Random Thoughts That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread Go Here

[Draft Dodger]

first two were pretty fun...except for the dream sequences.

[PilotMan]

The power of the force has stopped you, you hosers.

[Scoobz0202]

The best internet extension of all internet extensions. Better than adblock.

Herp Derp YouTube Comments | Tanner's Website

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Draft Dodger

first two were pretty fun...except for the dream sequences.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[Honolulu_Blue]

The windows I have in my office face south. Out of them I see Canada.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

The windows I have in my office face south. Out of them I see Canada.

The bear was white.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

The windows I have in my office face south. Out of them I see Canada.

And out of the other one you see a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit, who took the midnight train going anywhere?

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

The bear was white.

*laughs*

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

The windows I have in my office face south. Out of them I see Canada.

Very nice.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

The windows I have in my office face south. Out of them I see Canada.

"I can see Canada from my office!" - Sarah Palin

[Grover]

Someone created a twitter handle "Zooey Asks Siri"

Fantastic.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Grover

"I can see Canada from my office!" - Sarah Palin

Yes,

Every day I sit here and look across the Detroit River right at Canada. In fact, I look right at the Caesars casino in Windsor. Therefore, not only do I have awesome foreign policy credentials, my gambling skills are second to none.

A little tip: jbmagic's Black Jack strategy? Totally works. Don't listen to those other jack-offs. Do they sit and look at a casino all day? No. I don't think so

[Passacaglia]

But it only works in Canada, not the Detroit casinos? Maybe that was the catch this whole time.

[JediKooter]

And the exchange rate. Don't forget about the exchange rate.

[Ksyrup]

It was 93 last Sunday afternoon. Right now it is 58 and falling with a steady breeze on June 1st. WTF?

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

It was 93 last Sunday afternoon. Right now it is 58 and falling with a steady breeze on June 1st. WTF?

Yeah! WTF! It has been like a balmy 83 to 90 and sunny here for the past week...and now it's cold and miserable, shit I thought I lived in Buffalo, not Toronto

[Noop]

What is the point of having an iPhone and a iPad? Clearly, I am no longer a member of the in crowd, not sure if I ever was, because there is so much illogical nonsense going on.

[Ksyrup]

I think it's so you can see the games you're playing on a bigger screen.

[Noop]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I think it's so you can see the games you're playing on a bigger screen.

I don't own an iPhone or an Ipad. I do have a iPod (no camera ) and even then I use it mostly to check emails, twitter, or do law in a flash. I personally see no value in some of the games available for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, because I hate having to stare at a screen without a control (if I am playing a game).

[Ksyrup]

I've only used the camera on my ipod once, and the pictures were so bad I've never tried again.

I use my ipod for music, but my non-apple phone for all my mobile surfing. I'm waiting to find out whether my phone is IT-compatible at my new job. If not, I will not be happy. I might carry 2 phones instead of switching to an iPhone.

[molson]

I see the ipad as more of a replacement for a laptop if you don't really need all of a functions of a laptop. But ya, you can really go nuts now. Does anyone admit to carrying around an ipod/mp3 player, cell phone, ipad/tablet, and laptop?

[cartman]

Originally Posted by molson

I see the ipad as more of a replacement for a laptop if you don't really need all of a functions of a laptop. But ya, you can really go nuts now. Does anyone admit to carrying around an ipod/mp3 player, cell phone, ipad/tablet, and laptop?

Three of the 4: iPhone, iPad, Laptop

But the only reason I have the iPad is for testing the apps that we write.

[Matthean]

Recently switched over to Microsoft Security Essentials due to my teachers who do PC repairs and such recommended it. Well, I can't get to Google due to a certificate issue, Windows Updates is being blocked, and my system clock was off an hour.

[stevew]

When it comes to buzzing into somewhere via a doorbell that requires a human to answer is a no win situation. Either you have to bang on the button and be a cock, or if you try to be patient people will obviously see you waiting and ignore you. It's horrible.

[tyketime]

Recently ran across an article that talked about how house remodeling can cause such high stress that it is actually a contributing factor for divorce. A quick Google search returned many articles relating the same connection:

Therapists are all too familiar with stories like Riff's. Walter A. Brakkelmans, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, is also an adult and child psychiatrist who specializes in couples therapy. He says that remodeling stress is a fairly common issue for people to raise during marital therapy because it frequently causes existing relationship problems to get worse." The remodel changes the couple's physical space and routine," Brakkelmans explains. "On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the death of a child and 1 a fender-bender, a remodel rates a 6 in terms of stress on a relationship."

I had never heard this before. Of course, we've just started our first renovation project 2 weeks ago...

[stevew]

68 year old George Lucas names a 58 year old Katleen Kennedy to succeed him at Lucasfilm.

1. Pretty crazy that he doesn't have a child who could take over.
2. It's not like a 58 year old is exactly a spring chicken either.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by Matthean

Recently switched over to Microsoft Security Essentials due to my teachers who do PC repairs and such recommended it. Well, I can't get to Google due to a certificate issue, Windows Updates is being blocked, and my system clock was off an hour.

That's crazy. For what it's worth I've been using MSE on all the computers in the house for years now and never had an issue, either getting a virus or dealing with false alarms like that.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by Noop

What is the point of having an iPhone and a iPad? Clearly, I am no longer a member of the in crowd, not sure if I ever was, because there is so much illogical nonsense going on.

iPad is about the best thing I own. It's super easy to carry around, nothing like a laptop. Yet I can use it to do browsing, deal with e-mail. Or I can use it to play music, watch videos, show videos to other people, or photos. I can play games on it, there's a couple board games my wife and I play on it when we don't have the time or space to play a real one. We get interrupted, just turn it off and come back to it later. I read comics on it, PDFs for games or class. If I see articles I want to read during the day on my computer I send them to my iPad and I can read them in bed or something later that day. I keep up on RSS feeds on it. I can grab it and have a 100 things to do, from doing a crossword puzzle, to reading a magazine, taking care of work files, doing school reading. The kids love playing games on it, it keeps them happy on car rides.

Basically there's a ton of things to do on it, and many of them are much better to do on the iPad than any other device I've tried. It's much better to show the family a video, for instance, on it rather than either a laptop or an iPhone. It's much better for playing social games, passing it back and forth or both sharing the screen, or taking notes with a stylus in class.

[chadritt]

Originally Posted by stevew

68 year old George Lucas names a 58 year old Katleen Kennedy to succeed him at Lucasfilm.

1. Pretty crazy that he doesn't have a child who could take over.
2. It's not like a 58 year old is exactly a spring chicken either.

He has three kids, one of whoms about 30, this may just be a business decision.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Autumn

That's crazy. For what it's worth I've been using MSE on all the computers in the house for years now and never had an issue, either getting a virus or dealing with false alarms like that.

System clock was actually set back to 2002. Once that got fixed, the PC was mostly back to normal. I had to switch the Sleep settings, but it seems to be working fine now.

[Grover]

Pretty sure I just heard the phrase "You've pissed me off" on Regular Show.

[Rando]

Just finished cobbling together a solar projection rig for the telescope in preparation for Tuesday's transit of Venus. Works beautifully.

Weather report calls for "partly cloudy" skies that day, so I'm expecting solid cloud cover from about 4PM to sunset.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Rando

Just finished cobbling together a solar projection rig for the telescope in preparation for Tuesday's transit of Venus. Works beautifully.

Weather report calls for "partly cloudy" skies that day, so I'm expecting solid cloud cover from about 4PM to sunset.

Awesome. I've got a solar filter for my telescope. It's supposed to rain, really hoping I can get some sunshine. Transit is supposed to be visible around 6:03pm for me.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Life imitates art...

Stop for coffee at the 7-11 a couple blocks from my house.
Waiting in line, the lady in front of me was one of those overly bubbly, too happy on a Monday morning types. She greets the cashier with "How are you this morning?"

"Someone called off....I'm not even supposed to be here today!"

There is no way it could have been intentional, but made my morning.

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by stevew

68 year old George Lucas names a 58 year old Katleen Kennedy to succeed him at Lucasfilm.

1. Pretty crazy that he doesn't have a child who could take over.
2. It's not like a 58 year old is exactly a spring chicken either.

It's not like Lucas hired M Night Shamalamadingdong or Uwe Boll to take over.

Plus, I don't think his kids want to take over the company or they even have the skills to, without running it into the ground.

[Rizon]

Jar Jar Binks wasn't available?

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by Rizon

Jar Jar Binks wasn't available?

Nope. He's frozen in carbonite.

[terpkristin]

Originally Posted by Suburban Rhythm

Life imitates art...

Stop for coffee at the 7-11 a couple blocks from my house.
Waiting in line, the lady in front of me was one of those overly bubbly, too happy on a Monday morning types. She greets the cashier with "How are you this morning?"

"Someone called off....I'm not even supposed to be here today!"

There is no way it could have been intentional, but made my morning.

Were Jay and Silent Bob outside?

/tk

[Suicane75]

If I started a soda company, I'd call it Soda Licious.

[MacroGuru]

You know...my 11 year old got into it with a kid at school today and I am not upset. Kid pulled a your momma joke to him he didn't appreciate, he basically called the kid a fucking dick, kid told him to fuck off and then went to hit him.

My son caught the kids arm and the kid straight on punched my kid right in the left eye with his other hand. My boy took the punch and stared the kid down.

Granted my boy used choice words, but he 1) Stood up for his mom and 2) Took a punch and was wanting to rip the kid apart but did not for fear of getting in trouble.

My 11 year old is a bit bigger than almost all the kids in his class, but he is a softy and very shy and tends to get picked on because he is afraid of hurting them...today was a big step for him standing up for himself.

[spleen1015]

The people who plan road construction around where I live are a bunch of morons. I have 3 different routes I can take to work and all 3 of them are under construction right now, for greater than 100 days.

Not only that, but a few of the side streets that are majorly used roads are also under some sort of construction causing people to go other routes, grid locking the entire town.

This is going to be the worst summer for traffic in my life and I'm not looking forward to it.

[britrock88]

Where are you, the Twin Cities?

[molson]

I hate it when cities act like shady title loan companies or low level mobsters. Like with Lathum's Connecticut collection agency drama. Maybe the Supreme Court ended up with the right result, I don't know the law in this area, but I can add Indianapolis to the list of places I'll never move to (not that it was high on the list anyway.) I think this kind of stuff is common, and I have a suspicion that it was a scam from the start to trick property owners out of some fast cash (and that more favored citizens/campaign contributors were given strong "hints" to go with the longer term option).

Edit: I worry something like this will eventually happen with student loans. I've spend years spending hundreds of dollars a month, making sacrifices to get those paid down, and someday, the student loan backlash will bring about some kind of mass forgiveness of student loans. According to Breyer, I should access that possibility in deciding whether to pay my student loans (or my mortgage) ahead, or at all.

Roberts Is Outraged at a Tax; Thomas Isn’t - Law Blog - WSJ

If you’re outraged at unfair taxes, Chief Justice John Roberts feels your pain. But the chief couldn’t get two of his fellow conservatives to send what he described as a once-in-a-generation message on the subject.

The split came in a Supreme Court review of a tax program in Indianapolis that left a few dozen property owners paying 30 times as much as some of their neighbors.

The background: Years ago, the city offered property owners the choice of paying an assessment for a sewer project in a lump sum or in installments with interest over 10, 20 or 30 years. Later, amid complaints about the burden, the city decided to change the system and forgave the remaining balance for those paying on the installment plan.

The city didn’t refund any money for those who paid a lump sum of $9,200 upfront, while some who had paid only $309 won forgiveness. The lump-sum payers sued, claiming their constitutional equal-protection rights were violated.

“We give great leeway to taxing authorities in this area, for good and sufficient reasons,” the chief justice wrote. “But every generation or so a case comes along when this court needs to say enough is enough.”

Two of his fellow conservatives, justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, agreed the time had come. But Justice Anthony Kennedy and, more unusually, Justice Clarence Thomas defected to join the four liberal justices in a 6-3 ruling backing the city.

Under precedents, courts apply a highly deferential standard to lawmakers making tax decisions, so long as their actions are rational. Justice Stephen Breyer said Indianapolis acted rationally. He cited lawmakers’ arguments that it would be a burden to create a refund system and observed that governments often forgive tax penalties or parking tickets.

Chief Justice Roberts said a government body can’t deny equal protection of the laws just because “it’s too much of a bother.” City officials, he said, would be “up to the task” of cutting refund checks and mailing them out.

[ISiddiqui]

The interesting there (to me) is which people had the $9,200 lying around for a lump sum payment? One wonders if this is, for the city, a class issue (get the rich property owners to pay but pull a fast one - not that I disagree that rich property owners should pay more, but do it on the up and up). Though I think perhaps I'm being too cynical.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by britrock88

Where are you, the Twin Cities?

NE suburbs of Indianapolis.

[larrymcg421]

Sounds like a pretty obvious ruling. Roberts makes a good point about traffic tickets. Ruling against the city here could open up lawsuits for anyone who paid some kind of fee if they can show someone else was excused from that same fee.

[molson]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

Sounds like a pretty obvious ruling. Roberts makes a good point about traffic tickets. Ruling against the city here could open up lawsuits for anyone who paid some kind of fee if they can show someone else was excused from that same fee.

That was the majority who made the ticket point, Roberts dissented. Roberts responded that parking ticket and mortgage payment amnesty programs aren't justified exclusively by administrative convenience, which was the only offered justification here. And previous supreme court cases have thrown out unequal property tax schemes that were "grossly disparate", and the Court has never held that administrative burdens alone justify grossly disparate tax treatment. Then he argued that it's really not that much of an administrative burden to give people refunds, which was the more persuasive point to me just on a fast skim (just from the perspective of having worked for government agencies and seeing what kind of burdens the courts HAVE put on states and cities.....really, they can't send a couple dozen checks? If that's the degree of "burden" government has to show to blow off equal protection, that opens up some doors of efficiency for sure.)

[Honolulu_Blue]

Funny dog story.

We have a wooden fence around our backyard. I like to buy my dog these long, rawhide roll-up things. He never eats them on the first day, but prefers to bury them in the yard and then dig them up at some later date to eat the dirty rawhide. I love dogs, but they are pretty gross. Instead of digging a hole, however, my dog likes to dig a shallow hole against the side of the fence and then essentially contsruct a mound of dirt over the bone against the fence.

So, last Sunday night I fired up the grill for dinner and noticed one of these very conspicuous mounds of dirt agains the fence behind me. So, I called my dog over, pointed at the mound and asked him if he knew what that was. He came over, tail wagging, but refused to acknowledge the mound. He wouldn't even look in that direction. He was playing it very cool as to throw me off the scent. I laughed, petted him and went back inside to grab the food for the grill.

By the time I came back out a couple of minutes later, the mound was in disarray and he was slinking off into the backyard, dirt-covered rawhide in his mouth. His secret stash had been compromised. The only option left at that point was consumption.

[Ksyrup]

Damn, I was hoping when you came back out, the rawhide was on the grill.

[Lathum]

salt and vinegar popcorn is not good