Understatement

Tonight I was reading through the metafilter thread from September 11th, 2001. Amid the chaos and confusion from that morning, this comment stood out:

This is going to be a big turning point in the history and character of this country, I think.

posted by Doug at 8:51 AM on September 11

All I could think was “man, you have no idea”.

Purple Hearts

Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty years following the end of World War II — including the Korean and Vietnam Wars — have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.

via Wikipedia – Operation Downfall

Extreme Sport

Many people have heard the old joke about fishing with dynamite, but dynamite surfing is new to me.

Smarter than the average bear

I’m 50.5% smarter than average, according to this very non-scientific test. (I correctly answered 27/30).

So, how about it? How smart are you?

Xbox Live

I was recently conviced to sign up for Xbox live, which is pretty cheap these days. If anyone is on and wants to play some Halo, my gamertag is “Schnookumz”. Add me as a friend on Live or drop me an IM, because I only play occasionally.

Words of Wisdom

“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice they are not.”

-attributed to Yogi Berra

FYI

The average width of the Mississippi River around St. Louis is 3500 feet (or 2/3 of a mile).

Y’know, in case you were wondering.

Procrastination

• Accent: Unremarkablly midwestern. I refuse to develop a southern drawl (y’all).
• Booze: If I’m drinking hard liquor, I’ll take whiskey. I drink lots of different beer, but you’ll typically find me drinking Guinness, Shiner Bock, or Budweiser, depending on how flush I am. Sadly, I can’t get my favorite, Boulevard Wheat, down here in Houston.
• Chore I Hate: Laundry. I can’t seem to make a dent in that large pile of clothes.
• Dog or Cat: Neither. A dog is quite possibly in my (not so near) future.
• Essential Electronics: Computer + internet access. Don’t really need much more.
• Favorite Cologne: I don’t wear cologne much.
• Gold or Silver: Silver
• Hometown: St. Louis, MO
• Insomnia: Once a week or so. Thanks to a flexible work schedule, I keep weird sleep hours, and if I sleep in, it means that I’m not ready for bed until 3 am or so. The cycle gets vicious pretty quickly. I’m trying to work on that. . .
• Job Title: Indentured servant (Grad student)
• Kids: No. I try to act like one as much as possible, though. This means lots of juice boxes and naps.
• Living arrangements: Small apartment
• Most admirable traits: Intelligence, easy-going-ness, ability to spot holes in your arguments from a mile away.
• Not going to cop to: The noodle incident
• Overnight hospital stays: When I was born, I suppose.
• Phobias: No irrational fears. Just the everyday, run of the mill stuff like peak oil, overpopulation, unsustainable growth, etc.
• Quote: “Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing, “Yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! I will be strong! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!” If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it.” — Dan Barker
• Religion: Recovering Catholic
• Siblings: One younger brother, who plays in a band
• Time I wake up: 9:30 or so. Like I said, my schedule’s flexible, so I generally come in late and stay late.
• Unusual talent or skill: Mad kung-fu skillz.
• Vegetable I love: Terri Schiavo. (tasteless?)
• Worst habit: Procrastination
• X-rays: Just teeth
• Yummy foods I make: Chicken pasta, chili mac, and I work a mean grill.
• Zodiac sign: Scorpio. Does anyone seriously think these matter? I think astrologers and anyone else who pimps this kind of bullshit should die in a fire. I think the people who are dumb enough to believe it should suffer the same fate. (I suppose that would also solve our overpopulation problem, right?)

Squish!

Two plots of dirt…an armada of worms lurk below the surface…a gardener’s feud has escalated to the point of all out war…you must squash all your enemy’s worms before yours get squished…the fertility of your soil is at stake!!!

Play Worm Battleship

Brrrrrr

Map of the World weighted by population. It’s interesting how the whole “barren-frozen-tundra” thing keeps the populations of Russia and Canada down.

In related news, I’m back in St. Louis for the holidays. What’s with all this white stuff on the ground?

Free Airfare

Fish 32 Wendy’s cups out of the trash, get a free one-way ticket on AirTrans. For 64 cups, you can get a free round trip ticket.

Even if you actually paid for all 64 drinks, at, say 1.25/drink, you’d still be getting an 80-dollar one-way ticket, which isn’t bad at all. I may have to stop by the Wendy’s dumpster soon…

Sadly, they don’t fly to St. Louis, though they do fly out of Houston. Guess I’ll have to take a trip elsewhere.

UPDATE: As Jamie pointed out in the comments, paying for the sodas would net you an 80 dollar round-trip ticket, which is even better.

Census Data Map

Within 5 miles of my old house in Kirksville, there are 19,441 people

Within 5 miles of my house in Houston, there are 346,589 people.

Find cool facts like this about your neighborhood on the Census Data Google Map

Karen Rocks" rel="bookmark">Reasons Karen Rocks

1) She sharks full-grown men out of money in basketball pools

2) Her cat-like reflexes saved the life of an old woman. In a walker.

3) She’s a bro. ‘Nuff said.

4) I recieved my brand-spanking new Omaha Royals hat the other day, and have worn it constantly since.

(I rarely wear hats, but the blue matches my favorite hooded sweatshirt perfectly, and I love it!)

Riddle

Can you name 10 parts of the body that are spelled with only 3 letters?

I thought up 15 in about 2 minutes. Answers below the break

(more…)

Hrmmm..

Take a quick look at the design of my page and then jump over to my roomate’s new page: http://ronhnelson.com/. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I suppose.

And at least he changed the color scheme… heh.

Excerpt from a recent IM conversation

Chris: Can you get chicken suits in kirksville?

Paige: you live there man

Paige: i know where there is a chicken head. but i cant get it. i just thought id let you know about it tho

Chris: you have access to a chicken head?!?!

Chris: and you didnt’ tell me sooner?

Chris: do you understand the possibilities?

Paige: LOL! well i didnt know about it til a few weeks ago. and i dont technically have access to it. ‘less you wanna drive to eagle river, wisconsin. road trip? 9 hrs buddy.

Chris: I think we could recoup gas expenses with the royalties from the merchandising rights

Paige: and…..

Chris: so here’s the plan:
1) Get giant chicken head
2) ???
3) Profit

Paige: wow. you didnt leave to make that (Genius) plan, did ya?

Chris: the plan is foolproof

Chris: don’t mock the plan

Paige: not to question your “foolproof” plan. just inquiring. how ya gonna get it?

Chris: well, i assume that it’s locked in a high-security compound, so we’ll drug the guard dogs, gas the security force, use c4 to blow the safe, and then run like hell

Paige: alright then. quite the imagination you have.

Paige: but……

Chris: You’re just jealous

Randomness

In the course of my web wanderings, I accumulate a lot of little snippets that I find amusing. Mostly I just paste into a text document for later reference, and end up losing the originating page for. So now I’ve decided to clean them out and present them here, for your viewing enjoyment.

• The word “omphaloskepsis” refers to contemplation of the navel.

• Mneumonic Device for Biological classifications:
  kingdom phylum class order genus species =
  kinky people can orgasm from great sex

• Nothin says lovin like a slice of cheese.
• If you have a Chrysler/Jeep/etc, turn the ignition key to the lock position 5 times. The internal computer will flash the signal indicators to blink in a pattern that you can look up on the internet to see if they’ve detected anything wrong with your car. (see http://www.allpar.com/fix/80s-codes.html for said codes)
• Good luck on that qualifying test for Jeopardy. Geez. (this is one I can attest to)
• Lots of people see the world in Black and White. It is mostly just shades of grey.
• Strength and Wisdom are not opposing values
• Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?
  Pinky: Uh, I think so, Brain, but we’ll never get a monkey to use dental floss!

• “Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” – Ernest Hemingway.

Look for more nuggets of wisdom at a later date.

Future Profession: Mob Boss??

I don’t usually post quiz results, but these are pretty accurate:

Wackiness: 20/100
Rationality: 72/100
Constructiveness: 40/100
Leadership: 56/100

You are an SRDL–Sober Rational Destructive Leader. This makes you a mob boss. You are the ultimate alpha person and even your friends give you your space. You can’t stand whiners, weaklings, schlemiels or schlemozzles. You don’t make many jokes, but when you do, others laugh out loud. They must.

People often turn to you for advice, and wisely. You are calm in a crisis, cautious in a tempest, and attuned to even the finest details. Yours is the profile of a smart head for business and a dangerous enemy.

You have a natural knack for fashion and occupy a suit like a matinee idol. Your charisma is striking and without artifice. You are generous, thoughtful, and appreciate life’s finer things.

Please don’t kick my ass.

See for yourself.
Hat tip to Jen

Sorry-ass Excuse for a Post

Look, they’ll say! Another crappy internet survey! Just what the world needs!

F I R S T S:

First job: Licking stamps for my grandma in Buerkle Middle school’s office. I got paid 5 bucks and all the soda I could drink. I was seven. (of course, I’d still do it for that, if she threw in a pizza…)

First screen name:LHSChris – guess where I got that one…

First funeral:Grandpa Joe. I was pretty young. I’ve still never lost anyone that I’ve felt any strong emotional connection to.

First pet:Maverick and Goose, goldfish

First piercing/tattoo: N/A

First enemy: My first enemy continues to be stupidity in all it’s forms.

First favorite musician: The Beach Boys. Shut up! I was in second grade, okay…

L A S T S:

Last car ride: Over to KCOM this morning

Last kiss: Heather

Last library book checked out: Shit… I don’t even know. I read online texts a lot, or borrow books from friends.

Last movie watched: I Spy. I definitely can’t recommend that one…

Last beverage drank: Milk with dinner. Skim only, please.

Last food consumed: Peanut butter and Jelly crackers (aka: Dinner)

Last time showered: Last night

Last CD played: Please. My music is all ripped. Counting Crows is playing at the moment.

Last website visited: Sourceforge.net I’m looking through open source projects for a good calendar app that I can access via the web and sync with my palm.

N O W:

Single or Taken: Sorry ladies, I’m currently off the market

Birthday: Halloween

Sign: Scorpio

Siblings: One younger bro

Hair color: Unremarkably brown

Eye color: Bluish/Greenish/Grayish. They’re cool.

Shoe size: 10. I just found a great pair of cleats while dumpster diving the other day too. The football squad threw out probably 100 pairs of spikes, some barely used. How fucking ridiculous is that…

Height: 1.75 meters (that’s 5’9″ for people still using ridiculous systems of measurement)

Right now what are you doing: Reading some websites, relaxing in the ‘Ville.

Wearing: shorts and a t-shirt. What did you expect? A tux?

Thinking about: Starting to read some journal articles for my research project.

Well, that wasn’t a horribly interesting survey, but now that I’ve filled it out, I’d feel like it was a waste of time if I didn’t post it. Enjoy.

Survey via Karen

I’ll spare you the portrait of Hitler…

but according to this quiz, I am a grammar nazi.

You are the grammar Fuhrer. All bow to your authority. You will crush all the inferior people under the soles of your jackboots, and any who question your motives will be eliminated. Your punishment is being the bane of every other person’s existence, because you’re constantly contradicting stupidity. Everyone will be gunning for you. Your dreams of a master race of spellers and grammarians frighten the masses. You must always watch your back. If only your power could be used for good instead of evil.