Today is April Fool's Day (no really, it is), that wonderful day that comes once a year where people showcase their imagination and creativity through pranks and gags that test the gullibility of others. Ok, so some pranks aren't that imaginative, and most aren't as funny as the pranksters think they are, but there are definitely some out there that get you, and some even make you laugh.
This one is my winner for this year (yes, I know Google may have gotten you with Virgle or Google Weblogs). I don't know if it's real and I don't want to download anything that identifies itself as a virus to find out, old school or not.
As if the general lack of posts wasn't enough of an indicator of how busy I really am, I completely forgot what today was until TLM reminded 10 minutes ago. The sad thing is I spent a good portion of the day today backing up data from our servers, and must've typed in today's date at least 3 or 14 times. Doh.
Yes, I am a math enthusiast and I am excited by the idea of irrational numbers and the fact that pi has been calculated to over a trillion places after the decimal. I like the official Pi Day site, too, and I think the graphic on the top is a nice touch (expand your window and it just keeps giving you decimals...).
Ok, enough is enough. Time to get back to some posting.
Today is of course February 29th, referred to by many these days (especially those at LeapZine.com) as "Leap Day". When this changed from "Leap Year's Day" I'm not sure, but the new version seems more fun to say for some reason.
Just a few days ago TLM and I were talking about the family with something like 4 children born on a leap day. Well, it turns out it was only 3 siblings from Norway, Heidi, Olav, and Lief-Martin Henriksen (only 3...come on!) born in 1960, 1964, and 1968 respectively. Is this a freak example of probabilities gone haywire (I mean, the day only comes by every four years or so, depending on the century), or is it instead a masterful example of premeditated and well-timed reproduction? You tell me.
Whatever the case, there are lots of other interesting and/or famous people whose birthday falls or fell on February 29th. For example, as if being a leap year baby wasn't enough, one set of parents in Germany decided to take baby naming to another level in 1904 by naming their son:
Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenberdorft Sr.
See the pattern? He had a name that began with every letter of the alphabet, in order, up to his last name (which wasn't exactly that short either, btw.). He could have used a different name almost every day of each month, or maybe based on how he was feeling that day. He apparently did have a shorthand version: Mr. Wolfe Plus 585 Sr., though I haven't figured out where the 585 comes in.
Oh...and is that a Sr. I see at the end? Does that mean there was a Jr. running around at some point with the same name? Had he been born somewhere like 60-68 years later, he may have opted to go with the classic Big Bird word that wasn't (see below in case you have no idea what that means).
Some other Leap Day babies include rapper Ja Rule, Pedro Zamora from Real World San Francisco, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, and Lyndon Byers, the infamous Bruins enforcer who can still be seen now and then in and around Boston bars and nightclubs. Below is an example of LB's handiwork, and one of the few times you'll see a hockey fight broken up before someone hits the ice.
"Auld Lang Syne"...in this country it's one of the most commonly known songs, of which most people know all of five words. It can be heard at New Year's parties and on the streets when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st each year, but where does it come from? Who wrote it?
The answer is Robert Burns, a Scottish poet who lived in the late 1700's and is generally regarded as the man in that country. Besides "Auld Lang Syne", he wrote many other highly regarded poems and even collected folk stories and songs from around Scotland for preservation, and in some cases like "Scots Wha Hae" (the unofficial Scottish national anthem for a long time), inspiration.
Burns is so highly regarded that Scottish emigrants (and fans of his poetry too, I suppose) all over the world come together on or around the anniversary of his birth, January 25th, to celebrate in what's become known as "Burns Night". The celebration is fairly elaborate, and sometimes very formal, a testament to how highly Burns is still regarded.
There is always a meal shared by all attendants called the "Burns Supper", unsurprisingly. A loose outline of the supper's order of events is outlined at Wikipedia (hopefully by people who actually go to these things). I found the Selkirk Grace, commonly said before the meal, particularly fun to read for whatever reason:
"Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit."
-the Selkirk Grace
So eat some haggis, have a shot or 3 of some good Scotch Whiskey, and end the night with a good rendition of "Auld Lang Syne".
Talk about silly holidays...Today is Peculiar People Day, a day for recognizing those among us who are quirky, bizarre, eccentric, weird, wacky, or maybe just slightly out of the ordinary for whatever reason. We all know (and probably work with) at least one, so be nice to them today, even if their socks don't match or they insist on (inappropriately) being on "hug patrol" all the time (you know who you are).
Well, it's 8:16 PM. I certainly waited long enough today to say:
HAPPY PROCRASTINATOR'S DAY 2008!
If you are at all like me, you'll find yourself sometimes waiting to do things until the last second. It's as if time speeds up the closer to a deadline you get. Below is a good illustration of what I mean (taken from a site with a more elaborate take on the idea).
Of course, there are ways to overcome procrastination, the seemingly most sensible being to set up schedules; i.e. to responsibly start and work through tasks so as to finish on time without any kind of rush near the end. Sounds good in theory, sure. Many procrastinators seem to find alternatives, however, that puts the onus of change somewhere else...namely, their clocks.
It was not that long ago that every clock in my house displayed different times, all of them fast. For my personal alarm I would close my eyes and pay attention to something else while setting the time so I wouldn't know exactly how many minutes fast it actually was. That way, when the alarm went off in the morning, I couldn't calculate what the actual time was and then rationalize another snooze cycle. The mystery of what time it actually was is what ultimately got me up, because I didn't want to be that late.
I've since gotten on board with actual time (and yes, all the clocks in the house tell the same time more or less), though the trick of not knowing how fast a clock is is still a tool commonly used by procrastinators everywhere. To make this even easier, David Seah has created The Procrastinator's Clock, as seen below. It's guaranteed to be up to 15 minutes fast, but it may be the right time, so watch out!
Well, it's New Year's Eve, and what could be more appropriate for this time of reflection than a top 10 of 2007 lists?
How about 50 of them.
TIME recently posted their "50 Top 10 Lists of 2007" complete with pictures, text blurbs, and lots of video clips, a testament to the popularity of online communities like YouTube and Google Video.
...and so St. Nick somehow managed to find our small little condo yet again, as evidenced by presents under the tree, stockings full of stocking stuff, and some bites taken out of the cookies we left out.
Ok, so we didn't leave out any cookies, but we still managed to start off what could have been one of the most stressful days of the year with an enjoyable exchange of gifts. Then both TLM and I went into full family-holiday-preparation mode, a process involving not only showering, shaving and getting ready to go out, but also preparing ourselves mentally for the socialization that lay ahead.
As opposed to what many of you many be inferring right now, this didn't have anything to do with mustering up enough patience to deal with an annoying relative or friend, but rather beating back the trepidation of us (ok, me) saying something stupid, incoherent, or (and this is my forté) entirely inappropriate to anyone during the course of the day. I think that save for a side conversation I had in front of my uncle's mother about a novelty book about "how to swear in every language", I did ok. Many others will not be able to say the same, I'm sure, before the day is done, and it is in recognition of such accomplishments of verbal tomfoolery that Wired has put out their 2007 Foot-in-Mouth Awards.
My personal runaway favorite from the list: James Watson of Watson and Crick DNA discovery fame:
James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA, talked his way into retirement by telling a London newspaper that he feared for Africa because black people aren't as smart as whites.
Watson told The Sunday Times he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says, not really."
TLM and I started what we hope will be a couple of new traditions this year. The first is me making a Christmas Eve Spencer-special meatball dinner, and the second is something both of us would have loved as a tradition growing up but never really had: opening one gift on Christmas Eve.
Well, we're both adults now (at least that's what people tell me), and we can do whatever we want, so we did. I gave her a big plastic bin with 100 plastic cookie cutters inside (which we hope to be using soon), but that pales in comparison to what I saw when I opened the gift she gave me: a Wireless Weather Station featuring Oscar Outlook Forecaster.
For some reason, I've come close to buying some sort of indoor/outdoor thermometer (weather stations as they're called I know now) more than a few times last year, and TLM apparently picked up on it. The gadget she gave me is better than anything I was eyeballing, I assure you, and it even comes with a name (we...ok, I...like to name our gizmos). As for Oscar the weatherman, I'll let the video speak for itself.
Pirates vs. Ninja...why is that again? I'm sure there is a story (more than just "the Ninja were jealous that Pirates had their own day"), but today is the Day of the Ninja, so celebrate by busting out your black ski masks (just don't walk into any convenience stores!).
Last year "Ask a Ninja" enlightened us as to the origin of the day (see below), but for some reason I don't think he's being entirely serious...you be the judge.
Well, it isn't exactly the day after Thanksgiving, but it is a day after Thanksgiving, and TLM and I finally put up the tree. It was fun and easy, and the only new question this year was whether to go and get a real tree or not. Thoughts?
I found this comic on BoingBoing, and I think it's an interesting take on today's holiday, it's history, terrorism, and let's throw in illegal immigration (why not).
I'm not sure if it's a consequence of getting older, and it certainly has nothing to do with what the holiday is supposed to represent. It's everything else about it that makes me crazy. The people in the stores, the pressure to plan out tomorrow making sure to be as inclusive of everyone as you can, and of course then there's the actual family members. As far as I can tell, any plans you make with them prior to the day before Thanksgiving should always be disregarded; they always seem to change at the last minute.
Ah, how I miss the days of my childhood, never having to worry about where or when I had to be somewhere for a family event.
Happy Halloween! Ok, ok, I know the Red Sox pumpkin's been done on TMT already, but technically this is a different picture of it AND this is Halloween AND the Sox won the Series :)
I'm still not quite sure how Nanabelle let TLM get away with this:
Well, it's hard to believe another year has passed since the last observation of the International "Talk Like a Pirate" Day (and our 100th post), but today's the day yet again, and though I'm not with the other landlubbers I work with today, I'm sure they're annoying whoever is around them with a fair amount of aye's, ye's, matey's, and the perennial yaaaaaaaaaaar's. Of course, no Talk Like a Pirate Day would be complete without the "Pirates Life for Me" song stuck in your head, so here you go:
To commemorate this year's version, I've embedded below something about Pirate Flags I made in an RIA called the workBench, put out by TRintuition (who happen to be giving away free accounts right now). It took me all of 10 minutes to make, and that's only because I went to the trouble of finding all the images etc. I'll guess that most people can generate basic, blog-ready content in much less time than that.
If you do sign up, tell them The Neoteric sent you!
Today is Evoloterra. This is an interesting holiday in that it celebrates "human achievement in general", and its date commemorates the anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon. We have all heard those famous words uttered by Neil Armstrong upon his first descent down onto the lunar surface, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the top 5 U.S. quotes of all time (though I read he flubbed it a little bit, and actually meant to include an "a" before "man").
I like the idea of encouraging invention and innovation and putting its pursuit in a good light, without a doubt. Having said that, as I looked around for content on the subject, I came upon a lot of stuff on the "moon landing hoax". Now, I love conspiracy theories and I'd heard of this one before (remember Carl Everett's interviews with Dan Shaughnessy? He didn't believe in dinosaurs either.), and as I dug deeper I found lots of articles and vids on the subject. The vids in particular were captivating, and though many were obviously done in jest, some were seriously trying to present a case where NASA, the U.S. Government, and Stanley Kubrick, among others, conspired to film a sequence in a studio that would convince the people of the U.S. (and the world) that men had landed and were walking on the moon. Some approach the topic in "documentary" form, like one I found on YouTube (in pieces) called "Moon Landing: A Fake or Fact?". Others try to prove the hoax by showing inconsistencies or mistakes in the footage, like being able to "see the wires" in the clip below.
Whether these guys really did land on the moon or not, one thing is true: some of the "human achievements" we can celebrate today are those in the realm of imagination, skepticism and doubt.
Happy Towel Day! Oh, and if you are more of a Star Wars head, I suppose I should wish you a happy Universal Day of the Jedi, though Towel Day is much cooler.
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Towel Day is a day to celebrate Mr. Adams and his works, and to celebrate all you need to do is carry around a towel all day. You never know, you may need it at some point...
Cinco de Mayo! Ah, that fabulous 5th of May (I speak Spanish), a day where many people from all walks of life fill up on Mexican food and, thanks to heavy international advertising and subsequent reasons to drink, Corona. But what is Cinco de Mayo anyway?
As opposed to popular belief, the holiday is not Mexico's Independence Day, though I'm sure you all (who remotely care) have learned that by now. The holiday actually commemorates the Battle of Puebla where Mexican forces beat the snot out of the occupying French.
Lying in bed last night, drifting off into sleep, I found myself thinking not of all the wonderful Mexican-type stuff I'd be doing, eating and drinking today, but rather of that battle that occurred 145 years ago today, except for one small and entertaining difference. For whatever reason, as I slipped into unconsciousness I imagined the French getting their butts kicked not by Mexican people but rather by...
...wait for it...
...Mexican Robots! Ah, how creative and amusing one's subconscious can be. (maybe it's just the meds)
Content found on The Neoteric is of no particular genre, topic, or focus, other than it was all at some point, in some way, interesting enough to me to write about.
