Bag of Randomness for Thursday, September 8, 2016

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  • An MD was kind enough to leave a comment yesterday. I always wondered if being called “Doc” is annoying to them, like the abbreviation and lack of use of the last name is disrespectful. Or when they hear they phrase, “What’s up doc?”, do they immediately think of Bugs Bunny or it’s so commonly used it doesn’t do a thing.
  • Timewaster – The Google allows you to play tic-tac-toe.
  • I knew every MLB ballpark had different field dimensions, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I learned not all home and visitor dugouts are on the same side. In case you are wondering, 18 clubs (including the Rangers) have their home dugouts on the first base side, 12 have their home dugouts on the third base side.
    • Random bit of dugout trivia – Historic Cardines Field, home of the Newport Gulls, uniquely features both dugouts on the first base side.
  • Times have changed – Playing on natural grass a rare luxury for Texas football teams
    • Synthetic field turf had been around for a decade and a half and now it’s everywhere. Among 6A and 5A programs in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, only Cleburne plays all its home games on grass. The Frisco schools use Toyota Stadium on a regular basis but their other two home sites have artificial turf.
  • There was a lot of talk yesterday about The Dallas Morning News endorsing Hillary Clinton, the first Democrat in 75 years and nearly 20 elections.
    • That made me wonder, why the heck wouldn’t they have endorsed LBJ, a product of the Lone Star State? Thanks to television critic Ed Bark, I learned it they decided to abstain in the 1964 LBJ and Goldwater race, and then it made sense. An endorsement of the home state boy who became president in your city only after the acting president was assassinated in your city would have been in bad taste and/or a conflict of interests.
    • The Star-Telegram’s Bud Kennedy provided an image of the Dallas Morning News’ last endorsement of a Democrat for president, I think.
    • I never understood why a newspaper would endorse a candidate considering the media is supposed to be unbiased.
  • Florida news – Woman seeking revenge on ex-boyfriend sets wrong car on fire
  • Recently spotted in a Florida Wal-Mart –
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  • California news – Woman sees her photo on funeral fund jars, but she’s not dead
    • If that happened to me, I’d like to know how much money was donated.
  • Spotted in South Carolina
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  • There was a story on the ‘CBS Evening News’ (video) in which Arizona Congresswoman Martha McSally was interviewed. In the segment, a picture of the retired United States Air Force Colonel as a pilot was shown, and I thought she was a Top Gun “Maverick” doppelganger.
    screenshot-2016-09-07-at-7-40-05-pm
  • How to raise a genius: lessons from a 45-year study of super-smart children – A long-running investigation of exceptional children reveals what it takes to produce the scientists who will lead the twenty-first century.
Posted in Personal | 5 Comments

Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, September 7, 2016

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  • The doctor I was seeing sold his practice and moved on to other things. One thing I liked about him is that depending on the illness, you could ask for a prescription to be sent to the pharmacist and not have to go in for an office visit. Many doctors to this. The new practice is not a believer in such a thing. Appointments are difficult to schedule, and I’m thinking the only reason they refuse to call in any prescription to a pharmacist without an office visit is purely financial on their part. There’s a part of me that can’t blame them for trying to make a profit, but then there’s another part of me that think they should be flexible.
  • BoyGeeding asked who was stronger, He-Man or the Hulk. I’m going with the Hulk. He-Man may be considered the “most powerful man in the universe,” but, the Hulk’s “capacity for physical strength is potentially limitless due to the fact that the Hulk’s strength increases proportionally with his level of great emotional stress, anger in particular.”
  • I would also say the Hulk is strong than Superman, but Superman would in a battle of outsmarting him. See, the Hulk gets stronger the more stressed and angrier he gets, Superman would find a way to keep him from getting too stressed and angry, limiting his strength, and then duping him into something.
  • I miss how cartoons like He-Man and GI Joe would end with some sort of recap detailing a life lesson displayed in the show.
  • If you are familiar with children’s books, this might hit home – Children’s Author, Illustrator of Llama Llama Stories Dies of Brain Cancer
    • And this should pull at your heart strings, and a fitting tribute:
      • In lieu of a funeral, Dewdney asked that people read to children
  • Dallas DA Susan Hawk will finally resign due to mental health reasons. Say what you will, but for her to voluntarily step down takes courage.
  • All the ITT Technical Institutes are shutting down. When I was a kid and was stuck watching old reruns of shows like ‘Get Smart’, ‘Hogan Heroes’, and the like, I used to see their commercials ad nauseam. One that stood out was the guy that graduated from high school, going to ITT, and then moving in his new apartment to start a career when all his friends were drudging through college.
    • “Cause you can’t get the jobs of tomorrow, til you get the skills of today.“
  • I’ve mentioned how I enjoy watching the CBS sci-fi dramedy ‘BrainDead’ and how I get a kick that every episode starts with a quirky musical recap. WifeGeeding doesn’t watch the show, but she wants to watch and listen to each musical recap before I delete it from the DVR. It turns out she’s not the only one who doesn’t watch the show but watches only the musical recaps. Here’s the latest which has a bit of a ‘Family Guy’ gimmick.

  • A retired aerospace engineer made a roller coaster in his backyard for his grandkids basically using just wood and PVC. Recently, NBC ‘Nightly News’ included him and the coaster in a segment.
  • Troy Aikman sounds off on Fox signing Skip Bayless
    • “To say I’m disappointed in the hiring of Skip Bayless would be an enormous understatement,” Aikman said. “Clearly, [Fox Sports president of national networks] Jamie Horowitz and I have a difference of opinion when it comes to building a successful organization. I believe success is achieved by acquiring and developing talented, respected and credible individuals, none of which applies to Skip Bayless.”
  • Barry, over at LiberallyLean.com, is standing firm in his belief that Longhorn fans were booing Tyrone Swoopes when he entered the game and not yelling “Swoop” or “Swoopes”. It’s my understanding he thinks it’s because Texas fans have been thirsting for a new QB and they were upset when Swoopes entered the game, but I doubt that since the “18-wheeler” package was used successfully at the end of last year and was hinted at being used again this year. I wonder if Barry thought Dallas Cowboys fans were booing Daryl “Moose” Johnston and not yelling “Moose!” every time he touched the ball upset Emmitt wasn’t getting the carries.
    • [Insert TICKET drop “we’re having fun here, no?” here]
    • [Insert TICKET drop “A shot?!” here]
  • Something for Mrs. LiberallyLean – When will the women of professional softball get the attention they deserve?
  • I skimmed an article about the Miss America pageant and thought this line was ironically funny, “In the bizarro world of Miss America, losers smile and winners sob.”
  • Digg – The First Movie Trailer Created Using Artificial Intelligence Is Very Creepy (In A Good Way)
    • IBM’s Watson analyzed hundreds of horror movie trailers to figure out what makes an audience jump. Editors don’t need to worry about losing their jobs quite yet: The AI system suggested its ten “favorite” clips and a living, breathing human being edited it all together.
  • YouTube – Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of Star Wars: The Force Awakens – This video was released by Industrial Light and Magic yesterday.
  • I’ve written about how much I like the new Vikings stadium. On last night’s season finale of HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’ they gave us some great viewing angles of the field, that place is something special.
  • UFC Fighter Miesha Tate Carries Injured 6-Year-Old Girl Down a Mountain After Hiking Accident
    • I’m not sure why, perhaps I have a learning disability akin to dyslexia, but whenever I see UFC, I see the old television frequency UHF instead.
  • Disney to scan fingers of 3-year-olds to prevent fraud
    • The Orlando Sentinel reports that the new requirement is in place to help block the use of stolen and shared tickets. Older children and adult visitors have already been having their fingers scanned for years.
  • Man Surprises Wife With Pregnancy Despite Vasectomy Months Before
    • Approximately six months after Tim Brummel of Atlanta had a vasectomy, he noticed his wife start showing symptoms of being pregnant.
    • That’s when it dawned on them that after a five-month follow-up examination with the clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, Tim was never called back about the results. When he called them to check, he said they told him there may have been a snag in the procedure.
    • Tim said he then wanted to confirm his suspicions without his wife finding out, so he drained the toilet one night and tried his luck with a urine pregnancy test the following morning. When it came up positive, he decided to surprise his wife with the good news and capture her reaction on camera.
Posted in Personal | 9 Comments