Who Wants it More?

Natural selection?

2006-04-15T16:25:00.000-04:00

So an old lady was given a jay-walking ticket in LA last week. She claims she started walking when it still says walk, the officer says it was flashing don't walk.

Regardless, the argument they're making is that too many 'wayward' pedestrians are getting clocked by cars, so they want to stop that by ticketing them.

I say, won't natural (or cultural) selection cull the herd? If they keep getting taken out, eventually the only people left will be those that don't walk against the red. It seems like the ticketing is extra work.

Who wants to bother little old ladies more? The LA Traffic Police want to bother little old ladies more.

- barrett 'n megan

among the fields of heather...

2006-04-13T23:58:00.000-04:00

I admit to having SAES - Stupid American Ethnocentrism Syndrome. So I once had a strange question for a friend from France, "Do you have any wild animals in France?"

I know that sounds dumb, but quite frankly, when I think of France, I think of pastoral scenes and Paris, not wildlife. I'd never considered the possibilities of a forest.

Tonight I mentioned this to some friends, and one suggested that Scotland probably had some good wildlife, but he also thought England had huge forests, so I was doubtful. We did the dutiful google search for Wild Animals Scotland and we got this website: Wildlife Scotland.

They list a total of 14 land animals including goats, squirrels, voles and the ever exciting Scottish Wood Ant.

oooooooooooooooohhhh.........

I was actually suprised they didn't list Nessie with their sea animals. And they include a bat in their land animals, though the birds get their own section. But you can't just call it mammals, thanks to those ever important ants, so I guess I see the dilemma.

The best thing about this website though, is that it's for wildlife excursions. So if you're looking to go see some exciting deer and squirrels...think Scotland!

Who wants to fool themselves more:? The scots want to fool themselves more.

-barrett 'n megan

Fashion 101 - take 2

2006-04-10T13:26:00.000-04:00

I am not a fashonista. I wear t-shirts and jeans and I should probably buy some new underwear one of these days.

I don't try to look fashionable. But it kills me when people try to look fashionable and fail. One of my greatest joys is to walk into bars and see folks trying to impress the other sex in the most hideous of outfits.

And this weekend I saw one of the worst I've seen in a while.

We were playing pool and I couldn't stop staring at this girl. I was trying to will her to leave the bar with my mind, just so I wouldn't be transfixed on the hideous outfit. It went something like this:

Sequined Gold Shrug.

I didn't even know what a shrug was until I shared this story with a friend. Apparently that's what you call the annoying short jackets that just accentuate your boobs. Add gold sequins to THAT and you know you've got a winner.

This was over a very low cut shirt with a push up bra underneath it, so the girl was all out there.

Beneath this came a multi-color peasant skirt kind of like this one from Wal-Mart:

That went down just to about her knees. Yuck. combined with the glittery shrug this was not going well. But she wasn't done.

Oh no. She had to wear a pair of jeans underneath it. and they were light blue jeans too, not even something dark that might go unnoticed.

It was AWFUL. And I sat their bitching and moaning about it like I am want to do on occasion. Most of the guys I was with were conceeding that it was pretty bad. But one of them solidy stood by the fact that he didn't give a damn about the outfit. It was just fine. because all he saw were the breasts (his words, not mine). And that must be what the other guys who were swooning over her were thinking too. I admire their honesty. but the girl could have been just as successful in the low cut shirt and push up bra with the jeans, all the hideousness I was put through was unnecessary. She still could have gotten a guy in the sack, and it wouldn't have taken her an extra 10 minutes to get untangled from the crazy outfit. Ugh.

who wants to get people's attention more? Sparkly girls in push up bras want to get people's attention more.

- barrett 'n megan

Headlines of our times

2006-04-05T17:25:00.000-04:00

How sad is it when CNN.com gives the two following headlines equal, unillustrious, play? :

Scientists crack mystery of planet formation

Katie Couric announces move to CBS

Ugh......I feel dumber just for having seen that. Come on, they figured out how planets form!!! That's a BIG deal people, big deal.

This is when we need to stand up and point out to CNN that these types of topics are not of the same caliber, and shouldn't be presented as such. If you tell them, they will change things. It makes me happy to see that on the 'most popular' list of articles, Planets is ranked #4 while Katie is only #9, this is a start. If we show them we are unimpressed, they won't post these kinds of things. I'm just sorry that the most popular article at the moment is "Eminem divorces wife Kim - again"

Who wants to learn more? WE want to learn more!

- barrett 'n megan

Pork, the other white...fish???

2006-03-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

According to an article in Nature Biotechnology, scientists have cloned pigs that are high in omega-3 fatty acids. Well...some of the pigs didn't have the transgenic gene, and some of them had chronic heart conditions, but of the others, they had increased omega-3s. So now, it will apparently be benificial to eat pork, should you select to eat from the cloned transgenic pork. Now there's a conflict for folks, so often the health-conscious who want the omega-3s are the same as the one's who don't want transgenic foods, decisions decisions...

What suprised me, though, is that the acknowledgements mention no evidence of funding from Pork producers. This project was funded by the NIH, the ACS and a Transplant Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. I really expected funding from the National Pork Board or something. Now, part of the funding comes from an 'unrestricted gift' from the Transplant Center, and I suppose that they could have recieved money from Pork.org...someone should look into that, there's got to be pig money in there somewhere that they're neglecting to mention.

Who wants to go hog wild more? Transgenic pigs want to go hog wild more.

-barrett 'n megan

Some lyrics shouldn't be written...or recorded

2006-03-14T12:30:00.000-05:00

Surely, someone makes decisions about what songs to record. They tweak lyrics, change chords, say 'I don't think people will like this', etc... Yet plenty of stuff gets by. On my drive home from Chicago late last night, I found Donna Summer's disco re-recording of MacArthur Park. The song is pretty absurd to begin with, but you add disco and the fact that's it's 2:30 am and I start to question the nature of my reality.

MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!

Do those lyrics make anyone else think of anything in particular? The song was written in the summer of 1967 by Jimmy Webb. The same summer as the first San Francisco Be-In. The same summer that the U.S. Government outlawed LSD.

Did I mention that it was originally the 7 minute coda to a 22 minute long piece? Oh, and did I mention that LSD was popular that summer? I did? Oh, okay, just checking.

So yeah, even with those bizarre lyrics, MacArthur Park was a hit. Even more of a hit when converted into disco. So next time you're getting upset over some of the trash that's out there now just remember that we've been putting...unusual...music out there for decades now. Ashley Simpson is nothing new. I could see a Merry Prankster singing a song called I am Me too.

Who wants a lid for his cake dish more? Jimmy Webb wants a lid for his cake dish more.

- barrett 'n megan

Talking to myself

2006-02-06T20:49:00.000-05:00

So I was at work the other day, alone, and saw my coffee mug from the day before. I'd left it on a table. I said "Oh, so there's my coffee mug from yesterday". I said that out loud. I was alone in a building, fully aware I was alone in a building, and yet I had to say that out loud. Obviously I knew that it was my coffee mug from yesterday, I'd already processed that information in order to say "there's my coffee mug from yesterday". So why on EARTH did I say it? Why do we say things when no one else is around? Do we just like to hear ourselves talk? Does it make something more concrete if we speak it?

Who wants to assert themselves on the world more? People who talk when alone want to assert themselves on the world more.

-barrett 'n megan

Scientology, the War on Terror, and the Meaning of Life

2006-02-01T17:59:00.000-05:00

So I recently did some searching into the ins and outs of scientology. This probably has more to do with the recent TomKat craze than the woman I saw walking down the street in a Red down coat embroidered in Fluorescent Green with "DIANETICS" on the back. God bless New York.

Scientology has this thing called the Tone Scale to determine how people are feeling, and therefore how best to communicate with them. The scale on their website goes up to 40, but there are several sub-categories between 0 and 4, apparently most of us are VERY unhappy thetans. Above 4, there are only 6 other rankings on the Tone Scale.

It was interesting to note that TERROR is 0.96 on the Tone Scale, that's not very good. CONSERVATISM is a 3.0, which is quite high on the scale. I conclude this means that, while generally pacifistic, scientologists would support the war on terror, because it is better to be conservative than to be a terrorist. I'm not sure where to fit liberals, because that's not an option on the tone scale. But with the current government, they're probably somewhere between terror and conservatism, at resentment (1.3), fear (1.0), hate (1.4) or pain (1.8).

Now, the fact that there are all these huge leaps in the Tone Scale between 4 and 40 leads me to suspect they aren't listing everything. Surely there is something between Exhilaration (8.0) and Action (20.0). And all of this leads me to suspect that Serenity of Beingness, 40.0, isn't really quite the top of the list. Some of you may know where I'm going....I think the Tone Scale ends at...

42

That's right. I hypothesize that scientology isn't following the book Dianetics, it really is all about The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Anybody got their towels?

Who wants to support the war on terror more? Scientologists want to support the war on terror more.

-barrett 'n megan

You're such a jackass....

2006-01-23T23:10:00.000-05:00

So not only is there the sweet sweet animal we call the Jackass,
it turns out that the penguin that was stolen from the zoo in England before Christmas was a Jackass Penguin. No that's not the hideous offspring of a donkey and a flightless bird. And no, it's not a really rude penguin that cuts you off in traffic. It is just one of the more than 15 different kinds of Penguins. Imagine, in one section of the zoo you could have emperor penguins being all regal, and then you've got these ones we've dubbed Jackass Penguins in the pool next door...what kind of a social anxiety complex are we giving these birds?

Other fun penguin species:

Royal Penguins (must be subservient to the emperors)

King Penguins (apparently Empires include several Kingdoms, so these are also subservient to the emperors, but still above the other Royals)

Erect-Crested Penguins ...that just makes me laugh. Come on, I blogged about Jackasses, I'm easily amused.

Who wants penguins to rule the world more? Flightless Ornithologists want penguins to rule the world more.

- barrett 'n megan

Thinking outside the box

2006-01-21T20:19:00.000-05:00

A conversation in the breakroom with a colleague yesterday:

Me: There was a firetruck at my neighbor's house last night.

Colleague: Ooh, neat. Did you get to ride on it?

And that is why I love my friend Chris. He always says the unexpected.

Who wants to make you doubletake more? Chris wants to make you doubletake more.

- barrett 'n megan

Now that's a bad storm

2006-01-14T14:10:00.000-05:00

Recently I had to drive through a horrible storm. It started as rain, then changed to snow. It was wet snow, falling fast, and I was driving into the falling snow. At night. So it looked like I was driving at warp speed. Trying to keep my eyes focused on what little I could see of the lines on the road, while all that snow was shooting by in my headlights was hard. I had to stop at several rest stops to give them a break. My eyes, not the headlights. What should have been an hour 1/4 drive took twice as long.

When I got up the next morning, my car had no snow on it, but my front license plate was covered with a solid block of ice that you couldn't see the plate through. That made me feel good. "yea, it was a bad storm!"

Then that afternoon, the ice fell off in a chunk, and you could actually see the impressions of the letters from the plate in the ice. Wow!

I almost picked it up and stuck it in my freezer. Almost.

Who wants to remind you of your harrowing travels more? Ole' Man Winter wants to remind you of your harrowing travels more.

-barrett 'n megan

Mama said there'd be days like this...

2006-01-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

St. Augustine volcano in Alaska has started spewing ash and steam. According to volcanologists, this is typical of an Augustinian eruption. The volcano erupted in the same way in 1976 and 1986, and now it's doing it again in 2006.

Why would a volcano spew forth every ten years, but skip 1996?

1976 - Republican President

1986 - Republican President

1996 - Democratic President

2006 - Republican President

Could it be that mother nature shows her political preferences by spewing forth wrath, anger and hot ash when the Republicans are in office? Hmmm...the data certainly supports the hypothesis thusfar, but we'll have to wait until 2016, to see if things change. We hypothesize that when Barrett gets elected in 2016, as a Democrat, the volcano will not spew.

Who wants to make a political statement more? Mother Nature wants to make a political statement more.

-barrett 'n megan

Silly Pat, judgement is for God!

2006-01-08T19:45:00.000-05:00

So lately it seems like the motto is "I, Pat Robertson, am against something, therefore GOD must be against it too." Since when is he the mouthpiece of the Almighty??

First it was Dover, PA. All going to hell for trying to teach evolution.
Now it's Ariel Sharon. God 'Smote' Sharon for leaving Gaza; that's Robertson's explanation for why the man had a horrible stroke. The Israelites were kicked out of the area ages ago, and only recently returned, but now that they're moving again, God decided it's wrong. They were allowed to be gone for hundreds of years, but they can't leave twice? Huh?

Here's the direct quote:
"He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America,'"

Woe? Woe?? Nobody says Woe to anything except God....and Joey from Blossom. Pat Robertson doesn't get to Woe. I don't Woe. God can Woe. Woe No.

This guy doesn't make any sense, who does he think he is? {boggle} There have been mass genocides and horrible people around for generations, and god hasn't brought down a lightening-strike against them, why does Pat Robertson get to claim that every illness or natural disaster is suddenly the wrath of a vengeful God?? Seriously, who does he think he is?

The most disappointing thing about all of this is the lack of response from other religious leaders here in the states. They should stand up against this kind of hurtful commentary that doesn't help anyone. Silence is passive acceptance fellas. It shouldn't be left to the bloggers and the media to be outraged when someone blames God for someone else's misfortune.

Who wants to think he is the complete correct understander of the word of God more? Pat Robertson wants to think he is the complete correct understander of the word of God more.

-barrett 'n megan

Babies babies babies

2006-01-05T15:53:00.000-05:00

I've got several friends in the early stages of parenthood, or late stages of pregnancy. So baby names have been a hot topic. The Baby Center just came out with their list of the top names for 2005. Megan is #36 on the girl's chart, while Barrett didn't make the boys top 100. Ah well.

But I'm more interested in the 'Inspired' names they found. These are all names that were reported to the Baby Center, but not confirmed on Birth Certificates.

Banana
I thought Apple was silly from the moment I heard it, and what I'd feared has happened, people are naming their kids after food just because Gwyneth Paltrow did it. Now Clementine and Safron I can see. But Banana? Gherkin? You've got to be kidding me! When Gwyneth gave birth she and her husband said "We are 900 miles over the moon!" -- No kidding, you'd have to be to get a name like that.

Jersey
Again, I can understand the place-name names. And Sedona and Aspen I can agree to if I have to. But Jersey? I'm from there and I wouldn't name my kid that! Nor would I have gone with Germany or Philadelphia as some have.

Other unusal names: Tigger, Scion, Sprout and Island. These poor kids are going to have a tough time when they grow up...

Who wants to humiliate their children more? People who convert basic nouns into names want to humiliate their children more.

-barrett 'n megan

Superheros of the rails...

2006-01-01T20:19:00.000-05:00

While riding the NJ transit, Barrett noticed that there was a sledgehammer and crowbar by the back door of the train car. Why, when people claim to be so concerned about safety, when you can't take tweezers on planes, would someone have a crowbar and a sledgehammer on a train? I know, I know, they're there for emergencies, to get the doors open. But doesn't that seem a little weird?

I don't remember exactly how this happened, but Barrett and I decided that Sledgehammer and Crowbar would be great names for a pair of Superheros. And they could easily be played by Jay and Silent Bob. Jay, being tall and skinny, would be Crowbar, and Silent Bob, being stocky, would be Sledgehammer. But the irony of the situation is that the Superhero called Crowbar would use a sledgehammer as his weapon, and Sledgehammer would use a crowbar against his enemies. This happened because the Prop Guy mixed them up.

Prop Guy - Arch Nemesis of Crowbar and Sledgehammer.

While walking down a road in New York City we saw a bank with big glass windows and a HUGE safe door. Barrett said "Wow, you know your money is safe there, you can see the entrance to the safe." Then we both agreed it had to be fake, because why would anyone put a huge safe door right in front of the window, right? I mean this isn't looney toons. It's not even far enough away from the window to really open it.

Which led to the visualization of Sledgehammer and Crowbar using their skills to pry that safe door open, only to discover a brick wall behind it.

"Damn you Prop Guy!!!!"

Who wants to beat the good guys more? Prop Guy wants to beat the good guys more.

-barrett 'n megan

Buns of steel

2005-12-31T16:03:00.000-05:00

So when Barrett and I went to New York, we walked most of the day. I feel like I rode a horse for hours, both of us can barely walk. We probably covered about 7-8 miles that day. Part of which was due to some bad directions by Barrett, but blamed on me (see previous blog 'Internal Compass...Compai?' for a similar scenario).

We decided to walk up to the American Museum of Natural History from Penn Station. I brought us up 5th (the east side) instead of 8th (the west side) avenue by mistake, but I figured we could walk across Central Park. I was going to lead us into the park at one point, but Barrett said 'I think we need to go in up there', so I followed along and we wandered in. It turned out we wandered in on 72nd street, which basically is a walled road through the park which lets you see nothing. Only a few other silly tourists made the same mistake as us. It led us straight through the park to 8th Ave, and we took a path inside the park for the last few blocks up to the museum (Which is at 79th). Not much of a view. The total distance from the southeast corner of the park to the AMNH is about 1.75 miles according to Mapquest.

We ended up grabbing our tickets and heading back down to the MOMA for a while, and we came back up to go through the AMNH later in the afternoon to go through their Darwin exhibit. This time, we said, we would actually get to see some of the park. After wandering by some cops with M-3s (lovely), we entered the park at the southeast corner. We went through the zoo, and I pointed out the place I had suggested we enter the park on our earlier excursion, (I got poked in the side for that). We spotted Mikey from American Chopper, and Barrett stopped to call his friend Dave and tell him. This occured at a fork in the path, and Barrett was 'sure' he knew which way to go, so I followed, rather than argue. I proceeded to tell him Several times that I thought we were going the wrong way, and he kept laughing at how confused I was getting, while assuring me we were headed across the park in the right direction. We passed statues of Shakespeare and Columbus, and there were some fenced off areas, but Barrett pressed on in his determined direction. We then saw an ice rink across the street, and Barrett saw a sign on it that said TRUMP, which I couldn't see, so we crossed the street and went down to the ice rink so Barrett could show me the sign, then proceeded to walk on paths that I didn't think were right. Eventually we got out of the park, on the SOUTH SIDE, practically where we started.

This took at least 20-30 minutes. We then had to walk all the way around the park and back to the museum. That boy has a heck of a compass, I tell you. And then he had the nerve to try and play it off on me! "You were getting me messed up with all of your confusion". Yeah, nice try.

So we got to burn a lot of extra calories on our trip to NYC. Yee hah.

Who wants to get lost more? Barrett wants to get lost more.

-barrett 'n megan

Raindrops keep fallin on my head...

2005-12-30T01:30:00.000-05:00

Barrett and I went into New York City today. We took the train. We decided to sit in the last seat at the back of the train car. At first I sat next to Barrett, but then we decided to get more space, and he switched to the seat opposite the one he originally had. We both almost put our feet up on the seats opposite us, but then felt bad, we didn't want to get the seats dirty. About 5 seconds later, water started dripping out of the ceiling right where he had been sitting at first. Then it started dripping on the seat next to him. It was just bizarre. As we went down the tracks and the train swayed side to side, the seats across the aisle from us started getting dripped on too, though no one was there. Some more water started dripping a few rows away, and that actually started landing on people, who had to move. We stopped at one station with the train leaning a little on the track, and it started pouring quite heavily out of the ceiling on the other side of the train. We couldn't stop laughing.

The floor was really wet, and then the lights went out, so we decided that there was probably a short, and if we kept our feet off the ground we'd avoid electrocution. But we still didn't want to put them on the seats. So we were jokingly holding our legs up in the air. We've decided there could be a new exercise market for us. Abs of steel by fear of electrocution. We'll give you your own electric mat. Hold your legs up and you're fine, but every time you put them down, you get a shock. You'll be firm in no time!

As the trip proceeded on, we were amazed at all the new leaks that sprung up but never landed on us. There was a poster on the far wall of the train car for a non-profit that said "Donate your car" and I said 'aha!' that's why this leaks, some other company must have seen the poster and donated one of their old cars. Barrett said his rusty old car didn't even leak this much. Then the conductors said the car was only 5 years old. This is the quality of workmanship these days? So we thought maybe it was a way for the MTA to get back at everyone for the contract problem. So THAT'S what they were doing while they were on strike, loosening screws on train cars all over the Northeast Corridor.

Just before we got to New York, the train leaked on me. I had made it for 40 minutes, but couldn't hold out. Barrett got a good kick out of being in the only moisture-free seat.

But that was made up for after we got into New York, and he got soaked in the pouring rain.
No hat.
40 Blocks.
Silly Barrett.

Who wanted to stay dry more? The people who stayed home wanted to stay dry more.

-barrett 'n megan

When I die...

2005-12-28T01:17:00.000-05:00

So today Barrett and I were talking about video headstones.
For those not aware, you can get an LED screen on your tombstone that shows a video. That's right, first it was pictures, and now you can get videos. They are solar powered. We're wondering if the video runs continuously or if it is motion sensored. Could you imagine all the deer stopping by to hang out and watch your movie each night while they eat the grass? We think there should be voice recordings you can make that would be appropriate for different occasions as well.

I would like to have a motion sensor that triggers when people just walk by, at which point a voice recording of me would say "HEY! Over here! You walk by without stopping to say hello?"

Barrett wants to have a voice activated program, which would get rid of the deer problems. His voice activated program would respond to different words in different ways. If someone said "I miss you" His tombstone would respond "I miss you too, buddy."

Our final thought is to include a weight sensor on the ground, so if you step on the grave the tombstone says "Hey fatty, get off my grave!" Then it would toss the actual weight into your recording like when you call 411, and say "I mean, come on, you weigh" "ONE-HUNDRED AND EIGHTY NINE" "pounds!". Which isn't heavy, so we'll get a chuckle out of giving everyone a complex in our afterlife.

Who wants to haunt you from the grave more? We want to haunt you from the grave more.

-barrett 'n megan

Family Christmas: Round Two

2005-12-27T03:20:00.000-05:00

Today we spent the day with my father's side of the family. That side of the family has a lot of harrowing traditions, one of which is Plum Pudding.

Plum Pudding is a bizarre food with a bizarre tradition.

Basically, you combine bread crumbs, lots of fruits, and beef suet into a dessert.

Yup. There's a meat product in the dessert.

After mixing them together, you steam the thing for several hours.

Then we place it on a plate,
douse it in brandy,
light it on fire,
sing jingle bells,
watch 2 relatives eat it,
and throw it out.

Yup. We light it on fire and sing around it. Why? It's tradition. God love my family.

The two relis who actually liked the Plum Pudding passed away over the past few years, so this year we bought it from the store and microwaved it. We still lit it on fire, and a cousin and I tried some, but 95 % of the pudding went into the trash.

It's a fun tradition. It doesn't make any sense, but it's fun.

Our other tradition is the family football pool. Each year you put in $5 and get a team headed to the playoffs, and hope they'll win the Superbowl so you can win the pool. I got Kansas City/Pittsburgh. Arrrgh....that means I got a wildcard team that hasn't been decided yet. Which means that I've got one of the worst teams going into the playoffs. Which means my $5 went down the drain.

I keep hoping that someday it will be my turn for the $50. But by then I will probably have tossed $100 into the pool. Ah well, like the Plum Pudding, it's fun.

Who wants to do stupid things in the name of tradition more? My family wants to do stupid things in the name of tradition more.

-barrett 'n megan

You can take the stuffing out of the bird, but you can't take the bird out of the stuffing...

2005-12-25T18:31:00.000-05:00

Time for the Christmas blogs. It started beautifully with me knocking on my brother's door to get him up, and him responding with "Uuuuhhhhhh......" like the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. While we unwrapped gifts, we flipped on the holiday music that's on the cable system. As the music played these random holiday movie facts would come on the TV screen. And then came a sign in beautiful script with a sprig of holly that said:

Old School Rap will return on 12/31/05

Priceless. Apparently, when choosing which music channel was least-necessary and most-easily-replaced by holiday music, Old School Rap won out. How does one decide which of the various music stations gets wiped off the map for a week?

Who wants you to listen to them more? Holiday musicians want you to listen to them more.

-barrett 'n megan

Internal compasses....compai?

2005-12-23T01:21:00.000-05:00

So Barrett and I were driving around northern Jersey this evening. We got completely lost. At first we knew the general direction we were driving, but we were in the hills and it was dark out, so somewhere along the way Barrett's internal compass got mixed up. We came upon a road he recognized, and he turned left, when I thought we should turn right. So we started going north and came along a huge lake, which turned out to be the Wanaque Reservoir (which is about 11 miles N/S). I pulled out the map (as boys never do), and discovered we were about 5 miles from the border with New York, oops.

Of course he said "no we're not..."

and I said "trust me, I found us on the map, we're headed towards New York, but this road curves to the east so we'll take it around the reservoir and pick up another road that will take us back south."

But still he wouldn't believe me. So then we hit another split in the road and he recognized route 17 and wanted to follow it, but I said "NO! the sign ALSO says TO NEW YORK!" and he finally agreed to take my advice, and surely enough we wandered around the reservoir and get back to Route 23. Along the way we entered West Milford Township...and left West Milford Township...and entered West Milford township...and we were headed to a town called Newfoundland (which sounded like a really cool place to visit) on Route 23 and I said "Okay, that stoplight up there should be Newfoundland". As we pulled off to make a U-Turn at the stoplight we saw a sign that said "Welcome to West Milford Township."

Arghhhhhhh.....We turned around on 23 and entered West Milford Township again, and then two miles down the road, without ever leaving, we entered West Milford Township AGAIN. It was enough to make you tear your hair out.

Now, while we're wandering NJ the state is selecting its new motto (stay with me, this all ties together). The current motto is NJ and You: Perfect Together. They want to update it. So here are the five finalists:

* New Jersey, Expect the Unexpected
-yeah, like a mugger coming out of a dark alley at you. That one is just ASKING for ridicule.

* New Jersey, Love at First Sight
-while this might be true when coming in from Easton PA, the views you get when coming in from the Lincoln Tunnel, or flying over the oil refineries on your way into Newark Airport probably aren't going to have the right effect. I think 'NJ, it grows on you' would be more appropriate.

* New Jersey, Come See for Yourself
-again, just ASKING for ridicule. Especially when Camden is the most dangerous city in the country. Don't believe us? Come see for yourself

* New Jersey, The Real Deal
-nice play on words what with the casinos in Atlantic City. No major faults, but I think it's a little too vague.

* New Jersey, The Best Kept Secret
-usually if something is called the Best Kept Secret, it's best kept a secret. I don't like this either.

So Barrett and I came up with our own. We love wandering the roads and seeing where we end up. And this goes well with that tough but loving Jersey attitude we've got. So here's our suggesting for the new state motto:

New Jersey, Get Lost!

You can vote on one of the top five here

Who wants to stay in NJ more? People who read maps want to stay in NJ more.

-barrett 'n megan

Whomever designed that court case wasn't very intelligent

2005-12-21T02:28:00.000-05:00

So the results of the Dover PA Intelligent Design court case have come down from Judge Jones (who, incidentally, was made a judge by George W. Bush). He was pretty darn harsh, and pretty much slammed the Board of Education for trying to teach Intelligent Design. I've been listening to the BBC World Service for the last several hours, and I'm extra happy about his decision because, for once, we haven't managed to sound like the biggest idiots on the planet. In fact, we sound downright rational. Which is not something that usually comes across when the BBC is talking about Americans. Maybe this is a sign of good things to come. Or, if Pat Robertson is right, we'll all burn in hell. I like barbeque, so whatevs.

In honor of this win for science, I'd like to suggest several articles by The Onion, the best fake news on the internet. It's possible some of these won't keep the same link for too long, so if you've come across this blog weeks after it was posted, I apologize for any bad links.

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity with New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs, 'Oh Shit' Says Humanity

Human Feet Originally Used for Walking, Anthropologists Report

Newly Discovered Fossils Reveal Prehistoric Humans were Bony

Exxon Paleontologists Call for Increased U.S. Fossil Production

Paleontology Class Winces whenever Fundamentalist Kid Raises Hand

Creationist Museum Acquires 5,000 Year Old T. Rex Skeleton

Infographic: Intelligent Design Trial

And for those of you doing last minute holiday shopping, might I suggest the following pro-evolution gifts:

I Give Evolution Two Opposable Thumbs Up! Bumper Sticker

Darwin Fish Car Decal

Honk! If You Understand Punctuated Equilibria Bumpersticker

Evolutionists Do It With Increasing Complexity Bumpersticker

Who wants to retain the seperation of church and state more? Judge Jones, the conservative Christian nominated to his position by George W. Bush wants to retain the seperation of church and state more.

- barrett 'n megan

Illegal Schmillegal

2005-12-17T13:16:00.000-05:00

Sigh, I'm about to rant about politics, so I apologize. And I also want to state that this is a straight-up Megan post (as most are), since I'm being so opinionated.

SO, the president came out today and admitted that he had in fact signed a secret deal that allowed for Americans to have their phones tapped without a court order, as part of the war on terra'. But then, here's what I love, he went on to say that the person who leaked this information to the media was doing something illegal.

I'm sorry...come again?

That's right, what HE did in a secret act that goes around all the systems of checks and balances we have to protect our country...that was okay...but leaking information to the media is ILLEGAL. Come on, do you really think that's going to take the heat off what you did? 'well...what I did might be kinda bad...but what that OTHER guy did, that was illegal...so there'.

Arghh.....it makes me sad and angry when things like this happen.

Who wants a more honest government more? I want a more honest government more

- megan

Meddling with Metal

2005-12-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

So this sculpture

by Henry Moore was stolen from the Henry Moore Foundation in England over the weekend. It was likely stolen to melt down the bronze and resell it, as copper and bronze are extremely hot commodities at the moment. This is too bad, because it's a nice piece. I don't always get abstract art, but I just like the shape of this one. And it's better than the rusty iron pieces some folks make, I definately don't get that.

There are a LOT of comments that could be made about this. Never mind the fact that one might wonder how a 10 foot long, massive piece of bronze could be removed without notice (perhaps it's that stodgy British politeness that kept folks from asking where the art was going...). I'm more interested in focusing on the piece as a sort of 3D Rorschach Test.

The piece is called "Reclining Figure". I'm curious as to what others think it looks like? I call it "Horizontal Woodpecker"

Or perhaps "Pterydactyl in Tar Pit". Other opinions?

Who wants fancy sculptures more? Thieves who need to ruin art to make money want fancy sculptures more.

-barrett 'n megan

Lessons from Willy Wonka

2005-12-15T01:52:00.000-05:00

Willy Wonka taught me a lot of things, but the one that came to mind today was this: Never try to replace food with candy that tastes like food. Candy should taste like candy. When Violet ate candy that tasted like blueberry pie, she turned into a blueberry.

So today I stopped by someone's office, and on my way out I grabbed a piece of candy from the jar on the desk. It tasted familiar, but not like any candy I'd had before. I looked at the wrapper, it was a Lifesaver's Creamsaver, with the flavor of Pumpkin Pie. As I walked on I thought "this really does taste like Pumpkin Pie!" and that's when the panic set in. I knew it was stupid. I knew it wasn't a true story. Yet until that candy was gone, I kept feeling for changes in my body, and looking down at myself to make sure I wasn't turning into a pumpkin. Because Pumpkin Pie, even if it's great, belongs on a plate with whipped cream, not in a hard candy.

Who wants to taste like food more? Creamsavers want to taste like food more.

-barrett 'n megan