to the article, they are "along the streets, central markets and major shopping centers." They must have the mirrors inside the changing rooms. Or as the song says, Arabian nights, like Arabian days, are hotter than hot, just in much different ways. Know we know the answer to the question, "what comes between me and my Burqa?" isn't nothing.

Along similar lines, when I was in Pakistan, you could tell the hotel employees who regularly got to work in the pool area where the European stewardesses hung out in their European swimwear from those who didn't -- they were the ones who could actually do what they were there to do. The two guys who came out the change a light bulb one day - they just pretty much stopped and stared and ogled. Finally one of the waiters had to say something to them - it only took half and hour to change a light bulb.

Chess in Louisville

My son was an entrant at the National Junior High Chess Championship Tournament this past weekend. Before you get too excited, it was an if you pay the entrance fee, you get to play kind of tournament (an open, not an invitational). So we drove down to Louisville Wednesday evening so that he could play in the Bughouse tournament Thursday morning.

Since we didn't find a partner until the week of travel, we spent the night in a motel in Corydon, IN that I found on the internet Tuesday night. I was so worried that since we sould be arriving at about 9PM they might give my room away I called the motel to make sure it was gauranteed for late arrival. When we pulled up Wednesday night, I found out why the clerk was so non-chalant: There were about six cars in the lot and the motel looked to have over a hundred rooms. I went with the cheapest hotel I could find, and by golly I found it. As I told my brother when he called, it was like one of those motels movie desparados hide out in while on the lam.

Thursday morning I checked in to the "Legendary" Galt House Hotel. It only took half an hour because a different Kevin Murphy had checked in the day before and somehow the clerk gave him my reservation. The perils of a semi-common name: common enough that mix-ups occur, rare enough nobody is on guard against them. But Michael Edwards, the man in charge, got it all straightened out and we did get a room. Shabby and without a view, but a room nevertheless. Fortunately, Kyle's bughouse partner and family arrived in the lobby just after us and since they weren't checking in until the next day (they were staying in a nice motel in Corydon) they registered for the Bughouse and starting playing - chess that is.

One of the odd things about national chess tournaments is that you seem to run into the same people over and over during the tournament. So before and during the bughouse tournament, Kyle and his partner played bughouse, mainly with these guys. I wondered why D, who was really good at Bughouse, didn't play in the tournament. Anyway, they did OK in the Bughouse tournament, well enough that afterwards my son wanted to play in the Blitz tournament that night. Last year's Blitz tournament was painful - not only was it a disorganized mess, but he lost some games because of the one illegal move = a loss rule, so if you don't notice you're in check (and tournament players don't tell each other), you lose. Kyle didn't want to play in the Blitz tournament this year. But when the Bughouse tournament really went smoothly - starting on time, pairings up in advance, the way a tournament ought to be - and he and his partner held their own in Bughouse against kids rated much higher than them, he changed his mind. He did better in this year's Blitz tournament, and managed to come in fourth in the U1000 section (i.e. his rating is udner a thousand), but sadly they only gave out trophies for the top three in a section.

Friday morning he played in a simul with Grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov. Out of the 22 players opposing Kaidanov, one beat him and one drew him. Kyle, unsurprisingly, lost. Still, Kyle thought it worth the 25 dollars it cost to participate. And guess what -- also playing in the simul was one of the boys he played bughouse with for fun the day before. In fact, that's Kyle in the picture wearing the black shirt three boys down from D.

Friday night there was a lot of excitement. First there was a fire in the restaurant below the skittles room which evacuated. Just after the fire trucks pulled up, everybody had to evacuate the towers with the hotel rooms and take shelter in the meeting rooms because a tornado came to town. The sirens blared throughout the hotel. I evacuated the conservatory with, who else?, and found Kyle smiling in the Grand Ballroom where the tournament was held. Some of the kids were not used to tornados and were freaking out. The tournament was suspended during the excitement, and after what seemsed like forever especially with the sirens blaring, playing resumed. Kyle's opponent conceded during the break (Kyle was up a rook and two bishops) so we just went up to the room and watched TV.

Saturday and Sunday were filled with Chess - normal chess inside the Grand Ballroom, bughouse and blitz outside. Kyle didn't want to leave the hotel. Kyle didn't want to leave the exhibition area outside the Ballroom because you could always get a game there. We did go the the fancy revolving restaurant on top of one of the hotel towers, but that was as far as I could budge him. All things must come to an end, so Sunday afternoon following the last game we drove back home to our own beds and the funWife's cooking.

Fun With Google

Charles let's me in one another fun game with google: What you need. Put your name into Google followed by needs and see what turns up. So now you know what Kevin needs:

Kevin needs your money.

Kevin needs a picture.

Kevin needs a haircut.

Kevin needs to cut his nasty hair.

Kevin needs a tan and a haircut.

Kevin needs your help.

Kevin needs your help to save his life.

Kevin needs to post.

Kevin needs daddy skills.

Kevin needs Modular dungeon tiles out of LEGOs

Kevin needs to not let people i don't know call my house to try and talk to me.

Kevin needs to go home.

Kevin needs to go home next week for sure.

Kevin needs to listen better and not run off to Vegas every time they fight.

Kevin needs two free hands.

Kevin needs expert witnesses, research, and other things that the court is unlikely to provide much financial help for.

Kevin needs to pull up his pants.

So anything on that list I'd be much obliged for. Especially since Wal-Mart hasn't come through on that HDTV I need.

I Won The Gold

Forget the Olympics, I won the Gold at the Sine Qua Non Caption Contest. And believe me, the competition was fierce, as I narrowly edged out Lynxx Pherrett who has an even worse case of blog hiatus than Charles and Rodney Dill who is Mr. Caption himself. Just call me Rocky.

1,000 Words

It's not too late to enter Sine Qua Non's caption contest. Charles is holding them weekly, or until the next time he decides to take a break from blogging.

I Prefer Mongrel

It's official, St. Louis is part southern. We hang out at the grocery story trying to snatch up every loaf of bread, gallon of milk, and egg they have when a forcaster mentions snow. I wonder if Schnuck's and Dierberg's (yes, a couple of locals with odd last names ran the big boys out of town) pay forecasters to mention the word whenever they have too much stock on hand.

The Blonde Joke

There's a blonde joke that's been floating around the web, so in case you haven't heard it, it goes like this:

Two men walk into a bar -- the third man ducks

Laugh In Looks At The News

Mr Lileks proves once again that he can write: A 2005 Rollick:

An oppressive colonizer is forced to withdraw from occupied Arab land. This is initially met with dancing in the streets of Cairo, Paris, and Turtle Bay. Then everyone realizes it is Syria pulling out of Lebanon. You must understand that the Cedar Revolution, after years of Syrian domination, has nothing to do with the American presence in Iraq, you jingoist. It's just one of those international coincidences like the moon being where it was when Apollo 11 flew past. A few months later, Israel voluntarily withdraws from Gaza, earning approximately 17 seconds of good will from the international community. Personal best!

Physics and Heavenly Bodies

Speaking of good work if you can get it:

To best support breasts, a designer has to understand how they move. To that end, McGhee's team in Australia, headed by biomechanist Julie Steele, tags women with light-emitting diodes and asks them to run on treadmills. (The women run with and without bras, so the laboratory doors are bolted to prevent uninvited people from bursting in.) Computer systems then track the breasts' motions in three dimensions by following the moving lights. "We can actually work out exactly where they're going, how they're moving, and how this movement is affected by bras," Steele says. Breasts move in a sinusoidal pattern, Steele has found, and they move a lot. Small breasts can move more than three inches vertically during a jog, and large breasts sometimes leave their bras entirely. "We have videos of women who, particularly if the cup is too low, spill all over the top," Steele says.

Too bad Victoria's Secret wasn't hiring engineers back when I got out of college!

If you can get past the snicker factor, it really is an interesting article on the physics of bras, at least for me as it combines two of my favorite subjects.

But there is a more controversial part to the article

Evolutionary biologists aren't sure why breasts evolved as they did—chimpanzees and other mammals develop them only when lactating—and no one knows what keeps them from sagging.

Same As The Old Boss?

Republicans heaved a huge sigh of relief yesterday when President Bush named Ben Bernanke as his nominee to replace Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Bernanke pick surprised no one, as the man has impeccible credentials.

Rumor has it that President Bush was seriously contemplating nominating his longtime broker, and a draft of the President's introductory remarks has been obtained by Funmurphys: "This is a man who understands the markets; and who by the way made a ton of money for me over the years. I'll never forget his timing on Harken, that's for sure. Cutiepie, come on up here. I call him Cutiepie because he sends Laura and me the cutest cards and notes, with cats and bluebonnets on them." The Whitehouse and "Cutiepie" were unavailable for comment.

The Better Awards

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the Nobel and the Ig Nobel prizes, what with Mohamed ElBaradei winning the nobel peace prize with his winning slogan, peace through ignorance. But don't miss out on the real thing - the Ig Nobel awards were held a week ago and the winners announced to much rejoicing (amongst the losers, that is).

Of the winners, my favorite is the story of a local (Missouri) boy making good - Gregg A. Miller who won in Medicine for inventing neuticals, which are replacement testicles for animals who have been neutered. I don't know which is more surprising - that Mr. Miller wrote a book entitled Going Going NUTS! about them, or the fact that over 100,000 (thats over 200,000 neuticles for those keeping score at home) animals have been neuticled since 1995. And they say the age of miracles and wonders is over.

And while I have enjoyed the odd Pinter play made into a movie, I think again the Ig Nobels picked the better Literati by with their selection for Literature:
"The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters -- General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others -- each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them."
As someone who has received many such one act plays via email, I can only say "Bravo" to their selection.

And finally, I have no idea what it was about, but James Watson (umm, no not THE James Watson, but some JW in New Zealand), the winner in Agricultural History should have won (and probably did) for the title of his paper alone: "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers." Now that's a scientific paper that I want to read.

I Didn't Get My Way

In keeping with my new policy of posting on issues after a delay to allow me time to (1) get accurate facts and (2) actually think about it, I'm now going to opine on President Bush's supreme court nominee, Harriet Miers. OK, if I waited until the press got its facts straight, I'd never be able to post. But at least I thought about it, and the great thing is, I'm still as disappointed that the President didn't pick Justice Janice Rogers Brown this time as I was when he picked Justice Roberts. Oh well. Just so you know where I'm coming from. No, I wouldn't want 9 of her on the court, but we do need a counterbalance to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (of whom I would prefer to have a number less than 1 on the court).

Since I couldn't actually name all the Justices of the Supreme court, I did a little research and discovered that far too many were undergraduates at Stanford (Kennedy, O'Connor, and Breyer) where none of them took the Physics 60 series, the wimps. Only Souter went to Harvard as an undergrad, and we know how he turned out. And all them have as their chief failing that they are lawyers. If not Justice Brown, why not Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman when there were openings for two justices?

And what is with the claim that we want judges who will be fair and impartial and oh by the way, what are their political views? Like we know that Supreme Court justices are going to vote their politics, principles be damned, but that's OK as long as we agree with their politics? Isn't that what 99% of the questioning by the Senate during confirmation hearings is about - tell me how you will rule on abortion, gays, guns, affirmative action, the environment, the little guy, unions, hats, etc? It's even OK to talk in code somewhat, as long as you show your hand. But we have the nominees claiming that it's inappropriate for judges to do so. Why, you can't judge shop at the Supreme Court. You get all nine unless they have a conflict of interest. Politicians will tell us that its not right to have litmus tests for judges (too bad you can't put a piece of paper up against a nominee and see "pro-abortion" or "pro-gun") but why not?

I'd like to see a nominee come in and spell it all out in detail, not some wonkish "judicial philosophy" but to what stage of development they'd limit abortion at, is a loophole for the health of the mother really a "constitutional" requirement, under what exact conditions should parents be notified or minors be allowed to withhold information from them about abortion, gay marriage is constituitional yes or no or a matter for each state and what does the full faith and credit mean if states differ on this, etc. As long as judges are going to legislate from the bench, we ought to know what their agenda is. I'd prefer that to winks, evasions, silence, and "trust me". And quite frankly, I think it would be educational hearing the nominees explain their views in detail on the leading issues of the day.

Enough process, I'll have to tackle Ms. Miers herself another day.

Pure Fun

I'm sure this tells researchers something important about how the brain processes visual information, but I find it to be just pure fun. Stare at the + below, wait just a few moments, and voila! the fun begins.

If you wait long enough, not only do you see a green dot moving, but the pink dots disappear altogether. Blink, or move you eyes, and they come back.

Always Room For One More

Tom McMahon has a fun blog, but he has this bad habit of going to blogs and getting banned. First it was Electrolite. OK, he wasn't banned, he just had all the vowels removed from comments the Haydens didn't care for. Then it was Cynical-C blog where the proprietor banned him from commenting. But that was just the warm up, because when he was banned at NoodleFood, he wasn't just banned, he was condemned to hell along with it. I kid you not. The craziest thing about it is that Tom is such a mild commenter - calm, patient, insult free - which seems to drive wackos nuts. I mean, what set off Diana at NoodleFood off was that he, brace yourself, quoted a line from Amazing Grace which caused huge foaming at the mouth, and when she discovered that he had a link, a link mind you, to National Review, which periodically runs a negative review of Atlas Shrugged, that's when she fell over backwards, and not only banned Tom from her site, but in full atheist majesty flung him straight into the pit of hell with Whittaker Chambers. As Dave Berry would say, you can't make this stuff up.

It sounded like so much fun, I linked to my negative review of Atlas Shrugged (which the online version of National Review ran seven years ago - my how time flies) in his comments. So Tom graciously has reprinted my review of Atlas Shrugged so that I too can go straight to hell with him and Whittaker. Since I knew it was coming, I made pitcher of ice water to take with me for Tom and Whittaker. And if you want to join us there, you can let Tom know of your negative review of Atlas Shrugged.

Talk Like A Pirate Day

I discovered it was Talk Like A Pirate Day when somebody managed to sneak a Talk Like A Pirate slide into the weekly staffmeeting slideshow this morning that would appear whenever a slide sat there long enough. Shiver me timbers, that was like finding buried treasure, mateys.

Come What May

Just in case the Katrina coverage has you all flipped out, for a mere half a million dollars you can buy a place where you can be safe and secure come what may - even if that includes nuclear bombs and anthrax spores. Not recommended for people who like people.

A Good Cause

It's not too late to help out -- you can still donate to Charles Austin's Muscular Distrophy appeal. While I've contributed already, I had been planning on swooping down and being the one whose contribution put him over the top, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Charles has threatened to stop blogging (again), so don't blame me if he falls silent (again).

While you're there, don't forget the 70's lyric contest -- I think he made them harder this time. Now that I've finally gotten the lyrics to Lay Down by the Strawbs out of my head, I think I can get some.

All You Need Is Love

Mark at Kaedrin linked to a great post at Armed and Dangerous about (some of) the motivations in Harry Potter. Mr. Raymond there falls squarely in the Severus is still against Voldemort camp (which I am part of), and I think he does a find job supporting his claims and I have to agree with him. I think Snape is a great character in many, many ways, and one of them is breaking down the bad guy/good guy duality - he's far more complex than a simple good guy or bad guy. My own prediction for book 7 is that it ends with Snape as headmaster at Hogwarts and Harry as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

The Silly Season

Tom McMahon reports on the first birth control patch for men. By the looks of things, it should last a very long time.

Ah, Europe. My liberal friends tell me that it is the acme of civilization, and I can hardly argue after the latest news. The EU is banning the display of Bavarian bosoms outdoors -- namely barmaids wearing the traditional dirndl. Not because its too revealing and thus may arouse purient interest, but for the safety of the barmaid whose bosom is thus exposed to the harmful rays of the sun. Of course, this applies to all people showing excess skin while working, so Ty Pennington wouldn't be able to work outdoors either without keeping his shirt on.

Speaking of overexposure, J-Lo thinks she's overexposed and that's why she can't get good film parts anymore. Who says Hollywood is out of touch with reality? Oh, that's right, me. Anyway, somebody who runs caption contest ought to use the photo that accompanies the post.

Speaking of someone who clearly is overexposed, apparently it's big news that some photographer got shot by a BB while staking out Britney Spears. As always, I turn to Xinhua for my celebrity news where I discover that public pressure is forcing the LA county sheriffs department to actually pretend to investigate this farce.

And Eliot Spitzer, taking a break from investigating higher profile shenanigans has turned his attention turned his attention to a radio station that had a slapping contest. Now this isn't my cup of tea (unless, of course, women wearing traditional Bavarian costumes were involved), but I don't see how it's worth a $300,000 dollar fine, although apparently it violated the laws of combatent sports. Please somebody tell Eliot about Fear Factor or the WWF and maybe something can be done about these menaces too.

I know there is a lot of important stuff going on out there, but since this is August the media has taken the month off (how else to explain the top frontpage story in today's Post-Dispatch about how while running a marathon may seem healthy it might not actually be) and I figured I ought to join them in the silly season.

Oh yeah, the Jackson case may not quite be over ...

Sudoku

It's Friday, so I'm tired and depressed thinking about a Supreme Court that rules it's OK for the government to take your property and give it to somebody else they think will do a better job with it and it's OK for the goverment to take your property if they think it has something to do with drugs.

Instead, it's Sudoku time with Mathtrek. Follow the links to the world of Sudoku.

Shadows and Tall Trees

Shelley takes a walk on the wild side and has pictures of it! Now we know what forests symbolize in old tales.

Monday Humor

Who can't use a good laugh on a monday? Therefore I give you Cap'n Wacky's Death Star of Fun. Enjoy. You can thank me later.

Once A Baptist, Always A Baptist

John Smith was the only Protestant to move into a large Catholic neighborhood. On the first Friday of Lent, John was outside grilling a big juicy steak on his grill.

Meanwhile, all of his neighbors were eating cold tuna fish for supper. This went on each Friday of Lent. On the last Friday of Lent, the neighborhood men got together and decided that something had to be done about John, he was tempting them to eat meat each Friday of Lent, and they couldn't take it anymore.

They decided to try and convert John to be a Catholic. They went over and talked to him and were so happy that he decided to join all of his neighbors and become a Catholic. They took him to Church, and the Priest sprinkled some water over him, and said, "You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist, and now you are a Catholic."

The men were so relieved, now their biggest Lenten temptation was resolved. The next year's Lenten season rolled around. The first Friday of Lent came, and just at supper time, when the neighborhood was setting down to their tuna fish dinner, came the wafting smell of steak cooking on a grill.

The neighborhood men could not believe their noses! WHAT WAS GOING ON? They called each other up and decided to meet over in John's yard to see if he had forgotten it was the first Friday of Lent?

The group arrived just in time to see John standing over his grill with a small pitcher of water. He was sprinkling some water over his steak on the grill, saying, "You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish."

Yes, I Am A Game Geek

Greg Costikyan looks at 3-D in gaming and concludes that it's not always a good idea in gaming. I have to agree, and I'll add a caveat that he didn't: If the 3-D affects game play, then it's a good idea. If it's just there to look pretty or because it's a way to update a game without actually improving it, then it's a bad idea. And that's the trouble for both the games he cites -- Heroes of Might and Magic V and Civilization IV -- it's just there to look pretty without affecting gameplay. It's not like the games are 3-D, they just look 3-D. And that leads into another pet peeve -- I'll play an ugly but fun game, but I won't play a gorgeous but dull game. And it seems like far more time and money is spent on looks and not on gameplay. Kind of like the Spy Kids movies.

Beyond Odd

Sometimes are odder than others, and now is such a time. I open up Google news, and what do I read, right after Schroeder Seeks Early Election; Polls Predict Defeat which isn't odd, just uplifting and well deserved but does serve to set up the oddity, namely Dow, Nasdaq advance on Apple-Intel talks! That's a double entodder, a twofer of oddity, a man bites dog while veternarians cheer kind of story. First, the wonderment of Apple and Intel getting together, but to follow that up with the idea that the market rallied on the news: "Wall Street was cheered by the Apple report ... and could make the machines less expensive." I guess themoney that all those traders won't have to spend on the next Apple product is burning a stock sized hole in their pockets or something.

So after scratching my head over that, I move on to a story about Kylie Minogue having a cancerous lump removed from her breast. Nothing odd about that, but it's from a Chinese news agency, Xinhua, that runs a picture that pretty much let's you see where the lump was removed and allows you to compare the two. Breasts, that is. On the same page there's also a picture link to an article headlined "Hot: Tempting Swimsuit Girls" and the picture demonstrates for once there wasn't any bias in the headline writer. Next to that picture is another picture link with a hot tempting woman winning the Eurovision song contest. If I was at some British tabloid site I wouldn't be surprised, but this is the State Chinese news agency, you know, home of the little Mao suit and antidote to the decadent West.

So enough Google news or my mind will boggle, but guess who watched the Incredibles this weekend? That would be me and James Lileks, that's who. And it's not like the first time the James and I have been synchronized. The male fruit of the Murphy loins was not at the boyscout campout as planned but was sick at home with me. So we watched movies together, including the Incredibles which even better the second time around, and amazingly enough is really a movie more for grownups than kids. Yes, kids will enjoy it too, but I think the person who will enjoy it the most is a married parent who loves the Sean Connery James Bond movies.

But that's not the oddest thing, no the oddest thing is that somebody left a comment you only dream about: "You nailed it!!!" I usually don't get comments, and usually they point out either where I'm wrong or where I left something out, but nothing life affirming like "You nailed it!!!". Now I just have to figure out if I'm Katrina or a Wave.

What's New?

Everybody is getting into the blogging act: The Annals of Improbable Research now has a blog! Certified better than anything that has Huffington in the title.

But wait, there's more: The Urban legends Reference Page has one too, only they don't call it one, the call it weird news/Daily Snopes. And in honor of Dodd, here's the skinny on the name change of Ken***y Fried Chicken to KFC: It has nothing to do with the stated reason, namely that fried was associated with unhealthy among Americans, but that the state of Ken***y trademarked the name to raise money and was going to force KFC to pay royalties for its use. No you know why I didn't use the full name of the state.

No Shark Jumping Here

Tom McMahon holds off on his four-block obsession long enough to write a very funny look at how different TV Networks would handle the movie Jaws. Here's just a taste to whet your appetite:

TLC: Re-decorate your shark-fishing boat for under $1000.

Modernism

It's a good thing Chess wasn't invented in the video game era, as this Gamespot chess review reveals. I wonder what they would have thought of Go.

Link via Psychochild's Blog.

Spore

Greg Costikyan isn't the only person to notice that the ever increasing budgets for games harms games and the industry. In fact, Greg is quite bleak in his outlook.

Will Wright, the Will Wright, has noticed and is trying to do something about it with a game called spore. The idea is in line with a lot of his open ended sims-type games: The game provides the tools, the players provide the content. Spore promises to be another groundbreaking, huge selling game from Wright. Let's hope that helps to avert the future Greg sees and laments. And while money seems to be the limiting factor on making games, time is the limiting factor in me playing games.

I used to talk about Wright like Woody Allen (I liked his earlier, fun games, but didn't care for the later, too controlling games) but Spore promises to break that complaint. Thanks, Tanya, for letting me know how I'll be spending my time in the future.

SuperNationals v2

This post is new and improved because it has pictures! When I say the hotel was a fabulous resort hotel, I mean this fabulous:

The place was so huge, and the Mills Mall next door was so huge, I lost a couple of pounds while eating out every meal. Except for breakfast on Saturday, when I was happy just to get anything. We figured we'd eat at the hotel, but when you have 5,000 players plus family all trying to eat before 9AM and only two (possibly 3) eateries were open in the hotel, I called my wife and demanded she find food for us. McDonalds was mobbed, so she hit Citgo and got us some powdered donuts and something that resembled a very small danish.

I don't want to give the impression that it was a complete disaster, but there were some rocky parts. The crush of people at the first round trying to get in the playing room but trapped in the hallway outside is something I'm trying to forget. We ducked into the game room just to re-oxygenate. While the pairings were up late, I can't believe the people who just piled up in front of the bulletin boards waiting but uncomfortably crammed in. For K5 and K6 I think the parents were in there because they didn't want their kids getting hurt, but I think it would have been better if they had just stayed back. It was comical watching them trying to get back out from the crush at the boards. Fortunately, after the first round the pairings were up well before the start of the round and spread well apart. After that rocky start, things on the playing end went very smoothly.

The blitz tournament had two defects: they moved the location without putting up a sign -- you had to ask one of the scarce as hens teeth tournament officials -- they started late, and OK, three defects, they took too much time between pairings, especially in the beginning. Here Kyle is ready to go despite the confusion and chaos in round one of the blitz tournament, just waiting to play chess:

Day 1. We were a little hyper in the first round after all the excitement of just getting to the point of finding where to sit, but new chess shirt is on, attitude is going, and it's time to make a point before the game even begins:

Day 2. We've had our donuts, we've got two games under our belt, we know the drill. Sit down, relax, fill out the red card, get the game notation all set up, pose for a picture, hope the old man leaves soon.

I thought the local tournaments were impressive until I went to this one. 5,300 kids playing chess, talking chess, arguing chess, helping each other with chess. They also ran around and acted like kids, and if they hadn't been wearing shirts with chess related slogans you wouldn't have realized they were there for the tournament. We never did go hear any of the lectures because he preferred to hang out in the skittles room with his chess buddies playing the game (bughouse was the most popular) than sit and listen to people, Grandmasters, talk about it. Maybe next year. Here's the picture that sums up the weekend:

SuperNationals

The whole funMurphy family just got back from spending a long weekend in fabulous resort hotel. OK, we actually slept across the street. But it was more than that, it was the 2005 Chess Supernationals, with 5,300 entrants, one of whom was my son. Supernationals is the combination of the Elementary, Junior High, and High School National championships into one huge, and I do mean huge, tournament. There were chess players everywhere, playing chess and having fun. They were even going over notation in the bathroom!

The Bughouse and Blitz tournaments prior to the main event came off as poorly organized, and the first round was such a disaster (the pairing's for my son's section didn't go up until 45 minutes after the start time) I was worried that the weekend was going to be a total loss. But the successive rounds all went smooth as silk, and he had such a good time, we'll be going to more of these tournaments.

UPDATE: Now with pictures!

English Pronunciation

I know this has floated around the web a few times, but that's because it's good.

Reasons why the English language is so hard  to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead  out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail

18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19)  Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Smartapalooza

Wizbang finds a report of a beauty queen with an IQ too high to be made fun of. A Slovenian TV show wanted to compare the supidity of models with the smarts of scientists but couldn't when Iris Mulej had a higher IQ, 156, than the shows female nuclear physicist [insert joke about how Larry Summers was right, then run like hell]. Looking at the picture (yes, Wizbang always has a picture for a story like this) I have to stay I would have stayed with physics longer if anyone in the program looked like her.

I wonder how long before she's on Howard Stern.

A Groan Of Puns

Just in case you missed it, Wizband has the very funny results of their latest contest. One of the winners is the title of this post, so you have been warned.

Grumpy Old Man

The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here! The fun wife showed me the new yellow pages this morning, and I had to ask if it this was meant as a joke. They took the book they delivered six months ago and shrunk it down - the paper is smaller, and more importantly, smaller type. Maybe ours just got left out in the rain and shrank. I hate to sound like an old goober (especially now that I am one), but jumpin' jehosephat, nobody over 40 can rean the dad burn things. A font size of 5 points requires both strong light and a magnifying glass. What in the blue blazes were they thinking at SBC?

St. Louis Weather

I love the fact that St. Louis has four seasons. I especially enjoy how they aren't all distinct but you can enjoy any season pretty much any time of the year. For instance yesterday we had a nice summer day; today it will be fall; and tomorrow is predicted to be winter. A spring day can't be far behind.

One More Turn!

On a lighter note, Dave Weinberg reviews several game related blogs.

A Real Corker

Perhaps I'm easily amused, but I broke out laughing at the corrections in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- which won't be online until they're good and ready in a few days. But they were correcting a typo in a letter to the editor (not present in the online version), and announced that the correct title of Marshall McCluhan's book is "The Medium is the Massage". Maybe they should spell check with a human and not a program, or maybe I applaud an editor slipping one in on a slow Friday night.

Corwin Derkatch Gridlocked me

Too much time on your hands? I used to worry that blogging was taking too much of my time but thanks to a pointer from Ole Eichorn at Critical Section I learned about Corwin Derkatch's Gridlock and burned about 10 hours over the last ten days. Forewarned is forearmed.

Bizarre Claim Of The Day

My family considers my work stories the height of boredom: engineering tales about stuff they don't understand and don't care to understand. My wife works as a claims adjuster and we all love her claims stories. In fact, my son instituted "bizarre claim of the day" time at dinner where the funWife describes the most bizarre claim of the day. Today she had nothing, but yesterday was a good one.

A vegetarian goes to a fast food burger restaurant and orders a burger, hold the burger. That's right, a burger, but don't bring me the meat part of the hamburger, just the bun and toppings: the anti-Clara Peller. So when they bring her her order, she bites right in and is horrified to discover that there's a burger in her burger. She doesn't look to see if there's a beef patty lurking in the depths of the burger, she doesn't notice the difference in weight, or the unmistakable delicious aroma of cooked beef. But she wants $2500 for the mental anguish of taking a bite of meat.

The down side to my wife's job is the impression you get of people - clueless yet greedy.

Hello. Remember Me?

Contrary to the rumor started by my lack of posting, I haven't been spirited off to a secret bunker. I have changed projects at work and life has been busy - in other words, situation normal. I managed to see two, count 'em two movies last weekend at the movie theater. That hasn't happened since, well, since seeing two movies in one weekend wasn't a big deal. First up was a family outing to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow which was a fantastic B movie -- a whole lot of fun and not much else. Then we saw Shall We Dance?" with friends. I enjoyed the movie, a mix of comedy and drama with Richard Gere for the ladies and J Lo for the gentlemen. I can recomend both movies.

A New Discovery

I was watching Singing In The Rain with my daughter tonight. I take the position that no matter how much I have to do, if my 13 year old daughter wants to spend time with the old man, I spend it. And I'm a big fan of the movie. Anyway, we tuned in at the start of the "Moses Supposes" song, and when we got to the "Gotta Dance" number, I was struck by a thought (I assure you, I'm used to it so it doesn't hurt when it happens).

There is an amazing structural similarity between musicals and action flicks. In musicals, they periodically sing for no particular reason; in action flicks, they periodically do violence for no particular reason. In musicals, they have these large, elaborately staged production numbers that may or may not have anything to do with the plot or characterization, but they sure are fun; in action flicks, they have these large, elaborately staged action sequences that may or may not have anything to do with the plot or characterization, but they sure are fun. In fact, musicals often have the flimsiest of plot and characterization, and stuff is added clearly not because they make any sense but for their worth as spectacle -- which is just like action flicks. No musical would be complete without a buddy and the guy getting the girl in the end, which is also the standard for action flicks.

You could remake Singing In The Rain as an action movie very simply - snip out all the singing and dancing and replace it with violence and explosions and you'd be done. Then I could watch that version with my 10 year old son.

Funny Ha Ha

I found this post including the comments at Mudville Gazette very funny (odd, because usually Mudville is not a source of laughs).

I found this post at Ipse Dixit funny too, but in a different yet somehow related way. Just remember, the Democrats decry the politics of personal destruction.

It looks like I picked a bad day to give up linking to sarcasm.

The New iMac And More

Apple has unveiled it's new iMac G5 design: Nothing but flat screen. OK, and an anodized aluminum stand, and I assume they throw in the keyboard and mouse. And its not all flat screen because there is an expanse of white for the logo and speakers. But you get the point. While I want one, they could make one set of changes in the hardware that would make more than my demographic (Apple fans) want one.

Apple is almost to what I call "Mom's computer:" a wall mounted computer with wireless input devices.

The nerve center of the modern household is the kitchen, and mom is the COO -- chief operating officer -- of the household. So what mom needs (yeah, just like a man to tell a woman what she needs) is a computer for her -- a computer that fits into the kitchen and takes over the roll of the exterior of the refridgerator and the calender. The family wants to be able to leave messages for each other. Now you put them on a sticky on the fridge, pin them to cork, or write them on a white board. Better would be to leave them on the computer, and you could even password protect private messages to individuals. To make it work, you need the computer somewhere in the middle of the beaten track, somewhere where everybody spends time - namely the kitchen. For a computer to be completely convienent to use, it must also be located convienently.

Wouldn't it be great to have different views of the calender so you could see it either by individual of by everything the family is signed up for? Why tack up photos on the fridge when you could just set the screen saver to provide a slideshow or tile the screen? Integrate recipes with shopping lists with a weekly or monthly menu? Keep track of to do lists, shopping lists, school projects, etc. Play your iTunes library during meals, or while working or relaxing in the kitchen.

I have a programmable thermostat that controls the temperature of the house based on time of day and day of week. Wouldn't it be nice to have the same thing for internet content - you could set your browser up to have the latest weather, traffic, news, and your calender for the day displayed when you have breakfast during the week.

The other reason I call it "mom's computer" is that in order to make it all work, mom has to have first dibs. Anyone can play games or do schoolwork or whatever, but when somebody else (especially mom) needs to use it, they can.

A Twofer

Shelley at Burningbird has two stories of interest to me.

First up is her deliciously fun thoughts on some tags html should have:

The BUTTHOLE tag. This can be used when linking to a butthole. Then when the person’s page shows up in Google, a disclaimer can be attached to the results saying something like, “Someone somewhere thinks this person is a butthole. Proceed accordingly".

(Of course, we could also call this the WEBLOG tag – most of us are buttholes to someone at some time or another, or we’re not trying hard enough.)

The SICKOPERVERTPREVENTION tag. This can be used to surround content that contains words that will most likely end up in some sick Google search phrase–words like porn, whip, sex, balls, breasts, and sheep.

The DISCLAIMER tag. This can be used to surround libelous content. Then when you’re sued, you can point to the page and say, “See? I used the DISCLAIMER tag. This means I was only joshin’ when I published the content.”

The SUCKUP tag. This is my personal favorite. Use this when referencing a specific individual who you want to suck up to. It could be anyone, from a rock star to a weblogger who has more link juice then you (that is, if they still have link juice with the use of BLINK). We all know that some folks suck up to other folks, but there’s nothing in the writing to prove it. Now we can remove any doubt that sucking up is happening.

Best of all, when the individual searches in Google for people who are sucking up to them, they’ll get back your page. Think of the miscommunications this can prevent?

I think I'd call it the JOKE tag instead of DISCLAIMER since people try to wiggle off with "I was just trying to make a joke", but since she came up with it, she gets to name it. We need a separate SWIFT tag for when people are trying to emulate Johnathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, and a PARODY tag just to help out the clueless.

I have to get my car registered by the end of the month, so yesterday I had my car inspected, and this morning I had it emissions tested. Guess what - Shelley's doing the same thing right here in the great state of Missouri. I didn't actually have to get the emissions test - I just had to pay the 24 dollars to get the certificate because Missouri has this program where they send these specially marked vans to highway onramps and measure emissions as the cars go by. I wonder if they just give a pass to cars of recent vintage, but they do NOT just stick their noses out the window. Since I didn't send the money in in time to get the required form back in time to finish the registration this month, I just went by the static test facility (state run) first thing this morning (no line!) and they said I had already passed so if I would just hand over the money I could be on my way with form in hand. Now I just have to gather my paperwork (inspection form, emissions form, proof of insurance form, and paid personal property tax receipt) and I'm good to go. The best part is, now that we register biannually, the lines are half as long. It's the small things in life I look forward to.

Should I enclose this whole post in SUCKUP tags?

Man Of The Hour

One of the highlights of our Colorado vacation was getting to see my old buddy Carl Drews again. He and his wife Christine opened their house to us and, believe me, we took maximum advantage of it.

We met the vary first day of freshman orientation. Stanford picked up incoming freshman from San Francisco airport and took them to campus on school buses. Carl and I rode the same bus, and got to see a sports car veer off the road for reasons that we still don't know even today. We were dropped off at the same dorm (Toyon Hall). The friendship was sealed on the first day of classes and we were both in Physics 61 -- physics for those man enough to think they had the stuff to be physics majors (for the record, not only were the two women who started Physics 61 not man enough to be physics majors, but also Carl had to wimp out and become a EE).

Carl would conduct such classic exeriments as "Can Kevin Recognize Beth's Bicycle Chain Rattle From A Random Sample Of Those Who Park Under His Window?" and Carl was the control group for the experiment "Can Kevin Remember His High School Partial Differential Equations Better Than A College Student Can Learn Them?" But we went one experiment too far when trying to be roomates we switched Toyon and Roble on our draw cards and were forced to live separately for the rest of our collegiate careers. At least I was able to remain among the fair and noble towers of Toyon Hall while Carl had to survive the best he could among the squalor of Roble.

After graduation, Carl took off for the foothills of Boulder and I went to the beaches of LA. The inevitable occured - we drifted apart, lost contact, but due to the brilliance of fellow engineers who invented the internet, we regained contact. When Carl was looking for a way to publish the second issue of the Hervert Family Newsletter six years ago, I was able to help. Carl and his bride Christine have promised a new issue, and I'm looking forward to publishing it as well. I have been sworn to secrecy on the subject, but what I can say about it is "Prepare to be amazed!"

But that's all old news by way of an introduction. Carl has been a fellow internet content pioneer, and so I have invited him to join as a fellow blogger here on Funmurphys. We can only hope he takes me up on this offer so that once more Funmurphys will provide the finest content on the internet. So let's please extend a warm welcome to Carl!

Missed Again

Tanya opens the floor to jokes; By the time I can post, she's cut the mic off. I'm keeping one in reserve, but here's one I wanted to post:

A wealthy old lady decided to go on a photo safari in Africa. She took her faithful welsh corgi along for company. One day, the corgi starts chasing butterflies and before long the corgi discovers that he is lost. So, wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having lunch.

The corgi thinks, "OK, I'm in deep trouble now!" Then he noticed some bones on the ground close by, and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat.

Just as the leopard is about to leap, the corgi exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here." Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, as a look of terror comes over him, and he slinks away into the trees.

"Whew," says the leopard. "That was close. That corgi nearly had me."

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection
from the leopard. So, off he goes.

But the corgi saw him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figured that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard.

The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine."

Now the corgi sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks, "What am I going to do now?" But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn't seen them yet...and just when they get close enough to hear the corgi says...

"Where's that monkey? I sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard!"

Isn't Math Fun?

I try to read Best Of The Web daily. Earlier this week it ran an item about Math Hysteria, sparked by a math question asked of Jeb Bush. They printed the following reader's proof that 2=1:

Let a=1

Let b=1

Therefore a=b

Multiplying both sides by a gives a²=ab

Subtract 1 from the left and b (which equals 1) from the right: a²-1=ab-b

If you remember your quadratic equations, this factors to: (a+1)(a-1)=b(a-1)

Dividing both sides by a-1, we have a+1=b, or 1+1=1

Therefore 2=1

Needless to say, there is a problem with the proof, so the next day they ran a followup under the heading Of Subs, Screens and Springs where they said that about 200 readers wrote in a pointed out the proof was no good because they had divided by zero when they divided by (a-1).

Well.

I sent them the following email:

I can't believe you got 200 emails about your proof that 2 = 1 and nobody got it right. Everybody forgot their calculus while remembering their algebra. The real answer is that you proved that 1=1. You were fine up to:

but when you divided by (a-1) you incorrected evaluated the expression.

Since you weren't just dividing by zero, but dividing zero by zero, you should have used L'Hopital's rule (in case you didn't take calculus, you can see it here: http://www.math.hmc.edu/calculus/tutorials/lhopital/).

When you evaluate (a+1)(a-1)/(a-1) as a approaches 1, you take the derivative with respect to a which is (1)(1)/(1) or 1.

When you evaluate b(a-1)/(a-1) as a approaches 1 (again with the derivative), you have b(1)/(1), or b. So when you divide

by (a-1), as a approaches 1 you have

substituting 1 for b, we have:

Oddly enough, they didn't run a correction or my email. I'm crushed, but I'll still keep reading.

Memories Of The Way It Was

The chow hall staff part of this entry by Donald Sensing reminds me of my time in Pakistan (see the pictures -- be thankful you can't smell them, unlike Lileks' soap) when one of my government co-travellers wouldn't tip the waiters in the hotel (the Karachi Holiday Inn) for breakfast because the cost was included as part of the stay. We all put down 10 rupees (a little over 50 cents at the time) but Terry. If they did something special like get you watermelon, we'd throw down 15 or 20 rupies (about a buck). Terry never tipped a red rupee at breakfast, was stingy at lunch and dinner, was demanding and abusive at all times, and never could figure out why he got such lousy service and the rest of us, polite, thankful for goodies, and relentless tippers, got such good service. If we ordered the same thing two times in a row at a meal, the waiters would place that order as soon as our fannies hit the leather. Even when we ordered something different, we'd be finished with our meal and Terry wouldn't have his yet. No matter how many times we urged him to tip and be nice, he couldn't draw the connection between his behavior and its results.

Terry complained about the food in Susie Wong's -- the hotel's Chinese restaurant -- which was delicious, but Terry claimed it wasn't authentic because it wasn't like the Chinese food back home in Milwaukee. Now when I say he complained, I mean he'd complain to us and then berate the staff. He complained about the music as well, until one evening he brought his own tape for them to play. For what ever reason, the replay was a bit slow, with all the notes flattened, and it sounded terrible. After a little bit, Terry blew up, berated the waiter some more, and we avoided eating with him as much as we could.

Oh The Indignity

I got my hair cut last night. If it would grow long without annoying me, I'd let it grow forever. It isn't just the waste of half an hour to an hour getting it cut that bugs me. The stylist (sadly, the noble profession of barber appears dead, and long ago I made peace with that reality) didn't just do the normal hair; she removed the hair that grows on my ears, in my ears, trimmed my mustache, and even trimmed my eyebrows. At least she didn't go up my nose, but I know it won't be long before that indignity arrives. And at the end comes the mirror ritual -- oh they claim it's so you can see what kind of job they did in the back, but no barber ever did that to me. Nope, it's to remind you of the Al Gore spot, so you can see how much it's grown since the last haircut. The cruelest cut of all - as a man ages, the hair grows ever more luxurient where nobody wants it, but retreats from just where you want it. When I told my loving spouse about all the extra removal, she asked why they didn't go after my back while they were at it.

Ma Is As Selfless As I Am

This is why I hate to leave town: As soon as I do, Busymom blows into town and has a ball without me. She has her pictures up already, and I haven't even downloaded mine yet. That's the difference between moms and dads in a nutshell: they tell you how busy they are by listing what they've already accomplished, we tell you how busy we are by listing what we still have to accomplish.

Too Hot To Hoot

In honor of the 4th of July when blogging will be light and fun will be heavy, I direct you to Lady Liberty.

Long may she stand!

And Action!

Gregg Easterbrook often comes off as the angry old man of blogging, but this time he's right: "special effects themselves have become boring." Gregg pinpoints his problem with them -- the aren't just impossible to film, they depict the impossible. I don't mind that so much, what I mind is that too often they are substituted for plot, dialogue, character development, even engaging action. I know I'm an old fogey myself, but I strongly believe just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something (Bill Clinton and I agree about something -- imagine that!).

And while he's endlessly complaining about the "endless fall", he notes that Spy Hard spoofed this very gimmick. And that's another problem I have - once somebody spoofs a particular movie cliche, no self respecting auteur should ever include it in one of their films. But they do. And not just in Charlie's Angels 2, but in films by real auteurs. My favorite example is Galaxy Quest, a non-stop laugh riot for SF lovers, where our intrepid heroes have to make their way through the "chompers", huge smashing devices with a flame thrower at the end. The Sigourney Weaver character complains bitterly about how lousy the writers were to include them in a star ship and mocks the whole cliche. Yet a few years later George Lucas uses the cliche in Star Wars II (really 5 but when you're an auteur, you can number them how you like) when our intrepid heroes have to avoid being smashed etc. on a robot construction conveyer belt. Here it's a supposed to be a high tension moment, but I can't help but laugh remembering Galaxy Quest.

Speaking of laughing, his bonus complaint is also pretty funny. Expeciting truth and accuracy from a movie or its marketing? What's next, thinking Michael Moore makes documentaries?

Easterbrook link that set me off via Ace of Spades

First Weird Al and now Ferrier & Chan

I was forwarded this great multimedia nugget by my friend Gary Smith at Dataquest who runs one of the few e-mail joke distribution lists that's actually funny; it's called Irrational Pie sung to the music of Don McLean's American Pie with lyrics by Ken Ferrier and Antoni Chan. I watched it alone, and then called my boys in and we watched it two more times after which I offered a brief extemporaneous lecture on irrationality (like my father before me I have a number of sound bites that I recycle very frequently but my lessons/lectures are off the cuff).

Priceless

The St. Louis Post Dispatch ran the following correction this morning:

A story in Friday's Metro section about the National Spelling Bee misspelled the winning word. The correct spelling is "autochthonous."

UPDATE: I wanted to send this into the WSJ's Best of the Web but the post never put the correction up on their website. It skipped from June 3 to June 8 without mention of any June 5 corrections. If I was as cynical as their leading columnist (who has assured me that I'm not), I'd say they didn't want to post it to keep it from being widely linked on the internet.

Lunch May not be Free, but some Science Fiction is

The BAEN Free Library has the full text of a number of classic science fiction novels from authors like James Schmitz, Keith Laumer, Andre Norton and Christopher Anvil. This was mentioned on Research Buzz in March but it's apropos today's TANSTAAFL headline.

The BAEN Free Library has the full text of a number of classic science fiction novels from authors like James Schmitz, Keith Laumer, Andre Norton and Christopher Anvil. This was mentioned on Research Buzz in March but it's apropos today's TANSTAAFL headline.

Europa Universalis 2

I've finally gotten around to playing Europa Universalis 2 - I've owned the game for a good six months, but hadn't worked into the rotation. So far, I love it. Fun to play, beautiful to look at, the hours go by in "one more thing" mode. Here are a couple of reviews:

Pro

Con

It's interesting that they both knock the interface. Since I've been playing Master of Orion 3 for months, the EU2 interface seems straightforward and responsive in comparison.

After The Super Bowl

After the Super Bowl was over, President Bush placed the traditional phone call to the New England Patriots to congragulate them on their victory.

Al Gore called the Carolina Panthers and told them he thought they'd been robbed.

Bill Clinton called Janet Jackson.

A Man Who Knows

The man was in no shape to drive, so he wisely left his car parked and walked home. As he was walking unsteadily along, a policeman stopped him.

"What are you doing out here at 2 A.M.?"

"I'm going to a lecture," the man replied.

"And just who is going to give a lecture at this hour?" the cop asked.

"My wife," answered the man.

New Year Predictions

Now that I'm back from staying at home (There are no truth to the rumors that Archpundit and I ran off together, or that I was stuck for weeks in Forest Park at the St. Louis '04 Eve debacle), I'm keeping with the blogosphere trend and offering my own predictions for 2004.

1. My blog posting will be light with intermittent dropouts.

2. Celebrities will continue to engage in shocking behavior to attract attention. Every year the behavior has to be worse to remain shocking, but still no limit will be discovered.

3. There will be no peace in the Middle East.

4. Politicians and various activities will be compared to Hitler and various Nazi atrocities without any basis whatsoever other than the comparer doesn't like them.

5. People will be the most passionate about the things that really matter the least.

6. Intellectuals will decry the faults of the common man with great vigor while the common man by and large ignores intellectuals.

7. I will busier than a one armed cashier at Wal-Mart.

8. Elites won't live up to their billing.

9. What we worry the most about won't happen but what we didn't give a thought to will.

10. There will be no really good 5 cent cigar for sale in America.

In other words, why should we expect something different if we keep doing the same stuff?

Too Much Time On Somebody's Hands

At last! A rap music video I can love.

Warning: hilarity ensues when you click the link.

Gender DisEnGenie

The whole blogosphere is talking about The Gender Genie, which is a web site that can tries to tell your gender from a writing sample. It was pretty sure I'm male (let me state for the record I'm certain I'm male). I have a much easier test:

Do you take reading material when you plan to sit on the toilet?

Yes: You're clearly a guy.

No: You're clearly a gal.

If this doesn't work for you, perhaps you should consult your parents and find out if you were one of those rare births with, as the doctors say, ambigous sexual organs.

The Curse Still Operative

Is it just me, or is the World Series a huge snooze now that the Cubs and the Red Sox aren't in it? This goes to show you how important how you got somewhere can be, since when the season started I wouldn't have thought a Marlins/Yankees World Series would have been anti-climactic. Once the horribly named NLCS and ALCS started, I think everybody but Marlin and Yankee fans were rooting, however slightly, for the Cubs and Red Sox to win them - something that wasn't true even when the playoffs started. Thankfully for Fox, my apathy isn't reflected in the TV ratings.

Two For Two

Okay, this time I didn't win outright, but I did win Dodd's Caption Contest once again with another solid gold woofer. Hooray for me! Sir Charles would have done better if he had realized the boat was listing to starboard, which is another word for right. Remember, the pointy end is the front on a ship.

Warner Vs. Bulger

Mike Martz replaced Kurt Warner with Marc Bulger as the Ram's quarterback this week. They're both excellent quarterbacks. What I find interesting, though, is that Bulger didn't play any better than Warner this year. Yes, Warner had a terrible first half against New York. But Bulger had a terrible first half against SF -- right down to a couple of fumbles because he get rid of the ball or protect it. Warner had a concussion -- what was Bulger's excuse? Both played better second halves, mostly because the offensive line remembered how to pass block.

The real problem is that while Mike Martz was an outstanding offensive coordinator, so far he's been a poor head coach. His game day management skills are abysmal, he's slow to adjust to what the other team is doing, he's pass happy, and he meddles far too much in the draft (where he's repeatedly demonstrated he's a poor judge of talent). You get the feeling he's so stubborn he'd rather lose his way than win anybody else's way. Maybe he believed the press when he was hailed as a genius for his work during the Ram's 1999 cinderella season. Just because he devised a brilliant passing game and had the players to execute it doesn't make him evena so-so head coach. It took him six quarters of losing football this year to even bother with a running game -- and that's with Marshall Faulk in the backfield.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Bulger and Warner is that Martz coaches a better game when Bulger is QB. At least he remembers he has a pretty good running back in Faulk.

Was Barney Really A Dinosaur?

The truth can no be revealed - Barney (you know, the giant green/purple creature that liked kids to have fun and sing a lot) isn't really a dinosaur, but instead a Pretendosaurus according to three titans of science. Their startling conclusion is based both on a mass of mundane empirical observations and some truly intrepid fieldwork.

I know many of you are shaking your heads and wondering just who this Barney character is, but for those of us who had young children in the 1990's, Barney was central to our kids' (and thus ours) very existances. I won't forget that when my daughter was in the hospital how every TV was tuned to Barney and every kid was watching when he came on. The only thing you could hear was the sound of goofy kid songs and the sighs of the parents and nurses.

Science Marches On

Who says science doesn't provide answers for everyday conundrums? For instance, the latest research shows that in fact, the chicken came before the egg. This has far reaching implications, although I for one would like to see the results repeated before I conclude that the data is solid and unassailable. But next time the guy from accounting tries to confuse me by asking which came first, the chicken or the egg, I'll have an answer for him. Then will see who gets fullly reimbursed for travel expenses!

And geologists have measured, analyzed, and confirmed that in fact, Kansas is flatter than a pancake. I for one am glad that my tax dollars go to support such cutting edge science, and I wait for additional topological comparisons between state and breakfast food - how about which is rougher, Missouri or scrambled eggs?

You Like Me, You Really Like Me!

Call it beginner's luck, luck of the Irish, or just plain old dumb luck, but somehow I managed to win the Caption of the Day Contest at Ipse Dixit. It was an honor to just be nominated among such a wonderful group of comedians, and I never expected to win, so I don't have anything prepared. Oops, wrong prepared speach.

If any of you have come here from there wondering just who this Murphy guy is, please feel free to look around, check out the archives, hit my non-blog web site, put your feet up, and remember, mi casa es mi casa - so pick up after yourself.

It's Baaaaack

Tuesday Morning Quarterback by Gregg Easterbrook is back (it sure felt longer than a six week hiatus) covering the NFL with a column that concentrates exclusively on non-NFL items (OK, he does talk about the Bengals briefly, but then they really aren't a football team, are they?).

Not Just For Fun

I suppose it all started for me at the age of three when I won a tiddlywinks "tournament" at a friend's birthday party. I have been an avid player of non-sporting games ever since. I find them both relaxing and stimulating, a combination hard to find. Now Professor James Paul Gee claims that the oft maligned video games can be a great way for kids to learn.

"I was 53 when I began and was blown away by how long, challenging, and complex games like Deus Ex were. Yet millions of people pay a lot of money to buy them and they learn them very well, including kids who wouldn’t spend twelve concentrated minutes really learning algebra in school. It dawned on me that good games were learning machines. Built into their very designs were good learning principles, principles supported, in fact, by cutting-edge research in cognitive science, the science that studies human thinking and learning. Many of these principles could be used in schools to get kids to learn things like science, but, too often today schools are returning to skill-and-drill and multiple-choice tests that kill deep learning. Games are good at getting themselves learned for good old Darwinian reasons, namely, the ones that can’t get learned, don’t get bought and the companies that produce them go broke (Suikoden III is a good example of a very good game that does a poor job helping the player learn how to play it). What makes the situation interesting is that game designers can’t make games easier to learn by dumbing them down, since players want ever longer, more challenging, more open-ended games.

Yes, Virginia, he has a book out about it.

We Are, Like, FBI Agents

Ben Domenech links to a delightful article about a trio of eigth graders who teach FBI agents how to act like 12 year old girls online to catch pedophiles. I'm sorry to hear that Led Zeppelin isn't cool anymore, despite they have the number one album in the US again, after only 24 years.

Billy Bob Beats Bubba

When Billy Bob first sued Bubba, Billy Bob won a 142,000 dollar judgement. But a judge ruled that Billy Bob didn't fill out the paperwork properly. Fortunately for Billy Bob, the 7th circuit court of appeals (after consulting with Austin Powers) has reinstated the award. So the makers of Billy-Bob Teeth, worn by Mike Myers in his Austin Powers movies, have been upheld in their claim that Bubba Teeth infringes on their copyright/trade dress. And threw just such oddball suits is America made safe for capitalism.

Dumb Laws

We've all heard about dumb laws, but here's a site that collects them. Going to Alaska to hunt bear? That's legal, just don't wake them up to take their picture, though. Planning on moving to Idaho? Great, just don't sweep dirt from your house out onto the sidewalk or street. Closer to home, you can't honk someone else's horn without their permission in University City. I'll remember that next time I'm there. Next time you take your wife to Vermont, she'll have to get your permission to wear false teeth. And if you're going to South Carolina, you'd better read up on the laws there (whatever you do, don't keep your horse in a bathtub).

We Love Our Storms

Here in the midwest, we are proud that we have the most extreme weather on the planet. The hot is hot, the cold cold, and the storms the strongest. Last night we had a strong thunderstorm roll through St. Louis - the light show was fantastic. Not only did we have some huge ground strikes, but the cloud to cloud bolts were awesome.

Of course, the wind does the most damage, so the National Weather Service has put together a wind damage fast response team to rate the severity of tornados. Needless to say, the strength of the tornado that strikes one's town is source of pride around these parts, so the locals don't always take kindly to a low score on the Fujita scale. Charles Doswell, team member and veteran stormchaser, still recalls the ire of a town that wasn't impressed with his F3 rating on a local tornado - T-Shirts with "F-3, my ass" became quite popular there. The team has been called out to evaluate the tornados that struck across the midwest last Sunday night. Maybe I should open a cafe press store with weather related T-Shirts. Somehow, I don't think "F-3, my ass" is copyrighted.

UPDATE: My T-shirt dreams are gone with the wind: The most destructive ones in Missouri from last Sunday have been rated as F-4s.

A Striking Concept?

Innovation in bowling from O'Fallon IL, of all places. I've actually been to O'Fallon a bunch of times, but I've never bowled there. Well, that changes here, now. Now that Fat Cats Bowl has opened, and is providing free internet access at the lane. And not just internet access, no, they also provide a web cam so you can show the hottie a few lanes down just how hot you are. And if you think this is a great business model, the owner (Ron Schantz) is willing to franchise it. So you provide the 6 million dollars, and Ron will provide the plans.

Tuesday Morning Quickies

I'm in class again, so all I have time for is a couple of quick ones.

National Geographic has a swimsuit issue out on the streets. Yep, the magazine where you used to be able to see topless women as long as it was educational (and the women were ugly) has decided to picture less (but not by much) of good looking women. This reminds me of another thing we owe the French - the invention of lingerie. I know that's got to gall a lot of people out there, but the invention of the brassiere alone is worth our undying admiration; toss in all the other wonderful pieces of women's foundational garments (motto: to support yet reveal the good bits) they invented and you can see why I won't speak an ill word of the French no matter how idiotic their leaders are.

This morning on the way to work, I was almost run over by a mail delivery truck. I was getting over to get off the freeway and the distinctively shaped truck was flying (given that I was doing 70 miles an hour, he had to be doing well over 80) up the right hand lanes. I was tempted to report the truck as stolen.

And in health news, researchers have totaled up the cost of the common cold and put the price tag at 40 Billion (that's not a typo) dollars in the US alone. Americans spend more money on doctor visits for colds (7.7 Billion) than they do on going to the movies (6 Billion) -- which when you consider that doctors can't do anything for colds shows you just how idiotic we Americans can be.

New research shows that most people have had a song stuck in their head at some point in their life. No word on how much people spend on doctor visits to have them removed. The leading problem songs are "Who Let the Dogs Out" and Chilli's "Baby Back Rib" song ("Pop Goes The Weasel" is a perennial parental problem) - and I'm sorry if those songs take up residence in your cranium after just reading the titles here. I can see I picked the wrong line of work - I should have gone into the field of pointless research and churned out study after study about what kind of clothes people wear (slutty yet sophisticated is "in"), attitudes towards celebrities (we love to hate them), and what people think about earthworms (we know they're important, but they are kind of gross and we don't want to spend much time thinking about them).

I Can't Believe I Beat Juan Gato To This Story

An employee spilled 1,800 gallons of tequila when he tried to load an already full holding tank from a tanker truck just in from Mexico reports the Louisville Business Journal. The company spokesman was unconcerned: "Obviously, you'd like not to lose any (tequila)," he said. "But in perspective of things, it's a relatively small amount." The article didn't mention if the employee took a sobriety test following the accident.

Man and Machine Equal, Sort Of

The clash of chess titans Garry Kasparov and Deep Junior ended in a draw with a victory each and four draws. Kasparov spoke with CNN about the match:

"But at end of the day, it's not human, so that's why to win the game, to beat this machine, you have to be very precise, so it's quite unusual for human game, because normal game is always full of sort of inaccuracies if not mistakes, but why here, if you make one mistake, you are out of business."

"I think people recognize that chess offers a unique field to compare man and machine. It's our intuition versus the brute force of calculation. You cannot do it in mathematics, you cannot do it in literature. So chess is somewhere in between, in the crossroads, and we always wanted to know how our intuition could be measured by the machine's force of calculation?"

While Man eked out a draw with the Machine, our problem (speaking as the man I am) is that the Machines are getting better faster than we are. But I'm not worried about my job - until they invent a machine that can suck up to the boss, I feel secure.

Man Vs. Machine

Gary Kasparov, sometimes hailed as the greatest human chess player ever, is duking it out with another computer, Deep Junior. This is a grudge match, since Deep Blue, Deep Junior's ancestor(?) beat Kasparov in 1997, and the man alleged cheating. I can't wait for the Scorcese treatment in a few years; I'm sure blood, guts, and transistors will go flying in an outburst of creative license.

Kasparov won the first match, drew the second and lost the third. So while they're tied, mighty mo is in Deep Junior's corner. (Somebody is going to have to have a talk with those IBM guys about how to name a product.) If I were a traditional pundit, I'd draw a straight line and conclude that Kasparov won't win any more games. But I have too much organism pride (does that make me an organist?), and I want the man to beat the machine.

Best Model Airplane Glue

Now that PBS Media Matters has brought it up, the best, the only, model airplane glue to use is Testors. I say this as someone old enough to have bought model airplane glue as a minor before it was put behind the counter and an adult had to be present to buy it; who still has part of his collection of model airplanes, ships, and tanks moldering away in a cabinet in his parents basement; and who has inhaled far more glue fumes unintentionally as part of building the models than anyone who did it intentionally but who didn't suffer brain damage. The Foker Triplane by Revell was my first plastic model kit, and still a favorite. Susan St. James' (of Kate and Allie fame) father is the guy who figured out adding mustard oil would cut down on kids inhaling glue, which put it back out on shelves again.

Sewage Can Be Fun!

Well, as long as you can read about it, and don't have to deal with it yourself, and believe me, that's the voice of personal experience speaking. The Charlotte Observer runs a story about the anniversary of two waste water treatment plants. The good stuff is what the workers find in their filters - one worker reported bought a car with the money he found over the years: "You dry it and iron it out, and it still spends." Another tried on eight sets of false teeth - none fit. Yep, it must be a ball working down at ye olde sewage treatment facility.

Not Just A Sealant And Beauty Aid Anymore

You knew it was going to happen one day. A woman in Brazil was saved by her breast implants. It seems her falsies slowed up a bullet that would have otherwise been fatal. What makes it newsworthy is that the plastic surgeon who was called in to fix the mess went ahead and gave her larger implants. The woman was happy because she says she looks even more beautiful. It just makes me wonder, do they charge by size and she couldn't afford ones as big as she wanted the first time?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick's classic novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, was made into the movie Bladerunner. In order to make the movie, a lot of the book was left out. Movies are short stories, not novels. Sadly, the movie doesn't really capture the question that Dick posed throughout his work: "what is real?", although it did do a reasonably good job at capturing the "what is human?" question specific to the book. I'm only bringing this up because my boss mentioned that he was buying an electric dog for his kids for Christmas. In the book, people were expected to have pets; because there weren't enough animals to go around, many people had to have electronic pets, like Rick Deckard, hero of the novel, who owns an electric sheep. Well, Sony has electronic dogs, that exhibit dog like behavior. The more you pay, the better the behavior, although the also have models that take pictures for later viewing and such. The more expensive ones apparently will even recharge themselves. Despite the work, we'll be sticking with the natural one we have.

The Sims

My daughter is a big fan of The Sims. Sometime back she described the game to me hoping I'd play it too. I asked her if I had to tell my sims when to eat, when to go to the bathroom, when to clean up after themselves, and when to go bed. Yes she replied, and added you even have to tell them what to wear. Sorry I said, but that's too much like being a parent. I guess that's why it's so popular with the teenage crowd - while they may still be under mom and dad's thumb, at least they can have complete control over a sim. She did persuade me to build a sim house - that's more like what I want out of a game.

Now The Sims are going online. I've never gone the online gaming route -- not even with Diablo -- mainly due to a strong fear of getting my butt whipped by a nine year old kid who has the time to devote to games I can't play as much as I want, but still play too much of. I suppose it will be different with The Sims since, as far as I can tell, there's no way to get your butt whipped. I'm sure there is, and no doubt it will be in such a way that teenagers will pick up on it immediately, but us oldfolks will never divine. Like Phil used to say, be careful out there.

Civilization 3: A Glorious Use of Time

I lost a lot of time this weekend to Civilization III, which I got Friday for my birthday. Yep, 41 and still playing games. I was gaga over versions 1 and 2, although it was SimCity that convinced me to buy my first Mac. The Fruit of the Murphy Loins also like it, so now the squabbling over computer time, the whining about why they don't have their own computers, and complaint about the old computer not being able to run it have begun. The only game of mine I don't let them play is Diablo II because all the killing and sets are too graphic. So all three of us are building our civilizations to withstand the tests of time, and swapping tips, techniques, and info. It's another gardening game, but what a beautiful garden. Unlike a real garden, this game gives your brain a workout, not your back. When I think of how much time I've spent playing Sid Meier's games (Civilization 1-3, Colonization, Railroad Tycoon 1 & 2), I think "time well spent!" I've spent hours at a time telling myself and my wife "one more turn!" That's a phrase that should go on every gamer's tombstone.

One Definition of Chutzpah

There are a lot of definitions of chutzpah out there, but I'll take this one: To steal your neighbors goods, sell them at a three day yardsale, and provide receipts. The Rutland Herald provides the details; only I supply the Yiddish.

Tropico, A Computerized Garden of Delight

It's been awhile, but I played Tropico last night. It has a knack for getting me in trouble with the Other Fearless Leader, since I spend too much time playing it, or as the case was last night, I messed up taping Friends while playing. And my excuse, delivered in a lousy Spanish accent, that the people need their el presidente doesn't go over at all with her. At all. Tropico is a fun game where you are in charge of a small Caribbean island. You build the buildings, you set the wages, and you can ruthlessly suppress the people or get voted out of office (your choice!). Most people would call it a strategy/simulation game; I call it a game about gardening. To me, it's a sublimation of the gardening drive, as all the activity involved is best understood as gardening - designing, planting, weeding, watering, eliminating pests, and expanding your garden. There are a bunch of games like this, starting with Sim City, the granddaddy of simulation games, and including Warcraft, Master of Orion, or Age of Empires to name a few popular titles.

The World's Funniest Joke (Scientifically Proven!)

I could tell the joke, but then you'd laugh yourself to death. OK, that's a riff on a Monty Python routine, but seriously folks, a British (natch!) university decided to find the world's funniest joke. Laugh Lab set out to run a scientific experiment to find the world's funniest joke. According to The New Scientist, not only did they find the joke, they found out that the duck is the world's funniest animal. They also found that different countries had different senses of humor, and that Japan was a joke free zone. The winning joke, submitted by a psychologist in Manchester, England:

A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator, in a calm soothing voice, says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: "OK, now what?"

I'm sure those of you who’ve been paying attention immediately see how to make this joke funnier: change it to start "A couple of New Jersey duck hunters are …." Adding the world's funniest animal is bound to make the world's funniest joke even funnier.

Good News, Bad News about the Rams

The Rams lost again today. It's just amazing how they went from outstanding to lousy in one offseason. Well, they turned lousy just in time for the Superbowl and they've stayed lousy ever since. At least we have the Cardinals to root for. I suppose the Rams being lousy isn't all bad -- now I'll have my Sunday afternoons back, not chained to the TV, watching the game.