Some Blog Site

Dear Presidential Candidates:

I won’t trust much of what goes on in the campaign; in fact, I won’t even pay attention to it. But if you do want to gain my attention – and my vote – then please include these items in your promises to the American people.

Promise us that

• we will be able to keep our shoes on our feet at the airport;
• we will be able to buy any kind of light bulb we want;
• Presidents’ Day will be observed on the Monday following the first Sunday in February; and
• anyone who tries a pen or marker, sees that it doesn’t work, and puts it back in place (instead of throwing it away) will be fined a day’s pay.

For the second-to-last item, a candidate could promise to observe Groundhog Day on that day, or make up a new holiday. The point is to give us that Monday off, to recover from the Super Bowl.

For that last point, an additional consequence should be that the person cannot vote in the next election. If someone is going to re-elect a writing utensil that everyone agrees is bad, how can he be trusted not to re-elect a bad president, governor, or congressman?

What would you like to add to the list?

Good Movie Sequels

• Star Wars, Episodes 5 and 6
• Rocky 2, 3, and 4
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Toy Story 2 and 3
• Any Jackie Chan movies made in China

Bad Movie Sequels

• The Matrix 2 and 3 (Reloaded and Revolutions)
• Rocky 5
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Back to the Future 2 and 3
• Any Jackie Chan movies made in America

The movies on the bad list are not worth your time. If you have an opportunity to see those movies, I advise you to skip them. The first movie in the series may be entertaining, but quit while you’re ahead and do not see these.

Regarding the movies on the good list: If you liked the first movie in the series, I think you’ll like the others that I listed.

For both lists, I restricted the list to movies that I have seen. For example, I’ve heard that Iron Man 2 is not worth seeing, but since I have not seen it, I did not include it.

Any others that I forgot? Or what would you like to add to either list?

I took a picture of this keyboard. A fellow engineer had modified it with labels so that it would be matched to the workload of a certain co-worker of his. I apologize for the quality of the photo, but I’ll list the keys afterward.

Note: “Eng” means engineer.
Top Row: Complain to Chief Eng 1, Complain to Chief Eng 2, Complain to Chief Eng 3
Middle Row: Forward to Eng 1, Forward to Eng 2, Forward to Eng 3
Bottom Row: Forward to Manager 1, Forward to Manager 2, Forward to Manager 3
Navigation Keys: Yes, We’ll Do That
Num Pad: Select Project 1, Select Project 2

It’s September, the start of the NFL season. Time for me to update my win-loss prediction page.

Here’s the link: 2012 NFL season predictions.

Here’s the summary: MYW is off to a good start; it went 12-4 for week 1. My other prediction methods (MPW and MPWLS) were 10-6. And the other methods (HTW, ITP, ITPLS, DP, and DPE (mostly borrowed from TMQ)) were all 9-7.

If you need straight-up win-loss predictions, all 8 methods agree that the Cardinals will lose to the Patriots in week 2.

A Letter to the Manufacturers of the Caps of Liquid Detergents

Note: detergent companies, it is a very important letter, so please read all the lines.

Hint: if you are not a manufacturer of detergent caps and you want to know what I wrote, highlight the text with your mouse (or finger if you’re using a smartphone/tablet – you may need to copy/paste it into an email in order to read it). Those manufacturers don’t need this hint because they obviously have no problem reading things with no contrast between the background and foreground colors.

Just in time for election season, here is a fruit and vegetable stand after the political groups’ PR firms adjusted the signs.

I suppose that we can call inanimate objects as we see them, because there is or was no agenda – just identification. How much of a person’s physical appearance are we allowed to use to identify him? Hair color is probably still okay, but skin color makes at least some people pause.

I think oranges are one of the safe items in that I can’t think of a politically-charged term to which a committee could change it.

I thought about including blackberries, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for you, the reader.

Related Note : Most of the black students at my college were from Jamaica. They were neither African nor American. Just by looking at someone as we passed in the hallway, I could not tell his national origin nor his citizenship. That’s why I prefer to call things, and people, as I see them.

And no people are the color of those potatoes, by the way, unless they are sunburned.