Miscellany

I have relatively little to add to this hilarious post from defective yeti about the stupidity of Deal or No Deal except to agree that the show is idiotic, relying on the mathematical ignorance of its contestants and audience. It really makes me crazy that people think “the banker” actually makes decisions about what to offer based on a personal assessment of the contestant, when it is clearly a selection of an amount from an error range around the mathematical expectation of what the contestant might win. Yeti’s proposed game show might be more entertaining – I’m trying to brainstorm … Continue reading Press your luck

It’s the first day of the semester for me, tackling a new class which I am both insanely excited about and having the requisite new-class jitters over. One of the things I love about my school is having the opportunity to totally obsess about just one course for a month – I’ve been lucky and always been able to teach something I was interested in obsessing about for a whole month, which I suspect makes all the difference. But, I’m pretty scatter-brained this morning because of that, so today I’ll just bring you a smattering of random fun stuff – … Continue reading Back to school

If, like me, you never remember to get a new calendar until the start of the new year, you could always just print out a copy of the Classic Pulp Sci Fi Magazine Cover Calendar downloadable from the Website at the End of the Universe. [via Boing Boing] While I would generally object to what is essentially a bikini-girl calendar, I love the old sci fi art and I think it’s really interesting to consider the images as historical artifacts. There are actually four years worth of calendars at the site to browse through, if you are interested in such … Continue reading Welcome to 2007!

Next time someone commits you to making balloon animals, head on over to How to Twist a Balloon Dog for awesome step-by-step instructions and a cute little animated gif of the process in action. Then go twack the person who committed you to making balloon animals over the head with a blunt instrument.

Tomorrow is Museum Day. What is Museum Day? Started by the Smithsonian Institution, it is a day when a number of museums across the country offer free admission to visitors who present the Museum Day Card available on the page I just linked to. For those in Western PA, the Carnegie is participating, so this is a great opportunity to check it out if you haven’t been before.

A faithful reader mailed me the photo below last night, demonstrating the perfect merging of Pittsburgh’s fanaticism about the Steelers and Pittsburgh’s utter lack of interest in helping people get around the city who do not already know what they are doing. Be assured, this is not an off-duty bus, and the over-door route number signs have been replaced with the same message. I’m not sure if this exceeds the insanity of Washington, er, that is, Steeler, PA (damn – was I supposed to change my business cards?). Flipping channels last night, an advertisement showing that a local channel’s entire … Continue reading Local Color

I don’t understand why it is impossible to find a pad of blank, unlined 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Not an art pad or anything – what I think is called a “glue top scratch pad”. I’ve been getting them at the campus bookstore, but they don’t sell them anymore, and it turns out nobody else does either. What is so difficult about what I am looking for? Yes, that website I linked sells them, but not cheaply and I shouldn’t have to go online to find such a thing. While searching around, though, I found the best Wikipedia entry … Continue reading Office Supply Woes

Don’t miss out on the fun – today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Perhaps after work I’ll dust off my copy of Pirates and play a game….

To all appearances, the “credit card” to the left might appear to be your run of the mill fake card that companies put in their mailings all the time. But American Express has reached new lows – what you are seeing there is not just a phony card, but it is in fact a magnet designed to look like a credit card. One wonders what marketing genius decided to promote their product with exactly the item that destroys their product. Or perhaps they’re hoping for a little industrial sabotage against their competitors already in your wallet….