Apparently it isn’t "absolutely nothing" as the song says. Just ask this doofus, the CEO of a defense contractor who reportedly spent $10 million on his daughter’s bat mitzvah.
Just when I think the stories of greed and avarice can’t get any crazier I’m proven wrong. Thanks to Blog on the Run for the lead.
I’ve always thought that it would be very cool to build a database of voting records for members of Congress, but I was hampered by the fact that I don’t know diddly squat about building databases and I couldn’t name 15 members of Congress if you spotted me 12 of them. Still, it’s a cool idea.
Well, the Washington Post has done it. One more get-rich-not-so-quick idea down the drain!
Go check out this video of one home’s Christmas decorations and feel:
Thanks to Hogg for the tip.
Don’t cheat. See if you can guess what it is, tell me your guess in the comments section and then check out some other pics just like it here.
The sign to the left is from a beach in China. Click on the thumbnail so you can see the picture at full size. Some of the English is pretty funny, although I can only imagine what our public parks people would do with and English-to-Chinese translation.
My favorite: "wine empress is with the body not well cannot bottom sea swimming"
Picture is here on Flickr, and I found it via Boing Boing.
Boiling Springs Crest High School’s (NC) football team was supposed to play in the state semi-finals tonight, but instead the school turned itself in for inadvertently using an ineligible player earlier in the season and consequently forfeiting tonight’s game. I can only imagine how disappointed those kids are tonight, and I doubt that disappointment will ever go away. I know I’d have given half my teeth to be able to play for a shot at the state finals when I was playing high school sports and I doubt I wouldn’t have been too graceful in handling that kind of disappointment.
The story I read doesn’t say exactly what happened so I’m not sure who at the school blew the whistle, but whether or not it was the coach he now has an opportunity to teach his players a life lesson that will stick with them forever. He’ll get the chance to show them how to deal with disappointment, to put things in perspective for them and to help them understand that what they did was the right thing.
This is what activities like high school football are supposed to be all about; learning to give your best effort at all times, to support your teammates and above all to play with honor. Part of playing with honor is playing within the rules, and even if you break the rules by accident you’ve basically lost honor. The way to regain your honor is to deal with the situation openly and honestly, and to take your medicine no matter how bitter.
At this point we don’t know if the ineligible player was a star, a benchwarmer or someone in between, but as they say in the story "rules are rules." Part of me thinks that if it’s an innocent mistake and it was only one player and it wasn’t for the entire season (i.e. a minor infraction) then you should come up with some punishment that doesn’t crush dozens of boys’ dreams. Unfortunately experience tells me that if you come up with any kind of nuanced system there will be a bunch of dumb-ass, win-at-all-costs coaches that drive a truck through every loophole. The fact that these kids, who haven’t done anything wrong, will have to suffer because of what a bunch of ne’er-do-wells have done in the past is just one more life lesson they’ll get out of this.
In the long run the folks at Boiling Springs Crest are going to gain more out of this forfeit than they ever would have from winning a state championship. At least I hope so. I’m almost positive they’ve earned the respect of their opponents-to-have-been, Grimsley High School. The Grimsley folks are probably sitting at home splitting time between wondering whether or not they would have done the same thing and looking forward to the state championship next week. That’s what I’d be doing.
A couple of years ago the family went on our annual beach trip in which we share a house with three other families. I was informed by the multitude of children that I bear an uncanny resemblance to one of the Wiggles. My kids being past the Sesame Street age I had no idea what they were talking about, so they tuned into the Wiggles one morning and showed me. Then they dubbed me "Mr. Wiggles" (please, no sophomoric comments) which has stuck with me through subsequent beach trips.
My self confidence was shot for the week (let’s just say the Wiggles aren’t what I’d call manly men) and that’s not a good thing when you’re at the beach. Anyway I didn’t see the resemblance then, and I certainly don’t see it today. In fact I’ve blocked out the whole thing to the point that I can’t even remember which one I’m supposed to look like.
After reading this little piece I might need to reconsider my position. Those, uh, men are pulling down some serious change. If the one I look like ever decides to quit or gets hit by a bus I’d have to seriously consider auditioning although it might involve taking serious doses of estrogen.
Final thing: Feel free to vote on which one you think I look like. Here’s some pictures for comparison…I’m the first one. You can click on the pictures to see a larger version if you need to.
Here’s another find from bookofjoe. It’s an e-paper watch from Seiko and it will begin selling worldwide in Japan. They sold 500 prototypes in Japan for the princely sum of $2,230 each, but Joe didn’t mention any pricing for the mass-produced version.
Dick Tracy is smiling somewhere.
It ain’t exactly something you’d find a normal person drooling over, but if the average person lived in my house and all your tools seem to disappear into the same magic black hole that swallows all my socks then I think average drooling would commence.
This 21st century variant of the Swiss Army knife is exactly the kind of thing I desperately need.
Onyx version please. You can find it here.
Thanks to bookofjoe for the tip.
Befuddled 