Hypno-chickens?

Ending the year with some random stuff:

"A chicken can be hypnotized, or put into a trance by holding its head down against the ground, and continuously drawing a line along the ground with a stick or a finger, starting at its beak and extending straight outward in front of the chicken.

If the chicken is hypnotized in this manner, it will remain immobile for somewhere between 15 seconds to 30 minutes, continuing to stare at the line. "

More? Of course! See you in 2006!

Oxymoron of the day: "government efficiency"

As if you needed more proof that government-sponsored "help programs" suck:

Federal loans meant for businesses "adversely affected" by the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States often went to businesses barely touched by the tragedy or not at all, according to an audit...

The inspector general sampled 59 of 7,058 loans ... found that 85 percent of the loans lacked justifications or had justifications that were less than convincing.

For example, a $770,000 STAR loan allowed a restaurant in New Jersey to purchase a second location although the borrower said he only experienced a slight dip in business after the attacks and no long-term problems at all.

A real estate appraiser in Oregon received $371,500 to buy land although his financial reports "showed a growing business and an 87 percent increase in revenues," and the borrower said he experienced no adverse affects from the terror attacks.

So, go ahead and be sure to vote for the social-program-loving liberals next election to spend all your money helping other people who often don't need it. Oh, don't like that? Go vote for the conservative bastards, then or the "terrorists will win" or some crap. Yeah, that sucks too.

Ready for a new party yet? Ready to vote out the incumbent idiots? If you want the the government to change, you better vote, cause otherwise, I don't wanna hear crap from you. :)

Speeeeeeeed!

How fast computers have gotten since I finished high school, way back in 1993:

One stalwart component has survived through all of these innovations: the 3.5" floppy. ...The floppy is the only component that still remains in use today, practically unchanged in its 18 years of service, running at 360 rpm and offering a transfer rate of 34 kB/s. Once again, let's put that in perspective with regard to today's world: Transferring a file to your computer from a server that is 10,000 miles away on another continent is three times or even faster than getting it from your internal disk drive. And despite all this - the floppy lives.

It's a looooong article on the history of CPUs, but a great read for the geeks out there. My cell phone has more RAM than my first PC did (2MB!), and the new system I'm building has a quarter-terabyte hard drive. Wow, that sounds like, futuristing, dude!

SexBox360?

Wow, I bet this would have made standing in line at Best Buy for an XBox360 more worth your while (posting ahs since been removed...darn):

...if one Craigslist.org ad were to be believed, two Boston-area women would do just about anything to get their hands on the next-gen console. Under the headline "trade sex for an xbox 360," a person claiming to be a 22-year-old woman said "Me and my roommate are totally hard core gamers, but our desperate (sic) attempts to get an Xbox 360 have gotten us nothing so far."
...while the poster was apparently willing to debase herself to get an Xbox 360, she still had standards. "I'm looking for the PREMIUM system, not the sh**ty watered down one," she said.

Graffiticus romanus?

Ever wonder what Roman graffiti was like? Of course not. Broaden your worldly knowledge with such gems (first on the list is the best, by far):

I.2.20 (Bar/Brothel of Innulus and Papilio); 3932: Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!

VI.16.15 (atrium of the House of Pinarius); 6842: If anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my girl friend

VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1880: The man I am having dinner with is a barbarian.

Herculaneum (on the exterior wall of a house); 10619: Apollinaris, the doctor of the emperor Titus, defecated well here.

Have we really changed much as a civilization (and I use that term loosely) in 2000 years?

Rational discourse?

Winning both the vote for the person I'm least likely to buy a house next to....and the quote of the day:

STORRS, Connecticut (AP) -- Conservative columnist Ann Coulter cut short a speech at the University of Connecticut amid boos and jeers, and decided to hold a question-and-answer session instead.

"I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the crowd of 2,600 Wednesday.

Boy...that sure leaves her with a small audience, then. :)

No, seriously. You only really learn when you're surrounded by smarter people than yourself. Basically, she's admitting to getting off on bashing people. Can someone please tell her that her 15 minutes are up?