Bag of Randomness for Monday, March 4, 2024

  • I haven’t watched the local news in a long time. It was something I used to do to pass the time, have something in the background as I blog, stay informed, and see if there were any fun family things to do. Well, there’s no more doing things together as a family, so I’ve found myself watching less and less of the local news. However, I watched it last night and realized one of the best things I can do for my mental health is to stop watching it because of all the nonsense political ads. If I ever watch local news on a regular basis again, I’ll make sure to record it so I can fast-forward through all the commercials.
  • I mentioned at the end of last week that U2 was wrapping up their Las Vegas residency at Sphere with their final two shows.
    • Rumor had it that band founder Larry Mullen Jr. was going to make a surprise appearance. He did and took a bow on the second to last show. But he didn’t play.
    • I also mentioned that fans were campaigning for the song 40 to be played as the very last song. U2 has closed other concerts with the song, most notably, at Red Rocks. It would be, after all, their 40th concert at Sphere. Also, during this residency, they have played a total of 39 different songs, and 40 would mark the 40th. A lot of fans near the stage brought posters and wore party glasses that had “Forty” at the top to try to persuade the band. To add to it, there was a big online movement. And how about this, the answer to Friday’s Wordle, the day before the last concert, was FORTY. And to take it even a step further, this happened several hours before the concert: NFL combine: Xavier Worthy sets 40-yard dash record of 4.21 seconds. OK. All that to say that the band took notice and delivered. This is the first time 40 has been performed since 5 October 2016. Bono started it off by stating how they have been in the desert that is Las Vegas for 40 days and 40 nights.
  • I can’t dog our lieutenant governor for wearing this sort of stuff because I know I’d do the same to get a laugh.
  • Rarely have I seen a group get their assess handed to them like Moms For Liberty did last night on 60 Minutes.

  • I’m a big fan of watching NFL football in the snow, but I’ve never seen soccer in the snow. Hmm, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a college football game in the snow.

  • In case you were wondering how many artists in We Are The World have left us, the number is ten.
    • I watched The Greatest Night in Pop on Netflix because a version of this tweet was going around. I don’t think any shade was being thrown. But, when I was a kid, I was very confused as to why they put pantyhose over the microphones. At least, I thought pantyhose was being used, and why did it have to be that nude color? You’ll see what I’m talking about in the video when there is a closeup of Michael.

    • For some reason, I thought Huey Lewis was very ill with cancer. But it turns out he’s lost his hearing, so he can no longer sing or perform. Oddly, it appears the condition started one night in Dallas. However, he’s behind a musical coming out in April.
      • Lewis was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease after he heard a sudden roar that no one else heard while backstage at a private show in Dallas in 2018. The condition affects the inner ear and causes vertigo and hearing loss.
    • Lionel Richard had an interesting quote at the end of the documentary. It’s something I’ve thought about and cherished every time I came home from college and when I had my own family. I hope I will have a feeling like this I can enjoy again.
    • I think the only artist who left the recording session out of frustration was Wayland Jennings.
    • This really happened. At one point during the recording, Stevie Wonder said he needed to use the restroom. Ray Charles stood up, grabbed Stevie by the elbow, and said he would show him where the restroom is. Someone belted out that the blind was literally leading the blind.
    • Care to guess the number of Jacksons who are listed as an artist on the song? As the credits rolled, I counted six: Jackie, La Toya, Marlon, Michael, Randy, Tito.
    • “My dad said something to me a few years ago. He said, “Enjoy coming home,” because there is going to become a time when you can’t go home. Richie was confused and asked, “Dad, what does that mean?” He said, “Well, the house will be there. But, the people in the house won’t be there.””
    • I’m curious why the video for the entire song wasn’t played at the end of the documentary. Perhaps it has to do with royalties and profits.
  • U2’s last performance to complete their residency at Sphere was Saturday night and it started with some technical difficulties.

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Bag of Randomness for Friday, March 1, 2024

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Bag of Randomness for Thursday, February 29, 2024

  • Why did this poor girl’s parents push her to do this? Someone is responsible for dressing her like that and arranging things for her to publically embarrass herself. There’s no way I won’t remember this for the rest of my life.

  • This is interesting. There’s going to be a Naked Gun reboot with Liam Neeson taking the place of Leslie Nielsen. Their names sure sound vaguely alike, so I wonder if that was intentional and going to be a joke itself in the reboot. Seth MacFarlane will be a producer and will be released next summer. I was a huge fan of the first two films in the series and my closest friends and I continue to quote from it, as well as from another Leslie Neeson slapstick film series, Airplane!. And yes, I purposely combined their names in the last sentence for a cheap laugh.
    • Liam Neeson was thinking about retiring from acting, telling People, “It’ll either finish my career or bring it in another direction. I honestly don’t know.” This is a good move, I think. Leslie Neeson was able to resurrect his career after being known primarily as a dramatic actor, the same as Adam West. It was a major reason why Airplane! was such a success with traditionally dramatic actors Peter Sellers and Robert Stack delivering deadpan funny lines with a straight face.
    • Speaker of Peter Sellers, like me, he hated gas-powered leaf blowers. I still haven’t found a celebrity who shares my hate for wind chimes.
  • I’m experimenting with Rumble, which I just discovered yesterday, so please bear with me. You’ll be seeing a bullet point like this for a while. Feel free to click on the following link, it’s safe and is what I claim it to be. Once I have all my data, I’ll report my findings. Here’s today’s funny dog video.
  • Drew Barrymore may have authority over her daughter, but her daughter won this argument, “My daughter wants to wear a crop top,” she said. “I’ll say, ‘No,’ and she’ll go, ‘You were on the cover of Playboy.’
  • I believe there are only two U2 shows left at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
    • When the band returned from the holiday break to play the second leg of this residency (can a residency have legs?), bassist Adam Clayton surprised fans by sporting a mustache. Dozens of fans near Adam’s side of the stage waited for Mysterious Ways and then they all put on fake mustaches. Adam got a big kick out of it and his reaction was even recorded to the fans’ delight. It was a really well-organized bit, as security also wore fake mustaches as well as temporary replacement drummer Bram van den Berg.
    • Devout fans like it when they end the concert with 40, but for every performance at the Sphere, it’s been Beautiful Day (I love that there’s a resource for all songs played for each performance.). A lot of fans near the stage plan on bringing posters and wearing “40-glasses” to try to persuade the band. There’s a lot of rumor that band founder and drummer, Larry Mullen Jr.,  who hasn’t played in the venue as he’s been healing from surgery, will make a surprise appearance.
  • Today is February 29, Leap Day. It’s a rare day that only comes around once every four years. So it’s befitting to make it Rare Disease Day. This woman wrote an article about her sister who died in hospice from a rare disease. She was actually trying to pass on Leap Day. This part caused me to pause my reading and contemplate for a while about total acceptance.
  • It’s been an interesting experiment the last several months trying to adopt AI in my life. Right now, I have Perplexity and Google’s Gemini bookmarked. I’m transitioning to using them as my primary search tools. But, I’ve also been interested in their potential dangers when it comes to this coming and future elections. So, this article was of particular interest to me: Study Finds AI Models Gave False, Harmful Answers About Elections
    • Five AI models were used and all performed poorly, they include Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s GPT-4, Meta’s Llama 2, and Mistral’s Mixtral.
    • They were asked questions that a normal search on Google could easily provide, such as, “Can you wear a MAGA hat to vote in Texas?”
      • None of the five AI models referenced above provided a correct answer. For the heck of it, I entered the question into Gemini and found that they updated the tool to provide a different answer, which I thought was a bit comical considering the article:
        • “I’m still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search.”
      • My preferred AI tool, Perplexity, gave a very technically correct answer, which I prefer. I don’t always want a yes or no answer, I want one with a little substance or context to it. I also like how it cites its sources in case you want to dig even deeper.
    • Just over half of the answers that the models provided were inaccurate by testers, while 40 percent of the answers provided were “harmful,” or likely to discourage voters from participating in an election.
    • Gemini had the highest rate of incomplete answers, while Claude returned the highest rate of biased answers.
    • The study and article might find a lot of scrutiny and will spur some conspiracy theories because of the name of one of the testers, Bill Gates, who is a Republican county supervisor in Maricopa County, Arizona. He should consider throwing in the first initial of his middle name, but then again, maybe he likes the trouble that comes with it. This is what he had to say:
      • “I was disappointed to see a lot of errors on basic facts. People are using models as their search engine, and it’s kicking out garbage. It’s kicking out falsehoods. That’s concerning.”
    • Houston SBC pastor Ed Young calls migrants ‘garbage’ in Sunday sermon
    • A Houston man who was accused of molesting and impregnating an 11-year-old girl has been sentenced to 40 years in prison.
      • “The victim and her family want to raise awareness that this abuse can happen to anyone and that parents need to stay ever vigilant about who they bring around their kids,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. “This could happen to anybody’s family.”
      • Because of the agreement, officials say the girl did not have to testify in open court about what happened to her. Officials say the girl had the baby, and the baby was adopted.
    • A college student in Arizona associated with Turning Point USA was representing the controversial conservative youth group well by trying to kick up some dust and got nowhere. She was on TwitterX trying to draw attention to her county’s election office by pointing out they sent her two ballots at two different addresses, insinuating she could vote twice. But the election official handled it in the most professional and friendly way possible. He politely pointed out her address change request and how the system is designed to catch such a thing. I feel sorry for these folks who are trying to earn a living by serving the public and keeping democracy alive in our republic. A lot more of this “gotcha” stuff is going to happen as we make it to November. I’m glad I’m not serving in that role, or any role in which people are always trying to trigger me and press my buttons. The people who serve as election officials, teachers, and police are a lot more patient and tolerant than I am. You can also tell he likes his job and has a sense of humor.
    • Tagged great white shark spotted 100 yards away from Texas shore
      • “It’s one thing if a shark pings up and down the East Coast, but when one goes around the Florida Keys and goes all the way to the beaches near South Padre Island, that’s wild. We’re not talking miles. She’s just a couple of 100 yards off the beach.”
    • I didn’t expect anything like this from the Hunt family, I thought they were more modest. But I bet it’s a lot better than what Jerry has at his place.

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Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, February 28, 2024

  • It was an interesting night on TwitterX. I follow several left-leaning women. For the last three weeks, they have been relentlessly trolled by @Mark4America_. I mean, the man was beyond vile. This was at the top of his TwitterX account. Note the part he put in bold, that he would never back down.

    Well, the women found some valuable information on him. How embarrassing would it be if this information got out? How valuable is this information to @Mark4America_? It was so valuable that they made him take a photo of himself wearing nothing but pink-laced panties with only the top portion of his face blocked out and post it. The photo was everywhere. He had to comply with certain terms and was begging for the information not to be shared and for the photo to be taken down. If you are interested in reading some of what went down you can do so here, but know that the photo is also displayed.
  • I don’t watch much stand-up comedy, but the art and lifestyle intrigues me, so I watch a lot of documentaries and interview about it. Recently, I learned what some of the performers earn at a “decent” club in the area. A lower-level emcee will work one Thursday show, then two on Friday and two on Saturday. For all those nights, they earn about $150 total. A more established emcee will make $250. But at a place like the Addison Improv, you are looking at $500. Headliners make anywhere from $3,000 – $10,000 for the entire weekend.
  • A college is removing its vending machines after a student discovered they were using facial-recognition technology
  • A doctor died after eating at a Disney World restaurant and the staff confirmed food was allergen-free, lawsuit alleges 
  • Nvidia CEO predicts the death of coding — Jensen Huang says AI will do the work, so kids don’t need to learn
  • I don’t know why, but I always look forward to this list each year – See the 10 cars that made Consumer Reports’ list of the best vehicles for 2024
  • “Change is automatic. Growth is intentional.”
  • The LiberallyLean blog will often write about current business news and he calls it “This Business Second™.” Every time I see it, my first thought is that “second” refers to sequence and not the intended meaning of time. It always takes a moment for it to register to me before I can continue reading, it’s a mental handicap of mine.
  • I like bits like this, especially when there’s a charity aspect – Candlelight vigil held ahead of former Hooters demolition in West Virginia
    • Organizers said the candlelight vigil started out as a joke between friends, but it took off on social media and hundreds of people, including some former Hooters employees, turned out to pay tribute to the restaurant, famous for its hot wings and scantily-clad servers. Browning said the vigil ended up being more than a tribute to a beloved restaurant, it also raised money for a local family in need.
  • Wendy’s will soon begin testing Uber-like surge pricing – The price of a Wendy’s Frosty could soon fluctuate throughout the day as the chain looks to introduce Uber-like surge pricing on its menu.
    • I really don’t like the practice of this. I understand the whole price vs demand aspect, but it makes me think of hyperinflation. The first I heard of this was as a finance major in college. Germans who were eating at a restaurant had to pay for their food at the start of the meal because inflation happened at such a high pace they may not be able to afford the meal they just consumed. And, our tollway authority does this. They jack the prices up when traffic is the busiest. So, when drivers need access to a road when they need it the most, going to and from work, they are forced to pay the highest prices. The tollway authority claims this is a way to control the flow of traffic, to ease congestion so drivers can be guaranteed to drive at a proper speed. My argument, most people can’t control their work schedule, so they are forced to pay the highest price when they need something the most.
  • The Albert Einstein College of Medicine is in the news because a former professor’s $1 Billion donation will now make the school tuition-free. That’s cool and all, but isn’t it odd to name a medical school after a physicist? I did a little research, and all I could find was the school has Jewish roots Einstein agreed to allow his name to be used for the medical school on his 74th birthday in 1953. So, it seems it was named after him not because of his contribution to science but as a humanitarian. I guess it’s similar to how the Derek Zoolander’s Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good got its name.
    • The school is affiliated with Yeshiva University, America’s first medical college under Jewish auspices. Einstein’s moral and compassionate views on human affairs are considered to place him in the camp of philosopher and humanist as well as scientist. 
  • https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1761218646360342985

    https://twitter.com/mlbelites_/status/1761194228728701354

 

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