March 2004
3/31
Sorry no fact today. But I'm mad at Road Runner again. See I have a tv in my little office here (an Apex which I got for $70 and it's awesome) Anyway, I don't have a cable box hooked up to it. The cable is just hooked up straight into it. So I don't get all the channels. Only like a dozen. I used to get all the news stations but now I can't. I asked the cable guy why no more news channels on the no-box tv. He said that Road Runner wants force people to get the extra boxes so they block some of the popular channels intentionally. Dicks. Not sure if I explained that right...
Road Runner sucks coast-to-coast.
3/30
Tonite I founds out what makes locusts want to swarm. They get all swarmy basically when there is too many locusts hanging out in one spot. And when then they all start rubbing each others legs or something until it gets to the point where they get completely claustrophobic and mental and then they go off and swarm. If you've always wanted something swarmy in your home but never knew how to make that happen...
Here ya go..
3/29
Today I learnt from tv bout a study done at Cornell University which concluded that when alcohol is introduced "in or around" the workplace that the chances of sexual harassment like doubles. Sounds to me like the scientists at Cornell made up a study so they can get drunk and frisky at work- and get away with it all in the name of science. Who pays for studies like that anyway? Duh.
Sexual harassment doesn't just apply to humans and reality yknow..
3/28
Tonite I found out that the Air Force is starting to work toward putting lasers on airplanes so they can shoot down enemy missiles or whatever. Like they laser them until the heat up and explode. It's called the ABL (Airborne Laser. shouldn't it just be AL? with the B being all part of airborne? i guess ABL just sounded cooler.) No word yet if the ABL will have cool sound effects like "Ptchchooom! Phchooom!".. or something along those lines. Probably would cost extra... and we'd pay.
Check out this hawk porn. Seems to have the same production quality cheese as regular porn...
3/27
I seen a new party game on the tv. It's called Lightning Reaction. It's this thing that gives you an electric shock if you lose. Basically you stand around holding this thing that looks like Jeopardy button and basically if you're slow in pushing the button you get a zap that hurts. Fun for the whole family... if your family is a bunch of masochistic bored halfdrunk freakazazoids.
Here it be... and yes I want to try it.
3/26
So I was flipping around watching tv but the stupid digital cable kept freezing up so I'd unplug it then plug it back in to like reset it and it would take a while to 'reboot' and then when it got going again it would do the same thing so I figured I needed to not just unplug it and plug it back in quick. Like I should leave it unplugged for like 30 seconds like a modem and then plug it back in so the electricity can clear out or whatever- and so I did that but it was still broken so I got in bed to read my book.
This book. I'm sort of late to the game with it. So far so good.
3/25
The tv told me bout a dolphin named Cupid. He was found washed up on a beach in Texas and so the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network came to the rescue and put him in a tank. They found out that Cupid had some sort of weird dolphin epilepsy and would swim upsidedown and suffer seizures. Eventually they nursed Cupid back to health and he gained weight and stuff. It was a nice story. The people really cared. Unfortunately eventually they ran out of funding and Cupid was shipped off to the Starkist plant and thrown into the tuna thresher. The end.
Here's smore info on the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.
Oh btw.. I was just kidding. Cupid is doing fine. Click here and see what's up with him..
3/24
Tonite I learnt bout the horned lizard. It's this desert lizard that's covered in spikes and horns for protection. The horned lizard has an extra defense thing too. It can squirt blood out of its eyes to distract the attacker. Frickin weird way to evolve.
Probably what happened was back in the day the lizards had a meeting to discuss evolving some new protection and some stoner lizard said, "I think it would be cool if we could like squirt blood... umm.. from our eyes!" Then dumb friend lizard was like, 'Totally! That would be cool!" Then other lizards started talking about how it was a decent idea. (And honestly some of em wanted to go home early because lizard meetings are boring and they'd just vote for anything.) Before they knew it the gavel came down and the eye blood squirting proposal passed.
Afterwards, stoner lizard whispered to dumb friend lizard, 'Dude.. I was totally joking. I never thought they'd like go for blood squirting for the new evolve thing...' And dumb friend lizard was like, 'Dude I'm frickin psyched! It beats evolving to "run faster" or something lame like that... I hate running as is!
Here's smore info on horned lizards from Gabriel.
3/23
I found out tonite that the Segway company is actually going to try and sell some Segways so now there's this like Segway payment plan. Now you can pay it off over time at as little as $100 a month. But one word of advice though... umm.. if you're buying a Segway on credit... YOU SHOULDN'T BE BUYING A SEGWAY AT ALL! Just fyi...
If you wanna play with a Segway so bad... here!
3/22
Today I seen a new type of photography. Kite Aerial Photography. Basically photogranerds aka "KAPpers" are strapping cameras to kites and flying them around and taking pictures of people and stuff from high up. I guess it's kinda cool. They had to use pretty expensive fancy cameras tho. What I would like to see are disposable kite cameras that you can strap on to a kite and fly it around and not worry bout crashing it into the ground or whatever. Cool idea right?! If you like the idea and decide to develop disposable kite cameras I call I get 35%! Seems fair. You heard it here first.
Uch. Forget it. I just went to search for a link and see it's already covered. People are always stealing my ideas! This dude totally stole it from me!
3/21
I seen on the tv last night the new entertainment of da Chicago Bulls like at half-time. They're called the Chicago Matadors and they're like dancing girls except they're big fat guys instead. If they took away the Knicks City Dancers and replaced em with big dancing dudes I don't think it would go over too well in the Garden. When we want dancing dudes at our sports we got guys like Dancing Larry at the NY Rangers games! He's a guy up the the bleachers who dances when they play "Strike it Up!" Dancing Larry dances hardcore up in section 406.
Quick story bout Dancing Larry: See they play 'Strike It Up' and Dancing Larry goes in the aisle and dances like nuts to get the crowd going. They put him up on the jumbotron or whatever and people cheer. This one game I was at some little kid danced in the aisle at the same time as Dancing Larry. So they put the camera on the kid and the place went totally bananas. Then they cut back to Dancing Larry and people like boooed Larry then they cut back to the kid and the place went nuts again. It was kinda harsh. It was like a Dance-off but Larry lost. Anyway. Whatever..
3/20
Once upon a time, people thought that tomatoes were poisonous if eaten raw. Because someone said that at some point or whatever. People would cook them into stews but eating them raw was instant death they thought. But one day this guy Colonel Robert Johnson said, 'Hark! Stupid townsfolk! Gather round! I'm gonna eat me a whole basket of raw tomatoes! Gather round!' So everyone gathered round to watch him eat poison tomatoes then die. They were psyched to see something exciting because there was no tv back then. But he didn't die. He was fine. Then he made alot of money selling tomatoes to the stupid townsfolk after that. The End.
3/19
Tonite I learnt bout the surinam toad and how they do it to make more surinam toads and it's sorta gross. The dude surinam toad and the chick surinam toad swim in a circle like an up down circle and when the chick toad is at the top of the circle she releases eggs and the dude toad like sperms on em. Then when they get to the bottom of the circle the chick catches the eggs on her back and ew they like sink in there until they like are ready to be new surinam toads and they swim off out her back frickin ew nature is gross!
Gross. I know I didn't describe that well so here.
3/18
Sorry no fact yesterday. I was running around alot yesterday and then TV was all stupid when I got back and I just woke up and it's like early and I feel sleepy and I look out the window and it's snowing again which is really strange. What is with the snow? I dunno...
This snownut has given it some thought I guess...
3/17
So the TV showed me a zoo in Thailand called the Happy Family Zoo. The zoo is weird. They take different animals and put them together to see what happens. Like they'll take a dog and a pig and a tiger and put them all in a cage together. Apparently the animals don't fight and stuff because they're too busy being weirded out by the weirdness of their roommates and the weird situation in general and the weird people staring and all that on top of it weird totally.
Here's a slideshow from the Happy Family Zoo.
3/16
Today I found out about M.I.R.T. The Mobile InfraRed Transmitter for emergency vehicles. Basically if you're a cop or an ambulance driver or whatever and you gotta rush to the scene of the whatever- you just activate your MIRT and it will turn a red light to green within seconds. That way when you're rushing around you can just change the lights as you go. MIRT is already installed in traffic lights all over the place. There's only one problem though...
Want one?
3/15
Hey! Tonite I learnt about a major advance in the dogsledding world. At the Iditarod Race in Alaska there is a new sled design. With these new fangled sleds the musher guy/girl doesn't stand in the back of the sled. He sits in the middle of the sled and totally rides it out. They made a big deal about this new sled because mushers have been standing so long. Not sure why it took so long for someone to think it up the sitting sled. It would have been like my first idea if I was a musher.
Here's a lil slideshow from the Iditarod.
3/14
Tonite I learnt about Qi Gong (pronounced chi-gong). It's one of those ancient chinese healing type things. I seen this dude Grandmaster Foo hover his hands over this chick to like cure her of stuff and stuff. Grandmaster Foo is all about energy. Grandmaster Foo then tried to heal some cells in a dish under a microscope. Grandmaster Foo thinks it's important to prove Qi Gong works scientifically. If Foo can do that then Foo could cash in big time. Kaching! Then Foo will pimp out his foomobile and buy himself a phat foo house! And when people see someone livin large they'll say stuff like, 'Yo! You stylin now! You is a way foo mo f**ka now!'
Here go Foo the Grandmaster of Qi Gong.
3/13
I was watching TV and it told me that they're working on making food packaging and stuff. So you can wrap food in strawberry wrap or banana wrap of whatever and it will save wrecking the environment because everyone will be eating all the food packaging. And then eventually we can work up to eating only packaging. Or start packaging food packaging. So like the outside package is like lettuce flavored wrap then the inside will be chicken wrap then the center will be dessert wrap and it will be all Wonka.
Here go some Wonka fun sorta...
3/12
Tonite on tv I saw some people eating bugs. It wasn't Fear Factor or some dopey show. The bug eaters were doing it to be 'cool'. It was like a bug eating party. I thought it was cruel. Bugs have hopes and dreams too yknow! Granted their hopes are usually spreading scary scary and their dreams involve crawling inside our ears and nesting to eventually settle into the brain stem and take control over our thoughts and actions! But theyre still hopes and dreams none the less!
Then again...
3/11
TV told me that someone had the big idea of creating a Justin and Janet superbowl type action figure thing to sell on eBay. Where Justin can rip off her wardrobe piece malfunction type thing or something. You'd figure if someone was going to take the time to do something stupid like that maybe they could do a better job than this. Uch. Look at them. It's like Janet's saying, 'Hi there! I'll see you around three AM... I'll be hovering over your bed... with a knife. Okey doke?'
Here are some umm.. Janet related tattoos. What percentage will be regretats?
3/10
Tonite I watched Law & Order which I almost never watch. Anyway the story was pretty closely related to the Great White fire up in Rhode Island a while ago. Aging rockers set off pyro and people got killed and injured then it was typical Law & Order whatever. Considering that the storyline was 'ripped from the headlines' I felt in this case they could have at least broken off a chunk of change for the victims who are still having a really hard time. Unless they did it under the table- which somehow I doubt.
NBC donating a commercial or two of revenue would probably match everything that's been raised to help em so far.
Oh! one other thing. I watched this show called Cracking Up on Fox which I liked. But isn't the theme song the same as the Charles in Charge theme song... almost?(click play on the page) And here's Charles in Charge. Compare.
3/9
I found out tonite that in the early 1900's they sold tapeworm pills for weight loss. It was like Doc Baker's Miracle Tapeworm Pills or one of those old scammy things. No one is really sure if the pills had real tapeworms or not but eventually they shut down ol Doc Baker because he was either a liar or a bad doctor. Medical stuff was all badly scammy back then. Nowadays they're much more professionally scammy.
The opera singer Maria Callas supposedly ate a tapeworm to lose weight. Here's a sample (of her singing that is). She done sung good! (thus my assessment of her operatic expertise)
3/8
Today the news told me about a new internet scam. Let's say you're gonna try and sell a big ticket item on the net. Like a $10,000 boat. What happens is some scammer will get in touch with you and say they want to buy your $10,000 boat. And they'll send you a legit check for $14,000. Then they act all stupid like they overpaid by accident and ask for $4000 back. So you cut them a check for the $4000 -and later it turns out that the $10,000 check was a counterfeit check. And you're out 4k. People are mean. They said, a rule of thumb when selling anything is that for no reason you should ever pay the buyer.
Here's a too wordy site that takes revenge on those Nigerian scammers by making them take dumb photos and stuff. (*WARNING: adultish content)
3/7
I seen on the tv that they're gonna try to put the stink back on the web. Years ago this one company was all talking about web smells. Like if you log on to Dominos Pizza website and the dome will release a smell like pizza. Stuff like that. Then they disappeared. Now the smelly idea is back! The scent dome! Of course the first thing I thought of when I saw the 'scent dome' ..was farts. Like it would be funny to send someone an email and when they open it farts in their face with smell and all! Then I realized no one wants a to buy machine that will fart in their face. I think I just punched a hole in the 'scent dome' business model.
Here's the company that wants to fart in your face.
3/6
Yrros on yliad tcaf yadretsey. I saw lla sdrawkcab lla yad. Taerg tcaf worromot rof erus!
Efil si lla sdrawkcab yawyna!
3/5
The tv told me all about this new car called the Rimspeed Splash. It's a regular car plus it's a boatcar plus it's a hovercraft car. Not sure who needs a vehicle that does all that stuff. Maybe if you live in the middle of a swamp it could come in handy. But somehow if you live in a shack in the middle of a swamp you probably ain't gonna be driving around in one of these. But if you did have one I bet you could snag yourself one of them swamp chicks lickity split.
3/4
Tonite the tv taught me something new to be paranoid about (sorta). TV told me to be scared of fluoride. TV said fluoride is probably ok in toothpaste but it's a poisonous product that's added to our drinking water. TV told me fluoride is industrial waste that's been repackaged as 'healthy for us' and being sold in huge quantities to the government then dumped into our drinking water.. or something. That way big industrial evil businesses can sell their fluoride waste and make money- rather than just dumping it. I say, Down With Fluoride! Fluoride sucks! F f-in Fluoride!
Check out the Safe Drinking Water Coalition (formerly: Citizens for Safe Drinking Water- Utah)
3/3
Today I found out about the first car designed by women for women. It's called the Volvo YCC (your concept car). And it will have tons of stuff chicks like, like: Gullwing doors for graceful exits. And windshield fluid refillability without opening the hood. And softer lighting. And interior carpet choices so you can change the 'look'. Also the headrests split down the middle for ponytail comfort. Extra bumpers for better fenderbendering. And plenty of room for shopping bags. The whole thing is very chickoriented.
Here's a photo! Check it out!
3/1
Sorry no good fact yesterday. I figured I'd learn something at the Oscars but what is there to really learn? You know what I learned. After the Oscars there was an interview with Sean Penn and he chewed ice cubes like a maniac. So he's an ice chewer. There. It reminded me of something funny he said once. He had just quit cigarettes (he smoked like 4 packs a day) and Letterman asked him what he does now instead of smoking cigarettes and he said, 'Basically sit around and think about how much I miss cigarettes...'
Here's some internet chatter about ice chewing.
