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Showing posts from February 24, 2008

Anti-terrorism fun for kids

Just wondering ... Does this toy include a no-fly list?

Strange motivational tools at work

Be happy that your boss has different motivational tools: A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo [Utah] is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe. In a lawsuit, the salesmen alleges a supervisor drew mustaches on employees' faces, took away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle. Why? "Because it resulted in increased revenues for the company."

'80s Flashback: Adams Atoms

Time for another Friday '80s Flashback. This week's flashback is brought to you by Fun Dip, the candy that is still around now but was especially popular in the '80s. It was recommended by four out of five dentists who wanted to make more money by filling cavities in kids' teeth. OK ... Can you remember the '80s movie that featured a fictional university called "Adams" with the fictional mascot of "Atoms"? Also included these lines: First guy: "Where are they?" Second guy: "I think they're talking about us." Ah yes, they were talking about nerds. Revenge of the Nerds -- I know it well. I also know that it was filmed on the University of Arizona campus, where I would later attend college. In the clip below, the freshman dorm shown is Cochise Dorm, where I lived for two years. Which makes sense, because I was a nerd. But I at least dressed a little better than Louis and Gilbert. Last week's '80s Flashback: '80s

Drink G2 and you can say you're an athlete

One of my new favorite products on the market is G2, from the makers of Gatorade. It's a "low-calorie electrolyte beverage designed for athletes off the field." It's one of the dumbest things out there, and yet bound to make tons of money. According to the Web site , "results indicate that athletes often do a poor job at hydrating off the field." It goes on to say: "One of the challenges with off the field hydration is calories. Many athletes prefer fewer calories in an everyday beverage." Well, maybe their everyday beverage should be water. You'll save 25 calories against every eight ounces of G2, which despite all its hype about electrolytes, is actually this: Kool-Aid for adults. (Adults who are embarrassed that their favorite Kool-Aid flavor is "Purplesaurus Rex.") I think one of the flavors for G2 should be GiveItUp-Berry, perfect for the 40-year-old who can jump three inches off the ground but spends $60 bucks for an UnderArmour

Sorry about the whole gunman thing

An armed man burst into a classroom recently at Elizabeth City State University. "I was prepared to die at that moment," the professor in the class said afterward. So what happened? Uh ... it was only a drill. Way to go administrators! Next time, maybe a little heads up beforehand? At least university officials apologized and offered counseling to the faculty and students . Perhaps some of the counseling will be in regards to finding a different university with an administration that has common sense.

This is high fashion, people

Who says fashion doesn't make sense? I bet the Michelin Man thinks this creation by Belgian fashion designer Martin Margiela is fantastic.

Tour guides telling lies

In Philadelphia, tour guides will soon have regulations about what they can say because they've been telling some tall tales. According to a historian there, these are among the 84 lies he's heard from the tour guides: *Ben Franklin had 80 illegitimate children all in Sweden. *City Tavern is where the First Continental Congress met. *The large house at 3rd and Walnut is where Kevin Bacon lives. *Dolly Madison invented ice cream at Ben Franklin’s Library. *Betsy Ross had three cats she named Red, White and Blue.

Police dogs now wearing shoes

Police dogs in the western city of Duesseldorf will no longer get their feet dirty when on patrol — the entire dog unit will soon be equipped with blue plastic fiber shoes . Watch out for these dogs, criminals, because they are going to be mad. I know how my dog reacted when we tried to put shoes on him. He didn't like anyone touching his paws at all. Of course, he never experienced the comfort of "blue plastic fiber shoes." How soon until those have a Nike swoosh on them?

Closed captioned by the English impaired

Have you ever watched closed captioning on your TV and noticed all the mistakes? I'm sure it's hard to do the captioning live, but sometimes the results are pretty confusing. That's what happened during a recent screening of The Queen for the hearing impaired . Some examples: When a character spoke about Mr. Blair being "educated at Fettes," it appeared on screen as "educated the fattest." "Did you vote?" flashed up as "Dead in a boat?" The observation that "every newspaper proprietor has blood on his hands today" became "every newspaper proprietor has blown in his hands today." That last one is particularly awkward.

Do Type IV Extraterrestrials like Reese's Pieces?

We can only hope so, making them the friendly type we know well . According to the India Daily : Signs of type IV extraterrestrial influence in Abell 1835 IR1916, a galaxy 13,230 million light-years away, merely 470 million years young from the time of big bang, have been discovered. You can read the article here . If you think it will be too confusing, don't worry. It seems pretty straightforward to me, including this paragraph: The Universe was a cold and opaque place. Something went wrong, according to some scientists. Intervention was needed by the Type IV civilization that created the big bang in their massive inter-universe particle colliders.

Responses to 'Memories Don't Bite the Dust'

A few responses to yesterday's column, " Memories Don't Bite the Dust ." *** Had to laugh at today's column. When I got my first portable cassette recorder (around 1972), I recorded a number of favorite pieces on a tape to listen to in the car, including the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah. Unfortunately, the last 30 seconds or so were cut off. I can't listen to the piece even 35 years later, without mentally expecting that break. I also used it to record music from the radio, but I was smart enough to use the headphone jack to connect the radio to the recorder. The bad news – we had a fridge that pumped out a burst of static every time the motor kicked in, so again, there are some pieces I can't listen to without expecting that sudden "gaaaark" in the middle. *** Oh my gosh…..reading the Memories don't bite the dust column had me rolling in laughter!! I too did the EXACT same thing and to this day, anytime I hear "Come

Teenage student or 39-year-old man?

When students standing outside the gates started to scream at the sight of him, he dashed inside the school grounds, hoping to blend in with the crowds of teenagers. Kind of difficult to do when you're a 39-year-old man. Great visual: The teenagers screamed, "forcing the man to flee, losing his wig in the process."

Michael Jackson, yes ... Thriller, no

It's the 25th anniversary of the release of "Thriller," to album that made Michael Jackson the King of Pop. He's now pretty much the king of jokes, hiding out and reminding us that he hasn't had that much plastic surgery. Whatever you think of Jackson, that first album was pretty extraordinary. "Billie Jean" remains one of my favorite songs of all time, and I still like hearing "Beat It." Certainly beats some of the other songs of that year, such as "Maniac" by Michael Sembello and "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners. (OK, I admit that I liked that second song back in '83, but I was 11 years old. And it's been played so many times now that I'm sick of it.) So back to MJ. His album was amazing, but I never really did like the song "Thriller." I don't know why, but it never did anything for me. I think maybe it's because I had to sit through the "Making of the Thriller Video"

Kellie Pickler is not smarter than a fifth grader

Guessing by the five million people who have watched this on YouTube, you might have seen it. But if you haven't ... Then former American Idol finalist Kellie Pickler would like you not to watch this. It proves she's not smarter than a fifth grader, and maybe worse. When she says, "This might be a stupid question ..." You knew it was going to get interesting. (Click below if you don't see the video window).

Humor Me: Memories don't bite the dust

Last week, I read about how Blu-ray had won the war with HD-DVD to be the next generation of high-definition video. It made me think back to a time long ago, in a faraway place, when I produced extremely looooow fidelity recordings. Note: This column is posted at The Dallas Morning News . My recent DMN columns can also be found here . Humor Me: Memories don't bite the dust By MATT WIXON The Dallas Morning News The year: 1980. The place: A bedroom that included a doorknob-shaped hole in the wall, a Kool-Aid stain on the carpet and a new AM/FM clock radio. The event: The lowest-quality recording ever of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.” It was low, low, looow fidelity. Even as an 8-year-old, I knew that, but it was the only way I could tape my favorite song. I had to pull out the enormous tape recorder, the one my dad used to tape insurance seminars, and place it on the dresser next to my clock radio, the first FM radio I owned. Then I waited. The deejay said he was going to pla