the bad guys are still out there

as if there wasn't enough reason to dislike banks, here's another one: many of them are not complying with the Truth in Savings Act. they aren't telling us ahead of time about the cost of doing business with them. good grief. let's just close down the ones who aren't complying. what's the problem??

another dimension

3-D without special glasses? iPad is working on it. it's kinda intriguing, but seems a little limited right now. but hey, that's always the way it is in the beginning. anyhow, check this out and see what you think. i usually watch stuff like this with the sound off, so maybe they said something important. i dunnoh.

be underground where the aliens can't get you

do you have an extra $900,000 that you want to spend on a condo which is underground for when the aliens get here? if so, then you need to read this article.

houston ... we've got a problem

did you see the cool logo that google has today because of the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight? it's pretty cool! pretty disgusting that we haven't done much else in the last 50 years though. i mean, come on, we go up in space, we walk on the moon, and we build a space station. that's it? something got derailed somewhere.

bored? depressed? read this...

i was curious about the article talking about the space station and space junk. so i started reading it and... whoa! totally cracked me up! if you want a really good laugh, check it out.

wheeee ... uh ...

back to the skiing thing -- this looks like fun!! and this is a quick-look of it.

it's one of those things that if i were younger and had learned how to ski, i would totally love going off and doing that stuff. the fact that i'm afraid of heights might not have stopped me. after all, there was one time when i went up to snoqualmie pass to cross-country ski (no, i wasn't good at that either) and i decided to take the chair lift up because it was a sunny day and the lift looked like fun.

until i got to the top. it was pretty clear to me that i wasn't going to ski down. so i waited an hour for the next lift and rode it down. hanging on for dear life all the way. it was funny *blush*.

what are they thinking....

speaking of the budget, here are a couple of quotes:

"House Republicans intend to pass a 2012 budget in the coming week that calls for sweeping changes in the federal health programs for the elderly and needy families, and even deeper cuts in domestic programs to gain control over soaring deficits."

and:

"Unless we act soon, government spending on health and retirement programs will crowd out spending on everything else, including national security. It will literally take every cent of every federal tax dollar just to pay for these programs."



does anyone in congress ever consider cutting back the military and bringing troops home, rather than cutting domestic programs? i'm a little tired of supporting programs overseas when there are so many problems here. to say nothing of the illegal immigrant stuff. to say nothing of the sweet perks the members of congress have voted themselves which are held apart from any cut-back.

let's take a look at those kinds of things to reduce our tax burden instead of taking the knife to health and retirement. honestly, the fox thinks everything will be fine if he just kills all the chickens.

things change

well, fu ... sh ... cr .... dangit! it seems the $$ issue is fixed for now and i need to go to work on monday as usual. but i was soooooooo looking forward to being a dirty bum!

duuuhn, duh-duh duh, daaaaaaaaahh

i'm on furlough. i think. if the big bad boys in congress haven't solved the $$ problem, i am off-work until whenever. do i mind that? you've got to be kidding. i have pants to hem, books to read, a patio to make comfy, couches to lay around on, late nights to keep. i'm all grins.

i do mind that we have idiots in congress, but that's a whole issue fraught with anger, frustration, and incivility.

how-to see tiny

i forgot to say that if you're curious about seeing a chip and trying to find a message, this article gives a little more info. click on the circuit board with the red square and you'll have a picture of a full chip with circuits -- the tiny message is highlighted.

hee, hee ... a whole new world we didn't even realize was there.

teeny tiny coolness

and speaking of tiny things, this article was very interesting. even if you aren't very computer savvy, you are probably aware that the chips inside a computer are pretty small. and they have very small circuits and semiconductors on the chips. but did you realize that if there's any blank space on a chip that mischievous computer geek chip-makers can lay out their sense of humor?

you probably won't search out any humor laying around on your own computer chips, so take a look at this article and click on 'view all' so you can see them and go back to them and wonder at them. it's pretty neat and i have to think that if i were doing this job, that i would come up with stuff to put on the chips, too. i mean, way cool!

little bitty movies

i've seen a number of stop-action shorts in my life, and mainly i'm left thinking about the hours involved in making tiny moves, taking the shot, making more tiny moves, taking the shot. it must be painstaking.

this 7-minute short, however, is so absorbing that i didn't give tiny moves a single thought. you really have to see it -- a ski-resort in jackson hole. it's just so well-done ... litte bitty trees, little bitty people, little bitty building and mountains and ski lifts. the whole thing is riveting.

spoiler alert: it's real people.

healthy -- yay!

i just ran across an interesting article -- the rankings of the health of all the counties in the country. my county is really healthy -- #6 of 39, my older son's is a touch less -- #12 of 39, and my younger son's is number one -- #1 of 32.

i need to get ready for work, but later i want to peruse this site more and see what exactly they're talking about. how healthy is your county?

short-sighted, greed- and ego-driven stupidity

honestly, you just have to shake your head when you read about nuclear power. obama is pushing for more nuclear plants in this country, calling them a necessity (2 new ones are soon going to be built in georgia) and yet acknowledging there are problems (e.g., storage and disposal of nuclear waste).

in light of the problems in japan the last x-days, there can't be any doubt that there are many problems with this technology. "we don't have a lot of experience with this," says one guy. well, duh. and yet, let's insist on going ahead with plans even though they have problems and are missing solutions. after all, we'll figure it out at some point, right? let's not count on it.

there's even an article which calculates the earthquake risk of u.s. plants. the one with the biggest potential for trouble isn't in california -- it's in new york.

but really, after looking back at all the times that man has tried to improve on nature and totally messed it up (like, bringing in kudzu to the u.s. to control soil erosion and having it run out of control, or bringing in a toad in australia to control the sugar cane beetle and the toad becoming a bigger, poisonous problem), how can anyone with half a brain assume that nuclear power is a good answer? only after solutions to the obvious huge problems had been found, would i consider the technology might not be suspect. but we're not there yet, guys. not by a long shot.

oh, look at the boats .... no, don't look

and if you want something different .... go here. some of her stuff is (ahem) really different.

you know, you have to wonder .... what would one's sex life be like if we'd been born in another country. america is just so repressed.

a different way of thinking about it

So .... do you like these?

Daddy Long Legs

A Pair of Lovers

We Were Made for Each Other

Well then, you'll like all of these!  And you can find more on his blog.

sorta like pig latin ....

oh wow, this is beyond cool! have you seen these guys? i've never heard of them, but that doesn't mean anything.

watch this video first -- it's a riot, whether you have the sound on or not. then watch this one, which is the making of the other one. they're singing backwards!!! hilarious!

spring forward, fall all over the place

personally i think daylight savings time is stupid. the whole thing just suddenly appeared one day and i've never reconciled myself to it. (you go, arizona!) it's a lot like the metric system, only we were able to head them off on that one.

regardless, this article is interesting. and be sure to read the part about yawning. i was wide-awake until i got done with it.  :)

bring it on!

oh goody. there's a new movie (just shown at sxsw) which is a sci-fi thriller dealing in parallel worlds. it looks great and as much as i don't really care for jake gyllenhaal, i want to see it. it's called Source Code and it's directed by the same guy who did Moon. i didn't want to see that one since it sounded sad and frustrating, although the performance by sam rockwell is supposed to be beyond superb, but i'm really curious about this one. the director for both, duncan jones, is david bowie's son. whooooooaaa .... what must that have been like?

earthquakes and tsunamis and melting ... oh my!

a partial meltdown is underway?? what in the world does that mean for all the rest of us? i've never really bought into the nuclear thing. humans are notorious for screwing up nature and anything else laying around so it's a given that someday at some point someone is going to somehow mess up things nuclear. of course, who counted on it being mother nature? still .... you'd think someone would have thought about that possibility. let's just hope they're able to get things under control before more lives are lost locally or abroad. those people in japan are having a terrible time!