Friday, April 30, 2010

Don't fuck with Donald Duck

Click for full size

Fetch!

Fetch!  Click the image for a larger version.

The oil spill

Check out these pictures here to see the oil spill.

Nothing like some great pictures to really show you what's going on out there...

Thursday, April 29, 2010

game 3, great success!

We secured our third kickball victory last night, bringing us up to 3-0.  Undefeated baby!

We started off poorly, we made a couple mistakes at the start of the game which cost us 2 runs. We rebounded quickly, scoring 7 runs immediately afterward. We ended up winning 10-3, but honestly I'd say only half of those runs were actually earned by us. The other half was due to their pitchers constantly walking us.

Their first pitcher, who pitched the first couple innings before pulling himself, kept pitching it terribly. He knew what he was doing wrong, but he continued to try to do it anyways, as if the ref would magically start calling strikes. In kickball, since you pitch by rolling the ball on the ground, simply getting it over home plate is not enough. If it bounces over a foot over home plate, that is also considered a ball. This prevents the pitches from being overly bouncy and really hard to kick. He kept on pitching them way too bouncy, and he walked several people. Fine by me! They eventually caught on, but we had already pulled away by the end of the first inning, 7-2.

The rest of the game wasn't as exciting, but still fun. At one point, I was up to kick with 2 outs and 2 people on base. I wanted to sail it over third base, down the base line because they looked like they had a weakness over there. I kicked it and it went exactly where I wanted... except one foot foul. Son of a bitch! I was really proud of myself, too, because I kicked it almost exactly how I wanted. Nevertheless, it didn't count, and my re-kick went straight up in the air and got caught for an out. Dammit.

Afterwards, we went to Doc's for some drinks, and we learned how to play "Hook-ers", which isn't really even a game, but fun anyways. It's a ring tied to a string, and you have to swing it and get it on a hook. Since I know that doesn't make sense, I found a website here which explains it (since I know you're all so very interested). It's harder than it looks, but once you get a feel for it, it becomes much easier.

Our schedule is actually pretty easy this season, with only one game against a team with a winning record (as of writing this). We should get into the playoffs without any trouble, but there are a couple teams in our league which are really good. We don't play them during the regular season, but if we get far enough into the playoffs, we'll probably have to play them. Wish us luck!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

hubble, funnies, rivers underwater, gizmodo sucks

Monday, April 26, 2010

Is being a good Samaritan worth it?

New York passers-by leave good Samaritan to die

I've read some similar stories, and it makes me both sad and angry at how seemingly selfish some people can be.  If you're walking down the street and see a man keeled over in his own blood, how can you just ignore him? Does this kind of stuff happen in NYC so often that people just ignore it now? I can't imagine, but I also can't rationalize their actions anyways.

The story tells of a homeless man who saved a woman from an attack, and got stabbed in the process. My immediate reaction is, what happened to the woman? Did she not notice that he got stabbed several times, so she didn't bother to call 911?

My only guess is that the passer-by's just didn't notice he was stabbed, and assumed he was a passed out homeless guy, even though he was apparently lying in a pool of blood. I would hope that here in Austin we have a bit more remorse for homeless people, given that we have famous ones.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

maverick, motorcycle, mass effect 2, music

Those M's have been the sum of my Saturday.

Maverick has had an upset stomach the past couple days, so I've had to keep an eye on him to make sure he goes outside when he needs, to prevent any "accidents."  A few days ago he was chewing on a deer antler bone,  and it sounded like he had finally chewed it down to a small enough chunk to where he could swallow it. It turns out my instincts were right, because when I approached him to take it away, he knew, so he just swallowed it right then. Awesome. Sure enough, a couple days later he is suffering the effects of the bone chunk now. Enjoy your diarrhea, dog.

Now that we've finally had a nice weekend, I decided to take my motorcycle out for a spin around the neighborhood. It has been several months since I've last ridden, so I need to ride around and slowly warm myself back up. I'm well aware of the dangers of riding my motorcycle, so I'm generally overly cautious. I won't just jump back onto my bike and start riding to work immediately; I will practice around the neighborhood and busier streets here first to make sure all my reflexes are still intact. Riding a motorcycle is easy, but being prepared for anything is a totally different story. You have to have all sorts of reflexes ingrained into you, so that if some moron turns out from a side street right in front of you, you know what to do. The worst thing you can do is target fixate, which is what happens to everyone almost naturally. If a car pulls out in front of you, your natural tendency is to stare it down and keep focusing on this "danger." This is a habit that you have to learn to break, because the unfortunate side-effect is that your motorcycle tends to go where you're looking. This actually extends past motorcycles to anything, really, but can be especially dangerous on bikes. You have to snap yourself out of staring, and instead look at where you need to go. At any rate, I'm glad riding season is finally back.

The remainder of my day has been spent playing Mass Effect 2 and listening and playing along to music. Nothing noteworthy there.

Tonight we are possibly going to dinner, but definitely going downtown to celebrate Andrea R's birthday. Should be fun, although we just went downtown last night. I can't remember the last time I went downtown in two consecutive nights, man I think I've already become a grandpa.

some links for you

Whoops I have been slacking with the links, nothing much interesting going on these days I guess...

New $100 bill - only two new features?
They announced the new $100 bill which will start circulating in February 2011.  The current $100 bill was designed in 1996, and since then they've only come up with two, ugly security features since then: a stupid inkwell with a bell that shows up when you tilt it, and a giant, ugly blue "ribbon" that runs down both sides.  That's the best you guys could do in 15 years?

Garden of Cosmic Speculation
Sweet looking garden

According to Iran cleric, promiscuous women cause earthquakes
Iran is really impressing the world these days

Thursday, April 22, 2010

third base with your mom, game 2!

We had our second kickball game last night, against the Underachievers who beat their first opponent 12-3.  Some of us were worried that they were going to be a tough opponent.  Pffft, I knew better!

We dominated most of the game, winning 8-2.  In reality, the score should have been 9-2 because the ref forgot to tally one of our runs.  I went and tried to explain that to him, and he was about to agree with me when some girl on the other team contradicted me.  We all knew we didn't get the point, but the ref then agreed with the other team, thinking that he did in fact update the score.  WRONG.

No big deal though, it didn't end up mattering at the end.  I can't contain my competitive fire though, I will argue over everything.  Sometimes I feel bad because it's a super social league and it's just supposed to be for fun, but I can't help it.

Also, I think we should all get in the habit of stretching before the games.  Unfortunately, Taylor pulled a muscle right off the bat when running her bases.  She still played hard the rest of the game, but it probably would have been more enjoyable if she hadn't pulled a muscle.  Last season, we had a couple injuries, too, because of the lack of stretching.  Maybe one day we will learn?  I'm going to try to remember for the next game.

Finally, shout out to Mark for helping us out by replacing one of our team members.  I think he enjoyed it, and will be more willing to join our leagues in the future.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Great pictures... beautifully done, rather sad

I don't know the original source, but I found them on the image uploader here (click for original sizes): http://imgur.com/a/N0JK9/time_passing





Tuesday, April 20, 2010

today's interesting links

Pew Internet has done a study on mobile phone usage by teens.  It's pretty interesting, and a little bit scary.

I am against animal cruelty (duh), but I agree with the First Amendment protection here... I think.  I can see instances where they would even have value, for example in documentaries or Animal Planet specials.

The ocean is a strange place

In case you haven't heard, a Philadelphia school issued "mandatory" laptops to students which can be and apparently was used to spy on students.  That's pretty messed up.

Trust in government

Link: people-press.org/trust/

...hasn't been good in a while. I was wondering the other day about how saddened everyone in Poland was over the death of their president (and countless others). I'm sad to say if that happened here instead, I feel our population would not be grieving as much as theirs, and the reason is this poll I've linked.

I've only started becoming aware of politics over the last couple years, because prior to that I just didn't care. I'm probably still more apathetic than I should be, but at least now I'm actually trying to keep up with it all. More importantly, I'm trying to form my own opinions by reading multiple sources and viewpoints. That's a whole other can of worms, though. Back to my original point, I feel like right now our population is ridiculously polarized.  Part of that is the portrayal by the media, but I do believe that there is a strong percentage of people out there who truly hate our government and/or Obama. The question I have is, was this percentage as high in the past, with previous presidents? Also, are people so blinded by this hate that if the unthinkable were to happen and Obama died, would we all come together and unify as Poland did, or will we have people rejoicing in the streets?

Maybe I don't want to know the answer.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Our supreme court justices are old

blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/04/19/our-tech-savvy-supreme-court/

Turns out they don't actually know anything about technology, never would have guessed

links... a little bit of everything

[comic] Saddest hot dog in the world
Funny

Awesome NYU application essay from the '90s
I wish I were this witty and ballsy to attempt this kind of college application essay.

Rectum bar
It's exactly as it sounds. It's in Vienna, Austria; another reason for me to visit the country... oh wait.

Broiling vegetables!
Looks pretty easy

The Big Picture - Pictures of Eyjafjallajokull
Stunning photography of the Icelandic volcano that is impossible to pronounce

This is the iPhone 4G
Looks good, for sure.

OKC bombing was 15 years ago today
I can't believe it's been 15 years already.

another round of layoffs, and I'm still here

The economy hasn't been friendly the last year or so, and thus there has been the need for layoffs at work (two so far while I've been here).

Neither time did I feel like I deserved to get laid off, but then again I bet that's what the people who get laid off are thinking. Luckily, I have now survived both.

It brings a strange mood to the work place, especially since each time one of my neighbors has been laid off, so I get to listen to the conversations they have with people. Oh well, what can you do?

I hope there isn't a need for anymore in the near future. It sucks having to worry about whether or not it's your turn this time.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Links of the day/whenever

I visit a lot of web pages throughout the day (mostly weekdays... I wonder why).  I will share with you my favorites.

Library of Congress to archive every single tweet
The question is, why?  Is Twitter that important?  Seems like a waste of money and resources for 99% garbage. But the good news is, in 50 years when I'm curious about my tweets, I can go to the LoC and look them up.

Rumored pictures of the new iPhone 4G
Looks pretty cool, not gonna lie. But I think I can wait another year for my contract to expire.  Then, hopefully Verizon will have the iPhone and I can go back to them.  Or better yet, there can finally be a good Android phone out there (we're getting close!).

The Big Picture - Chinese Earthquake
Great, yet somber photography of the aftermath of the Chinese earthquake.

World opinion of US increases

This is mostly a test post, I'm trying to figure out what this link stuff is all about.

But it's interesting that according to a BBC World poll (which I think I've linked?), the opinion of the US has gone up a lot the last year.  I say that it's interesting because living here in the US, I feel like it's the opposite.  I think that's a testament to what the media chooses to broadcast.

edit: I figured it out.  The link is the post title, which is confusing because how can you really tell unless you happen to highlight over it?

what the hell

A blog? What is this, 2002?

Maybe, but probably not. Lately I've been really trying to back myself away from Facebook, Twitter and the likes. I'm not sure why, but I don't know if I like the direction that those sites are taking our society. It creeps me out a bit that before we meet people, we facebook stalk them to see what they look like. I'm guilty of it, too, but just sayin, it's kinda weird. Also, I can't claim that a blog is sophisticated, but I can confidently say that Facebook is the opposite of sophistication. They keep redesigning it for the benefit of themselves, and not the users. Which is all fair, because they are a business after all. Facebook used to actually be about networking though. Now it's essentially just a site designed to waste your time, straight up. You have all this Farmville shit or whatever, people spamming apps all over the place, and sharing opinions that I frankly don't care about or want to hear most of the time (whoops I think I'm being hypocritical). I'm really glad you have the best husband in the world. I'm also really grateful that I get to hear your highly educated opinion of the health care reform bill, and President Obama. The only reason I keep my facebook account is so I can continue to see people's pictures, and occasionally people do post some useful stuff on there. But I feel myself getting dangerously close to deleting my account. Then again, I would be relinquishing the highly-coveted "habibi" URL.. maybe I can sell it on ebay.

At any rate, I have no idea how often I will be updating this or what the content will be. Most likely some random thoughts, my interesting and likewise uninteresting days, and maybe some music stuff. I can predict that I will update this frequently at first, and then slowly lose interest as always.

And it probably doesn't matter because I expect only a handful of people to ever check up on the blog, because it's not facebook or twitter after all.