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Powered by LifeTypeJust when I thought I was a geek, the bar is raised...
I forgot to post this a while ago: Tim Hawkins and the "homeschool family". Prairie Home Sausage is kind of funny - and has a picture of a really neat merry-go-round.
Lastly, being in NH during the presidential primary has been annoying. Apparently, phone calls have gotten cheap enough that most of the candidates have been calling. Some of them, most notable Obama and Clinton, like to call multiple times just to make sure that we have heard of them. Obama's volunteers were surprised that they weren't the first to call, since they had printed out lists (and call from all over the country), so it is strange that they would have sent out duplicate lists. Clinton's supporters said that the computer just calls every number in order, and each phone doesn't talk to each other, so it was quite likely that I would get called within five minutes from the same office.
I don't know if that should be filed under persistence or incompetence.
I thanked the Huckabee supporters at the polling place for not calling, I think only Huckabee and Paul didn't call us. (as a side-note, that means I get to stick to my mom's statement that she gives the callers - that she won't vote for anyone who calls, particularly after 10PM (that was Obama). Unfortunately for mom, McCain did call once, but she is going to vote for him even though he called.
One of the Clinton supporters that I talked to on the phone didn't apologize at all for calling three times in the same hour because, "what do you expect - if you're going to have the first primary, you should expect it". I pointed out that we have always had the first primary, and it hasn't ever been this bad before. The Concord Monitor had a number of letters to the editor about it this year. I expect that NH (at least) will push for an expanded do-not-call list to include the politicians too, which would be really nice.
I knew there were more things to add, but I forgot them when I posted the first time, so this post has been edited.
We know someone who has an "I love my geek" shirt like that. Two people, actually, and they married each other. Both are bona fide, Silicon Valley geeks, but as far as I could tell from the pictures, their wedding was quite normal.
We knew someone who "cut" her wedding cake with a chainsaw -- an inside joke. Funny how they class the Scottish wedding (guys in kilts) as geeky.
Tim Hawkins is pretty good. "Homeschool family" is definitely the best. "Cletus Take the Reel" lost me altogether; I'm guessing it's a parody of a song I don't know.
A do-not-call list including politicians (and not-for-profits as well) would be very nice, but what politician would ever vote for it? If there is one, I'd be tempted to vote for him.
Yeah - I figured Cletus was a parody, and I guessed "take the wheel", and Heather came up with the correct "Jesus". We looked up the video isn't all that good - who knows why it won a Grammy award.
A guy in Hillsboro wrote into the Concord Monitor about the politicians not being dumb enough to exclude themselves when they made the law.
At German Bible study people were saying "coo coos" is universal for saying when you look at a baby. I said we say "peek-a-boo" and one guys said that sounds like a presidential candidate: Huckabee. I found that funny and cute.
I'm partial to that video about the hug. I hadn't realized how important "the pat" was until Stephan pointed it out. I use it all the time.
Janet's comment makes me think of Dave Barry's year in review, where he sums up most of December 2007 in this nugget:
"But the big story on the GOP side is former senator or governor of some state Mike (or possibly Bob) Huckabee, who surges ahead in the polls because (a) nobody knows anything about him, and (b) it's fun to say "Huckabee." Huckabee Huckabee Huckabee."
I'm puzzled anyway about the whole primary thing. Why do we need to pick candidates twice? Does anyone else do that?
I need to be honest and point out that someone else pointed out the significance of patting before I pointed it out to Janet. Unfortunately, I've forgotten who that was, and I doubt he would know that he's responsible for a minor revelation. (Generic "he" there.)
Hooray for use of the generic "he"! I thought I was the only one who still did that. And I use "duck" to mean "duck or drake," too. :)
My American History classes were worse than useless, and I was allowed to skip the required Government and Economics courses in order to take Advanced Placement physics. (Don't ask me how I pulled that off; supposedly it was a state requirement. Oops; perhaps my high school diploma isn't really valid!) So I hope someone who really knows will comment here. But my impression is that the primary system whittles down the number of candidates so it's less messy on the real Election Day. I have a friend who lived in Italy many years ago, and at least at that time the government was always in a mess, with all sorts of secret deals and compromises and nothing getting done, because there were so many candidates and parties and no one could ever get a clear majority. Granted, I have plenty of complaints about our politics! But I can also see how it could be much worse.
Not that one wants the government to be too efficient. I kind of like it when the party of the president is effectively opposed by Congress; less harm is done, because they must work together.
Italy is always chaotic, it seems. I'm not sure the Swiss system would work in the US, even though we pretty much copied it from the US with a few alterations on the way. However, most countries seem to manage with a multi-party system and, if on election day the outcome isn't clear, a run-off. Parties internally select their candidates without overt media influence or reporting. But I suppose cutting primaries would leave the media with nothing but Britney Spears's sister to report on.
And we certainly wouldn't want to deprive our media... :)
Maybe not a bad idea. Then I could ignore the media without feeling guilty.
'Cletus Take the Reel' is a parody on 'Jesus Take the Wheel,' by a contemporary Christian singer. I've heard the song, but I'm not familiar with the artist . . . you can search for it . . . I much prefer Tim Hawkins' version.
To continue my collection of random things, this guy found a pretty nifty program, though you'd have to be an awfully dedicated rider to have written it in the first place:
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/01/disneyland-opti.html
Somehow I doubt that would work in Orlando. Even on non-peak days there are lines. A five minute line is as lucky as you can get normally. At least 'back in the day.'
At EPCOT there were sometimes days when we could get on several of the rides with no wait, because they are better engineered than the Magic Kingdom rides, and because we usually went at off-peak times. (Once, just once, we went during spring break, and even the phones had long lines.) That is the only way to see Disney. Another major reason why we didn't usually wait as long as other people was an experience-gained feel for which rides are busiest when, and the proper order in which to do them. (Used to be back to front at EPCOT, until Disney fouled things up by opening the back part later.) It sounds as if the programmer has taken this kind of experience-based decision-making to the nth degree.
"Back in the day" they didn't have FastPass, which probably makes a lot of difference if you know how to use it.
I can picture the guy with his printed schedule; it reminds me very much of Dad helping visitors make the most of the parks. If you followed him you could fit two or three days' worth of Disney Experience into one day, which even in our day saved a lot of cash.
I hear that with even just the fastpass you can avoid most of the lines. Even if you don't plan ahead, but walk up to the fastpass machine and it might schedule you immediately, even though there is an hour wait for everyone else.
Presumably, more people will figure out how to use it, and the immediate skipping of lines won't work any more. But, if it can schedule everything so it works with less waits, that would still be pretty useful.
As to primaries, they were put in in the first part of the 20th century by party reformers who did not like candidates being chosen at conventions of party officials who were there only because they were party officials. This was the era of the "smoke filled room." As with most reforms, after a while the reforms need reforming.
As to why the US has only two parties - just luck. It seemed that whenever a new one came along (say Republicans in the 1850s) an old one died off (the Whigs in the 1850s).