Dinosaurs walk the earth!

While everyone has seemingly gone miniature and digital, there are still a lot of folks out there keepin' it real. Here, courtesy of the WSJ is one of them:

The article in the journal is unintentionally funny as it sets up a weird dichotomy between "$1 songs and $100 players" and "$20 CDs and $1,000 stereo systems".

People, if you are planning to spend $1000 on your home stereo, I'd suggest sticking to your iPod. Even going the used route, that is just not going to cut it. I built most of my stereo myself and even that won't get you there for $1000.

The article also implies that mp3 is the state of the art for portable digital recording which is far from the truth.

We Get Letters: Gubmint ID Edition

A little while ago, we heard the first installment of the "No ID why yew cain't git service" saga. The second edition is even better, or worse but funnier, or something. I'll let our intrepid correspondent tell the story:


Return one week later to ID office for second attempt to pick-up new and improved gubmint standardized ID.

Me: Hi, I'm here to pick up my ID. I have a 10:30 appt (It's 10:15)

Office Drone: Have a seat, someone will call you.

(While sitting there and waiting, an employee/father asks them to register his already existing ID to work on the electronic lock at the entrance to the child care center so he can get in to drop-off and pick-up his kid. He is informed immediately (in a dismissive tone) that this is something they can not do, and they have never done it before. When he asks (rather politely) why other employees cards work on the doors, a supervisor comes over and tells employee/ father that he understands the request, but clearly they can not help him. The father (still being polite) asks them to call the child care center, who sent him there, to ask what to do. They tell him to take a seat).

45 minutes later:

OD: Why are you here?

ME: I had a 10:30 appt. (now almost 11)

OD: Who are you?

ME: Tell them I made an appt. on the on-line system to pick-up ID.

OD: We don't have your ID, so why are you here?

ME: Tell them I got an email saying to come in, show her copy of email, she tells me to follow her.

OD: Checks computer in cubicle, tells me my finger prints came back as unreadable, so you have to do them again.

ME: Why doesn't the email indicate this? It says my ID is ready.

OD: We don't control the emails that this office sends out.

ME: Putting fingers on scanner and watching prints come up on monitor: "Why didn't my electronic fingerprints work last time? Wouldn't your computer tell you if they were unreadable?"

OD: There's a glitch in the system, happens all the time.

ME: So what happens now, I did this 2 months ago?

OD: I don't know.

So I ask to see a supervisor, and following lead of employee/ father, introduce myself and explain situation and am very polite.

Super: Checks computer, says that the agency that checks the prints couldn't use them, so now back at beginning of process.

Me: What happens if these prints don't work?

Super: Then we run your name through the system instead.

Me: How long does that take?

Super: That only takes a few minutes, just a click of a button and it runs it through.

I must have had a look of absolute astonishment on my face, because after a long pause the Super sits back in her chair and sighs. She tells me that after 9/11 Homeland Security wanted to centralize the gubmint ID process, so individual federal agencies no long control it. Now it's spread out among several security agencies, and after a three year delay, and millions in costs overruns, they just started to use it. The problem is that no one knows how it's supposed to work, and as of yet it hasn't worked for anyone they've tried. So I should keep my fingers crossed and hope that someone figures it out.

I thanked her and was leaving when saw the employee/ father still sitting there. I spent remainder of the day looking for work in the private sector.

Let's put them in charge of health care!

The official state scent of Oklahoma!

We got a state bird, song, and tree, so why not a state odor?

A Little Goose is Always Nice

Okay, not always.

(Nod to the NCM)

Oh! Canada!

Our northern neighbors are hosting the latest G-7 Finance Ministers meeting this week. In Iquluit Nunavut!

Canada's Finance Department, the organizer of the G-7 event, has been limited in the activities it could plan. There are only 300 hotel rooms in town. And because some 500 guests, including ministers, security and media are expected, some will have to sleep in dorm rooms.

With a dearth of limousines in Iqaluit, ministers will use the 15 rental cars available from the town's single car-rental agency. After those are full, school buses will ferry around attendees further down the diplomatic food chain.

Local residents are anxious to see how the dignitaries respond to Saturday's traditional Inuit feast, which has muskox, caribou and seal on the menu—some of it skinned and served raw.

But, people I come not to bury Canada but to praise her. Why? Well because Timothy Geithner is the guy who goes to these meetings right? Who knows, maybe he'll get stuck riding a bus to his dorm room. Maybe he'll get slush kicked up on him by a passing snowmobile. Maybe he'll have a run in with some amorous caribou! Maybe he'll turn out to be allergic to seal heart!

Consider all the possibilities.....

Damn, I'm not the greatest Kevin in Oklahoma anymore

People, check out Kevin Durant's stat line for the month of January:

In 15 games, Durant averaged 32.1 points, 8.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.1 steals. He shot 51.9 percent from the field, 53.2 percent on 3-pointers, and 89.8 percent from the foul line.

I have sent out a paper, done 3 referee reports, taught my classes, put together a dissertation committee for one of my students and almost completed a draft of a new paper.

Somehow, it's just not the same, is it?

Haiti gets the shaft again

Just when you think things couldn't be worse, word comes that an "all star cast" is re-making 1985's abomination "We are the World", this time for Haiti.

In no way do I mean to make light of the ongoing tragedy there, but haven't those poor folk suffered enough?

And talk about lazy, if you're a community of artists, why recycle an old, hackneyed, crappy, schmaltzy, song like that. No one can be bothered to write something relevant to the case at hand? Was Michael Jackson really the only modern pop star capable of such a feat? 

I think we should stop stealing Haitian kids, start letting Haitians emigrate, and if we have to have another overwrought pop star ego fest, they should at least have to come up with an original song that is about Haiti.

Of course there will be a video of the event so that all can see just how wonderful this current group of artists actually are.

Great Moments in Seminars....

Went to a seminar at the Law School today. Speaker was the irrepressible, and quite irredeemable, Mat McCubbins (yes, one "t")


Seminar started at 12:15 pm. Pretty good crowd, considering the ice on the ground and sidewalks.

Well into it, by 12:45. Then at precisely 1 pm, precisely: Armageddon! The powerpoint presentation on the computer shuts down, the window shades roll up, the projector shuts off, and the lights come up. We are surrounded by sound and lights flashing. Apparently Hal the self-aware computer of the Law School had had enough of this crap.

Cheering, and abuse, rain down on McCubbins. Voted off the island, by the computer! Most excellent. Of course, he isn't sure how to start everything back up, and it takes a while to restore order. Mat was much calmer than I would have been. Hee hee!

My NASA budget

People, it's exactly 0 dollars and 0 cents. If I was king, getting rid of NASA would be one of the first things I would do. Instead, President O has found room somewhere in his newly announced 3.8 trillion dollar austerity budget to bump NASA's funding up to 19 billion dollars. Now I know 19 billion doesn't amount to a hill of beans when considered in the light of a projected 1.6 trillion dollar deficit, but hey, you gotta start somewhere.

My second choice for a zero budget is the Transportation Security Administration. There's another 7 billion or so we could stop smacking ourselves over the head  with every year.

Who's got next?

Roaring Lion was wrong?

One of the many things I have learned from Tyler is an appreciation of calypso music from Trinidad especially the founding fathers, Roaring Lion and Attila the Hun.

One piece of advice the Lion gave me was:

"If you want to be happy and live a king's life, never make a pretty woman your wife

All you've got to do is just what I say, and you'll be always happy and gay

From a logical point of view, always marry a woman uglier than you."

Now in my case, following this advice was problematic, well, because, there just aren't that many women out there uglier than me! So I had to turn my back on the Lion and go in a different direction.

Now Science has spoken and it turns out I was right and the Lion was wrong:

 "the relative difference between partners' levels of attractiveness appeared to be most important in predicting marital behavior, such that both spouses behaved more positively in relationships in which wives were more attractive than their husbands, but they behaved more negatively in relationships in which husbands were more attractive than their wives."

Maybe now it's a little clearer why Mrs. Angus deigned to marry me.