Some Blog Site

There is now a German accent option on Accenterator. Go try it out. It’s not as fun as the Australian accent generator because the vowels aren’t as dramatic, but it’s pretty good if you get the right collection of consonants in there.

If you need suggestions, here are some phrases to enter in the translator box:

• Slow and steady wins the race.
• What are you thinking about?
• The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

In case you missed the link, go to Accenterator.com and click the German button.

In the last month, we had the announcement of the 2016 NFL schedule. Now that we know who will play whom and when, we can start predicting wins and losses.

I keep my predictions over at Some Fun Site. View results of previous football seasons.

2015 Summary

Last year, I predicted that

• Cleveland Browns = 4-12
• Miami Dolphins = 6-10
• St. Louis Rams = 9-7

How they actually did was

• Cleveland Browns = 3-13
• Miami Dolphins = 6-10
• St. Louis Rams = 7-9

Pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Read the rest of this entry »

Subtitle: in which I improve the government’s records

Allow me to introduce to you the 2015 SFS List of Baby Names that Combine Similar Pronunciations. That baby name list is the place to go in case you are wondering what are the most popular baby names in 2015 regardless of how they are spelled. The Social Security baby name list does not adjust the rankings based on alternate spellings (like Catherine/Katherine), but SFS does.

It was just Mother’s Day, so the SSA released the name rankings for 2015. Last year’s new champion, Jackson is again the most popular boy’s name in the US. And it is widening the gap over Aiden – Jackson’s count is going up and Aiden’s count is going down. Not looking good for the former champ. No controversy for the girls – it’s Sophia again. Her numbers are going down, but all the top girls’ numbers are going down so that doesn’t mean much.

Some Stats

• There was not a lot of change at the top for the boys. The top 10 names are the same, and in the same order except William and Jayden swapped spots at 7 and 8.
• The top 8 names for the girls are the same as 2014, it’s just Mia and Emily swapped spots.
• Noah is once again the highest-ranked boy’s name that has no spelling variations, at number 3.
• Abigail is the highest-ranked girl’s name that has no spelling variations, at number 10.
• Girl names still have more spelling variations than boy names (295/1000 vs. 203/1000 alternates)
• Aiden still has the most spelling variations for the boys, but it dropped from 9 to 8. Aidyn is the one that dropped off the list.
• For the girls, Adalynn leapfrogged the other names to claim the title of most variations – now at 7.
• Sophia is still the runaway favorite for the girls, but the gap is closing. Sophia is on the decline

2015 Improved Baby Name List

Click on the link above and peruse to your heart’s content!

My earlier post had been about some new chocolate (or chocolatey) cereals. We found another chocolate cereal that has joined the breakfast game: Love Crunch

Since it needs a longer name to make a good acronym, I’ll go with its full title of Love Crunch Dark Chocolate and Red Berries : LCDCaRB

It has a good taste but that comes at a price of nutrition. Or serving size. Take your pick. If you look at the nutrition information, it doesn’t look that bad compared to other cereals. It has more fat but less sodium. And since it’s granola, it should be the good kind of fat.

But…

the nutrition information is for a serving size of 1/4 cup. Go ahead and measure the amount of cereal you normally pour for yourself. Chances are good that it’s nowhere near 1/4 cup. A quarter cup is 4 tablespoons.

Anyway, this cereal is made with normal ingredients, so it tastes good. Especially the dark chocolate chunks.

Here is the nutrition information, normalized to the 3/4 serving size that other cereals use:

• 18g of fat
• 3g sat. fat
• 165 mg sodium
• 6g of fiber
• 18g of sugar
• 420 calories

I used to rank the cereals, with good taste and good nutrition at the top and bad taste and bad nutrition at the bottom. I couldn’t fit LCDCaRB anywhere in that list, so I gave up. Just enjoy the taste and ignore the calories.

Oh, and buy it on sale.

This post might not be very exciting, but maybe it will help someone.

Our kids were drinking a fair bit of orange juice, due to the fact that we got a bunch of it from Costco. That was the orange juice that was ready to drink. But it ran out, and we didn’t have a Costco run planned anytime soon, so we got a can of orange juice concentrate from the normal grocery store.

The kids could tell the difference. It was name-brand orange juice even, but anything from the grocery store that was concentrated just didn’t have the same taste as the unconcentrated stuff. In fact, they wouldn’t even finish the pitcher of orange juice. So that fell to my dad duties of finishing food that the kids don’t in order not to waste any. I eventually, over the course of a few days, finished the orange juice. And I had to agree with them – the stuff from concentrate just doesn’t taste right.

Then my wife found this:

Doesn’t look like much, but it is OJ concentrate that actually tastes like the normal stuff. No bitterness or whatever. We can find this only at GFS, so good luck if you’re not near one of those.

Hmm… reading over my post, I see that it sounds like an advertisement. Oh well. It’s good stuff; I don’t mind giving them free publicity.

I discovered the inspiration for the shape of the Girl Scout logo.

I was wondering about why Jesus died at age 33. So I looked it up on the internet.

The answers were not helpful.

They ran the range from “Because the Roman soldiers crucified Him” to “Because it was time for Him to fulfill His mission” to “to shed His blood to atone for our sins”.

All of those are answers and they are correct, but they are not correct answers. They don’t answer the question. Or rather, they answer the question wrongly.

Or maybe the question should be rephrased: Why was it at age 33 that Jesus died? or: What is special about the number 33 in the Bible?

That’s what I wanted to know. And I’m guessing those other people who asked the question earlier also wanted to know that aspect.

So I decided to come up with my own answer.

But before we get to that, let’s spend some time on the significant numbers in the Bible.

First, the number 3. It is the number of the Trinity. Things occur in threes throughout the Bible: Satan tempted Jesus 3 times, Peter denied Jesus 3 times, etc.

Second, the number 7. It is number of completeness. There are 7 days in a week, Daniel had a vision of 7 weeks, the Israelites marched around Jericho 7 times, etc.

Third, the number 10. It is the number of power. There are 10 kings in revelation, 10 plagues for the Egyptians, etc.

Fourth, the number 12. It is the number of God’s people. There are 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples, 12 gates of Jerusalem, etc.

Fifth, the number 40. It is the number of a journey. Noah’s boat experienced rain for 40 days, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, Jesus was in the desert for 40 days before the temptation, etc.

Sixth, the number 1,000. It is the number of, umm, a lot. Jesus will reign on earth for 1,000 years, etc.

There are other numbers in the Bible, but none I could think of that are used repeatedly like those I listed here. Astute readers will note my list has only six items, therefore it is incomplete.

Slight topical detour here to discuss the number 5. David picked out 5 stones from the brook and threw one of them at Goliath. Why 5 stones? That doesn’t fit with anything. He could have picked out 3 or 7. Even 6 would make more sense. But 5?

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. How does the number 33 fit in here?

You can make the number 33 by various methods. Maybe 3 times 12, minus 3. Or 3 times 10, plus 3. But I think it’s more likely to be 40 minus 7.

And I think that because of the meanings of the numbers.

If you consider Jesus’ life here on earth as a journey, that should be 40. But He has unfinished business here on earth, right? Since He is going to return, that means His journey is not complete. So we subtract 7, the number of completeness.

Why 33 years? Because 40 – 7. Because His journey on earth is not complete.