Be a Lab Rat

See if you can get out of this:

http://www.winterrowd.com/maze.swf

Bye Bye, BroYo

A Dirt Dog Goodbye

Well, thanks for everything BroYo. You were on that team, oh that wonderful team, that won the 2004 World Series, and you'll get a few free meals around Boston for that for years, I'm sure. Does this mean M's autographed copy of "Covering the Bases" is now worth less (or was it worthless)?

St. Patrick's Day 2006

Three wishes I'll grant you, big wishes and small, but if you wish a fourth wish, you lose them all!

Happy St. Patty's Day!
 

Pi Day 2006

So yesterday (3/14) was Pi Day. Ah, pi...usually the first number people are exposed to that has no ending and no repeating pattern inside. Fun for middle schoolers everywhere...

This is a (weird) vid from at least 20 years ago that I guess tries to get kids excited about pi. Really it's more trippy than educational. Who the hell are these monotoned wizard types and why are they killing the happy children? What does that have to do with pi? Who came up with this?

I swear at one point, while we are passing through a television being cradled by a masked wrestler type, we hear somebody say "Yo I know this pi shit backwards and forwards", followed by a rap which starts out "I did three chicks then I pointed at the door..." How kid-appropriate is this, anyway? Or maybe things were just a bit more lax in the 70's.

Ides of March

Ah, the Ides of March. Not a bad day for anyone not named Ceasar.

Top 10 Coolest Alarm Clocks

I'm one of those people who has an uncanny ability to develop an immunity to whatever alarm clock I have trying to get me up in the morning. I've been through all the motions: moving the alarm clock across the room so I'd have to get up to turn it off, randomly changing the time the night before to make it an unknown number of minutes fast, even putting a box around it so I can't simply hit the snooze button in the morning.

Well, there are new and creative solutions out there for people like me. Behold, the "10 Coolest Alarm Clocks", according to HiptechBlog.com.

There are some interesting ideas here. I think it a good move to get the waking mind to solve some sort of puzzle right away, just enough to get the fire going in your brain. This works based on the assumption that you won't get frustrated and break the thing, of course.

Oh, and imagine trying to find the alarm clock to hit the snooze after it has cleverly hidden itself away somewhere in the room? Aaargh...

Thanks to M for the heads up on this.

Rollie Theodore Sakers

Ok, back to less heavy topics.

I came across this site, one dedicated to Rollie Theodore Sakers, who was featured on one of my favorite albums of all time, Sublime's "Robbin the Hood". His rants are infamous.

On the site, you can hear a full half hour of his "semantic blockage" rant, recorded while he was in a halfway house somewhere in California (there's a link to download it to), along with what is supposedly the only known picture of him. He doesn't look like what I expected; I sorta thought he was more Charlie Manson-ish based on his voice. I dunno.

WARNING: This guy is ridiculously foul-mouthed, so if there are kids around, move them :)

Imette St. Guillen

I can't describe the horror and sadness I and many others who knew Imette St. Guillen and her family feel upon learning of her violent murder in NYC. Our hearts go out to you, Ale and Maureen.

We will all miss Imette very, very much. -sp-

February 28, 2006 - Boston Herald
Grisly slaying of Hub native stuns NY cops
Gifted student 'could have done anything'

March 1, 2006 - Boston Herald
'Sunshine' taken from lives of loved ones
Family pleads: Help us find her killer

Grammar Point

Ah, the things that people care to talk about...

A question arose recently concerning the rules in English grammar to show possession. I'm sure many of you discuss the English language often ( hehe ), but this question did generate some interest, apparently. So....

The question revolved around how to write the possessive of a proper name that ends in "s" or "z", like Sanchez or Miles. One thought was that if a word ended in "s" or "z", there is only an apostrophe. Another thought was that if you heard and extra "s" sound in the possessive, you added the 's, like James's.

From "A Writer's Reference" by Diana Hacker:

Possessive nouns usually indicate ownership, as in Tim's hat or the lawyer's desk. Frequently, however, ownership is only loosely implied: the tree's roots, a day's work.

When to add -'s
1. If the noun does not end in -s, add -'s. (driver's side, children's money)
2. If the noun is singular and ends in -s, add -'s. (Lois's sister)
EXCEPTION: If pronunciation would be awkward with the added -'s, some writers use only the apostrophe. Either use is acceptable. (Sophocles' plays)

When to add only an apostrophe
If the noun is plural and ends in -s, add only an apostrophe. (both diplomats' briefcases)

Joint possession
To show joint possession, use -'s (or -s') with the last noun only; to show individual possession, make all nouns possessive. (Joyce and Greg's new camper, John's and Marie's expectations)

Compound nouns
If a noun is compound, use -'s (or -s') with the last element. (father-in-law's sculpture)

I tend to agree with this general definition, with the exception for awkward sounding singular nouns. I think the right way to show possession of a proper name is to add the -'s, unless it sounds too awkward..

It does seem as though the best rule of thumb is to listen for the es sound and use a -'s if you hear it. This rule even applies to words that end in a silent-s, too, like Illinois. What about words that end in an es sound, like experience or science? Is it an -s' or an -'s?

Why do I care?

Yanker Elimination

It looks like the newly declared Lowell Spinner mission to eliminate all trace of the precious Yankee club nickname from youth league teams across New England is gaining notoriety. Though the Spinners maintain that this is all "in good fun", the movement's waves are being felt across the country, most importantly in the Rotten Apple. One Yanker fan talks of getting leagues in the NYC area to remove the name "Red Sox". There are 2 reasons this won't work: Yankee fans are too fairweather to care, and they're mostly in New Jersey, not NYC.

Our Lovable President

From The Onion Radio News
(from Wednesday).

"...but, I think we can all agree that he [Bush] is a lovable president who doesn't mean any harm."

Though they jest, imagine how crippling a truth it would be if this is the primary reason he was re-elected into office. Pay attention to policy people!

Better Folding

No, this post doesn't explain how to get a better night's sleep. Nor does it have anything to do with poker, coughing, nor hyperspace travel. Very simply, this post is about something I remember my mother always yelling at me to do correctly:

Folding clothes.

Why post about such a seemingly trivial and unimportant topic? The short answer is, I happened across the site fold-your-shirt.com, got excited and actually want to go grab a shirt and try this myself. Check out the vid, and you'll laugh at yourself for actually being impressed...

Multi-touch Interaction Technology

Damn, if Apple really is planning on using this kind of technology in the future, watch out. This is phenomenal. It definitely reminds me of the interfaces used in "Minority Report", but much less technical looking and much more intuitive. It seems to me that this type of interface makes for an environment that fosters productivity and minimizes the buffers between mind, hands, and result.

from Vic Divecha's Official Tech Blog

Red Sox Equipment Truck Left Today

Well, its about time. That weird period between the end of the Patriots season and the beginning of the Red Sox season is almost over, as the Red Sox Equipment truck left for Spring Training today, something that I think is news only in places like Boston.

Spinners Say "Yankees Suck"

The Lowell Spinners, the single-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, came out with a press release today that announces their new mission to replace all "Yankees" teams in youth leagues in and around Red Sox Nation with "Spinners" teams. To me, this boils down to the Spinners saying "Yankees Suck" in their own special way.

Hey...Go Spinners.

They make a convincing argument, describing the turmoil many kids go through when waiting to find out to which youth league team they've been assigned, hoping that they go to any team BUT the Yankees. I can understand this...I certainly wouldn't be very excited to have to play on a team with that name, and may have dropped the whole little league thing all together, given my droughthers. "When you are a kid playing baseball it is pure fun, and worrying about what team you are on should be the least of your concerns," says GM Tim Bawmann, and I think he's right. Furthermore, I think it's time we removed big league club names from the youth leagues althogether. I would like to think people are creative enough to come up with some team names other than those such as "Orioles", "Giants", and "Astros". They all have connotations as well; don't you think a kid from Boston may be somewhat partial to playing for the "Red Sox"?

Lastly, one might ask themselves, "what about those kids who WANT to play for a team called the Yankees?". The short answer is:

TOO BAD.