Category Archives: General

General, Humor, Popular Culture

New Year’s Predictions

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From Alan K. Henderson (I’ve always wondered what the “K” is for…):

A band of Somali pirates will relocate from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean, in a plot to hijack the cruise ship Oasis of the Seas. In a case of bad timing, Chuck Norris and Steven Segal will be among the passengers when the strike occurs. Tiger Woods and his wife Elin Nordegren will also be on board; she will incapacitate one of the pirates with a sand wedge.

During the Daytona 500 trials, Michaele and Tareq Salahi will mysteriously emerge from Mark Martin’s car.

Dan Brown of will release yet another Da Vinci Code sequel, in which symbologist Robert Langdon discovers clues in the CRU climate data that ultimately lead to the Bavarian Illuminati.

There are more.

General

God Damn

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…the naughts. It was an awful decade, in many ways.

And yes, I know that the first decade of the millennium isn’t over until a year from now, but the naughts ended tonight.

[Update a few minutes later]

Happy new year! I’d like to say that it can’t be worse than the past one, but I’ve lived long enough, and read enough history, to know better.

General, Social Commentary

Avoiding Tickets

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Drive one of these cars. This would be more interesting if there were some theoretical basis as to why they’re less ticket bait than others, as opposed to (I assume) empirical data. It’s not clear what else they have in common.

My theory of ticket avoidance is a) don’t drive a red car — they stand out and look fast even sitting still and b) don’t cruise the left lane on the freeway — that’s where cops are looking for speeders. I’ll never rent a red car if I can avoid it. I rarely drive below the speed limit, and I get a speeding ticket about twice per decade or so (a rare enough event that it has no effect on my insurance rates, let alone my driving privileges).

I recall back in the early nineties, when a well-known space activist (who will remain nameless to prevent embarrassment) and I were driving from DC up to Princeton for Gerry O’Neill’s funeral in his rental. We were going through Maryland, which is renowned for speed traps, and I warned him to use the left lane for passing only, but he didn’t heed me, and blithely cruised in it, until he heard the sirens behind him. And while we were pulled over, yet another well-known space activist passed us, saw who was sitting in the driver’s seat, and laughed.

And this all confirmed my theory, sort of, at least to me. I’ve only gotten two speeding tickets on a freeway in my entire life — all the others have been on open two-lanes, or passing through towns and not slowing down enough.

General

Fall

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…is the only season that I miss in my home state. Springs are nice, but they’re basically southern Cal standard. Summer, while it can have some nice days, tends to be hot and humid. I don’t mind cold and snow per se, but southeast Michigan winters are unpredictable (a white Chistmas is hit or miss), and generally on the edge of freezing, with slush, slick ice, and ugly mud. But fall… The closest thing I can find to it in CA is to go up into the Sierra with the aspens and sycamores. And south Florida? You’re joking, right?

General, Humor

A Dilemma

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We bought a bunch of wine at Bevmo the other week, because they were having a sale. Buy one bottle, and get another of the same thing for a nickel. Great, right?

Well, two of the bottles we bought on that basis were a nice Italian red. We drank one a couple weeks go with a home-made spaghetti sauce. Tonight, I’m making a frozen pizza. I’m tarting it up with mushrooms and red peppers, and leftover chicken, but it’s basically a thin-crust Albertson’s margherita with the extras that I’m adding.

Here’s the problem. We usually like Chianti, but we don’t have any, and all we have is this other Italian bottle. But I don’t know which bottle it is. Is it the one we paid full price for, or the one that only cost five cents? There’s no way to know, because I didn’t mark them when we bought them. If it’s the full-price one, I’m not sure I want to waste it on a frozen pizza, whereas if it’s only a nickel, it’s a bargain. So should I go with it, or the Trader Joe’s Coastal Cab?