Airline Crash

Some airline crashes, you never hear about. At least the airplanes aren't running windows ...... are they? (found at Norfolk Airport)

A quarter with a story.

Here's another one of those simple things that mask a larger story. I got this quarter as change today. The quarter was gold plated and about 1/2 of the gold plating has chipped off. OK, so now what is the story? I'm guessing that there are basically two possiblities.

1. Someone was practicing how to gold plate.
2. Someone tried to pass this off as a Sacagawea dollar.

Since the Sacagawea story is more interesting I'm going with that. Pretty lousy plating job but I guess if you're trying to pass off a quarter as as dollar and you have it bundled in a roll of real Sacagewea dollars it might pass un noticed. Really it's a crappy fake. Even if you look at the edge of a dollar and a quarter, you see right away that they're different (quarter = ridges, dollar = smooth). Also it seems like alot of work for $.75 but then again they didn't make just one. What do you say when you're busted for counterfeitting dollars with quarters? "Um, it was a science project and it accidentally got mixed up with the dollar coins."

Truth in advertising from the NYC Housing Authority

Hey, you don't have to rub it in. (Housing Project in Queens NY)

Actually, according to Wikipedia this housing project isn't very bland at all if you like gang violence.

One small milestone to wasting time.

This is a yet another followup to a previous post. I finally made the leader board of Zwok! Woo Hoo! The screenshot is from the moment that I actually became ranked number 300 (the point when you get on the leader board). The song "Velouria" by the Pixies was playing at the time. This would mark the first time that I've ever been on the leader board of any online game. Though this means absolutely nothing it's a one small victory of life. In about an hour some kid 1/3 my age will probably pass me and knock me off the board but until then I am in the ranks of the elite. Time to go to the bathroom, take a victory crap and go to bed. Maybe I can go do something productive tomorrow.

My First Foray Into Acting (Follow Up)

Here's the much anticipated follow up to this blog post that I did last month. I didn't get the job as the director of the Wetness Protection Program, or even get to the primaries where you can vote, but I did make the spash page of the website www.wetnessprotectionprogram.com. Since I really was only hoping to get on the web site (at best), this was a smash success! Considering at least 40 people went to the audition and only 10 people even got their picture on the website, I really beat the odds.

By the way, the button that I'm pointing to didn't say "Vote", it was one of those "Wetness" with a slash through it buttons like the one the woman is wearing. So there is a little photoshopping going on there.

Another aside, one of the people who did make it to the primaries commented on my first post. I think he's "Al Del Bene". Congrats Al, hope you get the job.

Yeah, this hat is much better.

Hat confusion at a friend's birthday party.

You might as well buy a 1960 Ford

I'm watching this old Ford film on The internet Archive. The film introduces the brand new 1960 Ford Falcon (among others) and claims that the Falcon gets 30mpg. OK maybe that sounds impressive in the 1960's but what is the average mpg of cars now? The answer (for 2004) is 22.4 miles per gallon. Here's the chart I used from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. By the chart, you can see that the average mpg of cars (since 1980) has never passed 30 mpg. In fact, in the category of "New Fuel Efficiency Vehicles" the average only hit 30 mpg last year. So a car that seats six adults, is covered in chrome and steel, has no fuel injection, is not very aerodynamic and was designed 40 years ago, is still as good as the present day average fuel efficiency vechicle. At a starting price of $1,912 (in 1960) the smart money is on the Falcon. More details about the Ford Falcon

Hocus Pocus

So whenever I hear this song, I think back to a conversation that I had with an ex girlfriend. The conversation went like this.

Ex. : My sister has a folk band called Folk-us.
Evan: Oh, that's to bad, the name is already taken.
Ex. : Really?
Evan: Yeah, you know, Hocus Pocus by Focus
Ex. : (confused look)
Evan: Jan Akkerman, Thijs Van Leer....
Ex. : (silence)
Evan: Yo dee doh doh doh ee doh doh doh dee doh doh doh dee doh doh doe dee doh doh doh dee doh doh doh dum dum?
Ex. : (walks away)

Though it is a great song, it still isn't my favorite Art Rock Instrumental Song from the 70's. Of course, the title goes to Edgar Winter's Frankenstein.

How some internet companies try to make money off of free music.

I find things like this every once in a while. Here is a company that is trying to make money off of MP3s that are freely available on the internet. Here is a listing of songs that they downloaded off my previous band's (Tortuga) website. They want you to use their download application (for $30) and with that application you can then download the songs that we were giving away for free. They're also making money off of ads on their site. I have no idea what the other catches are because I haven't downloaded their software. Yeah, technically they're selling the software not the music, but there are plenty of free programs that do the same thing. I'm not sure if they already downloaded the songs to their servers or they just redirect you to the links they found to the songs. If it's the links then you're not getting anything because they are dead links and I assume that 50% of all their other "songs" also point to dead links as well.