Friday Roundup

• We're all still recovering from the insanity of the Christmas season. Christmas decorations have been taken down, but I have not yet lugged them to storage. By the way, the "War on Christmas" has taken its toll. As I typed this entry, my political correctness conscience kept pushing me toward typing "Holiday."
• The Magical Mystery Christmas Tour of Texas for Shannon and Me covered the following cities: Potosi (outside of Abilene), Holly Lake (Tyler), Jacksonville (Tyler), Plano, Lewisville, Keller, and Waco.
• We attended our first ever Commish's Casino Night at my old high school hang-out, The Sants (the Floyd household). The cookies there were phenomenal, especially a plate of Commish's famous "Dese Nuts" cookies. It was great to see old high school friends. We're all getting old, be we ain't dead yet.
• Special thanks to Santa Olie-O for the Bama mini helmet and the state of Texas calendar. Both items are proudly hanging in my dismal cubicle at work.
• Jon Merril's Austin Pop Culture Trivia Contest is coming soon. This contest, modeled after the awesome VH1 show, has been in the works for many months. January 20th is the preliminary targeted date, but nothing is confirmed yet.
• The next cooking contest is also just around the corner. The Soup or Salad challenge will again test creativity and cooking acumen. It's always a great party! Details to come here and via E-vite sometime soon.

Yet Another E-Mail Forward Hoax...

I just received this picture of a gigantic rabbit via e-mail.

The purpose of this posting was going to be all about how people are always emailing urban legends, unverified stories, and photoshopped fake pictures. I was going to look at how the mystical medium of e-mail is so effective at the spreading of these tall tales and phony stories.

Is it that everyday is so mundane that we really want to believe the outrageous stuff that hits our in-boxes?

Perhaps we all have a strong desire to entertain and impress the folks in our distribution lists. It doesn't matter if the information in the forwarded e-mails is entirely true. What is important is that it gives a moment of enjoyment, disbelief, or, even a few laughs to the recipient.

I was going to conclude by telling the loyal audience here that www.snopes.com is your friend. This site offers a way to immediately check the veracity of e-mail forward that you receive. You, too, can become the Captain FunSquasher who chimes in on e-mail forwards with the sad truth that it's all a bunch of hooey.

A funny thing happened on the way to my soap box. This outrageous, obviously fake photoshop rabbit photo is apparently not an e-mail forward hoax. So, please just enjoy these photos of the giant rabbit named "Herman". Oh, and snopes.com is still your friend.

Wait, it's real?!

Tribute to a Friend

Day after day we have worked together. When I first left the good times of college and staked my cubicular claim in the business world, I had no idea how close we would become. Any problem, no matter how big or small, can be solved in your grid of dreams with your formulas of hope.

I've made shopping lists, graphical household budgets, and multi-billion dollar financial statements with your steadfast support. Heck, you helped even helped plan my wedding. The color coding and sorting options for our guest list was great.

Unsung Hero:
You have a legion of devoted fans, yet there are no stories on CNN or in the filler segments of the local news. Millions of us speak your secret language, but never to each other.

Control-C, Control-V
Alt - E - E
Alt F S
Control - Page Down

This is a tribute to my best business partner, Excel. May all your macros run without run-time errors, and may your #REF? and #NAME?s be rare.

Puzzler of the Day

Dear Blog Audience:
You as a collective group are extremely intelligent because of the following factors:

• You are skillful and shrewd internet users who have transcended forwarding emails and discovered the nirvana of the blog world
• You have good taste in blogs
  

Lest your frighteningly keen intellect begin to atrophy, we will be throwing up periodic puzzlers. Please feel free to post the answer, because the first correct commenter will receive a luxurious prize or a congratulations.

Please do not cheat by Googling up the correct answer. It's exactly what I would do in your shoes, but please don't sink to my level.

P-p-p-p-UZZLER!
Carl and I started out making the same salary.

Then, last year, Carl got a raise of 10 percent. I think they cited two things that primarily were responsible for that: perfect attendance and improved grooming.

And I got a pay cut of 10 percent. So while Carl got an increase of 10 percent, my pay was cut by 10 percent. The reason they gave was "poor puzzler performance."

Now, this year, however, they raised my salary by 10 percent, and they had the good sense to reduce Carl's by 10 percent.

The question is, who's making more money now, and why?

(borrowed shamelessly from Click and Clack's beautiful radio program):

Onion Chopping Salvation

Just about every recipe in the book starts out with sauteeing some chopped onions. I dread this lacrimoniously excruciating task every time.

I've tried a number of remedies to ameliorate the "IT BURNS, IT BURNS!" factor of the onion. I've refrigerated them and run cold water on them. I've chopped with great swiftness to finish up before the spread of the toxic cloud. None of these approaches prevent the conjunctivitis.

So, I want to give thanks to www.lifehacker.com for this great cooking. Don't say I never did nothin' for you.

Click here for onion chopping tips. No more tears.

Why onion chopping burns eyes (nice explanation)

Thank you, Mrs. Roboto

This weekend, at the First Lego League Robotics Competition at the beautiful University of Texas campus, Shannon coached two teams of smarty pants science kids to glorious victory.

Shannon’s robot teams, made of kids from her after-school Science Club, are some interesting young intellectuals. Let me tell you, these are the type of kid that would answer “math” when asked for a favorite subject. This is in stark contrast to their lovely peers who would answer, “lunch, recess, or MySpace.”

What in the world are you talking about?

From Firstlegoleague.org

“This is an international program for children ages 9-14 that combines a hands-on, interactive robotics program with a sports-like atmosphere. Teams consist of up to 10 players with the focus on such things as team building, problem solving, creativity, and analytical thinking.

Each September, a new Challenge is unveiled to FLL International teams across the world. Over the course of 8 weeks, they strategize, design, build, program, test and refine a fully autonomous robot capable of completing the various missions of the FLL International "Robot Game" Using the LEGO MINDSTORMS™ technology.”

I, for one, welcome our new Lego Robot Overlords

Shannon and her two teams, the RoboJags and the cleverly named Luddites threw down some crazy robot good times this last Saturday.

I was seriously dragging from a late night of playing Guitar Hero 2 with friends, but the pure nerd energy and science goodness from this event was invigorating. The robots performed pretty well, but it was The Luddites’ humorous skit that would win accolades on this day.

Nano The Alamo:
Tasked with researching a creative use for nano-technology, they performed a skit about the theoretical impact of nano-technology liquid armor on the battle of the Alamo.

They had nerf darts flying everywhere, humorous asides, and a deep understanding of the science involved with nano-technology. The judges laughed the entire time, and Shannon was stunned and somewhat mortified by her team’s free-wheeling, whimsical presentation.

Something must have clicked, because they won a cool 2^nd place trophy out of 30+ teams for their research presentation. Shannon continues her championship ways. The best part was seeing how unbelievably happy the kids were to win a prize after their robots struggled in the mission competition.

The Actual Trophy (not actual size)

Shannon kept repeating the two goals for the competition: to learn and to have fun. The kids were certainly having a great time in this academically-charged environment. We are all already fired up about next year’s competition. I’m going to try and assistant coach the team and serve as a mentor. Being married to a science teacher does rock, indeed!

Some possible fundraising to buy more robots for the science classes of Cedar Valley Middle School is in the works. This program gives gifted kids an exciting team sport that teaches them math, science, and teamwork, and I want to support it.

Congratulations again to Shannon and her awesome RoboJags and Luddites.

Worst Album Covers of All Time

Worst Album Covers of All Time. These are truly bad, yet so good.

We're Back

Apologies to the loyal readership here. The magical Christmas Tour of Texas has finally concluded. There will be plenty of new postings coming soon.