8-18-07

There is a penalty tax for being married.

8-17-07

The phrase "it's all Greek to me" exists in French, but Chinese is used instead of Greek.

===

Marina's wedding is tomorrow! Flying to Columbus tonight; updates will be late this weekend.

8-16-07

How to spell "piranha."

===

Cyanide and Happiness.

8-15-07

We have two days to complete five ActiveX exercises. Several people were done before lunch, on the first day. I wish I were smart like that.

8-14-07

Hamster cuteness.

8-13-07

The phrase "ActiveX" has no underlying technical meaning. It's just a marketing word invented by Microsoft to brand their product. I always thought the "X" stood for something mysterious.

8-12-07

Angelina Jolie is the daughter of Jon Voight.

8-11-07

I finished Paper Mario 64 today. Not a bad role playing game overall, but the quality trails off considerably by the end.

8-10-07

I have thumb cancer.

Maybe not, but my left thumb has been perpetually chapped for the last few weeks.

8-9-07

Honey never spoils.

8-8-07

Strawberry banana orange juice is pretty good.

8-7-07

Almost all American cows are raised on corn even though a cow's stomach can't digest it without antibiotics.

8-6-07

Visual Basic is a little clunky, but it's not that bad.

8-5-07

On a billboard:

"Abortion: a baby can live without it."

Also on a billboard:

"Taco Bell: tastier tacos are nacho far away."

8-4-07

The Cleveland Indians have a shortstop named Jhonny Peralta. Not a typo.

8-3-07

Sorry for the late updates. Dave and I spent the weekend in Minnesota hanging out with his family.

The bonus stage in Super Smash Brothers sucks.

8-2-07

Test your thinking style. Here's mine:


(Made with MS Paint, the greatest image editing tool ever created.) If you want to know what the results mean, click here.

8-1-07

I learned a fun puzzle.

Find a five letter word that meets the following criteria:

1) If you remove the second letter of the word, the resulting four letter word has the same pronunciation.

2) If you remove the first letter of the word, the resulting four letter word also has the same pronunciation, AND it's not the same as the four letter word you got from removing the second letter. (In other words, "llama" is not correct.)

All three words are common, Scrabble-acceptable English words.

7-31-07

Woolloomooloo.

7-30-07

Nintendo was founded in 1889.

7-29-07

My tolerance for squalor is not infinite. (I vacuumed my room today.)

7-28-07

Julie's number one complaint about the fact that her heart palpitations have gotten so severe she needs to wear a heart monitor: "I can't wear any low-cut shirts."

7-27-07

Even if you don't like board games, take a look at some of these amazing board game pictures. My new desktop wallpaper:

(click to see the big and awesome version)

7-26-07

I broke down and got Firefox last week and, yeah, it's better.

7-25-07

Freecell kicks ass.

7-24-07

The plural of "mongoose" is "mongooses."

7-23-07

Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant.

7-22-07

"Then a red light came on the dashboard and he said, 'What's that?' and I said, 'Don't worry about it, that's just to tell whether or not that bulb is working.'"

-- Steven Wright

7-21-07

If you eat lobster with your hands for lunch, your hands will smell like fish for the rest of the day no matter how many times you wash them with soap.

7-20-07

I can't tell if this is some kind of elaborate joke or what the hell is going on.

7-19-07

Golden Axe was released for Xbox Live!!

7-18-07

The world is a bitter, ugly piece of shit.

7-17-07

Goto statements are awesome.

7-16-07

Dr. Seuss never had kids.

7-15-07

The battery in my car is dead for no real reason.

7-14-07

Dave's mom rocks at Scattergories.

7-13-07

Kittens in the same litter can have different fathers.

7-12-07

Contrary to popular belief, driving a stick shift is very easy. Accelerating from rest, however, is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE.

===

Today is my cat's ninth birthday.

7-11-07

Pressing Shift+6 yields a caret, not a carrot.

7-10-07

Velveeta mac and cheese is way better than Kraft. You actually get a giant bag of cheese sauce. None of this powder crap.

7-9-07

Wondermark. It's kind of like Married to the Sea, but funnier and more thought out.

7-8-07

Jim Carrey is not a fan of observational humor.

Seinfeld parody.

7-7-07

Pescetarianism is a less stupid form of vegetarianism in which you're allowed to eat seafood.

7-6-07

The famous Hampsterdance sound clip was not an original production but rather a sped up clip from the Roger Miller song "Whistle Stop," which appears in the opening credits of Disney's Robin Hood.

7-5-07

Jerry Seinfeld used to wrestle. He also owns upwards of 50 Porsches.

7-4-07

Michael Caine isn't Michael Caine's real name.

7-3-07

John Cleese was the first person to say 'shit' on British television.

7-2-07

I haven't been putting any real facts in here of late, have I?

7-1-07

Scarlett Johansson will star in a movie based on Monopoly.

===

"I made my cat drink bleach just so I could see my cute vet again."

"Anonymous said... to the lady with the bleach: honestly? I HOPE THAT VET THINKS YOU'RE AN UGLY B!TCH."

Allowing anonymous comments on PostSecret was a tremendously bad idea.

6-30-07

Fans of Guitar Hero need to see something very important.

6-29-07

Something to consider about global warming. By Orson Scott Card, of all people.

6-28-07

Credit card debt isn't as widespread as you might think.

===

Trainer: "Did you guys hear that the Middleton police station got robbed last night?"

Student: "Really? What'd they take?"

Trainer: "They took all the toilet seats. The police have nothing to go on."

We've got some awesome trainers at Epic, here.

6-27-07

"Somehow we ended up with a bag of X-13D superchips, some kind of mystery flavor, and if you want to know what they taste like imagine that a hamburger patty has fallen onto a cat, condiment side down. Believe me, it's worth buying a bag to verify this assertion."

-- Penny Arcade on Doritos

6-26-07

There's an online utility called Vischeck that transforms images to show you how a colorblind person would see them.

6-25-07

German Coast Guard.

6-24-07

p.s. You need to click on this one.

6-23-07

6-22-07

"So, how do you like being an intern?"

"It's okay, I guess. I get credit in some of my classes, but I'm not really interested in going into business."

"Oh, so you hope to be an unproductive drain on society, then?"

"No, I want to go to art school."

"That is what I said."

-- Ugly City

6-21-07

A person can be allergic to monkeys, as well as "monkey-derived products."

6-20-07

The people most likely to become serial killers are doctors, followed closely by nurses.

6-19-07

You can italicize text in Gmail chat by surrounding it with underscores.

6-18-07

Stress at work.

6-17-07

Evolution is a "fairy tale," incontrovertibly proven by peanut butter.

6-16-07

I had a dream that North Dakota was west of South Dakota, and that Montana bordered both of them to the north.

6-15-07

According to my trainer at Epic, the discovery that Vioxx causes heart attacks was made with Epic software.

6-14-07

A pearl necklace is a necklace made out of pearls, but it also has a naughty meaning.

6-13-07

"As we're headed home, I take a wrong turn. I'm trying to find my way, not paying attention to other important things, like how fast I'm going. I get pulled over, and issued a speeding ticket."

***

"My wife, Emma, and I met in '94 at a psychiatric hospital. She was doing rat experiments. I, mouse experiments."

***

"I met Lisa when a mutual friend invited us both over for a game of Space Marine. We both wanted to play Eldar..."

***

"Anyway, after we got to talking for a while, we discovered we both had a deep mutual appreciation for all things Tim Burton ... Somehow we got into a game of tossing M&Ms at each other so we could catch them with our mouths in mid air (don't ask me), and after hitting her directly in the eye with several sugar coated candies, ..."

***

"We agreed to meet at TGI Fridays. Of course, there are 2 of them, relatively close to each other by us, and we were waiting at different ones."

***

Geek first dates.

6-12-07

How babies are born.

6-11-07

The Perry Bible Fellowship.

===

Ocean's 13 is an excellent movie. Don't be discouraged from seeing it just because the 12th one sucked.

6-10-07

Flaming Monkey Games. They don't make anything cool, but it's good to know that someone likes flaming monkeys as much as I do.

6-9-07

The maker of my mattress requests that I "turn it end to end and upside down" every other week in order to "equalize body impressions."

6-8-07

Bethesda is making Fallout 3.

6-7-07

There's a board game club at Epic, and the guy who started it is even cooler than I am.

6-6-07

A good chunk of the new hires at Epic have played Settlers at least once and liked it.

6-5-07

Poker Odds Calculator. A pair of 2s is better than an off suit ace-king.

6-4-07

Because I live in the central time zone now, webcomics update an hour earlier!

6-3-07

On the way back from Chipotle this evening, Dave changed lanes into a motorcyclist and almost killed him.

6-2-07

I had a mental panic this morning and had to look up dictionary.com to see how Wednesday was spelled.

6-1-07

Geek Love.

5-31-07

Sorry for the late/lame updates -- been moving into my apartment.

===

My bed won't arrive until the 9th. I'll be sleeping on an air mattress for a week.

5-30-07

Senators tend not to win presidential elections.

5-29-07

Merlin.

5-28-07

Swans sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing
should certain persons die before they sing.

-- Coleridge

===

On the congratulatory card she gave me, Marina outlines some of the advantages and disadvantages of moving to Madison. Among the advantages:

possibility of        (HEAD)
realizing your dreams

Thanks, Marina. I love you too.

5-27-07

Electric cars are awesome.

5-26-07

Best Scattegories answer I have ever seen:

D, things that bounce: "D-cups"

5-25-07

A spiffed up version of Geometry Wars is coming out for the Wii.

===

The last time I mentioned Geometry Wars in this blog was November, to say that my new record was 2.1 million. Pshaw! I'd have to be drunk and missing one arm to score that low now! I was in the 3 millions for a while and a couple of weeks ago I scored 4.9 million.

===

I "bought" a new car today -- it's a Hyundai Sonata. I'm paying for a little under half of it.

5-24-07

The Relationship Terminator. I think this is my preferred way of getting dumped.

5-23-07

Torrent clients aren't all the same. If you want to download a torrent and not have it take a century, use Azureus.

===

eMule blows.

5-22-07

Lawyerbear. A lawyer who is also a bear.
===

Janet Reno is 6'3".

5-21-07

It is illegal to torture squid in Britain.

5-20-07

The word ambidextrous is twelve letters long. The first six letters (A, M, B, I, D, E) are all in the first half of the alphabet, while the last six letters (X, T, R, O, U, S) are all in the last half.

ambidextrous: Able to use both hands with equal facility.

===

Tassels are annoying.

5-19-07

Richard Lederer, the linguist and punster who will speak at my commencement, is the father of famous poker players Howard Lederer and Annie Duke.

5-18-07

Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.

Italian Proverb

5-17-07

A board game joke, compliments of BGG:

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Einstein arrives in heaven. A gamer approaches him and says, "I have an IQ of 145."

Einstein replies, "I look forward to playing go with you."

Another gamer approaches Einstein and says, "I have an IQ of 115."

"I will enjoy playing Carcassonne with you," responds Einstein.

A third gamer comes over and says, "My IQ is only 65."

"Mind if I be the racecar?" says Einstein.

5-16-07

Team Fortress 2 is actually coming out!

5-15-07

Jerry Falwell is dead, finally.

5-14-07

Strawberries are the only fruit that has seeds on the outside.

5-13-07

In Wisconsin, it's illegal to operate a gas-powered grill inside of an apartment.

5-12-07

I've made a new blog for the purpose of hosting longer entries that would look really out of place in this one (e.g. Online Wisdom). This blog will only be updated on occasion and is called, fittingly, On Occasion.

The inaugural entry is a short story I wrote for the fiction workshop this semester.

===

If you like the ability to edit the HTML template of your blog, don't switch to WordPress. Installing my StatCounter code was a pain in the ass, and even then I could only use the Ultra Gimped version.

5-11-07

The SuPuzzle is impossible.