Category: Useless knowledge

Information you have no need for. Ever. Usually about me, but possibly about other trivial crap in the world.

My FaceBook WTF?!? moment

Anyone who uses FaceBook knows there are ads in the sidebar.  I usually ignore them – I’ve been online long enough to automagically tune that stuff out.  Today, however, the FaceBook ad server caught my attention with this WTF moment:

Now I have to figure out just what I’m doing in my surfing that makes FaceBook think that first ad is appropriate for me.  Maybe I need to surf more straight pr0n?  I thought maybe the $1 million from the second ad would be available for me if I got involved with the hot gay men, but sadly, the money is pretend only.

[tags]FaceBook, WTF, Ad Service, More pr0n please[/tags]

Global Warming and the World Wide Pirate Shortage

It seems that piracy is returning to favor in parts of the world. We hear more stories about pirates taking massive tankers and cargo ships in certain parts of the world, and the ransom demands for the return of these ships is growing ever greater. After decades of global warming, there is talk that we are now heading for another ice age.

It has plagued scientists and politicians for decades, but scientists now say global warming is not the problem.

We are actually heading for the next Ice Age, they claim.

British and Canadian experts warned the big freeze could bury the east of Britain in 6,000ft of ice.

There can be little doubt, given the inverse relationship between global warming and worldwide number of pirates (read beginning just above the graph half-way down the article) that these events, the increase in piracy and the return to an ice age, are related. This is simply the environmental impact of a poor world economy, I suspect. As it gets harder for people to earn a few dollars by working, they’ll look to earn a few hundred million dollars from stealing massive tankers. That’s just forward-thinking economics, really.

In response to the multiple looming crises, several world governments have taken to combating piracy. For example, an Indian warship has recently sunk a pirate “mother ship” to fight piracy.

An Indian naval vessel sank a suspected pirate “mother ship” Wednesday in the Gulf of Aden and chased two attack boats into the night, officials said, as separate bands of brigands seized Thai and Iranian ships in the lawless seas.

A multinational naval force has increased patrols in the region, and scored a rare success Tuesday when the Indian warship, operating off the coast of Oman, stopped a ship similar to a pirate vessel described in numerous bulletins. The Indian navy said the pirates fired on the INS Tabar after the officers asked to search it.

If the global temperature goes up next week, you’ll know why. Besides, the Indian government is apparently forgetting the trickle-down effect that the $100 million ransom will have on the global economy is the Somali pirates get the money they are asking for. I’m betting it could show up as early as next month in your pay check. If you get a little pay bump or a Christman bonus, remember to thank a Somali pirate.

[tags]Piracy, FSM, Pastafarian, Global economy, Climate change, Global warming, Global ice age, Trickle down economics[/tags]

The World’s Sexiest Man (other than me)

People magazine has once again named the world’s sexiest man, and once again they somehow overlooked my qualifications that should have assured my winning. I don’t harbor any resentment for the winner, naturally, but I do feel I fare much better in the moderately-overweight, middle-aged man with bad habits. And that’s something I just don’t see Mr. Hugh “I’m totally Wolverine AND Van Helsing at the same time” Jackman “Oh, and I can dance and sing, too”.

He’s a triple threat: a star who can sing, dance and wield a weapon.

At 6-foot-2, all scruff and biceps, Hugh Jackman looms large in the epic “Australia,” which he says kept him “dirty 95 percent of the time” and left people stammering, “Oh … my … God,” according to costar Nicole Kidman, who adds, “Women’s jaws drop when Hugh walks into a room.”

The interviewer with the magazine goes on the ask him about such silly topics as the success of his marriage (he and wife Deb just are happy to be together), the secret of keeping passion alive (his costumes feed fantasies of affairs), and what he wears to bed (hey, you’ll have to look that up yourself). No mention of how he produces claws from his knuckles, nor how he gets through airport security without the alarms going off (is adamantium non-magnetic? I think X2 says otherwise, but that could just be poetic license). No discussion of his experiences as a werewolf, nor the pain involved in infection, transformation, or cure.

There is a mention of his new movie Australia, but I’m really not at all interested in talk of a fictional nation/continent on the bottom of the world, unless they at least film with authenticity and show everyone upside-down. Folks – the world is flat, and people would fall off if they were on the bottom. Really. What do they teach you people in “school” these days?

UPDATE: Images added

[tags]Hugh Jackman, People magazine, World’s sexiest man, Mythical continents[/tags]

Weird Al wonder

The wifey-person and I just finished watching Weird Al on the Biography channel.  I know there are folks who don’t like Weird Al.  Of course, I’m not much of one to care what others think, so I’ll go ahead and post about him anyway.  Every time I think about Weird Al, I think about this, one of his two finest videos:

Rumor has it that Coolio wasn’t too happy with Weird Al over this video.  Although all reports are that later they worked things out, perhaps minus hugs and kisses.

Although Yankovic traditionally secures permission from the artists he parodies (even though this is not legally required), and was told by his record label that Coolio had given permission, Coolio later claimed that he had not given such permission. This created a minor controversy, as speculation surfaced that Coolio had actually given permission but later claimed he had not in the fear that allowing the parody would not be seen as “cool”, or that Yankovic’s record label had lied to Yankovic in the hopes that the song would become popular.

During the show, one of Weird Al’s cohorts mentioned that pretty much every artist Weird Al contacts now is willing to let him create parody works.  Nearly everyone says yes, although Prince is apparently the perpetual holdout.  I wonder why that is.

And while I’m sure you don’t actually care what his other best video is, I’m going with The Saga Begins.

But I must say, some of his latest songs and videos are quite good, too.

[tags]Weird Al, Amish Paradise, The Saga Begins, Video[/tags]

Back, and slowly re-building

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, if you are either of my regular two visitors at least, the Blahg is finally back, although still not updating daily.  I am in the process now of restoring 1200+ image files that got lost in the move to a new host and went unnoticed among all the other issues that kept me mostly inactive.  I still have a few hundred to try to recover, but my backups are either incomplete, broken, or on my recently deceased laptop where I worked on the Blahg most frequently.  So while I will restore more as I can track down what else I’m missing, there will likely be an occasional dead image that is unlikely to get restored unless I get lucky and find a more recent backup that is complete and not damaged.

Time Turner collectible?

My wife and I have a friend who spends a lot of time at our house.  Honestly, she ends up doing more housecleaning than either of us quite frequently.  She babysits our kids so the wifey-person and I can go out, or when we have to work, or sometimes just so I can have time to myself.  As a small token of appreciation, I’ve been thinking about getting her one of these Time Turners.

She is a HUGE fan of, among other things, all things Harry Potter.  I personally think the Time Turner is one of the neater little meaningless gizmos from the series, so it seems like a good gift idea to me.  The problem is, of course, that I’m looking at this from the point of view of what I find cool.  The question really is, will she consider this a cool gift item?  I have no idea how to judge, but figured getting this out so others can see it might get me some feedback.  Would this be a worthwhile toy for a Harry Potter nut?  Would this be neat to have on display in one’s home?  I don’t know, but hope someone less geeky than I am can tell me.

[tags]Harry Potter, Time Turner, Gift, Friends[/tags]

Spitzer and the high-priced hooker

The message here, kids, is that if you pay enough for a hooker, you can walk away scot free when caught.  Particularly, if you are, say, the mayor of New York and you spend thousands of dollars per booty call, you can get away with your marriage intact (good or bad depends on your view of your marriage) and no penalty beyond having to resign your position.

The decision not to press charges against former Gov. Eliot Spitzer for his involvement with a high-priced prostitution ring last year came as no surprise yesterday to several former prosecutors and defense lawyers, many of whom said that the case, while full of lurid and suggestive details, would have been hard to prosecute.

. . .

In laying out his decision not to prosecute Mr. Spitzer, Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said he had three main rationales: Mr. Spitzer had apparently not used any public money or campaign funds for his trysts; there was insufficient evidence that he had broken the law in how he had structured payments to the call-girl ring; and, finally, it was not the policy of his or other federal prosecutors’ offices to charge the customers in matters of prostitution.

Hard to prosecute.  Not policy to charge customers.  Remember that when you get caught in Nevada after paying $15 for a blow-job.  If you are a nobody and buy a cheap whore, you will get busted.  If you are a big-name politico, you get to apologize in public, say you are sorry, then wait for the whole thing to go away.

[tags]Eliot Spitzer, Hookers without penalty, High priced hookers, Scot Free[/tags]