Friday Funny

Handy units of measurement

Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter - Eskimo Pi

2000 pounds of Chinese soup - Won ton

1 millionth mouthwash - 1 microscope

Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour - Knot-furlong

365.25 days of drinking low-calorie beer because it's less filling - 1 lite year

16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone - 1 Rod Serling

1,000,000 aches 1 megahurtz

Basic unit of laryngitis - 1 hoarsepower

1 million phones - 1 megaphone

1 million bicycles - 2 megacycles

2000 mockingbirds - two kilomockingbirds

1 kilogram of falling figs - 1 Fig Newton

1000 grams of wet socks - 1 literhosen

The Blogging shall now resume

Now that the spring break non-vacation is over and things are settling back down again I think it's time to get back to posting.

To fill everyone in, over break I got a job offer that would take me to Chicagoland (and I have accepted) so I'm off to the North at the end of this semester.

My plans to expend massive amounts of cordite were shot down by almost constant rain and nasty weather (maybe it's time to look into some stainless on polymer rifles) but that's ok because some of my friends came by for a couple of days. The weather cleared up just long enough for us to get out and enjoy a hike.

Now that break is through it's back to classes, and thankfully they're getting a bit easier.

Friday Funny

You might be an engineer if...
You have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically.
You enjoy pain.
You know vector calculus but you can't remember how to do long division.
You chuckle whenever anyone says "centrifugal force".
You've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
It is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.
You frequently whistle the theme song to "MacGyver".
You know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.
You think in "math".
You've calculated that the World Series actually diverges.
You hesitate to look at something because you don't want to break down its wave function.




These strike a bit too close to home for me.

Light posting ahead

Most of the people reading this already know it, but I'm on my spring break non-vacation right now. Expect posting to be light this week. On the up side, I should have lots of material lined up for next week.

Weekend Diversion

I hope to be doing some target practice over the course of the next week. (After all, I want to enjoy break at least a little.) Of course I realize that many of you do not live out in the country where you can just walk out past the barn and do some target practice, so here's a little game to practice your shooting. Sure it doesn't give you any help with your form, but it should keep your target acquisition skills sharp.

Absolutist.com's 3D shooter


If you can't get at least 10,000 then call me. We need to practice.

Friday Funny

A tribute to Einstein...


There Once Was A Lady Named White
Who Could Travel Much Faster Than Light.
She "Had-Lift-Off" One Day,
And In A Relative Way,
Returned On The Previous Night

It's not exactly Shakespeare, but I think it's relatively good.

...Man About Town

Eva sent over some pictures from Friday when I came back from my job interview. Now I know I'm not the best looking guy, but never tell me I don't know how to dress myself!


Me, dressed up and on the town.


And another shot of me before I retired for the evening.

Thanks for the pictures Eva!

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Somehow that makes me feel better about this week.

A Metaphor For This Week

Things are actually beginning to look up now, but for a while I felt like this was the way things were going for me.


I'm no pilot, but something tells me this is a bad sign. Yikes!

Weekend Diversion

Here's a little game that's good for wasting about 5 minutes. I might have gotten more interested in this, except I've played some realistic WWI flight sims that blow the socks off of this. But if you like sidescrolling action, here it is!

Out of Town

I'm heading out now for a little quality time with my mudbuggy.





It may not be the best handling or sportiest car on the road but I love cruising down the road in it.

Now pardon my dust.

The Town that Billy Sunday Could Not Shut Down

Here's a bit of good news.

I'm off to Chicago on Friday. And while I'm in that toddlin' town I'll be interviewing for a job with a large (and prestigious) packaging company. With any luck, I'll also be able to hang out with my friend Steve.

Of course I've never considered Chicago a great place to live, but a job is a job. I think I could live with it. Who knows, I might even learn to like city life. Of course that would be a lot easier if there wasn't a ban on things like this:



Honestly! Why is it that a (reasonably) responsible guy like me with no criminal record and knack for hitting the X-ring can legally own and carry a pistol like this in over 90% of this country and yet doing so in Chicago would make me a felon? Oh well, either the laws will change or I'll get out of town a few years down the road. It's a shame though. Chicago is kind of a pretty town.

Humor at the expense of Microsoft

This one is for Bo, who now works at Microsoft. It seems that there's a new twist on one of the office applications. With the addition of this new piece of software they may reach an entirely new market.

Hope for the future

I've complained on several occasions that whenever gun owners get attention it tends to be negative. However, today I ran across an article at The Nation of Riflemen and it really helped to renew my hope that some day gun owners will not be plagued by the current stereotypes.


Here's the post I was looking at. As far as I am concerned, that quote should be required reading for all gun owners. As for non gun owners, I urge you to read it as well because it gives an excellent explanation of the mindset of a responsible gun owner.

Here's a teaser:
It has no feelings, no emotions. What it does, however, is extend the good or evil of the man wielding it. He is no longer constricted to arm’s reach, he can extend good or evil for hundreds if not thousands of yards. And the rifle becomes just as good or evil as the person wielding it.

And to think that' he's not even 21 yet!

Eyecandy

Here's a little something I ran across that I think my male readers will really like. I present CHICKS WITH GUNS!!

Weekend Diversion

Since the weather has started improving winter seems so much less threatening. Soon we may even begin to miss the snow. OK, it's not likely, but just in case we have a nifty little game that lets us enjoy a favorite winter pastime without getting cold.

Snowball Fight 3D


Uhoh, Incoming! swish Ha! You mis...splat! Dang!

When nerds have old cars and new gadgets

When I got my drivers license my grandfather gave me a wonderful gift.



A 1977 Thunderbird! It was (and is( a beautiful car (almost like the one in the picture) and the big V-8 it made it loads of fun.

There was only one little problem with driving the car. There were only three ways to listen to music. Listen to AM/FM static, play some worn out 8-track cassettes, or sing.

Now an enterprising bright mettlesome young fellow like myself just could not be satisfied with such a situation. After all I had CDs I wanted to listen to.

Now I already had a portable CD player and an adapter that that let me plug it into a cassette deck, so I figured it must have been possible to make something similar for an 8-track player.

Armed no real knowledge of how an 8-track operated, I cut up an old cassette, disassembled a junk stereo, and then mounted the magnetic head from the stereo into the cassette. I did a little soldering and had it connected to my portable CD player. I plugged my converter into the car's 8-track player, said a little prayer, and hit the play button. To my astonishment relief IT ACTUALLY WORKED.

Ever since, I've been patting myself on the back for my ingenuity. That is until now. Somebody has actually invented (and marketed) an even nerdier solution to stereo retrofitting problems. It doesn't deal with the old 8-track players, but it makes up for it in complexity.

Behold the Bluetooth enabled stereo cassette!



That's right! No longer must you use those ugly old fashioned wires to play mp3s on your cassette deck! Use wireless technology to beam the music directly to this little tape and into your stereo. Never mind that it's possible to splice an MP3 player into the stereo system in less time than it took to read this blog; this little gadget is the ultimate in nerdy ways to retrofit your car's old stereo!

I guess this means I'll have to come up with an even more ridiculous method of connecting old stereo equipment to new. WAIT! I've got it. I'll buy one of these gadgets and use it to build an adapter to an 8-track. No, even better! I'll adapt it to a 33rpm record player. Maybe even a wind-up Victrola!! Now let me see, if I connect the output to a small speaker clamped to the tone head....

Ending the week with a BANG!

Now I think plinking with small caliber firearms is fun, but there are times when I'd love to use a bit more firepower. That's why I found this video I started grinning from ear to ear.
It looks to me like this clip was made of footage from training exercises, but that doesn't matter. After all, it's still live ammo!

mmmmmm, I can smell the cordite now!

Blogus Interruptus

I haven't had much time to post things this week. I'll be back on it soon, check in this weekend.