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Need A Gun?

Go get ten of them in an hour just like this guy did:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=7297745&page=

Only in America.

"Legally". No questions asked. Ridiculous. But hey, it's our "right" to bear arms as Americans...right? It seems to me it's being treated more like a privilege than a right. What if that guy was a criminal? Mentally insane?

People argue all the time that, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." Ok, true statement. But, there's no doubt that a gun lets the average person become deadly easier than any other method. So sure, the actual gun didn't pull it's own trigger and kill someone. But there's no denying it made it much easier for them to kill that same someone.

Also, I would argue that guns make it easier to kill because there is a disconnect between the shooter and the victim. The shooter never has to come into physical contact with the victim, which gives them less of a reason to think twice about pulling the trigger. There's nothing personal about pulling a trigger standing 25 feet away from someone.

Let's just imagine for a minute a world without guns. How often do you think we would see mass, random killings like we've seen too often in the news? I would think just about never. I mean think about it; if these shooters had to actually confront and physically fight people, there is practically no way that they could kill ten people before being stopped. Ok, yeah, maybe people would start making homemade bombs. Bombs are even less personal than shooting someone. But considering it's much harder, not to mention more dangerous, to make a bomb than it is to shoot a gun, I would argue those two reasons would deter most people from even trying.

Another thing...background checks are NOT an invasion of privacy. When you are being given a deadly weapon, a background check is a very reasonable request. Remember, owning a gun is a right, not a privilege.

The way I look at it, if you're legit, you've got nothing to be worried about anyways. So what's the big deal? The only people scared of background checks are hiding something. (I know, that's a pretty bold statement.)

If you want a gun, fine. But these "trade shows" where you don't have to get a background check, or even produce an I.D., need to be shut down. If you're not a criminal, and you're not mentally crazy, go right ahead; go to a legitimate store and buy a gun legally.

March Madness 2009

MSU made a good run, but unfortunatly, UNC are the champs. The winner has been decided in both the "real" and "fun" brackets that I oganized.

It was a fairly close race that went down to the wire, where Emily eventually emerged as the champ...in both groups! So congrats Emily! And as promised, she has already received two thundering high fives from me...one for each group!

Aero Chocolate

I saw this on thecoolhunter.net, which is a site that"hunts" for all things "cool". Anyways, this a commercial for Aero Chocolate which is sold in Europe apparently. I bet the guy that made this commercial had a lot of fun going to "work" that day! Check it out:

http://skatefairy.com/Nestle_Aero_Evans_Directors_Cut_H264.mov

The U.S. Is Doomed...Because This Guy Says So

This guy is funny. Really. He made me laugh out loud. According to him, 

"...President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states* before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order."

He also goes on to say,

"There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010"

Right. This wouldn't even be news except this guy, amazingly, is the dean at the Foreign Ministy's school for future diplomats! Haha. I love how he doesn't site any kind of facts to support his claims except for newspapers, magazines, and other open source information. Also, on page two of the article, it's funny how other instructors are questioning his thought process. One instructor even asked if his predictions didn't more accurately describe Russia's state of despair, haha. Too funny! At least some of the instructors there seem to have two cents worth of an education. Here's the link:

Russian "Scholar" Says U.S. Will Collapse Next Year

*You guys are probably smarter than I, but I had to look it up. According to Wikipedia, a "rump state" is the remnant of a once-larger government, left with limited powers or authority after a disaster, invasion or military occupation. Basically, what already happened to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. 

U2: No Line On The Horizon

U2 released a new album yesterday. It's called, No Line On The Horizon. My first impressions...it's decent. I really liked their last album, so it's going to be hard for them to top that. But all in all, I like it.

I'm an iTunes user, but I noticed that on Amazon.com the album is selling for only $3.99, where iTunes is charging $9.99. However, the iTunes version gets you one extra "B-sides" song and a "digital booklet". So, if you don't care about that stuff, Amazon is giving you one heck of a deal! You can't beat $4 for an entire album!

FYI - If you go the Amazon route, they also have a free downloader that will automatically import your purchased music into iTunes for you. It's pretty slick.

Finally, Someone Not Greedy

Here's a pretty cool story. Some guy sold part of his family owned bank for $60 million dollars, then turned around and gave every penny to his employees. If only the rest of the financial world operated with even a fraction of the character of this guy, the U.S. probably wouldn't be in such a financial mess right now.

Here's the link:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/PersonOfWeek/story?id=6973727&page=1

Paul Harvey (1918 - 2009)

A couple of days ago was a sad day in news and entertainment; radio broadcaster Paul Harvey had died. Growing up I always liked The Rest of the Story; though, it's been years since I've heard a broadcast.

I remember during my senior year of high school, my friend Nick Thompson and I used to go to Arby's for lunch almost every day. And every time we would have the employees change the radio station to 98.5 so we could enjoy our roast beef sandwiches, curley fries, and The Rest of the Story. Those were some good days.

Grand Canyon National Park Turns 90

On this day in 1919 President Woodrow Wilson signed Senate Bill 390, which officially created Grand Canyon National Park.

If you want to read up on some G.C.N.P. history, you can go HERE.

Funny enough, I still haven't been there (ever) after living in Arizona for more than two years.

1234567890

I meant to post this when it happened, but oh well...

So two Friday's ago...Friday the 13th...was a grand day in the dork universe.

Some background info first:

Unix time was created to keep time in Unix based computer operating systems (it's used for other time keeping as well). It is calculated using seconds, and it was created on January 1, 1970.

So...that brings us to February 13, 2009 23:31:30 (UTC) time - which was 6:31 pm and 30 seconds Eastern Time. For that one second, Unix time was equal to 1234567890. Which means we were 1,234,567,890 seconds into Unix time. (Now, it wasn't exactly 1234567890 seconds. There's such a thing as "leap seconds" and some other factors that I don't fully understand, which actually change what the exact time is. The day and time of February 13, 2009 does not include all of these variables. It only counted seconds as common people talk about time, ya know?)

Anyways...apparently there were fabulous dork parties around the world. Now, to increase my dork IQ, I figured out when my 1234567890 seconds birthday would be. With all times being
Eastern Standard Time (EST), and assuming I was born at 1:30 am , I will be 1234567890 seconds old on November 9, 2020 at 1:01:30 am. Yay! I can't wait! Just remember when all of you youngins' out there turn 39, that a little more than a month later you will be 1234567890 seconds old too!

Just for kicks, on June 4, 2013 at 3:16:40 am, I will be a nice, round, 1 billion seconds old. Now if only I would have figured out how to make a penny a second; I would have a cool $10 million when I turn 1 billion seconds old, haha.

If you feel like figuring out your dork birthday(s) too, just let me know. I have a spreadsheet that will do the math for you :)

Oh Man...

It's zero degrees in Houghton Lake right now. That must be so awesome. Sorry mom. Amazingly, only two hours south it's 20 degrees warmer in East Lansing. Also, I just saw that the Lansing area (and pretty much all of the lower peninsula) is due for 5 - 8 inches of snow on Saturday.

Meanwhile, it's suppose to be 76 and sunny for my soccer game during the same time.

Ok, I'm done rubbing it in now :)

Mount Everst

So I was reading about Mount Everest today because, umm...I can, and apparently we still don't know "for sure" how tall it is. Right now our best guess is somewhere between 29,017 and 29,035 feet above sea level.

I know, sounds crazy to me too. You would think with all of the technology, modern survey equipment, GPS, computers, etc., you would think that we could measure something that we can actually walk up. But apparently there are disagreements to as where and what is the highest point. Some people include the snow/ice cap, some don't. I would argue that the snow and ice should not count, as it can fluctuate.

Some guy in 1999 did the logical thing and attached a GPS to the bedrock and obtained a height of 29,035 feet. You would think that would close the door on the issue, but apparently it didn't. In 2005 another survey team claims they took the most accurate measurement ever coming in at 29,017 feet. People protest both of these measurements claiming uncertainties in the geoid (essentially, where the average sea level is) that was used. I guess if you don't know where sea level is, then it's probably pretty hard to figure out how far away from it you are!

From what I could find, Nepal says the official height right now is 29,029 feet. However, the measurement from 1999 of 29,035 feet is widely quoted as well, but is not yet officially recognized by the Nepali government.

Feel Good Story Of The Day

Check it out...I bet you will like it:

http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/basketball/boys/news/story?id=3914375&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

NBA All Star Weekend

On Saturday, Emily and I went to downtown Phoenix to see what all the hoopla was all about. Typically, I think I would avoid such a crazy event...well, maybe not. Anyways, it actually ended up being pretty entertaining.

We started off by walking a mile from Emily's apartment down to the light rail station. You wouldn't think a mile is very far to walk, but even with it only being about 60 degrees out it got fairly warm. Now I see why people bike. But once we got to the station, the credit/debit card reader was broken; so after some rig-a-ma-roll, I finally got some cash. Buying our tickets was pretty painless after that. It was only $5 for two all day passes. (I hear the fares are probably going up soon though!) FYI...the change you get back from the ticket machines comes to you in dollar coins. So keep that in mind when using a larger bill. I now have fifteen $1 coins! Which isn't that big of a deal I suppose...just unexpected. Hopefully the card reader won't be broken next time!

Anyways, once we got on it was a quick trip to downtown; maybe five minutes. Once down there, it was totally obvious that it was worth taking the light rail, cause it was crazy downtown. Plus, parking was like $15 bucks.

The rest of the afternoon/evening consisted of walking around, people watching, and dinner at Majerle's Sports Grill. I don't normally care much for "celebrity watching", I mean, they're just people. But, being a sports fan, it was pretty cool to see some of the NBA stars and athletes out-n-about. Just to drop a few names, we saw:

• Amare Stoudemire & Nate Robinson - They were holding a press conference of some sort Outside of Stoudemire's restaurant which is across from the arena. Nate Robinson won the dunk contest later that night.
  
• Terrell Owens - a.k.a. "T.O." NFL football player.
  
• Darryl Dawkins - Older NBA player from the late 70's & 80's.
  
• Bob Elliot - Famous for Emily at least :) Haha, ok not true. Apparently I'm out of the loop, cause lots of people were getting his autograph and picture. Guess it's a U of A thing!
  
• Hubert Davis - Former NBA player. More famous for currently being an ESPN college basketball analyst/comentator.
  
• Clyde Drexler - a.k.a., Clyde "The Glide" Drexler. Played in the 80's & 90's. One of the all time greats.
  
• Dominique Wilkins - Played in the 80's & 90's. One of the all time great dunkers.
  

Work On The Road

I'm in San Diego for work. It's ok I guess. I'm not stuck behind a desk all day, which is nice. We're staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Mission Beach. I don't really see what the big deal is about San Diego, though. Besides the beach areas, it's really nothing special in my opinion. I mean sure, the climate is pretty nice. But there's tons of people crammed together into a small space. I guess it's like that with any big city, and apparently I'm not much of a city person. Anyways...here's where we are staying...


View Larger Map

Did You Know?

My friend put this up on her blog, so I'm stealing the link :)
If the estimations are true, it's pretty amazing. Bare minimum it'll make you think, which is good. You should watch it.

What The Big Boys Don't Want You To Know

I was listening to the NPR Science Friday radio show today at lunch. They were talking about car technology; what is possible and where we are headed. Anyways, one of their guests was this guy who was a teacher from inner city Philadelphia, and he claims his class had built a couple of hybrid cars using "off the shelf parts" and a "shoe-string budget". With common parts and relatively little money, they were able to make a fully functional and practical hybrid car that gets 180 miles per gallon! That's right, you heard me. They were also able to build a sports car hybrid, that could do 0-60 in about five seconds, but still get 60 mpg!

I always figured the car manufacturers were dragging their feet when it came to increasing fuel efficiency...especially the U.S. companies. According to this guy though, the technology is here and now, and all of the car companies have been exposed. I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that the Model T used to get about 20 mpg when it came out 100 years ago. There is no reason the average family car should only be getting 25 mpg (or so) 100 years later!

I know what you're thinking, "Yeah, they can make a car that gets 180 mpg, but I'm sure it costs like $80,000 dollars." Not true my friends. That's the lie the car manufacturers want you to believe. The high school teacher claims they can make a production quality version of their car for just over $20,000 dollars.

Unless this teacher is full of crap, why are we wasting billions of dollars bailing out the major car companies? I want my tax dollars to go to this guy and his high school class!

Rice

I read an article in the news today about how scientists supposedly developed a new strain of "flood proof" rice. They went on to say that considering how much of the world depends on rice, this flood proof rice would help keep a consistent supply available. So now when places like Bangledesh and India get flooded out by typhoons, people are less likely to end up starving due to all of their rice being drowned.

Anyways...seemed pretty cool I guess.

Smoking Is Bad For Your Health

I can't believe it?!? Smoking is bad for you and causes cancer?!? What a medical break-through!  NPR just broke the story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99652538

Haha. Ok, ok. Enough of the sarcasm. Sure, the article and this "expert" are being more specific by claiming that "...people who kick the habit before age 50 can substantially cut their risk of dying in the next 15 years." Umm...how do I say this...DUH!  Come on now people, seriously. That's essentially saying the same thing as always; the sooner you quit smoking the better. 

Must have been a slow news day, huh? 

What Comes Around Goes Around

Here's a perfect example of why you shouldn't steal digital media:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/26/two_new_trojan_horses_threaten_mac_software_pirates.html

Sorry, maybe I'm just heartless...but I don't feel bad for those people one bit.  All they had to do was buy a legitmate copy of the software and this never would have happened! Haha, idiots.  They deserve everything bad that happens to their computers.

Sunshine

So I'm pretty sure that I've seen more direct sunshine in the last day, than I did for the whole week I was in Michigan. Just saying.