Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Screenshot 2016-01-04 at 10.36.00 PM

  • Bag of Randomness should be posting at 2:00 AM CST but I’ve heard from someone that it doesn’t display when you go to the website directly, yet it will on an RSS feed. Anyone else see anything odd?
  • When I was a kid in school, the hardest thing to do coming back to school would be to write the correct year on the heading of papers. I remember one teacher would knock off points on all papers that listed the previous year without any warning because the correct date was always displayed on the chalkboard.
  • Years ago I read a book by a former George W. Bush speechwriter. In one chapter he wrote about a moment when he was alone on the Truman Balcony one night with the President, who was drinking a non-alcoholic beer, and stated how beautiful the “Washington Memorial” looked. The speechwriter knew the President referenced it incorrectly as it’s actually the Washington Monument, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment nor show any sign of disrespect. That got me to thinking how often I’ve often made the same mistake, and I noticed LiberallyLean.com made the mistake yesterday.  And despite looking at a source or two, I’m still unsure when one is used over the other.
  • I just found out that TSA Pre-Check is only $85 for five years. It allows you to go into the “fast lane” at the airport and you don’t have to remove shoes, laptops, belts, and certain liquids. So if you only fly roundtrip once a year, that works out to $8.50 a flight for five years. Of course, you have to sign up for it before a flight, which means filling out an online form and visiting an office or airport for fingerprinting.
  • Yesterday was black Monday in the NFL with all the head coach firings, which reminds me of something funny a friend once said that I’ll always remember, “Never underestimate a coach whose last name ends in a vowel.”
  • The ‘Sherlock’ Victorian special that aired on New Year’s Day was exceptional.
  • I watched the NFL Network’s ‘A Football Life’ on Alan Page about three months ago. After his NFL career, he went on to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Before the start of his last game there was a pregame ceremony and he quoted some lines from the poem ‘Ulysses‘ which made me look up the poem.  Every ten days or so I think of the poem, re-read it, and look at different reviews and interpretations.
    • Here’s a great summary of the poem – “Ulysses” details Ulysses’ intense dissatisfaction and boredom on his island home of Ithaca. The poem is a monologue spoken by him, where he not only expresses his discontent, but also describes his desire to keep sailing. He’s getting older and doesn’t have a lot of time left, so he wants to get busy living rather than busy dying. The poem concludes with his resolution to “strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
    • Interpretations (Wikipedia)
    • And a few bits of trivia
      • T. S. Eliot called “Ulysses” a “perfect poem”
      • It was read in the Bone movie Skyfall.
      • U.S. Senator Robert Francis Kennedy quoted the three last lines at the end of his speech “On the Mindless Menace of Violence” in America a day after the assassination of Martin Luther King.
      • The final line is inscribed on a cross at Observation Hill, Antarctica, to commemorate explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his party, who died on their return trek from the South Pole in 1912:One equal temper of heroic hearts,
        Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
        To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
  • A new Texas law about school districts and time in the classroom –  A new Texas state law that counts the school year by minutes instead of days means local school districts could add extra days off for both students and staff by squeezing minutes into the school day.
  • Texas college choice flow chart that excludes some schools like Rice and Hardin-Simmons.
  • His credit score isn’t listed in the article though he says it’s almost perfect – Walter Cavanagh has 1,497 valid credit cards — all of which amount to a $1.7 million line of credit. Currently, he holds the record for the most credit cards and for the world’s longest wallet, which stretches 250 feet, weighs about 38 pounds and can hold 800 cards.
  • Buzzfeed – Chick-Fil-A’s Only New York City Restaurant Closes After Six Violations
  • GIF – Hat Hair
  • The TICKET’s Gordon Keith lost his mother eight months ago and his father passed away at the beginning of the year.  He shared the following tweets:
    • @gordonkeith – My father was determined. “No child should lose both parents in the same year.” On the 2nd day of 2016, he left as I held him. He made it.
    • @gordonkeith – My mom & dad are both gone now. Lost them them [sic] 8 months apart to the day. As I left the hospital panic hit. Kept thinking “I’m nobody’s son”
  • I remember on the drive home from Parkland after my mother died I thought that even though I’m in my thirties, I felt orphaned since I no longer have living parents; that I no longer needed them, but in a way I still did need them, and I’ll no longer have that parental support or encouragement that helped me through all my life. There was, indeed, a void in my life that will never be completely filled.
  • I’ve been told by doctors and vets that a lot of people and animals die at the beginning of the year. People tend to hold on, keep that will to live for another milestone, and then let go. Pet owners tend to do the same before facing the task of putting a beloved one down.
  • Four new elements to be added to periodic table – the seventh row of the periodic table is finally complete.
Posted in Personal | 9 Comments

The First Bag of Randomness of 2016

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  • Well, it’s time to get back into the swing of things.
  • A reader asked if I kept up my infamous spreadsheet from last year to compare the data from the last two years.  Well, I didn’t keep that one up but I did start a more boring one in April of my weight, blood pressure, body fat percentage. I’ve only kept up with the weight which is charted if you scroll down a bit.
  • I usually just spend New Year’s Eve at home, and the last couple of years I’ve watched the Big D NYE special on WFAA, but it didn’t air this year. However, CBS11 decided to air their own event, but I turned it off the moment I saw one of their correspondents broadcasting live from a Main Event (a bowling and video game place for families with six locations in the area) in Frisco. That’s just a step up from a Chuck E Cheese. That correspondent must have ticked off someone or lost some bet to get that assignment, and I’m sure it was a ratings disaster.
  • I was at our local grocery store to purchase one item and stood in the checkout line behind a couple for two, maybe three minutes.  When it was my turn to purchase the item, the cashier told me, “Hold on, he’s next.” and point to a grocery store employee behind me. I told him I didn’t remember anyone being in front of me, and then he stated that his coworker set his stuff down, went to get something else, and was getting back in his place in line. My passive-aggressive-self drove home immediately, fired up the laptop, and filled out the customer service survey from the URL provided on the receipt. Yeah, that will show ’em.  Don’t worry, I didn’t use all caps, I’m not a savage.
  • With college football coming to a close, I’m going to miss all those AT&T commercials with Bo Jackson and other football greats. I was quite surprised and got a kick out of the one when Joe Montana appears and he and Steve Young share an awkward moment.
  • I stated I had reservations that Michigan State shouldn’t have been included as one of the final four football teams in the college football since they had too many narrow wins, some of them our right miracles. After seeing how badly they lost to Alabama by getting shut out, I was right.
  • Now that Baylor has wrapped up their football season, I wonder when they’ll go public with the results of their investigation of the Sam Ukwuachu incident. I think it’s common practice for most places to keep the envelope sealed if an investigation wraps up before the season, and I would suspect by now the investigation should be complete.
  • Gary Patterson can be a bit of a jerk, and I don’t think he has great game time management skills, but he is an exceptional coach and I have to hand it to him for suspending his star quarterback. And there’s no denying it, but the TCU comeback over Oregon in the Alamo Bowl was fantastic. Sure, Oregon lost their starting QB and center, but so was TCU among others. I did get a kick out of the Patterson bit of changing his shirt for better luck. But the most touching thing about the whole game was the storybook ending of  TCU’s backup QB, Bram Kohlhausen, a walk-on senior whose only start was the Alamo Bowl and whose dad passed away from cancer just before Christmas. After the game he bargained with a guy to get his mom down from the stands to hug her and then said this in regards to the suspended QB he replaced, “I was playing this whole game for Tre,” said Kohlhausen, who had the initials “T.B.” on his wristband. “He was my best friend. He was the one who got us here and showed me how to play like I did tonight.”
  • I saw that Ed “Too Tall” Jones was on Twitter and I started to go through his tweets. One of them was a link to an article about .  He, of course, is the tallest DE of all time.  A total of three Cowboys made the list, though no Cowboy fan would like to claim Mike Vanderjagt.  The tallest player of all-time is Oakland Raider Richard Sligh at seven feet tall.
  • We finally caught up with ‘The Knick‘ by finishing season two. It’s a shame that thing was on Cinemax as it never got good ratings despite being critically acclaimed.  Originally, director Steven Soderbergh and actor Clive Owen signed on because it was meant to be more like a mini-series, with a story arc lasting only ten episodes; however, there is a bit of discussion of a possible season three. As much as I’d like to see more of the series, the finale wrapped things up so well by allowing equal parts of justice, injustice, redemption, and transformation. Doing anything more would be like Michelangelo chipping a bit more at David or Leonardo di Vinci adding something else to the Mona Lisa. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Basically, it’s a hospital drama in the year 1900, and seeing how they go about the practice of medicine is fascinating.
  • Local locker room camaraderie – Dallas Mavericks’ J.J. Barea Locker Room Chair Replaced With A Baby Seat 
  • Today’s dose of ‘MURICA!
  • Only in Tarrant County – Winter Restaurant Week
  • God made Eve from Adam’s penis and NOT his rib, claims Bible professor – The theory, put forward by revered biblical professor Ziony Zevit, suggests God made Eve from Adam’s baculum, or penis bone.  Professor Zevit said this explains why man has no baculum, unlike most mammals, and why men don’t have an uneven number of ribs compared to women. To support his theory, he said the Hebrew word ‘tsela‘, taken from the Old Testament, does not translate as ‘rib’ and instead ‘refers to limbs sticking out sideways from an upright human body.’
  • There’s a lot of buzz, and I mean a lot of buzz, about Netflix’s ‘Making a Murderer, which I think is equal parts “Serial” podcast, ‘Rectify’, and ‘Fargo’. It’s a project that the film-makers and documentarians have been working on for ten years, and here’s the trailer (YouTube) if you are interested.
  • U.S. News and World Report – Politicians May Have to Wear Donor Logos in California – A wealthy Republican wants to require unprecedented transparency in California by forcing state politicians to plaster their suits and dresses with the logos of their top 10 donors — and voters fed up with those politicians may actually get the chance to vote on the idea in November.
  • Today’s dose of TEXAS! – That’s certainly an interesting way to honor Ike, and I doubt we’ll ever see anything like that at an inauguration festivity again – (Houston Chronicle) Kilgore, Texas Rangerettes performing at railroad yards during inauguration festivities for Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • Buzzfeed – A George Costanza-Themed Bar Opened In Australia And All Is Right In The World
  • Florida news – A 270 lb Florida man has been charged with manslaughter after allegedly sitting on his six-year-old son and crushing him to death while he played a video game on Christmas Eve.
  • The Verge – Mark Zuckerberg: I’m building an AI for my home that’s ‘kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man’
  • GIF – Hammer Time
  • GIF – This never happens when I go to the zoo.
Posted in Personal | 4 Comments