Archive for January, 2011

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Real Mexican Food

Jan

13

2011

The handy-dandy pack of coupons and phamphlets that is mailed to everyone on our postal route about once a month arrived recently. In it was an advertisement for a local Mexican restaurant:

picture of flyer from Mexican restaurant

If you are like me, you immediately noticed the headline:

picture of flyer from Mexican restaurant

I know there are blogs dedicated to the misuse of quotation marks, and I’m not trying to compete with them. But it appears they will not be running out of material anytime soon.

Why is it “real” and not just real?

If I had to put quotes around one word, I would have chosen Mexican. Because we have never seen any Mexicans in that restaurant, either working or eating.

Real “Mexican” Food sounds better, and is closer to the truth, than “Real” Mexican Food.

Worst of all is Real Mexican “Food”. Do not eat at that place.

And He said to them, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him,

Mark 7:18

Posted in Marketing | 3 Comments »

All-Haiku Bowl Results, 2010

Jan

11

2011

Okay, okay, it is 2011 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2010 because they match with the 2010 predictions made in 2010 for the 2010 season. Also, the results are not all-haiku, just the predictions were. A more accurate title would be “Results for the All-Haiku Predictions made in 2010”.

Before the bowl games commenced for this past college football season, I made some predictions. Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the tally of those predictions. Note that the results are not in haiku form, in contrast to the predictions.

Results

Here is the list (correct predictions in green, incorrect in red):

BYU over UTEP

Northern Illinois over Fresno State

Ohio over Troy

Louisville over Southern Miss

Boise St. over Utah

San Diego State over Navy

Hawaii over Tulsa

Toledo over Florida International

Air Force over Georgia Tech

N.C. State over West Virginia

Missouri over Iowa

Maryland over East Carolina

Baylor over Illinois

Oklahoma State over Arizona

SMU over Army

Kansas State over Syracuse

North Carolina over Tennessee

Nebraska over Washington

South Florida over Clemson

Notre Dame over Miami (F)

Georgia over UCF

South Carolina over Florida State

Northwestern over Texas Tech

Penn State over Florida

Michigan State over Alabama

Mississippi State over Michigan

Wisconsin over TCU

Oklahoma over Connecticut

Stanford over Virginia Tech

Arkansas over Ohio State

Miami (O) over Middle Tenn. State

LSU over Texas A&M

Pittsburgh over Kentucky

Nevada over Boston College

Oregon over Auburn

And here are the results of the various forecasting methodologies (see the first year for description of the methodologies) (also, use the word methodologies if you want to sound important; methods would work just as well and is shorter) :

  • Some Blog Site picks were 19-16 (better than last year!)
  • CBS120 picks were 21-14
  • HTW was 16-19 for the official Home Team Wins (HTW)
  • HTW was 15-20 for the Geographical Home Team (GHT)
  • Isaacson-Tarbell Postulate (ITP) was 21-14 if using HTW
  • ITP was 23-12 if using GHT

I won’t analyze the results as much as I did last year, mainly because I had more time and more sleep last year. But it was a bad year again for GHT. And my predictions keep getting better. At this rate, I’ll be 100% correct by the year 2018.

Thoughts on the season’s results

  1. That was a nice playoff round. Now let’s have the championship game between TCU and Auburn.
  2. The B1G TEN is going to have a championship game next year, so we’ll know who their best team will be. Not that they’ll be playing for the national title, but it is a step in the right direction.
  3. On the other hand, the Big 12 had better hope for a clear winner of its conference.
  4. You know what? – we should just skip the national championship game and give the title to the winner of the SEC.

Conferences

Since the strength of the conference has something to do with the results, I thought I would tally each conference’s bowl game record for the 2010 (and the first bit of 2011) season.

  • ACC: 3-5
  • Big 10: 3-5
  • Big 12: 3-5
  • Big East: 4-2
  • Independent: 2-1
  • MAC: 2-2
  • MW: 4-1
  • PAC10: 2-2
  • SEC: 5-5
  • Sun Belt: 2-1
  • USA: 3-4
  • WAC: 2-2

So the best conference was the Mt. West (they won 80% of their bowl games again) and the worst was the ACC or Big Ten or Big 12 because they won only 38% of their bowl games.

Or maybe the worst was the MAC or the WAC or the PAC. If your conference ended in “AC”, then you had a bad year because you didn’t qualify very many teams.

Perhaps you could say that the SEC was the best because they had ten teams go to bowls (again) and won the championship (again). Or you could say the SEC was just the most popular conference.

My vote is for the Mountain West, especially next year when Boise St. joins them. If a MWC team goes to a bowl game, they usually win.

Then a champion came out from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.

1 Samuel 17:4

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Isuzu Pet

Jan

10

2011

The hot toy this year for Christmas seemed to be Zhu Zhu Pets.

In case you were not around small children at Christmastime this year, here are some pictures of Zhu Zhu Pets:

picture of a Zhu Zhu Pet

picture of a Zhu Zhu Pet

Their key features is that they make little nonsense noises while driving around randomly. Their noses are actually switches to detect if they bump into something. And if they do bump into something they back up and veer in another direction.

But those hamster toys are for kids.

The adult equivalent does not exist yet, but I am proposing Isuzu Pets.

picture of an Isuzu Pet

picture of an Isuzu Pet

You know you want one.

Just add a nose to the front of an Isuzu and you got yourself an Isuzu Pet. Of course, the nose would contain a switch that would shift the vehicle into reverse.

I didn’t have the time to add a fur texture to the body of the truck. I think that would have to be an option. Think of how well that would hold up in winter time. Or in the car wash.

Now these are to you the unclean among the swarming things which swarm on the earth: the mole, and the mouse, and the great lizard in its kinds,

Leviticus 11:29

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And You Give Yourself Away

Jan

6

2011

What did people give away before iPads?

iPods

What did people give away before iPods?

Who knows?

Where would Apple’s business be without surveys and raffles and publicity-grabbing ads (“Visit our store for a chance to win an iPad!”)?

And where would the raffle/giveaway business be without Apple products?

I’m sure we could survive without either of those businesses. They do have a nice symbiotic relationship going though –
with or without you.

And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them.

Acts 3:5

Posted in Ponder | 3 Comments »

Guess Hu

Jan

4

2011

Last year, our kids received the game Guess Who by Milton Bradley and/or Hasbro.

For those not familiar with the game, you need some context. Guess Who involves guessing which character the other person has chosen. Each player starts with the same pool of people. By asking yes-or-no questions (“Does your person have a beard?”), you eliminate groups of characters and are eventually left with one person.

The game necessarily has a limited number of characteristics – too much diversity and it would be hard to eliminate groups of characters. The people have two skin tones – light/dark or black/white or whatever/whatever.

Since my family is half Asian, one thing that I noticed while my kids were playing the game is that there are no Asians in the game. The European features are represented and the African features are represented, but there are no Oriental features.

To remedy this oversight, I have produced an new version of Guess Who. I call it “Guess Hu”.

Feel free to print out these sheets and use them the next time you play Guess Who.

View Guess Hu Sheet (or click on the image below)

picture of an Asian/Oriental version of Guess Who called Guess Hu

As for their appearance, all four of them had the same likeness, as if one wheel were within another wheel.

Ezekiel 10:10

Posted in Humor | 2 Comments »

Rodriguez or Obama?

Jan

3

2011

I figured this is an opportune time to discuss Rich Rod. Or at least some things about him. Or at least just mention Rich Rodriguez because everyone else is doing that today.

For some reason, I got the idea to compare and contrast Rodriguez’ stint as the Michigan football coach with Obama’s stint as the President of the United States.

Quiz
For each item below, please mark whether it applies to Rodriguez (R) or Obama (O):

  1. Appealed to the younger crowd
  2. Was very polarizing – most people were either very for or very against him
  3. Took over a program that was in decent, but not great, shape
  4. Was brought in to shake things up a bit – change from the traditional ways of doing things
  5. Neglected the duties of his prior job in order to transition to his new job
  6. Brought in his own people as assistants
  7. He had great plans and had great potential, but reality didn’t cooperate
  8. In fact, the program got worse under his watch
  9. Read fine from a teleprompter but said some controversial things in unscripted moments
  10. Tried to make some shady deals and brought fraud to a previously clean program
  11. The other power in the organization was replaced during his term and caused him to reconsider his ways
  12. Believed you don’t need much of a defense
  13. Didn’t care much for the kicking game either

Can you think of any other quiz questions about Rich Rodriguez or Barack Obama?

To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like?

Luke 7:31

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