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So, I just read this article: AT&T May Have Swayed 'Idol' Results. This got me to thinking: AT&T network, eh? My mind started to churn on this a little bit. Consider the following: 1. An iPhone app called "AI Fans application" or some such, which appears on the surface to serve some useful purpose - grab and play publicly available AI clips, or something. 2. The wifi connection to "phone home" for instructions. 3. Text messages on AT&T network, sent by a background process of the application. Put all that together, and maybe one could create a botnet capable of seriously steering the results of Idol - especially in the earlier rounds. Something like this could have destroyed Adam Lambert much earlier! Just food for thought. I'd do it, if I could. Tags: tech, tv
Current Mood: curious
Current Music: Saosin - 'The Grey'
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So, to wrap this up. A while back, I issued an " unlistenable challenge", with some very simple rules. Put together a playlist, with a specific running order and running times, and I'd pick one to be the winner. Well, you all FAILED. Ethan came the closest, but every single person who submitted gave one or more entries of the form, "Any track by ${ARTIST}". Seriously, people. How hard is it to select a single track from a collection? Thus, none of you win the coveted Item Of Fairly Negligible Value. Which, perhaps, is for the best. Tags: fun, meme
Current Mood: disappointed
Current Music: None, apparently.
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So, after Don worked so hard to put together a great mix CD for our broomball games (since one can only tolerate "Ice Ice Baby" so many times), Amy and Hippie decided that it was "unlistenable", and won't play it! The punch line, of course, is that it was perfectly listenable... if you know a thing or two about music and you're not a snooty 20-something Brooklyn hipster. So, Don figured, since they don't know what "unlistenable" is, we'll damn well SHOW them unlistenable! I don't know if we'll actually do it. But, it gave me an idea. Don and I laughed ourselves all the way home in the car coming up with the poorest choices one could put on a mix CD. I thought I'd put the question out to you, "the listeners". What's *your* idea of a totally "unlistenable" mix for backing a sporting event? Rules and guidelines: * Leave a comment (either on LJ or Facebook) with your unlistenable mix, in the most unlistenable running order. * The songs don't have to be bad in and of themselves (although that helps), they can just be poor choices for music to run around and be athletic to. * Feel free to jump between any genres. It's open season. Bonus points for exceptionally unlistenable transitions between tracks. * The running time for the mix ought to be around 50 minutes, although you can feel free to go a bit under or over. * Bonus points if you start the mix with a horrible rendition of, or awful mashup including, "Paradise City" by Guns 'N Roses. It's not expressly required, though. * Don and I will judge the best submission. The winner will receive... some item of fairly negligible value to be named later. :) * Feel free to pass the challenge on to your friends, if you think that they'll have a good time with it. I'll let this percolate for a while, until we have enough submissions to make it interesting. (Spring floor ball starts in April sometime.) ETA: The format of the challenge is intended to be a track list, not general suggestions. a) Please list the specific songs individually. b) Please include track times. c) Please note that the running order of the tracks matters. Tags: fun, meme
Current Mood:  unlistenable
Current Music: King's X - 'Live All Over The Place"
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Today's NY Times has a fascinating story of a conflict between the city of Pleasant Grove City, Utah and a small religious group there who follow a faith called "Summum". To "sum" up: There's a monument featuring the Ten Commandments in the park across the street from City Hall. The people of the Summum church want to erect a similar monument there with their " Seven Aphorisms" on it. The city says no, and legal wrangling ensues. The case is now on the docket of the Supreme Court, and it's being argued on Free Speech grounds, since it is all about open displays in a public park. (Personally, I love seeing when people dream up new and different religions - as long as their celebration of it is harmless to others.) Now, it's obvious to all but the most casual of observers that the city is using the power of government to unlawfully promote one religion over another. But, within the law, it always takes far too many words to explain the obvious. And, sometimes, when you try to argue your way out of a ditch that you dug yourself into, you dig yourself deeper. Here's the money quote, from mayor Michael W. Daniels: "Monuments on government property become government speech." Well, then. The problem, of course, is that the Constitution forbids the Government to get involved in religious speech, since it can not do so without endorsing a point of view. So, it appears that the mayor has left his choices down to either accepting the Summum monument, or doing away with all religious monuments in the park - namely, the Ten Commandments installation - so as not to be partial between religions. Case law support the followers of Summum, and I hope that the Supreme Court will see it that way, too. Unfortunately, the Roberts court is so compromised at this point, that I can't possibly predict what they'll come up with. What labored logic will Justices Scalia and Alito come up with to support their Christian-centric world view within the law? Stay tuned. Tags: politics, religion, scotus
Current Mood:  amused
Current Music: Disturbed - 'Indestructible'
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With the whole "sweeping mandate" thing that seems to be coming along with Barack Obama's victory, I thought that it was worth a look at what the "conservative" set had to say about things. Seems they're being more quiet than typical, but the folks at Redstate don't stop writing. The thing that I found most interesting is this: In 2000 and 2004, supporters of the Democrats claimed, among other things, that people were voting for Bush because he was "the type of guy you'd want to have a beer with" (which is ironic, given that he's a recovering alcoholic who's long since gone completely dry). In other words, people were voting primarily on style, and not on policy stances. Fast forward to today, and the big contention among Republican supporters is that people voted for "style over substance", and that if voters would "only look at the issues", they'd have voted for McCain. It's an interesting symmetry. I wonder what it would take to convince a far-right partisan that his/her whole governing philosophy is broken? Can it be done? Meanwhile, my friend Lois compares President-Elect Obama to The Master, digging up this old bit of script: The Doctor: The Master was always sort of hypnotic, but this is on a massive scale.
Martha Jones: I was going to vote for him.
The Doctor: Really.
Martha Jones: Well, it was before I even met you. And I liked him.
The Doctor: Why do you say that? What was his policy? What's he stand for?
Martha Jones: I don't know. He always sounded good, like you could trust him. Just nice. He spoke about -- I can't really remember, but it was good. Just the sound of his voice. Tags: politics
Current Mood:  hopeful
Current Music: Opeth - 'The Roundhouse Tapes'
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Two "big" things, and then a bunch of "smaller" bullet points. First up, I was really disappointed back when Barack Obama won the democratic nomination. Not because he's a bad guy, mind you. He'd probably make a decent president, and I believe that you should vote for him over John McCain (who I've never liked to begin with). But, rather, because I don't think that he can win. Yes, it's because he's black. Without going into all the arguments, let's just call it a gut feeling. I don't believe that America has evolved enough. We just haven't minimized the effect that racism has on us. We may get eventually get there. In a century or so. This isn't because of the much-publicized "Bradley Effect". The Bradley Effect is the idea that people lie about who they're going to vote for when talking to pollsters. I believe that the people who will decide this election - as much as 30% of the populace, people who don't normally ever vote - will make this a landslide for McCain. And, they simply don't pick up the phone when polling organizations call. Hell, half of these people may not even have phones. They're part-way off the grid, and they're only coming out to vote so that they can vote against the black guy. It's possible, in fact, that Obama can even lose California. To put it simply, there's a stronger-than-ever-recorded bias among people who are willing to respond to polls for Barack Obama. So, if these "dark matter" racists come out to vote tomorrow as I expect they will, then not only will the election be a shock, but such polls will become completely useless. I would LOVE to be proven wrong here, but I just don't see it. Second, I wanted to say that despite all this, I still believe in the vote, as an institution. I believe in democracy. I just don't think it's been working all that well for us lately. Other stuff: - New Yorkers: There's a State ballot question this year. It's one of those really innocuous changes to the State Constitution, which removes the requirement that a disabled veteran be receiving disability payments in order to get the advantage they're entitled to on civil service exams. Now, you might ask questions like, "Why is this sort of thing in the State Constitution to begin with?" Well, the question is rather narrow here - yes or no for the change in wording. It's probably a good idea to say Yes, and save the deeper discussions for another day.
- It's interesting to note that the New York State Senate can be flipped over to the Democrats for the first time in a long time. It's worth doing, so remember to look at the "down-ballot" elections.
- There are a lot of propositions on the California ballot this year. It's sometimes dizzying how much California asks its citizens to think over in such a short amount of time. There's a good write-up on Wikipedia, if you want to sort it all out today. The really important ones to remember:
Vote NO on Propositions 4 and 8.
My total opinion on the CA ballots: 1. Don't care (bond issue - if you want the state to spend the money...), 2. Yes, although I hate that it's come to government intervention for this, 3. Don't care (see Prop 1), 4. NO!!!, 5. No, 6. No (It's a little too harsh), 7. No (I like the idea, but it's really market-unfriendly), 8. NO!!!, 9. No (Right idea, but unconstitutional in a number of areas), 10. No (good intent, unnecessary taxation), 11. Yes (it's worth it to try the experiment), 12. Don't care (see Props 1 and 3). - It's worth it to note that McCain is technically not eligible to serve as President, having been born in Panama before the law was passed that made children born on military bases count as "natural born citizens". I think that's a big part of why McCain chose Palin as his VP candidate. It's a deterrent against having someone go to court to have him disqualified. NO ONE wants Sarah Palin in office, even if they think they do.
Personally, I plan on hiding under my bed for most of Election Day. I'll go vote, but I have no desire to watch any of the coverage. I'll check the intarwebs on Wednesday morning. Best of luck, everyone. We're going to need it. Tags: politics
Current Mood:  dejected
Current Music: Kenny Wayne Shepherd - "Blue on Black"
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I noticed the other day that Tiger Woods is now promoting a new Gatorade product, "Gatorade Tiger". It comes in three flavors, "Red Drive", "Green Fusion", and the purple flavor - "Quiet Storm". So, here's my ponderable: What should a "Quiet Storm" taste like? And, how would you know if they did a good job capturing it in a bottle? "Naah, it's pretty stormy, but it tastes way too loud." How about "Green Fusion"? I mean, anything that purports to accurately taste like fusion isn't getting it right unless it disintegrates the drinker's head, right? (I'll throw them a bone, and assume that a "Red Drive" should taste like the various red flavors of Kool-Aid.) Tags: points to ponder, silly
Current Mood:  content
Current Music: Dream Theater - 'Octavarium'
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The "icons" meme made it around to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) azriona, with some interests bolted to it this time. So, here goes: Icons: 1. Puppy  This comes from a New York Times article ( link) from 2005. I just really liked the accompanying picture. It's clear that the lead dog finds the cameraman (or at least the camera) to be the most interesting-smelling thing in the area. 2. Yariguies brush-finch  Another one from the Times. Biologists discovered a new bird in 2006, and it looks freakin' awesome! ( link) What can I say? I'm a sucker for pretty plumage. More glamour shots: http://images.google.com/images?q=Yariguies%20brush-finch3. Pikku-Orava  You just kind of have to watch the video. ( video) It's an actual song, originally done by a band called "Teräsbetoni". ( original song) Anyway, who can resist a squirrel rockin' out with a Gibson? :) Interests: 1. prog Well, you've long known that I'm particular about the music I listen to. Rule number one is that I crave musical mastery. Progressive rock, or "prog" is based on this idea - creativity from artists who really know what they're doing. If you follow the "current music" items in my entries, you'll get a picture of the kind of stuff that I listen to. If you don't recognize it outside of me or Don having talked about it, it's probably prog. (Note to azriona: I'd say that you should give it a try. But, skip over the Opeth. It's probably not to your taste.) 2. Settlers of Catan Settlers is, simply put, the best "new" board game since... ever. The Wikipedia page has a good summary of it. After you play it, you'll wonder why you ever bothered with any of that Milton Bradley and Hasbro crap. (And, for the record, I'll mention again that Monopoly is one of the single worst games ever made.) You can also play online against people or bots on the internets at http://www.jsettlers.com . That's it, that's all you get. Read a book. Tags: meme, meta
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: "The Sound of Muzak" - Porcupine Tree
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Bringing back an oldie, but a goodie: The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available data. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the temperature of Heaven. The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (~300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, or 444.6C (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.) We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
-- "Applied Optics", vol. 11, A14, 1972 Tags: religion, science, silly
Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Anberlin - 'Cities'
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You all know that I don't normally do the "typical blog thing" in my journal, which is the primary reason that I don't write in it as much as I should. But, I'll occasionally run across a "meme" that's interesting enough to me that I find it worth doing. And, nyghtowl has brought me just that. And, of course, he's picked practically the most boring icons I have to describe. Which just makes this all the more challenging. 1. Ryo (any)        Ryo Sakazaki is a character that was designed for the venerable SNK arcade game, "Art Of Fighting", which I wasted a lot of hours playing for a while in college. This was at the tail end of the viability of quarter-slot arcade-style video games as any sort of money-making device. The game had a very good storyline behind it, and I found that I could really get the viewpoint of this particular character (as opposed to the other main character, Robert Garcia). Fast-forward to winter 2002-2003. I was getting really sick of the Bush administration (and, who wasn't?), and I wanted a place to vent my frustrations, and talk in an essay or "op-ed" format about the things that were on my mind. Not just politics, but other things that seemed worth pointing out, or writing about. That's what brought me to LJ. It was, at the time, the best of the bunch. When I first started using LJ, I wanted to depict myself using a face that looked kind of like me, but not too much. I wanted someone wearing orange. And, I wanted someone with short hair, that was kind of like what I had then. At that point, short hair was a new thing for me, after having shoulder-length locks for 15+ years before that. I thought back on the fictional characters that I'd found interesting or inspiring over time, and there was this guy - Ryo Sakazaki. The look just fit. He wasn't just like me; he wasn't supposed to be. But, the points of similarity with who I was, and perhaps who I imagined myself to be in the fictional dreamscape that we all escape to when our minds wander, were too many to ignore. I took hours mulling over what particular shade of blue the sky should be behind his head. I still like the one I finally picked, and I've never gotten tired of using these images to represent myself. 2. Orange  Well, my nickname, along with my obvious preference for things orange, makes Florida's pride the obvious appropriate icon to throw in the mix. This was actually the first artistic image of an orange that I found that I wanted to use on the web, back when I first created the simplest of personal web sites back in 1996 or so. Isn't it just so cute? 3. lotus gloves  This is more about what I do for a living. During the day, I write and maintain applications in the Lotus Notes/Domino platform. It's a tough place to be sometimes, given the overall narrow (but growing!) market share of the product, and the even smaller mind share of people who know how to make things happen using it. It's a double-edged sword for me, economically. On the one hand, there are never very many good job openings for what I do. On the other hand, when there is a choice opening in my field, my long experience usually puts me at the front of the line of possible candidates for it. There was a recent period that we Domino developers semi-jokingly refer to as "the dark times", in which IBM, long the parent owner of Lotus Software, pretty much ignored the product, stating almost explicitly that their plan was to replace it outright with a different product called "Websphere". This was a miserable failure for IBM, and they recently earned some credit with us by realizing their error, and putting some actual resources behind the product again. And, while I'm mentioning it, if you've ever looked at Lotus Notes, and found that you "hated" it, you should take a look at the newest release, version 8. I bet you won't hate it anymore. It's always tough to work on this product, when IBM's chief competitor, Microsoft, puts so much effort into discrediting it, falsely or not. Every company I've ever worked for has had people - usually, high-level people - actively lobbying to do away with the product which happens to be the reason that I'm employed there. It's an uncomfortable feeling to be put into, and the situation requires me to fight back. So, I do, in what way I can. Hence, the "lotus yellow" boxing gloves. I plan on using this icon on those occasions when I talk tech about what I do. Which, admittedly, is something that I don't do often. The international VP of sales for IBM Lotus, Ed Brill, still has a pair of these gloves on his work desk. They date back to the release of version 5, in 1999, which is the last time IBM ever paid for consumer-targeted commercials in support of Lotus Notes and Domino. *** The tradition with these sorts of things is that they get passed around. So, if you'd like me to pick three of your icons that you should write about, feel free to tell me so in the comments. Tags: meta
Current Mood:  accomplished
Current Music: Charlatans UK - 'Some Friendly'
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I just wanted to note some things for tomorrow. If you can, you should go out and vote (assuming that your state has a primary tomorrow). The primaries are a "bonus" opportunity to have a say in the political process that is unique to the United States. Political parties everywhere else just have a bunch of well-connected muckety-mucks in a boardroom decide who's going to run. The Democrats and republicans, for all the things they do poorly, put the decision to the electorate. As for my own endorsements, the first thing I want to say is that I really don't like anyone remaining in the field. John Edwards was our best shot at unwinding the most damage from the Bush II administration. Everyone else will likely either maintain the status quo of the current heap of suck, or make it worse. Every decision we make now is about damage control. The tipping point for me was the New York Post's endorsement of Barack Obama. I had suspected that he might be a conservative in disguise, and his anti-mandate policy on the healthcare issue, combined with Rupert Murdoch's acceptance of him pretty much proves that he's a fox in the hen house. I'm not crazy about Hillary Clinton, but she's the least worst option remaining. Though grudgingly, I recommend that democrats vote for Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate for President. I won't say too much about the republican side. They're all bad, but out of the three of them, John McCain is the least theocratic, and has some idea of how to run the military (even if he is too willing to use it). I recommend that republicans vote for John McCain as the republican candidate for President. Cross your fingers, everybody. And, remember to be part of the process. Whether you vote or not *does* matter. Tags: politics
Current Mood:  somber
Current Music: Joe Satriani - 'Live in San Francisco'
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If you listened to what Fed chair Ben Bernanke had to say today, or you've read a number of Tom Friedman's columns over the past few years, you hear a lot of points to the effect that the rising price of gasoline should somehow "convince" people to consume less of it. Plenty of good economists have said much the same thing. And, if you've read any basic economics textbook, you'd probably come to the same conclusion. Raise the price, lose some customers. But, even by Mr. Bernanke's admission, the actual numbers have yet to bear that out, despite the cost of gasoline tripling since the invasion of Iraq. There's something not being accounted for here. And, to me, it's as plain as the nose on your face. I'm amazed that so many people haven't gotten this yet. The vast majority of miles driven in the United States are driven out of necessity, not out of choice. That's the reason why the American public hasn't bowed to the pressure of gas price increases. There are two categories of travel that account for over about 80% of the miles driven in the U.S. in any given year. Commutation to work, and truck deliveries. Road trips, grocery shopping, and any other reason you can find to get in the car and go combine to a very small amount of travel, which may surprise you. Keep in mind also that any optional driving by individual consumers that can be cut back probably already is being cut back. If you live in a city, it might be second nature to you to use a train or a bus to get to your job. The big cities typically have at least a serviceable public transportation system. But, more than half of the people that the census deems as living in a "metropolitan area", which is a very wide geographical net that covers all suburbs and some exurbs (e.g. "New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island", or "Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana"), live and work in locations that are situated such that public transportation simply can not get them to work. As a personal example, I once lived on Staten Island, and I worked at a corporate campus in a little town in New Jersey called Roseland. There wasn't a bus from one to the other. It was drive or nothing. And, one can't simply toss aside a job because they want to drive less. That's far more economically catastrophic than paying more for gasoline. And, a lot more people are in this kind of jam than you think. The average distance between home and work gets wider every year. Getting there without driving is an option only for a small number of people, and it's getting smaller. While the big shipping companies save on gas (and, more importantly for them, driver wages) by using either jets or trains to get deliveries most of the way from point A to point B, most companies that don't do shipping as a core service get their wares from here to there by way of the good old fashioned 18-wheeler. In this case, the increased gasoline costs are absorbed partly by the transporter, and in larger part by the company that pays for the transportation of their goods. It's looked at as a cost of doing business. No one goes into a corporate strategy meeting and looks for ways to cut their fuel costs. They deal with that increased cost by squeezing more profit out of the rest of the business to offset it. Which is, quite frankly, going to be a lot easier for them. Now, I'm not exactly what you'd call a militant anti-tax right-wingnut. But, given the effect thus far of increased gas prices on consumption, which is (and will likely remain) nil, I can't support in good conscience the idea of a dollar-per-gallon "patriot tax" on fuel. On the consumer side, it just doesn't work for its stated economic goal, and it's a regressive tax that hits hardest on the people who can least afford it. And, on the government side, it's just another source of revenue. There's no way to guarantee that it would go to alternative energy research. And, if republicans were to have any say at all, it certainly wouldn't. So, to all the economists out there: Can we address reality on this? Tags: commentary, economics
Current Mood:  thoughtful
Current Music: Metallica - "Fuel"
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Tomorrow is Election Day. Please remember to exercise your voting rights, even if the votes "don't seem that important" in a year where there isn't a national or gubernatorial race. Remember that some of your local town/village/hamlet/parish/prefecture/wh atever representatives are likely up for election, and they can have a really big impact on your property taxes. Here in New York State, there is a proposed amendment to the State Constitution. It's an oddball ballot question, to be sure. But, it must be taken seriously, since it affects the highest source of law in the state. Here's a brief summary of what's proposed: New York State defines several areas of its land to be a protected forest. As such, the state isn't allowed to sell off any of it. This makes sense. However, a small town in Adirondack State Park is unable to find a good solution to the problem that its drinking water isn't up to EPA standards. So, the town struck a deal with the state that will allow the state to exchange one acre of parkland for the construction of drinking wells, for twelve acres of other land from the town that doesn't have anything on it at all, which would become protected. The only catch is that, since it requires an exception to the constitutional rule that the state can't sell away protected land, we have to ratify the deal as a constitutional amendment. I like this legislation for two reasons. First, everybody wins. Town gets water, state gets another 11 acres of parkland. Newsday called this amendment "a benign land swap", and I'm inclined to agree. Second, it's very narrowly crafted legislation. It says what it does, it does what it says, it doesn't have any loopholes or riders or pork attached to it, and it only applies once. Ah, if only every attempt at changing the law was so well written. I have to admit, though, that it's a little trippy for everyone in the entire state to be voting on an issue which only affects one very small, out-of-the-way town. So, in short, I say, "Yes, let 'em have their water." Tags: politics
Current Mood: content
Current Music: Wild Strawberries - `Bet you think I'm lonely`
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I was a good citizen for Halloween this year. I bought a few bags of candy, and happily doled the candy out, in a purely random fashion*, to the kids wandering the neighborhood who rang my doorbell. Not all of the kids were wearing costumes, which I can fully appreciate. (I frequently found that it was more of a burden than a pleasure to come up with a good costume, and to wear it.) Most of the kids who came to my door were either white or hispanic, which is reflective of the area where I live. And, my last group of trick-or-treaters was black. They looked to me like they were all a part of the same family. It was kind of funny to me that the amount of candy that any one particular child got was directly correlated to his or her patience. Or, perhaps it was more related to their expectations. I had fully intended to give each trick-or-treater between three and four miniature candy bars. But, I found that in some cases, the kid would practically disappear after I had dumped a single bar in the bag. I wanted to say, "Wait, come back!" But, they were all too far away after I'd retrieved more candy. The rest of them waited for cues from me to let them know that I was done with dispensing. In the "free advice" department, one girl complained to her fellow costumed celebrant that she'd kept getting Snickers bars, so I pointed out to her that she could trade her candy with her friends to even things out. She had the coolest lightbulb-went-on-in-her-head look on her face. That pretty much made the night for me. There was one thing that got me thinking, and also kind of bothered me. To a man (or, I guess, to a boy or girl), all of the children were unfailingly polite. They all smiled, sang "Trick or treat!", and happily accepted what was given them. But, in addition, the group of black children did something different - they noticed the bags that I was drawing the candy from, and asked specifically for what they wanted. They apparently liked Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, as several of them asked me for them. (They pronounced it as "Reesees", which I thought odd.) Now, I thought, at first, that it was presumptuous to point out a particular product and ask for it by name. "Beggars can't be choosers", as they say. But, really, the whole act of knocking on peoples' doors and soliciting candy to begin with is presumptuous by nature. And, I had no problem accommodating the request. After all, I had bought the stuff fully anticipating that I would give almost all of it away. Why not give them their selection of what I had? There wasn't anything wrong with it at all, but it seemed different to me. This begged the question, was it a cultural difference that would lead the black children to be more willing to state what they wanted, all else being equal? Or, did this group just happen to have the kind of collective personality that would lead them to be free with their request? I didn't have anything remotely resembling a useful sample size to be able to find any statistical result. But, it came as a surprise to me that no one else thought to look at the bagful of goodies on my arm, and let me know which one they liked best. Am I onto something, or is this just random? I don't have a good answer. I didn't think to question why they liked the peanut butter cups, as they're pretty popular. * OK, so I leaned away from the Crunch bars, in order to keep a few extra for myself. :)Tags: culture
Current Mood:  perplexed
Current Music: Corinne Bailey Rae (self titled)
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I'm going back to "Nine things I think I think" for this one. - I think the Rangers look very impressive this year. Maybe I'm being more glass-half-full than usual, but while they took the first two periods of their season opener to get fully primed, they seriously opened up a can of whoop-ass in the third. It was pretty. Plus, Henrik Lundqvist looked plenty solid from the get-go. I think this is going to be a good season.
- I think that, while most of the new Reebok "8% faster" jerseys are decent (if not great), the new Vancouver jerseys are flat-out hideous. What on Earth were they thinking?
- I think that, effectively, pro cycling is dead of a steroid overdose. They're basically down to their C-grade athletes now. The situation got so bad that a cyclist couldn't even crack the second tier of performance without juicing, and they're now all getting caught, one by one, from the top on down. It's like what they say in NASCAR, writ large - "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'!" Even for the most die-hard fans of cycling, is it worth watching anymore? Or, is it just a big embarrassment?
- I think that it's amazing that NFL teams don't encode or rotate their defensive hand signs. Much has been made of Patriots coach Bill Belichick sending an undercover employee to videotape the hand signals that the Jets were sending to their defense. But, let's face it - if you're playing in the NFL, it's as competitive as anything on Earth ever gets. Even if they're not taping it, you know they're watching. In baseball, pitchers and catchers shift their signs between games, and sometimes even between innings. They know that the other team is watching, either from second base, or the tv feed in the clubhouse, or something. Granted, there are more things to signal to a defensive captain in football than to a pitcher in baseball. But, if they're smart enough to commit the playbook to memory, they can learn to either rotate or encode their signals. If they do that, this whole risk of having a team's defensive plays read becomes moot.
- I think... "Here we go again." The NLL and PLPA are trying to hammer out another collective bargaining agreement, and it's looking to be almost as ugly as it was the last time around. Let's hope the league doesn't lock out the players like it's threatening to. Lacrosse Magazine's Matt DaSilva is all over it.(My remaining lacrosse-related thoughts will operate on the happy-day assumption that the NLL doesn't shut down the season.)
- I think that it's absolutely awesome that the Boston Blazers are back! Up until now, every NLL expansion team that has returned to a former MILL/NLL city (since the MILL started, anyway) has chosen a name different from the former team from that city. In some cases, the owners just wanted to start fresh. In others, reviving the old name wasn't an available option. But, owner Tim Armstrong and the team had both the opportunity and the courage to go the route of tradition. I say, way to go! By the way, if you're in the Boston area, you should consider going to a game. Once you go box, you never go back. :)
- I think, after a bit of reflection, that the New York Titans had a damn good draft. To recap: They traded up (giving up Matt Alrich) to get Jordan Hall, followed that up by making their next pick Mitch Belisle, a talented defender (even if he isn't Canadian), and made defense the focus of the rest of the draft. The key is that Hall and Belisle will be able to step in and contribute immediately. The Titans weren't great in their first year, but they weren't far off from being very good. They lost a lot of games by one or two goals. If the team can offset the loss on offense of Gewas Schindler to Boston, this could be a playoff team. I'm not too worried, though. There's no shortage of remaining firepower. I'd love to see Ryan Boyle play up to his potential. It seemed like he got a little bit lost last season. As sub-thought: I think it's awesome that the Titans drafted Mike Haas of the Beer Wolves. It's kind of heartwarming for me to see a fellow PBLA player make it to the bigs. Once Mike gets used to the speed increase in the NLL (which should take about a period), he'll be a contributor, too.
- I think the Mets didn't suffer from a "September meltdown" as much as they finally succumbed to a glaring weakness in the bullpen that manifested itself in the off-season. Of all the games they lost, most of them went south in the seventh or eighth inning. It's got to suck knowing that you have a closer as good as Billy Wagner, and yet having him be irrelevant most of the time. How many of those third outs would have been a done deal if Willie Randolph still had the services of Chad Bradford? If Duaner Sanchez were available? Plus, Aaron Sele really made Mets fans miss Darren Oliver. The fact is, the Mets will be as much of an offensive threat next year as they'd been at their best. But, even with that, no amount of offense can bail you out every time you blow a lead around the seventh inning stretch. Baseball just doesn't work like that. GM Omar Minaya is smart enough to see what happened, and I think that the Mets might actually overpay for a few better setup men. A healthy Duaner Sanchez will help, too. But, for now, Mets fans have to live with their team making his
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