A collections of links will comprise the bulk of today’s post. All sorts of items of interest (or things that I feel might be interesting.)
First, and foremost, we must discuss the horrible situation in Haiti. Interstate is, like we did after Katrina, taking employee contributions and matching them for the American Red Cross and/or Doctors Without Borders. We’re doing a 4 to 1 match. (We are also collecting donations from customers at our walk-in counter but these are not subject to match.)
Click here to donate:
You can also donate to other charities from Google’s special website here. And of course, there’s the Red Cross too. I’ve included a clickable image link to their website. I am sad to report that you need to be careful as there are people trying to scam money from well-meaning citizens. It’s why I now only link to the sites directly.
Let’s start the regular part of the blog with my stupid-ass heater. The HVAC guy was right. Moments after my last post, the electrician called for me. There was a 10 Amp breaker which is fine for the AC unit. The heater, however, was drawing upwards of 29. He said I’m lucky the house down it was so hot. He let me touch the old breaker and damn it was hot and burned like hell. He replaced both breakers for upstairs and downstairs just to be safe. The charge is all in the labour as the parts are cheap. I also had him try to find out why my side light stopped working three years ago or so. I tried but never could figure it out. It wasn’t the light. The switch inside the house that controlled it had gone bad. Duh.
In musical news, I’m a long-time, confirmed Beatles fan. So I got “Good Evening New York City” which is the new Paul McCartney CD. Music is less than well done. The vocals are, I am sad to report, especially miserable. I did not enjoy most of the first two discs — not quite done and I’m listening in the background, but this is sad. I can’t recommend this. Sorry.
While we’re on the arts, here’s a bit more on Avatar. I’ve always been entertained by how this movie or that movie is so successful. Then you have films like Avatar raking it in, but everyone forgets the ticket prices at Avatar are averaging near $15 due to the 3D showings which is damn near double the national average. Here’s a list adjusted into 1939 dollars (you can change the year in the URL to see it adjusted for any given year’s value). Gone With The Wind remains in first place by a comfortable margin. What most people don’t know is that even if not adjusted for inflation GWTW record (1939, $189 million) wasn’t broken until the Exorcist came out (1973, $232 million) — 34 years. The fact that GWTW made all that money when tickets were sold for ten cents instead of ten dollars is all the more impressive. Avatar, when adjusted, is in 50th place. That’s not bad, but it puts it in perspective.
Keeping in line with the arts, I’ve watched Conan’s late-night monologue for the past few days as it grows increasingly vitriolic. I am amused. Leno’s becoming more whiney and Conan’s bitterness is completely justified. I like John Carney’s take on it in his blog.
Next up, we have Dean who does awesome Simpsons characters. My favourite is this guy because he’s a cool looking Simpsonized hockey player. I highly recommend you spend some time on his site looking at his amazing creations.
I’ve got more humour items to try and lighten the moment. We have this old (2002) story of an e-mail server that wouldn’t deliver emails any further than 500 miles from the recipient. “What? That’s impossible” you are probably thinking. Read on if you dare — all complaints to Dave for this geeky anecdote.
There is this bit of amusement provided to me by Paul. Before you click on the link, I must warn you it’s got pop-ups, pop-overs, and pop-unders, enough to the point I only finished because of the source of the link. “Even if YOU don’t know what faith you are, Belief-O-MaticTM knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic will tell you what religion (if any) you practice … or ought to consider practicing.” Here are my results:
- Secular Humanism (100%)
- Unitarian Universalism (90%)
- Liberal Quakers (81%)
- Neo-Pagan (80%)
- Theravada Buddhism (77%)
- Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (67%)
- New Age (63%)
- Nontheist (63%)
- Taoism (57%)
- Reform Judaism (53%)
- Mahayana Buddhism (52%)
- Orthodox Quaker (46%)
- Baha’i Faith (40%)
- Sikhism (40%)
- Scientology (39%) WTF????
- Jainism (38%)
- New Thought (36%)
- Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (30%)
- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (26%)
- Hinduism (26%)
- Seventh Day Adventist (21%)
- Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (20%)
- Eastern Orthodox (17%)
- Islam (17%)
- Orthodox Judaism (17%)
- Roman Catholic (17%)
- Jehovah’s Witness (13%)
The above list amuses me I suppose. Or maybe it scares me. Not sure. And while we’re on religion, I wish to sign off with a special FOAD* for Pat Robertson. Watch this link if you can stomach what is, perhaps, Pat Robertson’s most offensive and befuddling comment to date:
Yes, you heard it right. The people of Haiti apparently got together and swore a pact with the devil and that’s why this happened to them. I hope Pat Robertson gets ‘called home’ soon. I hear it’s nice and warm where he’ll be going.
*That’s fuck off and die if you didn’t get it. I hope he gets punched in the face. Even Fox News said he was out of line. Really.