Your Bag of Nothing for Monday, November 25, 2024

  • Curious as to why Charles Schlutz named his comic Peanuts, because I always thought it was a horrible name, this was the best I could find:
    • A different name for the comic strip became necessary after legal advice confirmed that Little Folks was a registered trademark.[12] Meanwhile, the production manager of UFS noted the popularity of the children’s program Howdy Doody. The show featured an audience of children who were seated in the “Peanut Gallery”, and were referred to as “Peanuts”. This inspired the decided title that was forced upon Schulz, to his consternation. Schulz hated the title Peanuts, which remained a source of irritation to him throughout his life. He accused the production manager at UFS of not having even seen the comic strip before giving it a title, and he said that the title would only make sense if there was a character named “Peanuts”.
  • Texas QB Quinn Ewers will have an MRI on his banged-up ankle today. There’s a chance Arch Manning may have to start against Little Brother A&M. That makes things interesting. But, from a coaching standpoint, I’m sure Sark, like any other coach, will keep it vague so that A&M has to spend time preparing for both quarterbacks. Not that they wouldn’t anyways, but not as much.


    Little Brother’s head coach with the Freudian slip was pretty funny last week. And yes, they did lose to underdog Auburn because they are A&M.

  • I try my best to ask my friends how their spouses are doing and to say hello to me. But I’m not too fond of it when they are married to someone whose name has various spellings, like Derrick and Sheryl. While I remember their spouse’s name, I can’t remember how it’s spelled for the life of me. A few times, I’ve been vehemently rebuffed.
  • I saw the LA Rams last night honored the St. Louis Rams Superbowl winning team. I’m sure that was awkward for both the fans and the team being celebrated.
  • Saquon Barkley is the best player in the NFL, even better than that QB in KC. The Giants didn’t utilize him to the best of his ability, but Kellen Moore sure does know what to do with him.
  • I’m rooting and predicting a Detroit and Buffalo Super Bowl.
  • I think I’m going to the Stars game this Sunday. The Cowboys won’t be playing and it’s in the middle of the afternoon. Best of all, my daughter wants to go.
  • I had to look up if Bill Cosby was still in jail. He’s not. But, he has certainly kept a very low profile.
  • After posting that new Star Trek video, I went into a Star Trek wormhole. I wasn’t aware there is something called the Star Trek Kelvin Timeline.
  • Dirty play.

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Your Bag of Nothing for Friday, November 22, 2024

  • As much as I enjoyed watching the Steelers and Browns play in the snow, I miss the days when Cleveland’s playing surface was horrendous and the players were covered in mud. The first picture is from the first quarter, and the second is from the third.


  • University of Texas to provide free tuition for students from families earning $100,000 or less
    • The University of Texas System approved the plan Thursday to provide tuition-free education at all nine institutions for undergraduate students from families earning $100,000 or less a year, beginning next fall.
    • A group of current and incoming Texas lawmakers sent a letter to the Board of Regents Thursday questioning the constitutionality of the free tuition plan for students whose families earn $100,000 or less annually.
  • Saber-Toothed Kitten Found After 35,000 Years in Permafrost
    In 2020, scientists made a groundbreaking discovery along the Badyarikha River in Yakutia, Russia. They unearthed the world’s first mummified saber-toothed kitten, a find that has revolutionized our understanding of these ancient predators. This isn’t just any ordinary fossil – the kitten’s remains are exceptionally well-preserved, with fur, whiskers, and claws intact.
  • I thought I knew a lot about human death and the macabre, but these two surprised and creeped me out.14 Chilling Facts About the End of Life
    • Death’s Instant Replay
      • In rare and often traumatic deaths, an immediate and intense form of muscle stiffening called cadaveric spasm can occur and continue into rigor mortis. This phenomenon may preserve the last action a person took before dying, such as clutching a weapon or an object related to their demise. This macabre “snapshot” can offer crucial evidence in investigations, shedding light on the circumstances surrounding the death. Cadaveric spasm is a fascinating yet chilling example of how the body can sometimes retain a haunting echo of its final moments. It’s a reminder that death can be both a mystery and a source of crucial information.
    • The Coffin Birth
      • Also known as “postmortem fetal extrusion,” coffin birth is a rare phenomenon that occurs when gases build up inside the decomposing body of a pregnant woman, causing the fetus to be expelled. This gruesome event has been documented throughout history and often fueled superstitious beliefs. While the scientific explanation for coffin birth is straightforward, the historical accounts often include embellishments and folklore, reflecting the deep-seated fear and fascination surrounding death and the unknown.

  • Even though I think this is pretty cool, the timing of these things often curses real life. In other words, I’m worried Shatner won’t make it through the end of the month.

    Via Trek Movie, we’ve learned that three decades after Star Trek: Generations hit theaters, the Roddenberry Archive, together with OTOY, has rectified this mistake with a short film called 765874 – Unification. Directed by Spanish filmmaker Carlos Baena, it was made with the involvement of Shatner himself, along with the Leonard Nimoy estate. This mostly silent short film will bring tears to the eyes of any longtime Star Trek fan. Especially those who wished Kirk and Spock could have had that one, final reunion. You can watch it in full above.Nerdist

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Your Bag of Nothing for Thursday, November 21, 2024

  • That photo was taken last week in North Texas.
  • In some parallel universe, Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock are married and living in Texas, and their world is pleased. In some other parallel universe, I’m married to Sandra Bullock, and no one is pleased.
  • The monthly special at the pub where we play trivia is the NYC bodega chopped cheese sandwich. I had never heard of it, but a little research has told me that it was invented in the Nineties. I gave it a big thumbs up. Basically, it’s made on a grill with ground beef (typically pre-formed ground beef patties), onions, adobo or other seasonings, and cheese, all of which are chopped together on the grill as the meat and onions cook and the cheese melts and put on a grilled hoagie with mayo and ketchup.
  • Watching the news last night, it was reported that the judge in the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley only needed 30 minutes. That got me wondering if the judge was convinced and already firmly made up his mind, if it’s a requirement for him to step away, or if he can just save everyone time and make the verdict right then?
  • This would totally upend my world as if it hasn’t changed enough over the past four years:
    Federal employees could be faced with a return-to-office mandate

    President-elect Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, a nongovernmental entity helmed by billionaire Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, is expected to make a push for an end to remote work across federal agencies as a way to help reduce the federal workforce through attrition.

    Here’s the one thing that you never hear in these stories, and it directly impacts me. Does this include federal contractors? You’ll often hear politicians talk about shrinking the government and reducing the number of federal workers. But, the amount of work stays the same and needs to get done. To get around this, the government will hire contractors to do the exact same work. So, politicians will claim they were able to reduce the size of government because the federal workforce has decreased, but they don’t mention that private contractors were hired to fill those spots. The money intended to pay government workers is now sent to the private sector, government contracting companies, who actually pay their employees more than what the government workers were making. Here’s the part I never really understood. The federal employee who was let go is often hired by the contracting company because he or she meets all the qualifications for the job but for more money and better benefits. It seems like it would be cheaper to eliminate the middleman, the contracting company, and pay the worker directly for a lower wage. I guess it has something to do with pensions and retirement accounts, but that’s one aspect I never fully understood.

  • Meet your own personal AI Jesus in this Swiss church’s confessional
    A Swiss church is trying a new way of connecting with Jesus in the confessional. It uses AI to simulate the personality of the 1st-century Galileleean for visitors as part of a religiously themed art project called Deus in Machina (God in a Machine). The digital simulacrum of Jesus Christ engages with visitors and offers spiritual guidance based on what people say. The cybernetic savior is also fluent in 100 different languages, enabling it to converse with worshippers from all over the world.If you enter the confessional, you’ll see the AI Jesus displayed on a screen. The decidedly Swiss-looking man from the Roman-run Middle East of two millennia ago listens to people voice their questions or concerns. The AI model underlying the simulation was built by a team from the church working with the Immersive Realities Research Lab at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts using the New Testament as the basis for how Jesus thinks and speaks. So far, it’s performed well.

    Here’s a video segment of it that other articles mentioned went viral.

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Your Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, November 20, 2024

  • The world needs more streakers. There, I said it.
  • One of my oldest and closest friends is on my Tuesday night trivia team and last night was his birthday. You may remember me writing about a box of yellow cake mix a week or two ago. Well, since yellow cake with chocolate icing is his favorite, I decided to bake it and bring it to trivia night. When I walked into the restaurant we play trivia at, I was defeated to see that there was already a cake on the table. Thinking he wasn’t going to have a birthday cake, he bought one for himself and to share with the team. That’s my kind of luck.
  • I feel incredibly stressed because of the number of tabs I have open on multiple browsers on my laptop and phone.
  • This the moment Olympic triathlete Taylor Knibb tells a camera operator during a live TV race: “I just s**t myself… can you not get my ass?”
  • Some kids doodle on the church bulletin. Others draw. BoyGeeding works out random math problems. That’s my boy!
  • Comedian Tom Green was in the news yesterday about a recent interview he did about leaving Hollywood and embracing the life of a farmer in Canada. Good for him. Some people loved his comedy, you can’t count me as one of them.
  • I date a lot, more than I’d like. It’s nice to meet a lot of new women, but I want a relationship full of substance. I told one date last week how someone who was looking after me shared some life advice that I’ve adopted, “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems.” The next day, she shared this. I know a lot of you will recognize the source. But I found it all profound and that I’d share with you in hopes it helps make your life better too.

    “When I stopped living in the problem and began living in the answer, the problem went away. And, acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitude.

  • Suicide survivor says he ‘looked like a person again’ after facial transplant surgery

    • Pfaff’s 50-plus-hour transplant surgery was performed in February at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, involving a team of at least 80 health care professionals.The team surgically removed the face of a donor and then surgically implanted the donor tissue onto Pfaff to restore his face structure and functions. About 85% of his face was reconstructed and replaced with donor tissue, Mardini said.

    • I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to look at your new face for the first time.

      Pfaff was told to wait about a month after the transplant before looking at his new face, and in that time, Mardini said, his patient met with a psychiatrist to prepare for the big reveal. “He wasn’t allowed to have a camera, his phone, his iPad,” mom Lisa Pfaff said. “The mirror in the bathroom was covered so he couldn’t see himself.” Exactly 10 years after that fateful night – March 5, 2024 – when Pfaff finally was able to see his new face for the first time.

    • I wish the article mentioned what it must be like to have another human’s face and thoughts and perspectives from the donor’s family. When most folks and their families choose to become an organ donor, no one thinks about their face being the thing that’s being transplanted.
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