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The next time you hear some pretentious American tries to call soccer “futbol”, feel free to remind him that the majority of the English speaking world calls it soccer. A quick breakdown:
“Soccer” World:- USA
- Canada
- Ireland
- Australia
- New Zealand
- South Africa
“Football” world:- U.K.
- Belize
- Liberia
- Nigeria
- Various Caribbean countries
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As someone who last week wrote a $365 check to the Town of Luther for a speeding ticket (valid, I was going 65 in a 55) and a ticket for “failing to yield to an emergency vehicle” (completely ridiculous, I didn’t pull over fast enough for Barney Fife) I take a tremendous amount of enjoyment in seeing a police force whose only seeming service is to poach money from highway travelers for a tiny town take such a black eye:
Jerry Pendley had worked for the Luther Police Department for about three weeks before his arrest by Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers on Monday. The U.S. Attorney’s office says Pendley lied on the documents by not noting he had been arrested and charged twice on suspicion of assault and battery.
moral of the story:- stay off Route 66 - take the Turnpike when you’re going between OKC & Tulsa
- if you do happen to get a ticket in Luther, don’t go to court with a reasonable request to reduce payment on the meaningless ticket - they won’t do it and the judge will charge you $44 to appear in court
- support politicians who strip little towns of the right to issue tickets on highways if their ticket revenue exceeds reasonable limits
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Here on the fourth day of 2010, I found one sentence that might do the best job I’ve seen yet at putting the last 10 years into a nutshell (from this NY Times article):
“A dollar is no longer a dollar in this country,” said Mallory Duncan, senior vice president of the National Retail Federation, a trade association. “It’s a Visa dollar. It’s only worth 99 cents because they take a piece of every one.”
OK, so maybe it doesn’t sum everything up… just imagine that terrorists are buying steroids with their Visa cards and then you’re there.
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I’ve seen a trend on websites like Lifehacker and Flickr where people show off the contents of their bag. Their bag is unloaded and the items are methodically laid out for others to review. (personally, I think 90% of this is designed to show off their Mac toys…)
I’ve decided to play along and show off what is currently in my bag, see below:
A quick review of the inventory (from right to left):- A banjo - I can really only play one song, which my mom doesn’t like because it sounds depressing. I have always felt this was quite a feat - to play a depressing song on a banjo.
- The Complete Book of Breastfeeding - I currently don’t breastfeed, but if I ever start I’m fairly sure that if I suddenly start it will come as such a shock that I’ll require the use of a manual.
- Canned Pumpkin Pie Filling - This is good to get gum out of hair.
- Roomba - for quick carpet cleaning, as required.
- My super-cool iBook. I know you’re jealous. It’s a vintage 1998 model.
- A stud finder - for the joke that never gets old (where I hold the stud finder up to my chest and say “beeeeeep”).
- Prestone De-Icer - obviously for hair styling.
- My universally despised, yet oh so comfortable fur-lined crocs. I’m a slave to fashion.
- Ulysses by James Joyce - for light reading on the toilet.
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This site has a very useful page that let’s you analyze your Netflix history. I’ve been a big netflix fan for a long, long time. I’ve had a membership on and off for years now. I remember when I was first a member back in 1999 or 2000 you had to mail your DVDs to San Francisco, so it took forever to transfer them back and forth. So I ran a pretty recent batch of data into the analyzer and it gave me this data:
NetFlix History Analyzer
Analyze your Netflix DVD rental history and determine how much you’ve been paying per DVD, compare it to what you would have paid somewhere else, and compute your savings.
Your results
You’ve rented 62 DVDs over 38 months from December 19, 2005 to February 16, 2009.
Your plan costs $14.99/month so you’ve paid $569.62 total.
Your average price per rental was approximately $9.19 each.
Average rental costs elsewhere are $3.75 each (not including late fees).
You’ve overpaid approximately $337.12 over that time period or $8.87 per month.
Here’s some more about your renting habits…
You kept each rental for around 29 days on average.
The longest you kept a single DVD was 194 days: .
You rented about 2 DVDs each month.
You’re not taking full advantage of your current plan. You could be renting 13 DVDs each month.
Ouch. It really seems that we have wasted a lot of money on Netflix. I feel a lot better about putting the subscription on hold last week.
In case you’re wondering - the movie we kept the longest was Terms of Endearment, we eventually did watch it. The movie with the fastest turn-around time was Redbelt. The best movie I have ever rented from Netflix: The Last King of Scotland or The Queen. -
Exhibit A:
Man, I’m really hoping we get the beer coozie. My beers always get lukewarm when I’m at the NASCAR track.
P.S. - This is just trying to be funny. Evie and I aren’t having another baby anytime soon. -
Evie and I spent the weekend (without kids) in Kansas City, primarily sleeping late and eating barbeque for as many meals as we could stand. We did tear away from the burnt ends long enough to visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. It is a really good museum with some real masterpieces - my favorite was this painting of John the Baptist by Carvaggio.
I was in the early modern (20th century) gallery which had a bunch of stupid dada stuff in it and I overheard a conversation between two kids (probably 10 & 8 years old) while their mother was browsing:Older Brother: Do you see this chair, it’s not to sit on. It’s art. (he repeated this a few times to get her attention)
Little Sister: How is a chair art?
Older Brother: Anything can be art.
Little Sister: (going for the little-sister-kill) What about this floor? Is it art?
Older Brother: Anything can be art.
Little Sister: (while dancing in place now) Look at me, I’m dancing on art.
The mother wisely stepped in before it turned into a serious art debate.
Their immensely clever debate came to mind when I saw this new video from the Improv Anywhere group, enjoy:
