Bag of Randomness for Monday, March 9, 2020

 

We used our extra hour of daylight to practice some hitting.

https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1235974551487623168

This is my new favorite sport.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9edCYLBhXU/

Most parents do not successfully transmit their political values to their children, study finds

Less than half of all people in the United States adopt their parents’ political party affiliation, according to new research published in the British Journal of Political Science. The study also discovered some factors that appear to influence whether parents successfully transmit their partisan identities to their children.

“Most parents want to raise their children with the ‘right’ values. What is right, of course, depends upon the parent but understanding what factors might aid or harm a parent’s ability to successful transmit their values to their children is important to many, particularly in this era of hyper polarization,” said study author Pete Hatemi, a distinguished professor at Penn State University.

“Generally speaking, if there has been one constant in the study of political behavior it was the belief that political orientations are reliably transmitted from parents to children. The problem is that the evidence of this belief has almost entirely relied upon the concordance between self-reported parent and child values.”

I get a kick out of how Kathryn McKinnon is trying not to break character and laugh.

https://twitter.com/nbcsnl/status/1236523965759262720

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” turns 42

Yet on March 8th fans of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (“HHGTTG”) will pay tribute to the comedy science-fiction series, which had its radio premiere on that day in 1978 and was subsequently adapted into novels, TV series, video games and a film.

Gyms and Coronavirus: What Are the Risks? – Sweat cannot transmit the virus but high-contact surfaces, such as barbells, can pose a problem, a doctor said.

Newspaper prints blank pages as substitute for toilet paper amid shortage

An Australian newspaper printed an extra eight pages to be used as toilet paper after coronavirus fears prompted customers to bulk-buy supplies, leaving some supermarket shelves bare.

In a bid to tackle the shortage, The NT News provided a practical — if unconventional — solution.

2-legged Ohio dog named ‘Lieutenant Dan’ is a finalist to be the next Cadbury Bunny

 

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Bag of Randomness for Friday, March 6, 2020

I wonder if Mike Bloomberg started his campaign earlier if he would have won several caucuses and primaries. The man has zero charisma, but he controls a media company that was founded on gathering, organizing, and analyzing stats, and money was not a problem. I’m not advocating for the man, it just seems with all of that at his arsenal, he could have done better. An earlier start would have al least allowed him more time to deal with the NDA’s, stop and frisk policy, and everything else.

I’m a sucker for Amazon Basics products.

Pfizer, the maker of Purell, will have some strong quarterly earnings coming up.  Costco as well.

President Trump has to be stressing about the stock market volatility as of late. Sure, there have been record gains he can boast about, but one of the surest signs is a stable market, not one which has record gains and losses.

Uncle Barkey may no longer be updating his website covering local media, but he’s doing it now for something called the Katy Trail Weekly.

Photographer Captures the Touching Bond Between a Dog and an Owl

 

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Bag of Randomness for Thursday, March 5, 2020

I took a regular trip to Costco, no bulking up on items out of fear, I just wanted their $5 rotisserie chicken to feed the family for a couple of days. As people pushed their cart inside, Costco employees politely stopped them so they could wipe their cart handles with an antibacterial wipe.

Sigh.

Just a friendly reminder that a different Far Side cartoon appears daily at TheFareSide.com.

Welcome to the neighborhood, 945 – Dallas-Fort Worth is getting a new area code because its population is growing so much

Officials say phone numbers starting with 214, 469 and 972 are expected to run out within the first three months of 2021.

Once they run out, that’s when the new area code 945 will be assigned.Any new numbers starting with 945 will be assigned in 2021, officials say.

Even though I’m not into it, I think drone racing is cool. But anytime I see any footage I wonder how it will be incorporated into modern warfare (perhaps it’s already is, of course, big drones with missiles are already in use but I’m talking about small fast ones). I also muse about a potential movie in which the CIA or military recruits some 19-year-old kid who does this as a hobby but considered one of the best in some underground drone racing league. Or, more darkly, how terrorists use this and what’s done to counteract the threat.

BMW’s round logo is receiving its first redesign in more than two decades.

The German automaker’s refreshed logo ditches the black ring for a transparent circle. The rest of it, including the typeface, has a flatter and more modern look. The blue and white emblem inside the ring remains.

BMW’s previous logo made its debut in 1997. The company has had six logos in its 103-year-old history, all of them largely similar.

Here’s an interesting test using a LifeStraw. This guy (could be a gal with man-hands) placed some grass and leaves in a container of water for eight days and then examined the water 100x, 400x, and 1000x magnification with and without the use of a LifeStraw. For added kicks, he put samples in a petri dish.

It’s odd that the latest Star Wars trilogy started with someone using the Force to stop blaster bolts in mid-air yet we never saw that unique defense ability again throughout the rest of the series.

New Batmobile footage.

https://twitter.com/mattreevesLA/status/1235261421425958912

My neighbor’s son passed his driving exam. His experience got me thinking of the movie License to Drive and the “Uncle Phil” coffee on the dashboard test.

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Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Seeing Barry Corbin in last night’s Better Call Saul was an unexpected but happy surprise.

My neighbor is taking his son to take his driver’s test today. Last night he asked me if I had any cones or knew anywhere he could go so his son could practice his parallel parking. That brought back memories of the empty house lot next to Coach King’s house in Mineral Wells which had two cemented poles for driving education students to practice. For kicks, I decided to see if those poles are still there. Nope.

I doubt anyone could challenge me on this, but the most beautiful thing to ever come out of Philadelphia (well, other than our country’s founding documents because this is America and all) is Grace Kelly. And now for some Grace Kelly trivia, her father won three Olympic gold medals for sculling (rowing) and owned a successful brickwork contracting company. FDR appointed him as the National Director of Physical Fitness. Her mother was the first woman to coach women’s athletics at the University of Pennsylvania. And, her Aunt Edna created the question mark. OK, that last sentence is totally false (I think).

I filed my taxes yesterday. For the second time in our life, we won’t get anything back. But that was somewhat expected as WifeGeeding moved from working part-time as a director of a preschool to becoming a fulltime kindergarten teacher.

Years ago I hired a roofing company to install radiant barrier foil in the attic. Recently, a significant portion has fallen off so I asked if they would come out and repair it. Initially, they quoted me $500 for labor but I pointed out to them that their website states parts and labor are warranted for a lifetime. The owner thanked me for pointing out what’s on his website because he had no idea that was on there and kuddos for him as he honored what was on there.

Former White House physician Ronny Jackson is running for a seat in Congress for Texas’s 13th District. He recently admitted to trying to get President Trump to exercise and hiding cauliflower in his mashed potatoes. Maybe that’s why he plays a lot of golf, he’s just trying to get his exercise.

“The exercise stuff never took off as much as I wanted it to,” he said. “But we were working on his diet. We were making the ice cream less accessible, we were putting cauliflower into the mashed potatoes.”

The former physician left the White House after withdrawing his name for consideration as the nominee to become the Veterans Affairs secretary amid allegations of professional misconduct.

Japan is getting mayonnaise slices.

Created by Japanese food giant Bourbon, the unusual condiment which will be launched next month, has divided reaction on social media. The slices follow on from the company’s foray into chocolate spread slices, which was a roaring success. Some Twitter users have dubbed them an innovative solution to saving time when making sandwiches and called them ‘the best thing since sliced bread’, while others claim it’s ‘disgusting’ and ‘a step too far’.

I’m panicking just watching this.

 

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