Category Archives: General

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General

Slacker…

Well, well, well, it seems like I’ve been slacking on my writing lately, and as I approach my sixtieth year, I’ve realized that I need to get back into the game.

As someone who’s lived a little, I’ve got plenty of experiences to share. From my travels, my work, my family, and my friends, I’ve learned a lot about the world and myself. But I don’t just want to focus on the serious stuff. I also want to write about the fun and frivolous things in life – the useless information, the trivial fun, and the entertaining things that I may see or read about.

Let’s face it, we could all use a bit of fun in our lives these days. So, I’ll be sure to mix in some lighthearted stories, interesting tidbits, and amusing anecdotes to keep things interesting. From bizarre news stories to ridiculous internet memes, I’ll try to cover it all.

And who knows, maybe you’ll learn something new along the way. After all, even useless information can be fascinating in its own way. So, let’s have some fun and enjoy the lighter side of life.

So, thank you for taking the time to read this and your patience for waiting on me to dedicate some more time to writing. I hope you’ll stick around for the next post, where I’ll dive a bit deeper into some of the experiences that have shaped who I am today. And don’t forget to come back for some useless information, trivial fun, and entertaining stories along the way. Until then, take care and keep on keeping on.

General, Sports, Stories

Losing a bet might get your name changed?

NZPoker-1024x576 This is a good one. Figured I’d share to make you laugh a little and to remind you that you should never make silly bets when drunk!

A Dunedin man has changed his name to the longest legally allowed, after apparently losing a bet five years ago.

 

The 22-year-old man from Normanby is now legally known as ‘Full Metal Havok More Sexy N Intelligent Than Spock And All The SuperheroesNewname Combined With Frostnova’ – just one character shy of Department of Internal Affairs’ (DIA) 100 character limit.

A message on an online body building forum, written by someone describing themselves as a friend of the man, said the name change was the result of a lost poker bet and the man realised his drunken consequences only when his passport expired.

DIA Births Deaths and Marriages spokesman Michael Mead said the change of name was registered in March 2010.

The name met the requirements of naming rules and the applicant paid the fee and completed the form correctly, he said.

Mr Frostnova could change his name again any time by completing the form correctly and paying the $127 fee, Mr Mead said. The process takes around eight days.

Under Birth Deaths and Marriages rules, new names must consist of one surname, and one or more other names, unless religious, philosophical beliefs or cultural traditions require the applicant to have only one name – in which case the applicant is required to provide a letter of explanation.

Names may not be accepted if they cause offence to a reasonable person, are unreasonably long, or without adequate justification include or resemble an official title or rank.

In 2008, Family Court Judge Rob Murfitt publicly criticised some parents’ choice of names, after he ordered that a girl named Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii be taken into court custody so she could change her name.

Names can also not include numbers or symbols.

Rejected names in recent years include Majesty, King, Knight, Princess, Justice, Anal, V8, 89, Mafia No Fear, Lucifer, full stop and *.

In 2007, a New Zealand couple tried to name their child 4Real Superman but were turned down because it contained a digit.

They settled instead for just Superman and continued to call the child 4Real unofficially.

Credit to New Zealand Herald – Click here – to see article.  

Food, General, Sports

Superbowl Fun Facts…

1Big money
Just how much money can a Super Bowl bring to an area? Try $150 million! That includes all the money spent by fans, sponsors, media and other visitors in the Indianapolis area last year. Cha-ching!

2

Are you ready for some … food?
Make sure you pick up some extra bleu cheese dressing to dip the 1.23 billion chicken wings fans will be eating on Sunday. That actually adds up to more than 100 million pounds of chicken wings.

3

Hey buddy, can you spare a job?
In the past 20 years, 17 Super Bowls have been won by the team that hails from the city with the lower unemployment rate.

 

Healthy lifestyle?4  Vegetables at a Super Bowl party? That’s right! In fact, the healthy treat is the top food eaten in homes during Super Bowl. Of course, we all know they taste better when someone brings some dip.

5

Stay home
When it comes to watching the Super Bowl, nine out of 10 watchers are going to be at a home — either their house or someone else’s. That’s a lot of Super Bowl parties.

6

Make it delivery Some people have to work on Super Bowl Sunday, including the Domino’s Pizza delivery guys. The company estimates that it will deliver 11 million pieces of pizza to hungry viewers.

7Worth the gamble?
Betting on the Super Bowl? You bet! Nearly one-third of U.S. adults are likely to bet on the big game with men outnumbering women who decide to put some cash on the line. But be warned: 92% of those surveyed said they’ve actually lost money gambling on the Super Bowl in the past.

8 I dip, you dip, we dip
Dips are a favorite among Super Bowl snackers with 32% saying they plan on eating some form of the snack. Whether it’s spinich dip for veggies or cheese dip for chips, it’s not a true Super Bowl without the dip.

9

Where to go?
What would you give up to actually go to the Super Bowl? A vacation would be skipped by 23 percent of those surveyed, followed by an important work responsibility (21%), the wedding of a close friend or family member (20%), the funeral of a loved one (19%) and the birth of a child (15%).

10Chomping on chips It takes lots of spuds to make the 11.2 million pounds of potato chips that fans will be munching on in front of the television during the big game. But all those chips come with a price. Those many bags of chips will account for 27 billion calories and 1.8 billion grams of fat. Those grams of fat all up, too — it’s equal to four million pounds of fat nationally. Maybe the veggies aren’t a bad idea.

11

Holy guacamole
What goes well with chips? Guacamole! That would explain the 8 million pounds of avocados football fans will be mashing up to dip their chips in.

 

12

It’s a dog’s life
Hot diggity dog! That’s what fans said in 2009 when 55,200 hot dogs were served at the stadium in Tampa Bay when it hosted Super Bowl XLIII. But there’s no word on which condiments fans preferred.

13

Take out
It’s not just the pizza delivery guys who will be ringing doorbells. It turns out that roughly 48 million Americans will order takeout or delivery food from a restaurant instead of cooking up grub at home.

14

Turn on the TV
You won’t be alone if you’re watching the Super Bowl on TV. Of the 10 most-watched programs in U.S. television history, nine of them are Super Bowls. In fact, last year’s Super Bowl tops the list with a whopping 111.3 million viewers. The rematch of the Giants and Patriots claimed the top spot from the previous year’s Super Bowl between the Packers and Steelers that brought in 111 million.

15Keep it poppin’
It’s going to take a big microwave to pop up the 3.8 million pounds of popcorn fans will be munching on. Let’s hope your house doesn’t smell like burnt popcorn the next day.

17

Snack attack
Unfortunately, all those snacks add up. The average fan will consume 1200 calories and 50 grams of fat from snacks. And yes, that’s just snacks and not meals on the big day.

18

Beer sales
All that food needs to be washed down with something. Will you be picking up one of the 51.7 million cases of beer sold to quench Super Bowl fans?

 

 

19

Not your normal fare
Some fans will be including some not-so-normal football fare for their Super Bowl spread, including apple slices, macaroni and cheese, and Chinese food on the list of what they’re serving.

20

Pretzels
The salty Super Bowl treat will be served up in enough homes and bars to equal 4.3 million pounds consumed by fans.

 

21

Grilling time
Get your jacket and scarf ready because Super Bowl Sunday is the most popular grilling day of winter with 62% of owners firing up the grill — even if it means they have to shovel a path to get to it.

22

It’s getting nutty
Football fans are nuts for nuts. Whether it’s peanuts, cashews, pistachios or any other nuts, 2.5 million pounds of the salty snack will make its way to our snack tables.

23

Tortilla Chips
It’s not just potatoes that get the chip love. Tortilla chips also get some respect at the Super Bowl snack table with 8.2 million pounds of them consumed by fans.

24

Gluttony
No matter how much we eat, it’s going to be quite a feast. In fact, the Super Bowl is the second highest day of food consumption in the United States after Thanksgiving.

25

A day later
Don’t worry if you feel a little sick after your gluttonous partying. Antacids sales are expected to increase 20% on the day after Super Bowl. So at least you can commiserate with others.

General, Stories

Jerk of the Day!

1 Comment

I read this article today and I must say that this is a clear example of how educated people can still be fucking idiots. How did this guy get a job title of high importance is beyond my comprehension. There is really nothing else I can say about it. Kaya has since complained that his remarks were taken out of context by reporters. That may be somewhat true (maybe), but I don’t think so. I think he is easily the “Jerk of the Day” in my book (or BLOG).

I have a few friends that have autistic children and this made me think about them today and how offensive this all may sound. The guy is an idiot!!

Here is the article:

Fehmi-Kaya-600x300

According to Fehmi Kaya, head of the Health and Education Associations for Autistic Children in Turkey, autistic children lack the part of the brain that instills faith.

Faith in God is what Fehmi Kaya is referring to, of course, since faith in humanity, your friends, family and parents doesn’t really count as “faith”. The Turkish head of the  Health and Education Associations for Autistic Children stated:

“Autistic children do not know believing in God because they do not have a section of faith in their brains. That is why they don’t know how to pray, how to believe in God. It is needed to create awareness in these children through methods of therapy.”

Kaya then added that autistic children should undergo treatment to create the areas of faith that their brain lacks. The infallible idea comes from research that links atheism and autistic children. Kaya even claimed that researchers in the US and Canada say that atheism is a different form of autism.

 

General, Stories

Are we getting sicker or is it just a coincidence?

Pillsc

Is it me, or does it seem like sickness is worse this year than ever?

Every time you turn around there is someone either sick or getting sick. I know that this year the flu was a bit worse than other years but even common colds, sinus infections, ear infections, etc. have taken its toll on everyone. And every time you go to your doctor an antibiotic is normally prescribed.

Is it just coincidence or is there something happening?

I don’t remember this much sickness when I was a kid, and I certainly wasn’t sick as much as a kid as I am now (granted I am getting older, but still). Chicken pox back in the day meant several days spent at home in front of the T.V. wearing oven mitts on your hands and taking oatmeal baths. Now it means mothers rushing their feverish, itchy babies to the hospital. Getting the flu meant staying out of work, eating chicken soup and getting lots of rest. Now, you call your doctor and mention symptoms of a flu and you’re required to come in for blood work and a flu test, and end up with an antibiotic to boot (which will do nothing if the infection is viral).

One might blame the health and well-being of our country. Let’s face it, the fast foods and the lack of exercise doesn’t help matters much. And lets not forget the smoking, drinking and drug use either. However, are those things truly to blame for our illnesses? I mean, I’m sure they deserve at least an honorable mention, but is there another culprit out there?

Antibiotics are prescribed for almost every cold, sinus infection and other common ailment and as a result, our immune systems are becoming weaker and weaker. Our bodies no longer know how to fight diseases on our own. They rely on these antibiotics, which our bodies (and the diseases themselves) become immune to. Then each course of antibiotics must be stronger to achieve the desired results.

Doctors today hardly ever counsel you on how to get healthy again with natural treatments. There is no reason healthy people should be treated with antibiotics, steroids or dozens of other commonly prescribed meds for mild illnesses.

Or is there?

What if…by making us believe that we cannot get better on our own without the help of antibiotics, they create business. More people come in for doctor’s appointments, more people get lab tests and more people fill prescriptions. The meds seem to help or the illness runs its course, there’s really no telling, and then we attribute getting better to our recent doctor’s visit.

In turn, we become more reliant on our doctor and the prescribed medications to make us well again every time we are sick. The problem is that the antibiotics become necessary over time, because the immune system no longer knows what to do without them. I’ve been saying this for years but now it’s really starting to sink in more and more as the years go by.

So as we go on, doctors will continue to prescribe more and more antibiotics when natural remedies would work just fine, if not better, and our immune system becomes weaker. Then we continue to rely on the doctor every time we get sick, which in turn creates long-term residual income for the doctor in lab tests and appointment fees. Is this all just a coincidence? Or is the healthcare industry making us sicker (or at least not helping us to get better naturally) in order to turn a profit?

 

General, Sports

Millionaires, Billionaires…Trillions?

drevil1trillion

Last night I heard this news:
Joe Flacco (QB Baltimore Ravens) signed his new contract Monday worth $120.6 million over six years. He will receive a $29 million signing bonus, $52 million in guaranteed money and $51 million over the first two years of the deal.

It got me thinking about how many millionaires there are and then how many billionaires there are in the world. I also learned the other day that Mark Zuckerberg lost about 3 Billion of his total net worth this year (according to Forbes). This “Loss” leaves him a mere 13.3 Billion this year. Crazy right?

So I did some research to see how many Billionaires there are in the world, let’s drop the millionaires out of the equation to make this a little simpler. There are currently 1426 Billionaires in the world that have a combined net worth of 5.4 Trillion Dollars.

How much is a Trillion Dollars? Well, it’s easy to say that but do you really know how much money that is? Let me try to explain that with some more research I did on the subject.

Let’s measure a Trillion in numbers
1,000 = one thousand
1,000,000 = one million
1,000,000,000 = one billion
1,000,000,000,000 = one trillion

Let’s Measure a Trillion in Time
If you count backward, then:
1 million seconds = 12 days ago
1 billion seconds = 31 years ago
1 trillion seconds = 30,000 B.C. (1 Trillion seconds is longer than ALL of recorded history)

Let’s Measure a Trillion in Height
If you stack a trillion-worth of $1000 bills together, then:
1 million dollars = 4 inches high
1 billion dollars = 364 feet high
1 trillion dollars = 63 miles high (give or take a foot or two)
Note that this is a STACK, not laid end-to-end.
Also, if you stack one trillion one-dollar bills it would reach 68,000 miles in space!

How Much Is A Trillion Dollars?
If you spent $1 million dollars a day from the day Jesus was born until now, you would only have spent about three-quarters of a trillion.

If you laid one trillion one-dollar bills end to end, it would make a chain from the earth to the moon 200 times. One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun. It would take a jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, four years before it reeled out one trillion dollar bills.

If a person’s salary is $40,000 per year it would take:
25 years to earn $1 Million
25 Thousand years to earn $1 Billion,
25 Million years to earn $1 Trillion

The budget for the entire state of New York is $124 Billion. With just 1 Trillion dollars you could run 8 states the size of NY. The population of California is 34 Million. One Trillion people would equal 29,500 Californias.

One Trillion dollars today would allow you to buy Coca Cola, Apple, IBM, Bank of America, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Motorola, AT&T, as well as Exxon Mobil and still have enough left over to live comfortably on just the interest from the billions left over…not to mention the profits these companies generate.

With one Trillion dollars, you could buy 50 aircraft carriers such as the USS Ronald Reagan and outfit each of them with 45 of the newest fighter jets (the F-22 Raptor) and pay for the crews to run them.

One Trillion barrels of oil would fuel the ENTIRE WORLD for almost 35 years!

So, are you getting the idea now of how much money this is? So think about this concept now. If the 1426 Billionaires joined forces and literally used ALL their money minus say $1 Billion each to keep for themselves, they would be able to do so much good in the world and still have plenty of money left with that 1 billion to not only live comfortably but accommodate their families to live comfortably forever!

It’s probably not right for me to imply that these folks should share their wealth, especially with people who didn’t earn the right to have it. Let’s face it, most of these people earned their money by working for it somehow. I also don’t want to blemish the fact that most of these folks do give away a considerable amount of money to charities and good causes.

I’ll close today by saying that if I ever join the ranks of Billionaire status. I promise that I will launch a campaign with the other members of the elite billionaires club to try to pitch my idea.

Oh, and now we can say “Poor” Joe Flacco is not even a consideration with his measly 100 million dollar contract….

 

General

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Picture taken by me at Pink13 Conference - Feb13
Picture taken by me at Pink13 Conference – Feb13

I was at an IT Conference last week in Las Vegas and was fortunate to see, hear and meet some really cool people talk. Amongst those I met was Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is the Astrophysicist that led the effort in downgrading “Pluto” from planet status to dwarf planet. I was very much into Math and Science when I was a kid and grew up dreaming of a future very similar to the one we now live in and then some. I always wanted to live long enough to see us all in flying cars, or to live in a house that you simply talk to in order to get things done. Well, these things are reality today, maybe not mainstream but I have lived to see it.

We were quite fortunate to have met him during this conference because as luck would have it only a few days prior the earth experienced two major astrological events. One was the near miss asteroid (2012 DA14) that missed us by a mere 17000 miles and the other was the Chelyabinsk asteroid that exploded over Russia with a force equal to 500 kilotons of energy that injured over 1000 people and blow out windows in buildings, etc. Neil discussed these in detail for us and explained the repercussions that we would suffer if these were direct hits on earth. Fascinating and very scary data.

He followed his presentation by emphasizing how the USA is falling behind in the space program by comparison to the rest of the world. Quite sad if you ask me, being that we were once the leaders. Today countries like Japan, China, and Brazil are the leaders in this research. The fact is that after the cold war ended, the USA had no political reasons for continuing so strongly with the space program. This is really sad that things like this are affected by politics and money. Neil explained how scientists and engineers have many options for us to save our planet from these type of events (and I’m not talking Bruce Willis type options either) that cost relatively very little if the government would fund it. Thankfully, Neil told us that we should not fear because if we don’t do it, at least someone else will. The other countries that are working on these type of space programs will hopefully save us all one day.

The talk was extremely interesting and enlightening. I had the pleasure of meeting him and having him sign his book for me. He’s obviously a brilliant human being who unfortunately is having a tough time getting through to the right people these days. Politics suck!

Here are some videos of Neil and some of his talks that hopefully will enlighten you more rather than me babbling about it!

Courtesy of Bigthink.com – Neil Degrasse Tyson