Recently in Random Category

I don't normally write commentary about TV shows, because it's not really my thing, but I've started watching the NBC series Trauma. The show kind of sucks, but I like watching the bits of San Francisco in the background and Sara likes yelling at the TV.

There are lots of things to yell about. Honestly, we've just kind of gotten used to saying "oh, yeah but it's a TV series, I guess they don't have to pay attention to reality."

The thing is, tonight's show was really bad. Way worse than the inaccuracies of the first few episodes.

In case you weren't watching, and I'm assuming you weren't since the ratings for the show have been abysmal, I'll summarize the part that we have issues with. The scene is a Chinese restaurant in China Town. A couple is having lunch, and then the restaurant explodes. After the firefighters clear the scene, they find one guy left in the restaurant, but he's already dead. There's a comment about how it's weird that he's wearing a condom, and then they hear knocking behind a door. The medics knock the door down to find a room full of scantily clad Asian women.

Following this is a street scene with the medics treating the women for smoke inhalation. The thing is, there absolutely no SFPD anywhere. I mean WTF? There would be a whole bunch of Chinese, Mandarin and Cantonese speaking SFPD and social workers there, even before the room full of sex slaves was found, and there for sure afterward. To add insult to injury, the "pimp" is allowed into the scene to frighten the women into not staying and giving testimony to the police that should have been there.

I know the SFPD doesn't get enough credit for fighting human trafficking in this city, but there's no way what happened on Trauma tonight would have been allowed to pass. This was an outrage, and NBC should apologize to the hard working people in our police force and the non profit agencies around the city that work tirelessly to fight against sex trafficking.

I've become a fan of Post Secret. They asked people to spread this video.

NASA announced Project Constellation as the replacement for the aging space shuttle quite awhile ago. The Project Constellationproject is interesting, but it has a lot of shortcomings - you can read more about Project Constellationon it's Wikipedia page here. I was reading a slashdot article recently and I found this alternative. I wonder if it is a better choice. There is a Wikipedia entry about it here.

They also made a youtube video:

So, this is a bit of a departure from my normal postings, but I want to give a recommendation for Deep Surplus. If you need some ethernet, coax, whatever cable - you should check them out. Cheapest I've found, and it ships right away from so. cal.

This guy is well over the two year mark.

Krikalev was the Commander of Expedition-11 which launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 14, 2005 aboard Soyuz and docked with the ISS on April 16, 2005. Following 8-days of joint operations and handover briefings, they replaced the Expedition-10 crew who returned to earth aboard Soyuz. During their six-month stay aboard the station the crew continued station maintenance, worked with scientific experiments, and performed a spacewalk in Russian spacesuits from the Pirs Airlock. The Expedition-11 crew in their Soyuz spacecraft landed in the steppes of Kazakhstan on October 10, 2005. In completing this mission Krikalev logged 179 days and 23 minutes in space including an EVA totaling 4 hours and 58 minutes.

In completing his sixth space flight, Krikalev logged a total of 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes in space, including eight EVA's.

I'm all about getting rid of the penny. Ever since that west wing episode.

The fact that the Mint loses money on penny production annoys some people, because one-cent coins no longer have much economic utility. More than a few people, upon finding pennies in their pockets at the end of the day, simply throw them away, and many don't bother to pick them up anymore when they see them lying on the ground. (Breaking stride to pick up a penny, if it takes more than 6.15 seconds, pays less than the federal minimum wage.)

Are we done with the fucking pennies yet?

Because it is time. The American public hasn't been using them for about a decade. They have become so worthless, that people give them to each other as a matter of routine. Get your change, pick out the pennies, and leave them there for the next guy. Need a penny or two? Well, there should be a few there for you, because the last guy sure as fuck didn't want his. That's the game.

From best of craigslist. Link.

Tips 18

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim quickly he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed and getting to the patient within 3 hours, which is tough. Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. But doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

1. Ask the individual to SMILE.
2. Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
3. Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently, ie: It is sunny out today)

If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call 9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

-- Passed along by Michael Hawley

This woman has totally lost all sense of perspective. I copied the below text from MySpace for Parents.

Enjoy.

I have a question. Why is it, that as parents we feel it is some form of a violation against our teenager’s rights to randomly drug test them, go through their rooms or search their cars?

Let me get this straight….It’s alright for a virtual stranger who wants to hire your teen, to send them off to a lab and have them pee in a cup, but it’s just not reasonable, if as parents, we want the same thing done in our home?

I feel strongly, as a mom, that if you have any reason (or maybe no reason at all) that it is our right to randomly drug test our teens….search their rooms…and yes, go through their cars.

I truly believe that if you are feeling like your teen is slipping away and that drugs or alcohol could be the culprit, then by all means, visit your nearest drug store and purchase a drug screen kit or buy one online. Have it handy and at a drop of a hat, spring it on your teen when they walk in the door an hour past curfew with some lame excuse.

I will put money on the fact that your teen won’t be late again for fear of “the drug test”….hopefully your teen will pass the test with flying colors but now, at least the ground rules have been established and your teen knows your not messing around with this stuff.

As for going through the room and snooping in the car. I also believe these things to be important in knowing exactly what our teens are getting into. Parents who are on to this behavior have found most of the incriminating evidence is in the trunk of the car, glove compartment, in the girl’s make-up bag in her purse or your teens backpack.

So, you know where to start, where to look and hopefully have a local drug store nearby…..so it’s now time to say….PEE IN THIS!

AdAge article: Wal-Mart Tries to Be MySpace. Seriously.

I'm not sure if I should be sad or horrified. It's too bad they spent so much time and effort creating something so, well, lame. You'd think they could have done better.

God Myspace sucks. It is the example of why we don't let kids play with css. I finally revised my myspace page. The css is better, but still needs a lot of work. Check it out at http://www.myspace.com/aspenjonah.

Ok, so is anybody else getting annoyed at being a "guest" everywhere? When did I stop being a customer?

Definitions:

customer
1. a patron; one who purchases or receives a product or service from a business or merchant, or plans to

guest
1. a recipient of hospitality, specifically someone staying by invitation at the house of another
2. a patron or customer in a hotel etc.
3. an invited visitor or performer to an institution or to a broadcast

Unless I'm sleeping there, I'm a customer. Stop calling me a guest. While we're on the subject GameWorks is an arcade, and I am an employee of Gemini Mobile Technologies not a crewmember.

So, I somehow let someone talk me into watching this David Blane spectacle on tv last night. Ugh, I want my 2 hours back.

NYTimes Article.

Their tagline: "We create scenes"

What happens when 80 people dress like best buy employees and go hang out in a Best Buy?

Click on the link below to go find out.

http://www.improveverywhere.com/mission_view.php?mission_id=57