Bag of Randomness for Thursday, March 16, 2017

  • I hear NBC’s ‘This Is Us’ is a great television show, but I’m at a point in my life where I can no longer watch emotional television or movies because it hits me too hard. When I was younger and didn’t have much perspective or experienced a lot of perils of life, it was easy to watch that sort of stuff. Now, I just can’t bring myself to do it.
  • A fan recently sent Dirk Nowitzki a potato.
  • After watching ‘The Americans’ on the DVR last night, this image popped up on the screen. My first thought was, what is former ‘Daily Show’ correspondent Aasif Mandvi doing on WFAA?

    That’s not Mandvi but reporter Jobin Panicker.  Isn’t “Panicker” a funny name for a reporter? Anyways, here’s a picture of Aasif Mandvi.
  • Buzzfeed – Disney Princess Bikinis
  • GIF – Jedi with a GoPro
  • GIF – Don’t stop petting

  • On last’s night’s ‘Modern Family’ Haily got “the Barnicle” put on her car. I’ve never seen such a thing, but it’s an alternative to a carboot. Per TechCrunch:

    • The Barnacle is a bright yellow 20-pound piece of plastic that sticks to the windshield with 750 pounds of force. The parking enforcement officer only has to pump the device a half dozen times to stick the two giant suction cups to the glass. He sets the alarm and tracking system using the keypad built into the device. If you come to your Barnacled car and try to drive away anyway, a high-pitched alarm will sound.
    • I’ll also like to state this is a clear case of hidden paid advertisement. #PlayfullyTrolling
  • He Got a Bad Grade. So, He Got the Constitution Amended. Now He’s Getting the Credit He Deserves.
    • This story involves the 27th Amendment. He received a “C” on his paper as a college sophomore in 1982, and 35 years later he got the professor to sign a form to officially change the grade to an “A+”.
    • Most people would have just taken the grade and left it at that. Gregory is not most people. “So I thought right then and there, ‘I’m going to get that thing ratified.’”
    • “In light of the student’s heroic efforts to prove the professor and T.A. wrong in their assessment of his term paper, Mr. Watson deserves A+. Goodness, he certainly proved he knew how to work the Constitution and what it meant and how to be politically active,” she says. It still has to be stamped by some people at UT, but when it is, 35 years after Gregory wrote his paper, he’ll finally get that C changed to an A.
  • Texas woman in midst of modeling shoot when struck by train
  • Substitute teacher hid box of wine in purse, police say
  • Regarding optics, I think the top of this article has a tremendous picture of President Trump speaking to a crowd with Air Force One in the background – Trump Force One Is Ready for Takeoff – After decades in the sky, the president’s fleet is finally getting an upgrade—unless the new passenger-in-chief adds turbulence.
    • Some tidbits:
      • Presidents weren’t even allowed in helicopters until 1956. After a Camp David evacuation drill, during which President Dwight Eisenhower’s limousine got stuck behind a truck on a winding road, the Secret Service relented on its long-standing safety objection to single-engine helicopters. The next year the Air Force procured two small, bubble-nosed Bells, similar to those seen in the opening sequence of M*A*S*H. Eisenhower took precisely one flight. It was another evacuation drill, this time in July, and he baked as the cramped cockpit’s canopy absorbed the full power of the Washington sun. When it came time that fall to take another helicopter, Eisenhower asked for a large Marine transport aircraft—and the tradition of the Marines flying the commander-in-chief was born. One of the first things they did was install an air conditioner.
      • The U.S. is the only country that provides its chief executive with helicopters around the world. That is, when heads of state of other countries go abroad and need a vertical lift, they often rely on the hosts’ equipment. When the U.S. president goes overseas, he brings his own helicopters—often in flights of three, to serve as backups, fly staff, and function as decoys for would-be assassins.
      • As dreamed up, the new Marine One could fly more people farther, faster, and at a higher level of performance than any other executive helicopter on the planet. The idea was to create a true Oval Office in the sky, with videoconferencing, a galley, and a flushing toilet, as well as heavy armor and protection from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Eisenhower would have approved of the climate control: The cabin had to remain between 68F and 76F, whether the outside temperature was -5 or 100.
  • Into the woods: how one man survived alone in the wilderness for 27 years
    • At the age of 20, Christopher Knight parked his car on a remote trail in Maine and walked away with only the most basic supplies. He had no plan. His chief motivation was to avoid contact with people. This is his story
  • Snow in coming!
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment

Race The Tube

This seems like something I’d do when I was younger, but I wouldn’t be in as good of shape and miss the train by about four minutes.

Posted in Goofy | Comments Off on Race The Tube

Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, March 15, 2017

  • The wife and kids are gone to visit grandparents and I was looking forward to just a little of Netflix and chill last night, but that didn’t happen. The new neighbors are a bit up there in age and I notice one of them trying to sweep a large pile of leaves, so I thought I’d go over, introduce myself, and help out with my leaf blower. I didn’t get started with the leaf blowing until three hours later, they are quite the talkers and every time I thought I had a chance to end the conversation, something new popped up. It’s hard when they start pouring their heart out when they just placed a child in rehab among other things. And then they started to tell me all about their ancestry which includes a parent of George Washington and how they are a cousin of an Oscar-nominated actor. Oh, and then they busted out the pictures. They are certainly nice, but they also have the gift of gab.
  • Study: 4-in-5 Oklahoma City students can’t read clocks – A new study shows that only 1-in-10 Oklahoma City kids ages 6-12 own a watch. And only 1-in-5 know how to read it.
  • ‘The Matrix’ Reboot in the Works at Warner Bros. – Sources say there is potential interest in Michael B. Jordan to star, but much must be done before the project is ready to go. 
  • News factoid that may only interest me – Walter Cronkite’s grandson, Walter Cronkite IV, has been working for the CBS News’ DC bureau since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter at @wcronkite.
  • Texans Receive First Notices of Land Condemnation for Trump’s Border Wall
    – The government offered $2,900 for 1.2 acres near the Rio Grande. If Flores chooses not to accept the offer, the land could be seized through eminent domain.
  • I like it when stuff like this happens and don’t consider it hokey – Roadtrip! Democrat, Republican embark on cross-country drive to DC amid snowstorm
    • A bipartisan pair of members of Congress set off on a road trip from San Antonio, Texas Tuesday, heading toward Washington, D.C. after they both realized their flights were canceled due to the East Coast snowstorm. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, who represents El Paso, happened to be at an event in San Antonio Monday with Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and they decided to rent a car together and hold a live Facebook town hall during their roadtrip.
    • I want to see the next two presidential candidates take at least an eight-hour roadtrip and for it to be broadcast.
  • When the Children Crashed Dad’s BBC Interview: The Family Speaks – In their first interview, Korea expert Robert Kelly and his wife, Kim Jung-A, describe the circumstances, chaos, and global reaction to their now-infamous home-office Skype catastrophe; ‘she was in a hippity-hoppity mood’
  • My first thought was of the Schwarzenegger flick The Running Man“Wheel of Fugitive” becomes new weapon for law enforcement –
  • Buzzfeed – Navy Officials Charged With Corruption Allegedly Used General MacArthur Memorabilia During A Sex Party
  • I was perusing the White House website and thought it was interesting they use internet slang.
  • This AP photo shows how different the skin tone is of President Trump face and hand.
Posted in Personal | 5 Comments

Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, March 14, 2017

  • I watched the first two episodes of HBO’s ‘Crashing” last night and this line stood out, “I wonder what the employee discount is at the dollar store?” I laughed harder than I should when I heard it. The second episode had a few Jars of Clay references which I also found personally funny. Gosh, I used to love that group so much.
  • A lot of political attention was on Kellyanne Conway’s comment about a microwave possibly being used for surveillance, which really didn’t bother me. However, I thought more attention should have been on her comment about not needing evidence, “I’m not in the job of having evidence.” But you know what, I think Kellyanne is a pretty name.
  • Jim Nance has a tradition of giving away the tie he’s wearing to a senior who has inspired him throughout the tournament after the NCAA men’s basketball championship game. He does this to honor his father and to try to rid the world of Alzheimer’s. Until reading this article yesterday, I never heard of this tradition. I like Nance, I think he’s a good guy, but he just hams it up a little and often wonder if he lost a bet long ago since he has to work along side Phil Simms.
    • “My voice is my dad’s voice,” Nantz said. “I sound exactly like him, but no one ever interviewed him. But I have a recorder in front of me and so my voice on this has to be heard. I can tell you this: If I don’t see Alzheimer’s wiped out before I die, my life will not be successful.”
  • The New Yorker has a long article about how members of Congress handle communications and their levels of effectiveness. I’ve cut and pasted some of the more interesting parts.
    • No matter how a message comes in—by phone, e-mail, post, fax, carrier pigeon—it is entered into a software program known as a constituent-management system. Owing to stringent security requirements, only a few of these systems are authorized by Congress, and many members use one called Intranet Quorum, made by Leidos.
    • For mass protests, such as those that have been happening recently, phone calls are a better way of contacting lawmakers, not because they get taken more seriously but because they take up more time—thereby occupying staff, obstructing business as usual, and attracting media attention. E-mails get the message through but are comparatively swift and easy for staffers to process, while conventional mail is at a disadvantage when speed matters, since, in addition to the time spent in transit, anything sent to Congress is temporarily held for testing and decontamination, to protect employees from mail bombs and toxins. Afterward, most constituent mail is scanned and forwarded to congressional offices as an electronic image.
    • Some forms of correspondence, however, do not carry quite as much weight, starting with anything that comes from outside a legislator’s district or state.
    • Other messages that staffers tend to disregard include tweets and Facebook posts (less out of dismissiveness than because of the difficulty of determining if they come from constituents), online petitions (because they require so little effort that they aren’t seen as meaningful), comments submitted through apps like Countable, and mass e-mails that originate from the Web sites of advocacy groups. (These last have a particularly bad reputation. According to the C.M.F., almost half of staffers believe, incorrectly, that they are sent without the constituent’s knowledge.
    • Likewise, phone calls that hew to scripts from advocacy organizations usually get downgraded, especially if the caller seems ill-informed about the issue. Such calls also tend to annoy staffers.
  • Ezekiel Elliott sure is a talent on the football field, but he’s no role model when it comes to respecting women.
  • Former Penn State officials plead guilty for roles in Sandusky sex-abuse cover-up
    • The CBS Evening News used this picture for former university Vice President Gary Schultz. With that shortened mustache and last name, I immediately thought of  Sergeant Schultz from ‘Hogan’s Heros’.
  • TMZ – Ex-Baylor Football Player Attacks Woman… Goes berserk on cop
    • An ex-Baylor football player was arrested in Vegas this morning after cops say he roughed up a woman and then went CRAZY on police … kicking out the back window of a squad car.  The man facing the allegations is 22-year-old Tre’Von Armstead — who was infamously linked to the Baylor University football cover up scandal. FYI, Armstead was named in a rape investigation in 2013 … but Baylor reportedly failed to take action for roughly 2 years. Armstead was eventually dismissed from the team in 2015 for a “violation of team rules.”
  • Dave Bliss repeats charge that murdered Baylor basketball player was a drug dealer
    • It was long believed that Bliss fabricated the story, which he coached players to share with investigators, that Dennehy was a drug dealer. Sunday, however, Bliss repeated his words from the film that the story was true.
  • Buzzfeed – Don Draper’s Heinz Pitch Will Be Turned Into A Real-Life Ad
  • Russell Moore, Frank Page unite in wake of Baptist controversy over Trump
  • Tesla tries a new, ambitious approach at Texas Capitol – A pair of bills filed Friday would allow any vehicle manufacturer to sell directly to Texans — bypassing the middleman dealers — in the biggest challenge yet to a longstanding state ban on the practice.
  • How Stephen Colbert Got His Groove Back – While Fallon’s show still skews younger, Colbert has surged ahead of Fallon in overall audience, racking up five consecutive weekly victories.
    • If you follow late night television as much as I do, you knew it was a big deal when Chris Licht arrived to take some of Colbert’s responsibilities, but I didn’t know how that would work until now.
      • Licht, however, was not imported to change the comedic tone of the show or serve as some sort of network nag. His job was to take responsibility for the mechanics of producing five (nearly) live hours of TV each week — which celebrity guest should appear first, when the show should cut to commercial, how to balance different kinds of segments. As Licht told the New York Times last fall, “Anything that doesn’t involve him thinking creatively and enjoying his performance — anything that gets in the way of that, I take.” Colbert, in turn, would finally be free to focus entirely on the funny.
  • The Psychology of the Sample Sale – What makes otherwise mild-mannered shoppers shove each other in the quest for discount goods?
Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, March 14, 2017