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).
Archive for category Fun
Dumb Laws
May 22
Billy Bob Beats Bubba
May 22
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.
We Love Our Storms
May 7
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?
Mar 17
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
Feb 25
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).
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.
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.
Best Model Airplane Glue
Jan 16
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 (or so I think). 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!
Jan 8
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.
Man Vs. Machine
Jan 1
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.
