YABERS

The blog of Rick Lansky

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Monday — March 17, 2003

I don't know why, but with all this talk of the war in Iraq, I was thinking back to the 2000 presidential election. At the time, I recall that now-president Bush was complaining that America spent to much effort using its military overseas in other countries conflicts.

So, if you want a good laugh--or cry--here's a link to the transcripts from the 2000 presidential debates. My how things change. Yes, in this debate, now-president Bush plays himself off as the man to reach across the aisle to the other party, a man to get things done in a bi-partisan manner. What a farce.

My favorite quote, as it applies to current events is this:

The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation-building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.

If this is his idea of "careful", I'd hate to see the reckless side of President Bush.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 08:17 AM — Comments (4)

Friday — March 14, 2003

If you're having a "hard" time trying to find a gift for someone who has everything, chances are they don't have one of these. It's cheap, and the raw materials for usage are readily available. Looks like there's one thing that Ronco did not invent. Although, with some adapation, this just might be made to work in a "pinch".

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 04:42 PM &mdash Comments (1)

Like most people, we get a lot of catalogs in the mail for places where we will certainly never being buying anything. We got one yesterday that really caught my eye due to the sheer number of outrageous products: Solutions. If you're a cat fancier, there are plenty of objects for you.

Imagine setting your cat up in its own protective Kittywalk for their outdoor adventures. I know, the feeling of calm and ease that results from knowing that your pet is protected is well worth the $100 cost. Does your cat like to lounge? Not a problem, the Kittywalk comes with an optional kabana that includes an awning and, I swear I'm not making this up, a hammock. I can't imagine your typical cat enjoying a hammock, but who knows.

If your cat's not the restful sort, you can always make things interesting by tossing a Panic Mouse into the Kittywalk. Yes, all the excitement of hunting in the outdoors without any of the danger.

Of course, whether your cat is hunting or lazying about, dehydration is also a concern with cats. What better way to keep them hydrated than with a Fresh Flow Pet Fountain? Sorry, it only comes in white.

My favorite dog-related product is the Doggles; bombadier googles for dogs that like to stick their head out the window... are there any dogs that don't? Yes, you're dog can be as cool as the eight-year-old kid whos parents make him where a helmet to throw the frisbee around in the yard.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 07:33 AM &mdash Comments (1)

Based on the Google banner today (shown below), I'm guessing that today is Albert Einstein's birthday. The birthdays are certainly piling up around this time of the year.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 07:17 AM &mdash Comments (0)

Thursday — March 13, 2003

As far as game technology goes, I think it's safe to say that Spacerunner has an early-80's Atari-type feel to it. Yet, I find myself having loads of fun when I play it. I especially like when you get to use the 'dive' button. Now that's good clean fun.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 05:24 PM — Comments (6)

Tuesday — March 11, 2003

While the official start of spring is still a week-and-a-half away, spring has sprung at our house. I woke up this morning, and outside in the yard was the first robin of spring. This was followed moments later by the official chasing of way of spring's first symbol; carried out by Boomer and Banzai once they espied the bird trespassing in their yard.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 08:49 AM — Comments (4)

Monday — March 10, 2003

If you're trying to teach a child their A-B-Cs, nothing makes it easier than a perky song or a nice poem. Of course, a not-so-nice poem might work too.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 09:45 AM — Comments (0)

Back in November, I posted an entry about a nut-job ranting about some conspiracy. For those who didn't read it, he claimed to have found some film that had "super secret" pictures. He claimed he would post the pictures on March 8th. Why wait several months if this is so important? Yeah, good question.

Well, March 8th is upon us and the pictures are now available. And I must say, what a load of crap. He claims that he's stumbled across a secret plan to build an ark and this is evidence of some evil plan to raise sea level several hundred feet. Excuse me, but if the sea level were to rise several hundred feet, wouldn't it just be easier to move to a higher elevation than to have some elaborate ark built in the middle of nowhere?

To make matters even worse, he claims that there is another site which has the same pictures which is trying to "discredit" him. Well, if you read the "other" site, it's pretty obvious that it's the same guy.

Enough said about this loser.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 09:41 AM — Comments (0)

I'm sure that, like me, you were shocked to hear that some of the so-called evidence linking Iraq to nuclear weapons has been found to be forged. Yes, that's right, it's not a misinterpretation of the data, somebody deliberately went to the trouble of creating phony documents. Gee, I wonder who that could have been? Who could have predicted that this sort of thing would happen?

My favorite quote from the article is this: "'We fell for it,' said one U.S. official who reviewed the documents." Great acting job there, really heart-felt.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 09:31 AM — Comments (0)

Wednesday — March 05, 2003

Wow, did I wake up in America today? At a mall in New York, a guy got arrested because he wore a shirt that said, "Give Peace a Chance." That's it. Nothing dirty, nothing profane, just a simple message. And for that the mall cops decide that he has to leave the mall. Naturally, the guy refuses. The result: a trip to jail.

I know they say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but I can't imagine that this will be too positive for the mall. If I lived in the area, I certainly would stop shopping there.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 09:03 AM — Comments (2)

Several weeks ago, the Boulder school district started talks about closing several schools in the district in an attempt to save money. In general, I agree that this is a good idea; student enrollment is down, as is the money available for the district. Closing these schools could save up to $1,800,000 a year. Scaling the schools to meet the student population makes sense.

Of course, you can't make any change to schools without a huge outcry from parents. Certainly not in Boulder where every school has some sort of special, magnet, focus, or teaching method. I understand that there is some disruption caused to the students, but it doesn't make sense to have more school space than you have students. That's the bottom line for me.

However, when the school district then turns around and decides to spend $1,900,000 on artifical turf surfaces for the two high schools, I have to wonder just what the hell these people are thinking. How can they expect parents, teachers, and students to make sacrifices in the name of budgeting while they're off buying pretty new fields? It just doesn't make sense.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 08:55 AM — Comments (0)

Monday — March 03, 2003

Last week, I took a three-day class on basic wildland fire behavior and fire fighting techniques. I'm now a physical test away from becoming a red-carded wildland fire fighter.

The class was pretty good. There was a lot of information to digest, but it was well presented and, despite the 10.5 hour days, it wasn't too painful. The class was given at the Pridemark (the ambulance people in Boulder) location, and about half of the people in there worked for Pridemark as EMS's. It turns out that Pridemark is trying to get there people out on wildfires to provide medical services. And on a fire, everybody needs a red card.

Two unrelated points were really driven home by this class. First, the proper way to do a push-up. We got plenty of practice at that. Second, if you ever run into a paramedic socially, don't go far. You'll hear a lot of very good stories.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 10:08 AM — Comments (0)

Well, turns out that the rumors were true: Sergei Fedorov and Anna Kournikova were in fact married. But alas, no longer. Yeah, she's hot and all, but I can't say that this does anything to improve my already low opinion of Sergei.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 09:59 AM — Comments (2)

Wednesday — February 26, 2003

Everyone who has email gets Spam, there's just no way around it. Like most, I don't even bother to read them, I just hit the delete button. But there is one guy out there who does more than just read the spam, he replies to it.

Luckily for us, he archives his replies at The Spam Letters because some of them are pretty darn funny. One of my favorites is one in which he replies to an advertisement for an herbal rememdy to a certain male dysfuntion.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 09:30 AM — Comments (0)

Tuesday — February 25, 2003

Not that I know any, but this article titled Caring for Your Intorvert could come in handy some day. Hmmmm, who do I know to whom I can apply this new-found knowledge?

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 10:46 AM — Comments (0)

Monday — February 24, 2003

Reminiscent of the movies they showed in elementary school, kids ducking under their desks to survive a nuclear--or is that nucular?-- bomb, the government has brought forth its newest propoganda tool: ready.gov. Yes, it's slick, it's colorful, it's been created by advertising experts, and it's just about absolutely useless. Thank you Mr Ridge.

The best part is that somebody has already lampooned the site. On the site, there is an entire section about what to do if various attacks occur. Somebody took that section and made some slight modifications.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 11:33 AM —Comments (0)

Thursday — February 20, 2003

With citizens such as these supporting our the cause, how can we lose? Take that you French swine.... we fart in your general direction.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 08:35 AM — Comments (0)

Wednesday — February 19, 2003

For those who insist upon owning cats, just one of the downsides is the smell created by the fact that the cat "takes care of business" in the house. Yes, disgusting I know, but some people do put up with such behavior. Thankfully though, there is now a website that will teach you how to train your cat to use the toliet.

I wonder if you can train them to barf up their hairballs into the toliet too?

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 08:15 AM — Comments (2)

Monday — February 17, 2003

It is President's Day. And what's a holiday without someone to tell you that everything you know about a holiday is wrong? Well, it's not an American holiday, that's for sure.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 09:31 AM — Comments (0)

Everybody knows that when you talk, air is being passed out of the lungs and through the voicebox. Yesterday I made an interesting observation, the voicebox works in both directions; you can talk while inhaling too. At first when I tried this (and I still don't know why I even bothered to try), I had a hard time. I'd get one or two words out and I'd find my self exhaling again. But with a little concentration I found that I could rattle off a short sentence all while inhaling.

Of course, this may be a well known fact and I am just too lame to have known it already. Last year I "discovered" that when editing a document, if you double click on a word, it selects the entire word. I thought this was great. When I told others of this great discovery they looked at me as if I had just discovered that the earth is round. Congratulations were not forthcoming.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 09:27 AM — Comments (0)

Friday — February 14, 2003

Several weeks ago, it was revealed that Microsoft has been intentionally serving bad pages to visitors of MSN who use the Opera browser. They reconfigured the tables on the page so that the formatting looks terrible. The thinking being, if users see bad pages, they'll assume that Opera has problems and they'll switch to Microsoft's broswer.

It appears that two can play at that game. Opera has released a new version of their browser called Bork. It appears to be a normal version of Opera; all the pages show up normally. But if you visit the MSN site, all of the text is translated into the language of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. This is my kind of payback.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 01:46 PM — Comments (0)

Tuesday — February 11, 2003

There clearly is no end to the lengths people will go in an effort to find bias where there is none. The latest example is the case of two sisters who are suing Southwest Airlines for racism. After reading the article, this is clearly the most ludicrous case to hit the courts in a long time. For the lazy, here's a synopsis.

The flight crew to leave the gate but people are still looking for seats (Southwest has no assigned seating). To let people know that they want them to sit down, a stewardess gets on the PA and says, "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe; pick a seat, we gotta go." Pretty clever, huh? I would have certainly thought so.

But two sister looking for seats were black. And they take this to be a racist taunt of some sort. It appers that this really did used to be a racist jingle. But give the stewardess a break, she's 22 years old. So far as she (and myself too until I read this) is concerned, it's just a play on a childrens rhyme.

The fact that they feel the need to sue of something so trivial makes me glad that they are not my neighbors.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 03:14 PM — Comments (2)

Monday — February 10, 2003

Like Colorado, Pennsylvania has, or should I say had, Blue Laws that mandated no selling of liquor on Sundays. Now that we're out of the 19th century, Pennsylvania has finally started dismantling some of these antiquated measures. Not so for Colorado. Yes, the home of Puritanism is no ahead of our own fair state.

I don't remember where, but a year or so ago, I read an article concerning the status of these laws in Colorado. You'd think that the force behind the keeping of these laws would be religious conservatives. You'd be wrong. The reason that laws have not been overturned is due to powerful lobbying by representatives of the liquor strore owners. That's right, they don't want to be open on Sunday.

The thinking is... We're going to sell the same amount of product no matter how long we're open. Currently, if someone knows they need to buy liquor on Sunday, they buy it on Saturday instead. If we have to be open seven days a week, we'll take in no more income, but we'll incur more costs.

Does this sound like a good reason to have such a law on the books? Of course not. Yet, our legislators bow to their requests, all in the name of money. I can't think of any industry that wouldn't like to be afforded the same sort of protection.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 08:22 AM — Comments (3)

Thursday — February 06, 2003

People have created a lot of very interesting media presentations using Flash. This is not one of them. But it is funny nonetheless.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 05:14 PM — Comments (0)

It's bad enough that there are morons out there who believe crazy stuff like this. But the fact that the moron in question is a congressman (I know, I repeat myself), is scary. The fact that he heads a homeland security subcommitte; well, that makes it downright frightening.

» Posted by Rick Lansky at 11:57 AM — Comments (0)