Bag of Randomness for Thursday, March 22, 2018

  • The Austin package bomber was able to be tracked down because he was caught on a FedEx security camera. Whenever I see video from those cameras, I’m surprised they are at an obscure angle which doesn’t capture the face and they aren’t upgraded to HD.
  • Several counterterrorism experts like to point out what the bomber did wrong in order to get caught. I like the analysis, but I don’t like telling bad guys how to do their job better.
  • Texas Monthly – Attorney General Ken Paxton Spread False Information on Austin Bombings – Paxton incorrectly whipped up fear on Sean Hannity’s national television show.
  • I feel like the U.S. public is past the porn in which they need to introduce Stormy Daniels as pornstar Stormy Daniels.
  • Pope Francis tells aspiring priests to ‘not be scared of tattoos’ and to use them to encourage dialogue – ‘With young people one should never be scared. Never. Because always, even behind the things that are not so good, there is something that will bring us to some truth’
  • It’s a slippery slope – LONDON — A man has died of a heart attack after reportedly getting his head trapped in a movie theater seat in Birmingham, England, as he tried to retrieve a dropped cellphone.
  • The day after my physical therapy session my back muscles were sore as heck.
  • I’m not sure what to think of ‘The X-Files’ series finale which aired last night. I did prefer it to the “first” series finale back in 2002. The cliffhanger didn’t seem like much of a cliffhanger and I don’t think things were wrapped up, but I expected as much. I guess my biggest gripe was that the finale was only an hour and it all felt a bit rushed.
  • Ranking the Places with the Most (and Least) Fast Food in America
    • We analyzed data from Priceonomics customer Datafiniti, a data company that maintains a database of restaurants, to see where fast food restaurants were located (and where they weren’t). Then, by sorting the data geographically and adjusting for population size, we can see what areas of the country have the highest concentration of fast food restaurants.
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Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, March 21, 2018

  • My physical therapist engaged in some small talk yesterday and asked what I did over the weekend. I mentioned Lou Ferrigno was at the Texas Pinball and he said that for the longest time he never knew he played the Hulk, he just knew him from ‘The King of Queens’. Apparently, Ferrigno played himself and was the neighbor in the show.
  • A Coppell high school student wearing a University of Texas t-shirt was doing his physical therapy the same time as me. He talked about the different college campuses he toured. When he talked about the University of Texas campus, he said everything felt close together, that it felt small and crowded. I’m not sure what his definition of small and crowded is, but then again I attended Hardin-Simmons, which I thought was extremely small. Funny thing about HSU, they also refer to themselves as “The Forty Acres“.
    • After the original land grant of 16 acres grew to 40, the campus was nicknamed the Forty Acres. Forty acres was the traditional size of homesteads in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Now encompassing more than 200 acres, the main campus sits on 66 acres.
  • Growing up in Mineral Wells, I don’t recall any of my friends touring college campuses, or at least making trips which required a flight. Most knew where they wanted to go, which was basically A&M, Tarleton, or starting their basics at then Weatherford College. It’s been unique living in the Metroplex and attending church with affluent members and hearing stories of their kids touring the campuses of legendary to places like UCLA, Penn, Pepperdine, Stanford, Michigan, and other “unreachable” places.
  • U2’s new tour will feature augmented reality and longer sets. I’m a bit worried about the augmented reality thing, everyone is going to have to have their cell phones out and that will be distracting.
  • Fox News analyst blasts network as ‘propaganda machine’ while announcing departure
  • All the Things the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Novelization Adds to the Movie
  • Harrison Ford will be 76 – Steven Spielberg Will Start Filming Indiana Jones 5 Next Year
  • Lindsay Lohan Appointed New Spokesperson of Lawyer.com
  • 32 Teams, 7 Days, 1 Gym -For true madness, see the N.A.I.A. basketball tournament in Kansas City.
    • Many call the more popular — and more lucrative — 68-team N.C.A.A. basketball tournament “madness.” But compared with the N.A.I.A. event, that is just a three-week, 14-city corporate show. The N.A.I.A.’s version is truly nuts: 32 teams, seven days and one shared hotel. It is a virtual assembly line of college basketball, and for the true hoops fanatic it is basketball paradise.
  • Hang in there, Austin.
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