You know an internet celebrity!

So it would appear that I'm an anonymous internet celebrity. I suppose that by announcing this I am possibly compromising my anonymity, but I remain confident that my overall lack of readership will result in only a few people actually reading this , thus keeping my secret identity safe from the masses of the interweb.

For those of you that have never been, PassiveAggressiveNotes.com is a wonderful website that collects and posts notes (both passive and overtly aggressive in nature) from its readership and various other sources on the internet. The collection consists of notes from a huge variety of sources, but the best (and the majority) tend to come from two primary sources: roommate situations, which are always a goldmine of passive-aggressive sentiment, and offices, where the inherent tension of the environment coupled with varying and often diametrically opposed personal habits creates a wellspring of potential conflicts. My note falls into the latter category.

For those of you that know me, you are undoubtedly aware that I have certain personality "quirks," one of which is a severe dislike of microwave displays that have extra cooking time displayed on them, even after the person using said microwave has completed their cooking. In most situations I've learned to simply cope with it, and I will either clear the display myself or, if I'm feeling particularly strong-willed, leave it alone and commend myself on my self-control. However, during my previous employment, the layout of my office required me to pass through the company kitchen/dining area at least 15 times per day, and each time I had to walk directly past the microwave which, nine times out of ten, had leftover cooking time displayed on it.

Now, as I said, I worked hard to just let it be. For the 2.5 years I worked there, I did my best to come to terms with the sheer laziness that was displayed by failing to push the 'clear' button after one removes his food from the microwave early. I tried to ignore the lack of respect one shows his coworkers by failing to leave the microwave in a state of readiness for the next person in line. I even struggled to turn a blind eye to the inherently wasteful nature of excessive use of microwave minutes. But, after a particularly cold spell this past February spiked the incidence of microwave lunches in the company kitchen, the number of leftover seconds began to climb rapidly, and I knew action had to be taken. So I posted the note below on the company microwave:

Some may argue that this is a false claim and that I don't really have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Perhaps...I suppose that I don't fully meet the diagnosis criteria as stated in the DSM-IV, but I do have a lot of weird habits and there's a lot of little shit that I tend to get hung up on, so for the purposes if this note, I'm going to say that counts. Anyway, after the note was left there for about a day, a friend and coworker suggested that I upload the image to PassiveAggressiveNotes.com. I thought that if there's anyone in the world that can sympathize with my plight, they'll surely be aware of PANotes, and maybe we can form some sort of support group. So I uploaded the image, not really expecting it to even make it onto the site. Truth be told, I didn't even check the site for about a week, and after the note disappeared from the microwave at work a few days later I all but forgot about the whole thing. Lo and behold, my dear friend FutileSniff texted me about 2 weeks later and asked me if I had submitted anything to PANotes. Apparently, my note had been posted and she, having known me since I was 13 and having chastised me on multiple occasions about my handwriting, had seen the note, recognized my chicken scratch, and immediately texted me to confirm. (As an aside, I think it speaks volumes on our friendship that she was able to recognize my handwriting in one picture out the millions of pages of crap on the internet...) Needless to say, I was surprised and thrilled. But the real treat came when a like minded individual who undoubtedly shares my pain posted another note, copying my text word for word, on her microwave. Image below:

This was back in February. While I was happy to learn that I was not alone in my suffering, more pressing matters took precedence and the note was soon gone from my mind. Until last week, that is. Apparently, there was another note of the same character submitted, and again this note copied my text, word for word. See below:

Text that accompanied this note: "We have one microwave for our entire floor, saw the note, thought we worked with crazy people... One of us said 'Hey! We should post that on passiveaggressivenotes.com!' and lo-and-behold, we found the SAME NOTE on your site."

I'm feeling better about my quirky personality already. It's good to know I'm not alone. Maybe this will become the next big internet meme? I'm already telling people that microwave notes are the new rickroll...

The original post is now listed as #1 in the "Most Popular" category on the site, and has received quite a few (largely disparaging, but a few positive) comments. You can see it here: http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2008/02/19/crazy-is-right/

Bike Hero

HOLY FREAKING CRAP. This is the awesomest thing I have seen in forever. The amount of organization, teamwork, and coordination required to pull this off is astounding. My hat is off to you.

This is potentially huge...

Scientists in Germany may have cured AIDS with a bone marrow transplant. The patient, who was infected for more than a decade, underwent a bone marrow replacement procedure (typically used for leukemia patients), and in the 20 months since tested negative for any sign of HIV or AIDS.

Full Story Here

Misogyny is Hilarious

For those of you that have never visited, The Fail Blog is a winning website. It serves as a record of human aptitude at its worst, and although some of the images and videos hosted there are of questionable legitimacy, there are plenty that are just plain hilarious. The image below is what inspired this post, and while I acknowledge that it's probably not objectively very funny, it had me in stitches with its unintentional humor.

Here's a few more winners:

And here's a few videos that are impossible to watch without laughing. Skip to 0:22 and listen for the "nooooo!" in the second one...

Sucks to have your wedding ruined, but
the concerned guy freaking out is priceless.

Questionable Priorities...

After 20 years of research, man has finally attained yet another victory over that increasingly weak and impotent foe, Nature. Witness, the Blue Rose!

Up yours nature.

And to think, all these years we've somehow managed to get by with only standard color roses. Thank God for science. Wait....that doesn't sound right...

Anyway, as you sit and marvel at this wonder of modern technology, you may be wondering what miracle brought this slice of fried gold into existence. I'll give you a hint: money. A shitload of it. Three billion Yen, to be precise, over the course of twenty years. Now, I'm not up on my exchange rates from 1996, but by today's standards that's right around 30.5 million US dollars. Even factoring in our currently shitty economy, we're still talking a total expenditure of 26 million, easy. Take a minute to think about that. Twenty years of dedicated research and twenty six million dollars. To obtain the same results that you get from a vase, water, and some blue food coloring. I'm betting cancer patients are nonplussed.

Full Story

Bad Start...

Ok, so I had a hell of a day yesterday, and I missed a post. Not a great start, I know. But I'm back in form this morning, and making a double post to make up for yesterday's failure.

I just got back from voting, which was surprisingly benign. Those old New York women have their shit on lockdown, even at 7am. My polling station turned out to only be about two blocks away, which was super convenient, as it's a bit chilly in the mornings and my voting outfit is kinda sparse. See, this was the first election I've been able to vote in where I've actually gotten to use a voting booth. In 2004, I was still in college, so I had to use an absentee ballot, and those are no fun at all. But knowing how awesome today was going to be, I wanted to commemorate the event somehow, and I figured that buying a hot new outfit would be the best way to do that. Unfortunately, it didn't come in time, so I had to make this mockup to show you how it WOULD have looked:

I've really been working on my obliques.

Since it didn't show up, I ended up just wearing hot pants and a belly shirt. And if you're on my blog I hardly have to tell you what that looks like.

Anyway, links!

Bamboo Bikes are getting huge. Bamboo is light, strong (some bamboo has a greater tensile strength than steel!), has excellent vibration dampening properties, and is infinitely renewable, making it an excellent material for use in bicycle construction. Here's an article on Wired that discusses bamboo bikes, and even has a few pictures of a totally sweet/unaffordable $2,700 model. Baller.

Musical Tesla coils have been around for a while, but they're still fun to watch. Especially when they're playing iconic 80s MIDI tunes. Using frequency and amplitude modulation (the same techniques used to broadcast music to your car radio, for you non-science types), it's possible to actually change the pitch of the electrical discharge, and when it's changed fast enough in a recognizable pattern, it becomes music.

Link a Day!

Ok, so I realize that I'm a terrible blogger. I console myself with 2 justifications: 1) the fact that I'm a law student, which takes up a lot of time, and 2) that this blog has a readership of about 3 friends, who are probably not even that interested to begin with. Still, every time I come across a great link and bookmark it as "postworthy" and then fail to post it, I die a little inside. Not as much as when I endure my weekly Drano colonic, mind you, but it still hurts.

So, in an effort to appear like less of a worthless drain on teh intertubes, I'm going to try for 1 post per day. I know, I know, you're thinking "But asshole, you can barely manage 1 post per month! How in the name of Prince Adam of Eternia do you expect to put up 1 post per day? Especially now that you have to start outlining for finals! I call shenanigans!"

Well, firstly, go to hell. I don't blog quasi-anonymously on the internet so I can sit here and be insulted. Secondly, sweet 80's cartoon name drop, homes. Thirdly, simple; I'm taking the easy way out and mostly just posting links. So, in a way you're right, Mr. Anonymous Internet Person I Just Made Up. When it comes to substantive posts, I probably still won't be cranking out more than one or two per month. But I've been ammassing a hoard of links during the last few months, as well as a few interesting post ideas, so I should have enough to keep me going for a while. Let's hope I don't bitch out on this like I did with the espresso dealie. (In case you (Sniffy McTallperson) are still interested, I think I'm up around 290 at the moment. I've been supplementing my caffiene intake with these, so I've been needing less of the black stuff lately...)

So, to kick things off, here's a few winners to get the ball rolling:

Grooveshark
This is a music networking site which has been described as the offspring between Last.fm and Pandora (both of which are great, but have their setbacks). What makes Grooveshark so great is that it allows you to search for and play as much music as you want, as many times as you want. There's no restriction on skipping songs or being forced to listen to 'recommended' music if you don't want to (though you can if you so choose); you may listen to an artists entire discography (or as much as is actually hosted), as many times as you want for free. Plus, it even let's you embed music elsewhere on the 'net, if you wish. Witness:



Pictures Taken At Just The Right Time
There's a lot of these lists out there, but the people that put this one together obviously spent a considerable amount of time getting the composition of each shot just right, and it shows.

The Federal Budget
This is an interactive, graphical representation of each dollar that will be spent by the Federal Government in the 2009 fiscal year. It's very well done, but when you see how the budget actually breaks down, you'll probably wish it wasn't. For example, during the 365 days that this graph represents, we'll be spending $2.259 billion on the V-22 Osprey, a tilt-rotor aircraft with an already long, expensive history. Sure, in the grand scheme of things this may not seem like much (the total 2009 budget is $1.182 trillion, after all), but when you consider that we're only spending $1.2 billion on developing renewable energy technologies during that same time period (a 27% decrease from the 2008 budget), the gross inequity becomes clear. But at least that's a better military-nonmilitary spending ratio than the overall budget, which is $799 billion to $383 billion. Yep, that's right...America spends more than twice as much preparing to kill people as it spends on EVERY SINGLE OTHER THING IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. Just something to think about.

Enjoy!

What is a "Maverick?"

Hey there, internet. I know it's been a while, but I needed to get this off my chest while I had a spare second. I should have more nonsense for you soon...

Anyway, there's been a lot of talk lately about the word "maverick" and it's application to politics, and I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what the word really means. Now, if I were still in 6th grade, I might begin with something like "Webster's dictionary defines the word 'maverick' as 'an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party'." I'm not in 6th grade however, so I won't be doing that. But I'm still going to use the definition.

I'm sure that you've heard all the talk lately about how McCain and Palin are the maverick squad in this year's election, and if you haven't than you've probably not turned a TV on for months. Suffice to say, M&P seem to regard themselves as mavericks, which is ok. But I'm pretty sure that being a maverick involves more than having slightly differing opinions than the rest of one's political party on a few minor issues. Being a maverick would likely not involve conceding to the standard operating procedure of one's political party to further one's own political agenda. You're supposed to pride yourself on independence, remember? But most importantly, I'm 99% sure that to be a true maverick, you can't walk around bragging about how much of a maverick you are. Completely ignoring the potential consequence of losing all your maverick street cred (you don't see Bizzy Bone of Bone Thugs 'n Harmony strutting around talking about how much of a thug he is, do you? Of course not. That's why America still thinks he's totally tough.), as soon as you make the rounds of the nation, insisting what a maverick you are, you lose that air of mystery that made you a maverick in the first place. It's that independence and unpredictability that MADE you a maverick, and by bragging about it all the time, you've just turned people on to the fact that you can't be trusted in the clutch. To be a real maverick, you have to maintain that Robin Williams-esque spontaneity that keeps people guessing and being charmed by your swagger, not pound them into mental submission by telling them how "wild and unpredictable" you are. It's akin to telling people to "expect the unexpected" or trying to market a "new" sports drink (which is exactly the same as a previously marketed sports drink) by throwing an X-treme! on the label. For shame.

Sorry McCain and Palin, but you are not real mavericks. You want real mavericks?

Boom.

(Note: This is not to say that I endorse these mavericks for president, either. Somehow I don't think the "I hate Jews" and "I believe in evil pre-historic space monsters" platform would be good for the nation... Not to mention that Roger Moore is British and last time I checked, muscle cars can't hold office.)

Thoughts, Links, and An Espresso Revelation

I've been going back and forth on whether I actually want to keep up the the election process or not, and unfortunately, I'm still undecided. I don't want to go into my reasons too deeply because I'll only get frustrated and start typing nonsense, but I just can't get over how ridiculous the entire McCain/Palin situation is. I've been watching some of the videos of Palin's RNC speech and her recent interview, and I'm absolutely flabbergasted at her refusal to directly address issues. I don't know whether she thinks she's being clever and skirting the issue or whether she truly thinks she's answering the questions that are posed to her, but either way it's totally unacceptable. When it comes to electability, even if one were to completely ignore her lack of experience and her ultra-conservative politics, she is still the inferior candidate based on her apparent (actual?) lack of political/democratic ability. I would have thought that the last 8 years of presidency would have convinced the American people that ignorance in the White House doesn't actually work, and that our president should be someone who is educated, intellectual, and uses proper diction when speaking. Sure, I know a lot of Americans want their president to be a good ol' boy who they'd feel comfortable throwing back a Bud Light or two with, but when that trait comes at the expense of an ability to adequately and responsibly govern the nation, it's clear that an uneven trade has been made.


Here's Palin being asked point blank about what the Bush Doctrine is and whether she agrees with it, and her completely avoiding the question (presumably because she has no idea what it actually is)


Here's McCain completely contradicting himself on just about every major talking point he has discussed so far in his campaign:


This one, though, is my favorite: McCain getting Barack-Roll'd



Also, I recently visited both a Starbucks and another local coffee shop, and in both cases a single espresso cost $1.50! Apparently, my previous math was a little outdated. This means that if I were to apply the same formula as before, I would have actually spent $322.50 as of the beginning of this little experiment, well over the initial cost of the $230 machine. So the machine has paid for itself in a little less than 7 months, and I will have likely broken even on the remaining supplies and coffee I've purchased thus far by the end of the year. In summation, if you like espresso/cappuccino/lattes/etc. you should definitely invest in a quality machine. Even if you don't drink as much as I do, it will still pay for itself before you know it. I recommend the Saeco Aroma and the Capresso Infinity grinder.

Finally, here are a few fun things to check out. Enjoy!

You probably know that Japan is both more technologically advanced and more ecologically sound than America, but rarely is it demonstrated as simply and elegantly as it is here:
Japanese Bicycle Parking Garage

Liveplasma is a music recommendation site with a great interface. You can't preview music like you can with Pandora, but it provides a neat web-like representation of the band that you search for and its relationship to other similar bands.
Liveplasma.com

You may have seen this being passed around the net a few years ago, but it definitely deserves a second viewing:


Lastly, I'm all about passive-aggressive sarcasm in my daily life, and I see no reason why political commentary should be any different. Forget all the mudslinging and name calling; if you really want to win the votes, I say focus on the dry wit and cunning delivery.

Almost forgot...

Current shot tally: 248