Unsought Input

Earlier one of our writers stumbled on a report that claimed gas-guzzling Hummers were better for the environment than hybrids like the Toyota Prius. This is one of those great stories that everyone loves - where the conventional wisdom is wrong, and we can all have a good laugh knocking someone or something off it’s high horse.

This story has been passed furiously around the Internet for a week or so, by email and blog, featured on Digg and Slashdot. It’s a good anecdote about unintended consequences and a little boost to Hummer owners who are sometimes criticized for their very conspicuous consumption.

It’s also pretty much a load of crap.

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Hey, remember Mike Judge? He’s that guy who did that little show called Beavis & Butthead and this movie you like called Office Space. You might also recognize his name as being the creator of King of the Hill.

Did you know he had a new movie out? Well, probably not because Fox did a hell of a job keeping it out of theaters and unless you live in Austin you probably didn’t even know it was in a theater near you (that is, only if you live in L.A., Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston or Toronto). What, exactly, was Fox’s beef? It’s really not clear. Judge was doing what he is best at - commenting the stupidity/ignorance that exists in America and imagining a world where “teh sm4rts” are wiped out and the only people left are the ones who eat stupid food for breakfast.

While the movie is a bit odd and certainly doesn’t have a blockbuster plot or cast, the premise leaves us much to think about and is a truly genius idea that doesn’t get touched on often (although Futurama manages to sneak some “future stupidity” in at times). The main premise is explained brilliantly in the beginning of the film - an interview with a young, educated couple explaining that they are not ready to have kids, they feel it’s “too early,” and a cutaway to a “white trash” family (fathered by “Clevon”) surprised by another pregnancy. Five years later, the “educated” couple states they’re not ready - “not in this market” - and the “white trash” family has spawned more children thanks to the help of the neighbor woman. The educated couple ends up learning that the man has a low sperm count and one of Clevon’s sons is shown as a football hero promising the cheerleaders he will “fuck all y’all” to Clevon’s prideful cheers.

So begins the “de-evolution” of humans where the more intelligent fail to breed while the less intelligent breed at a high rate, thus lowering the human IQ substantially.

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I was just browsing around the internet and I happened to stumble upon One Man’s Blog and I found some interesting things out that I wanted to share with all of you beautiful people.

The first point of interest is about the environmental friendliness of hybrid cars. As you may or may not know, this is a subject dear to my heart, so I was kinda bummed to learn about this, finding that the way hybrids are produced is overall much worse for the environment then just burning a little more gasoline. Check out the whole blog here.

The next topic, how to avoid getting hacked is something that everyone should read. I know, people never think that they will be the ones to get hacked but it can happen to anyone, as this guy points out. He gives some pretty good advice on how to avoid being hacked by picking better passwords and even links to Microsoft’s site that helps you test the strength of your passwords.

Last Night was the Annual Radio-Television Correspondents’ Association Dinner, where polictians and journalists get together and have a humorous time together. Unfortunately for the rest of us it is boradcast on TV so we get to see just what a bunch of jackasses the people who run our governemtn our. Last year Stephen Colbert hosted, but aparently his comedic style of truthiness, wasn’t to the President’s liking.

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We can agree to disagree about the political messages in the movie 300, whether it was propaganda or gay-bashing.  But I think everyone who saw the movie will agree it was quite violent.

But was the violence excessive or gratuitous?  The only empirical way I can think of to find out is to remove the violence from the epic:

For years, the representatives of the recording companies have issued predictions of doom and gloom for their own industry.  Since suing Napster in 1999 they have fretted over copyright infringement and piracy.  According to the RIAA, file sharing costs the industry $4.2 billion per year.
But now CD music sales are down 20% from 2006.  Has file sharing finally destroyed the music industry?  I doubt it.  Even if those lawsuits were having the chilling effect they are intended to spread, shutting down every P2P network on the planet, CD sales would be suffering.

Why? It’s tempting to say there’s no good new music, and that the record companies have brought this on themselves by promoting the Brtiney Spears’ of the world.  But I’m sure there’s good music out there somewhere, and this sounds more like a subjective criticism than a real hypothesis.

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Apparently what needs two six-hour classes on the first two Saturdays of spring can be summed up within a couple paragraphs (at least in a couple installments) on a slightly successful somewhat humor associated blog. I am, of course, referring to the first time home buyer class my lender has required me to attend in order to obtain a state subsidized mortgage. I’m not knocking the program as it is meant for first time home buyers. But the elementary view and information this class provides these hopeful and somewhat naive homebuyers is almost worthless. At first I assumed the audience was somewhat knowledgeable in regards to personal finance. I mean, this is a class for people ready to make the biggest purchase of their lives. However, I was seriously surprised when more than a few hands raised to notify the teacher that they didn’t know what a “Credit Score� was.

As I sat in the freezing room filled with plastic folding chairs listening to a real estate professional, a home inspector, and a real estate lawyer try to drum up business for themselves instead of educate home buyers, I decided to put down on paper the important lessons and intricacies that may be useful to a somewhat more educated, or simply alive, first time home buyer that I’ve discovered not only during the home buying process but also through my experience as a former loan officer and what I’ve learned while preparing to sit for the Real Estate Licensing exam in Ohio.

Today’s topic – Preparing your financials for a Mortgage
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So, in my last post, I mentioned that we housed a band, Street to Nowhere, for a night. I do enjoy playing hostess, so I was thinking that it would rock if I could figure out how to set up something here that bands who are coming to Cleveland could stay at my house for free if they’d like. But, how do you advertise that kind of thing?

I mean, I guess that I am doing it here, but that’s not quite what I mean. I would really like to do this,

1. because I love taking care of people,

2. because it must suck not knowing where you are gonna stay from night to night and

3. because I would probably meet some really cool people. (more…)

Just last year I wrote a little bit about why YouTube works. Since then, two major things have happened: YouTube was bought by Google, and large copyright-holding corporations finally noticed it. The almost inevitable result? Billion-dollar lawsuits.

I’ll let The Daily Show explain the situation better than I can:

But really, who cares?  Two multi-billion dollar companies duking it out in court surely doesn’t effect you or I.  But there are at least two reasons why it does matter.

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So, I went to yet another mcchris show last night, although this time he was opening for Piebald. It was kinda sad for me since mc wasn’t headlining his set was pretty short, but I do digress. I didn’t stay for Piebald, just so you know, but I did arrive early enough to see the opening band, of whom before this point I had never heard of, Street to Nowhere. Usually I am very indifferent when I don’t know of the opening band for a show that has such a diverse line up of entertainers, mc being a nerdcore rapper and Piebald being emo-core. But, if you knew me better than you do, you would know that I hate to be late for anything, so there I was dutifully waiting for the doors of the Grog Shop to open here in beautiful Cleveland, OH.

Anyway, none of this so far is telling you why i currently have the band members from Street to Nowhere sleeping in my living room.

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Yes, you read the title correctly. Thanks to the advent of YouTube and it’s brethren, anyone with a camera and some free time can put video up for the world to see. So it’s almost inevitable that people would re-enact their favorite video games with food, people, and various objects in stop motion..

First, a medley of classic arcade games from EatPES.com.

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Just in case you needed more proof that the Olsen Twins were pure evil check out this pic. What’s that Satan drink the blood of newborns, you got it dude!

If any of you kids out there are thinking about playing rock and roll music, just say no. Look what playing guitar for so many years has done to Eddie Van Halen. Don’t end up like him kids, stay in school, music is a dead end street to creepy old guyville and believe me it’s a lonely place to be. So the next time you think about joining a rock band because it’s the “cool” thing to do, why don’t you join an accounting firm and really be cool. Click the read more button to see a computer generated image of what Eddie Van Halen will look like in another 10 years.

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Don’t you hate it when you buy a new CD b/c you really love one song and then you get it and it has like four good songs and 9 shitty songs? And the songs you like you really like, but the songs you dislike you really hate? Like, what was going on? Did the band get lazy? Did they get rock amnesia? Did they get lame disease? Okay, I will admit that the last one was pretty lame by any standards.  I apologize.

And how does one get rock amnesia? One minute your band is really rocking out, and then all of a sudden and out of the blue like you forget how to play anything except Coldplay or Limp Bizkit (I guess that would depend on your genre, which band you would start to play). I mean, you are rocking out, and then all of a sudden you look at the drummer and say, “hey, let’s try rocking it like Coheed and Cambria, that would be cool”. That is when you find a new band, by the way. Cause you’re mediocrity is sealed in one of those giant Tupperware containers that lady used to keep her kids in to keep them children for ever on Erie Indiana. If you just got that reference, you are truly an awesome person and should be given mad props. (more…)

While I plan on posting my 3rd and final installment on how to get fit (hopefully by the end of the week), I thought I’d share a site I just ran into. It’s US Track and Field’s running route sites, and it’s frickin’ sweet. It uses google earth to allow you to input your running route and it will give you all sorts of info such as distance and elevation. Go try it out.