Ken Jennings - Wikiquote: "Trebek: 'This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker.
(Ken buzzes in)
Trebek: Ken?'
Jennings: 'What is a hoe?'
(Ken realizes what he's said and starts laughing, audience laughs)
Trebek: 'Whoa! Whoooa! Whoa! They teach you that in school in Utah, huh?'
(correct question: 'What is a rake?')"

Not sure how I ran into this... but I like it.

MSNBC - Bush panel rips U.S. intelligence abilities: "In a scathing report released Thursday, President Bush’s commission on weapons of mass destruction found that America’s spy agencies were 'dead wrong' in most of their judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction."

I'm just surprised it took Bush this long to point the finger at someone else. When it comes down to it, it was him and his cronies who made the call to invade Iraq, not the CIA or anyone else. Today's analogy: When your team goes on a losing streak, you fire the coach, not the players.

MSNBC - Terri Schiavo's 2002 CT scan



Note the large sections of NOTHING.

Why are we still talking about this?

Guardian Unlimited | Life | Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up': "The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure."

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

SI.com - NFL - Colts' Harrison accused of choking autograph seeker - Tuesday March 29, 2005 7:05PM: "A lawsuit filed in Honolulu accuses Indianapolis Colts receiver Marvin Harrison and two men of attacking three boys who were seeking his autograph at a Waikiki resort a day before the Feb. 13 Pro Bowl.

The suit, made public Monday, seeks general, special and punitive damages to be determined at trial. It alleges Harrison 'violently and physically attacked' the minors, including placing a 'potentially deadly choke hold' upon one of the boys."

Marvin Harrison? The NFL's model of good sportsmanship? The quick little dude who's about as threatening as Tiger Woods? (Come to think of it, are they the same guy?) I'd be more intimidated by half the kickers in the league, especially the one on Marvin's own team (but that goes without saying). He's lucky he didn't try to attack any full-grown fans.

MSNBC - Television: Family Reunion: "On May 1, 'Family Guy' will return from the dead. Thanks to astonishing DVD sales and killer ratings for its basic-cable reruns, 'Family Guy' will become the first show ever to be resurrected on prime-time TV by the very network that canceled it—all because of popular demand."

Urban Legends Reference Pages - I'm a big fan of the show Mythbusters, which puts scientifically proves or disproves urban legends and such (and usually finds an excuse to blow something up in the process). Snopes is a variation on the same theme, and extremely entertaining.

MSNBC - Pharmacists’ rights at front of new debate:

So apparently pharmacists across this great nation of ours have decided that it's up to them to keep birth control pills out of peoples' hands, because it goes against what they, personally, believe in. Therefore, it's OK to keep them away from people who obviously do not share their beliefs.

"That is what happened to Kathleen Pulz and her husband, who panicked when the condom they were using broke. Their fear really spiked when the Walgreens pharmacy down the street from their home in Milwaukee refused to fill an emergency prescription for the morning-after pill.

"'I couldn't believe it,' said Pulz, 44, who with her husband had long ago decided they could not afford a fifth child. 'How can they make that decision for us? I was outraged. At the same time, I was sad that we had to do this. But I was scared. I didn't know what we were going to do.'"

A question for that pharmacist: Even by your standards, hasn't a 44-year-old woman with four kids fulfilled her holy duty to spawn? Or does she need to pay for the sin of having sex with her husband by having a fifth baby that she can't afford, whose presence could mean the other four won't be able to go to college?

MSNBC - Californian finds finger in bowl of fast food chili - "A diner at a Wendy’s fast food restaurant in San Jose, California, found a human finger in a bowl of chili prepared by the chain, local officials said.

'This individual apparently did take a spoonful, did have a finger in their mouth and then, you know, spit it out and recognized it,” said Ben Gale, director of the department of environmental health for Santa Clara County. “Then they had some kind of emotional reaction and vomited.'"

After the initial shock, I'd be thrilled to find a body part in my chili. Class, can you say "punitive damages?"

Moby's a smart dude - "Moby says he doesn’t want to be drawn into the Terri Schiavo case, but writes on his Web site: 'My note to the far-right would be: you can’t have it both ways. If you genuinely believe in the sanctity of life then you cannot support the death penalty and you cannot allow people to buy automatic assault weapons and you cannot support wars that result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. And if you genuinely believe in states rights then you can’t pass intrusive federal legislation when the states do things that you arbitrarily disagree with.'"

That's amazingly well said. I still hate his music, though.

MSNBC - Bogut finally getting attention he deserves: "There was a period at the end of Thursday afternoon when the nation finally got a good look at Andrew Bogut's greatness. But it was subtle, as understated as one of actor Edward Norton's quietly brilliant performances."

I'm just noting this here because I did notice him... he plays like a young Vlade Divacs, only with Vlade's passing ability after he had been in the league for 20 (200?) years.

And, since I'm apparently putting photos in every post these days...

The Credit Card Prank II



Apparently I'm not the only one who does this at Wegmans.

Awesome.

...is that I picked Washington to win, which was the most unfashionable thing I could have possibly done. Everyone says they don't deserve their #1 seed, so, apparently out of spite, nobody's even picking them to make it to the final four. I say that makes them a GREAT deal for me -- I get to pick a #1 seed to win it all, and if they pull it off, I'll probably be the only one, so I'll win by default.

MSNBC - 'We're a Nation Under a Spell' - Here's a model talking about her body falling apart because of what she had to do to stay so thin.

"The enamel on your teeth comes off with bulimia, from the acid that comes up, so your teeth decay. I had to have several implants in my jaw. And your ability to digest is seriously diminished. The abuse of the laxatives affects the colon’s ability to eliminate waste. You have very low blood pressure. All of these things I did took their toll."

Sexy.

CNN.com - Senate votes for ANWR oil drilling - Mar 16, 2005: "Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush."

MSNBC - Britney Spears wants to reclaim her privacy - "Like omigod, I have to tell the maid to buy diapers and get the pool boy to walk the dog? Can’t I just make out with Kevin all the time? Being married sucks."

Ananova - Chihuahua adopts chick

Ananova - Man with two penises loses wife: "A German who persuaded doctors to give him a second penis has lost his wife after he showed her the result."

When you read the story, it makes a little more sense, but not much.

I'm in a weird mood today.

Apparently, the cell phone industry has something to hide.

Letter written by Dr. George Carlo: "The rate of death from brain cancer among handheld phone users was higher than the rate of brain cancer death among those who used non-handheld phones that were away from their head;

"The risk of acoustic neuroma, a benign tumour of the auditory nerve that is well in range of the radiation coming from a phone's antenna, was fifty percent higher in people who reported using cell phones for six years or more, moreover, that relationship between the amount of cell phone use and this tumour appeared to follow a dose-response curve:

"The risk of rare neuro epithelial tumours on the outside of the brain was more than doubled, a statistically significant risk increase, in cell phone users as compared to people who did not use cell phones;

"There appeared to be some correlation between brain tumours occurring on the right side of the head and the use of the phone on the right side of the head;

"Laboratory studies looking at the ability of radiation from a phone's antenna to cause functional genetic damage were definitively positive, and were following a dose-response relationship."

MSNBC - Crumbling nation? U.S. infrastructure gets a 'D' - "Crowded schools, traffic-choked roads and transit cutbacks are eroding the quality of American life, according to an analysis by civil engineers that gave the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of D.

"A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Wednesday assessed the four-year trend in the condition of 12 categories of infrastructure."

So remind me again why we think we're the best country in the world?

Our military kicks ass! Really? Name the last war we won. And don't say the Gulf War -- it doesn't count if you have to go back and do it again 10 years later.

We have personal freedom! Four years ago, I'd have agreed with you.

We're rich! OK, then feel free to buy breakfast in Europe sometime, and enjoy those $15 eggs. And if we're so loaded, why do we owe trillions of dollars to the rest of the world, especially China?

We're smart! Our schools are terrible compared to just about every other developing nation, because we don't spend any money on them. So we're quickly becoming a nation of stupid idiots (See election, presidential, 2004).

We're respected and admired around the world! I just put that here as a joke.

I could go on...

If you don't get it, never mind. It doesn't make much sense anyway.

In other news, my point: I felt like an idiot last night. I usually think of myself as someone who is relatively adept with electronics and such... but I couldn't figure out how to hook up speakers to a receiver last night.

The Original Monster Cable brand speaker cable I got came with connectors like this:



Having never hooked up speakers before, I thought these still qualified as "banana plugs," which look similar (or so I thought)...



So, I was trying to plug them directly into the binding posts that look like these (obviously, this photo is of a different speaker than mine)...



That sure failed miserably! I got all frustrated, even called Monster Cable's tech support (thank God I didn't get anybody... I'm sure they would have had a good laugh at my expense). Turns out, you're supposed to unscrew the connector and stick the cable in through the side. As probably everyone knew but me.

RIT Success Story: "...of all the people who lived in the history of the world, 60 percent of them are alive today."

CNN.com - 'Bubba', 22-pound lobster, to be saved - Mar 2, 2005: "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent Wholey a letter asking him to work with the group to release Bubba back in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine.

"Another group calling itself People for Eating Tasty Animals reportedly offered Wholey a hefty price for the lobster. At Tuesday's price of $14.98 a pound, Bubba would retail for about $350."

CNN.com - NE storm cancels classes, flights - Mar 1, 2005: "A foot of snow hit cities in southeastern Massachusetts, where a January storm buried some towns under 6-foot-tall drifts. A foot also was possible by Wednesday morning in parts of Maine, New York and Pennsylvania.

"The storm marked the third snowfall in the Northeast in a week.

'I'm sick to death of it, I can't deal with it, it's too much,' 23-year-old Charlene Hylton groaned as she waited for a bus Tuesday in Rochester, New York."