I found something to put on my Xmas list.
Put it in your car, speed up to 88 mph and it’ll help you travel back (or forward) in time. It does work better with a Delorean.
For those of you who don’t have a clue what it is or what I am talking about, it is the flux capacitor from The Back to the Future movies. Very cool!
With the presidential primaries going on, thought it might be interesting to mention some left handed presidential facts and stats (being left handed myself).
Left handed presidents:
James A. Garfield (1881) 20th
Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) 31st
Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) 33rd
Gerald Ford (1974-1977) 38th
Ronald Reagan (1981 -1989) 40th
George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) 41st
Bill Clinton (1993-2001) 42nd
5 out of the last 7 presidents are left handed (71%). Considering the statistic that only 10% of the population are left-handed, that is pretty good!
Both Barak Obama and John McCain are left handers. Would you bet against, the next president being left handed?
Speaking of earworms …
Can’t believe I haven’t heard of this song until J told me about it. Now I am regretting ever hearing it.
Here is a teaser/ illusion:
How many Fs are in the sentence below?
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS…
(look in the comments to see the answer - no peeking!)
My word of the day: Earworm.
They stay in your head, they dig deep, they never let go and there is no known cure for it. I’m not talking about an animal or creature, I’m talking about the *Songs stuck in your head* syndrome and those you ultimately find yourself humming when you least expect it.
Aargh! The songs, the jingles and the short tunes that irritatingly gets lodged within.
Can’t believe I haven’t heard that word until now. Nevertheless, it’s a term that fits perfectly for those many songs that follow me subconsciously throughout the day. The Hillary vs. Obama song is a perfect example.
Here is my top 15 list of Earworms (in no particular order):
1) YMCA (Village People)
2) The Mana Mana song (Muppets)
3) Who Let The Dogs Out (Baha Men)
4) Mission Impossible Theme
5) Austin Powers Theme
6) Ice Ice Baby (Vanila Ice)
7) Can’t Touch This (MC Hammer)
8) Don’t Worry Be Happy (Bobby McFerrin)
9) Cotton Eye Joe (Rednex)
10) I’m Too Sexy (Right Said Fred)
11) She bangs (Ricky Martin)
12) Barbie Girl (Aqua)
13) It’s a Small World
14) Wannabe (Spice Girls)
15) Hangin’ Tough (New Kids on the Block)
Special Mentions: Straight up (Paula Abdul), Tom’s Diner (Suzanne Vega) and You’ve Got the Right Stuff (New Kids on the Block)
Bet you would never have guessed this but Merriam-Webster’s 2007 Word of the Year is
w00t (interjection)
Similar to “yaye” or “woohoo”. It’s an expression of joy for no reason at all, after a triumph or when you’re in agreement with something.
Could also mean Waste of Our Time or Way Out of Topic (in online forums).
It’s normally written with a double zero instead of the capitalized O. The word originated from the online gaming community when a team/ individual conquered or beat out other teams. To online gamers, it is part of the “esoteric computer hacker language” known as “l33t speak.” It replaces the now obsolete word “whoot”. Plasticbag traces the origins of w00t.
Example of its usage:
“w00t! We beat the Red Sox 12-0.”
“Just got an A on my finals. w00t!”
Click here to see the rest of 2007’s top 10 words.
Previous Words of the Year include:
2006: truthiness (noun)
1 : “truth that comes from the gut, not books” (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” October 2005)
2 : “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true” (American Dialect Society, January 2006)
2005: integrity
2004: blog
2003: democracy
Notable mentions from 2003-2007:
facebook (2nd in the 2007 Word of the Year list; second company name to make it as a verb after Google)
sardoodledom (6th in the 2007 Word of the Year list)
Pecksniffian (8th in the 2007 Word of the Year list)
google (2nd in the 2006 Word of the Year list)
filibuster (4th in the 2005 Word of the Year list)
peloton (7th in the 2004 Word of the Year list)
defenestration (10th in the 2004 Word of the Year list)
quagmire (2nd in the 2003 Word of the Year list)
gubernatorial (8th in the 2003 Word of the Year list)
batten (10th in the 2003 Word of the Year list)
Honestly didn’t know what w00t meant until about a month ago when I saw it on twitter. To me, saying it makes you sound like an owl and I do prefer the words “yeay”, “hooray” or “woohoo” in expressing joy.
It seems like the word is going to be included in the online MW edition but is (as yet) unconfirmed on whether it will make it to the print version. If you really love the word, you can buy a shirt from Thinkgeek and express your joy to the world.
Besides the words Google and Facebook, have you heard of the others?
(Image courtesy of Urban Dictionary)
What happens if you have only a certain amount of time to live? Would you want to take a trip of a lifetime or just sit at home counting down the days?
For me, I would want to experience some exciting adventures and do some things that I’ll never forget. Here is my top 10 list (in no particular order):
Freefall and dive like there’s no tomorrow! A helicopter will fly to the top of Mt. Everest (29035 ft above the ground), where you will freefall past some of the world’s highest mountains and land on the highest drop zone in the world. You will then experience the Himalayan environment, visit the Kathmandu and Serpa lands on the Everest region.
Train on sophisticated simulators used on astronauts and fighter pilots, test your reaction to space flights zero gravity and more. It’s a two day intense training course by the National Aerospace Training & Research (NASTAR) Center in Pennsylvania. Those who experienced it called it “Disney’s Mission Space on steroids”.
3) Experience an Air Combat duel
Be a fighter pilot for a day, engage in aerial dogfighting with choice of 4 aircrafts including a world war II fighter plane. Maneuver the plane acrobatically and dog fight like the movies. You will get to fire with electronic bullets, so you can’t run out of it. Each plane is equipped with laser weapon systems, smoke and sound effects for realistic experiences.
4) Star in a personal Top Gun gun style documentary
Fly the L-39 jet fighter and play the role of the fighter pilot. Work with the same people and the same plane that was used in the movie Jarhead. Coordinate and create your own action/ flying sequence. While you are in the plane flying, everything will be filmed and at the end of it, you get to keep your the personalized documentary film and movie footage.
5) Exploring the Grand Canyon on a raft
A 14 day expedition down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon that includes hiking and rafting experiencing the history, archeology, ecology and geology of the Canyon. Imagine rafting down a canyon that is 6000 feet deep, 277 miles long and 18 miles wide (at its widest). This is a trip like no other.
6) Explore Europe, Africa and the Carribean on the Picton-Castle
The Picton-Castle is a sailing ship reminiscent of what commercial sailing ships were a 100 years ago. With 12,450 feet of canvas sails, an 1893 cooking stove, a galley on deck, two tiers with bunks, steel hull, mast and pine decks; you get to experience traveling the world like Christopher Columbus did. While on it, you will be a ship trainee seaman, learning navigation and square rigging.
7) Trekking in the Tibetan valleys seeing the last Shangri-La
Experience a 3 week hike up the eastern valleys of Merak and Sakten and tour the ancient monasteries. You will trek across 13,500 feet of the mountain, exploring ancient traditional villages and finally visiting with monks who follow the Nyingma sec of Tibetan Buddhism.
8) Bungee jump off the highest dam in the world
Bungee jump 722 feet off the Verzasca dam in Ticino, Switzerland. It takes about 7.5 to 8 seconds to reach the lowest point of the jump. Verzasca dam is the same dam James Bond jumped off in GoldenEye.
5 days reliving the adventures of the Wild West in South Dakota; getting up close and personal with a roaming buffalo herd, riding with the cowboys, bouncing along the prairie through the mountains on authentic wagon ride, horse through the back country and joining the native Americans in a traditional Indian pow wow.
10) Drive off-road down the Baja Peninsula
The ultimate in off-road adventure… one will drive an off-road car/ truck from the international border at Tijuana, along the Baja coast through Punta San Francisquito and finally to ending at Cabo San Lucas. Through the 7 day off-road journey, you will experience the variety of vegetation, wilderness, geographical terrain, beautiful valleys, and enjoy the Pacific coastline.
So what will your top 10 list be like?
I’ve always been fascinated by the 4th dimension and beyond, especially being a big fan of Michio Kaku and his books. So you can imagine my excitement when I came across Rob Bryanton’s book called Imagining the Tenth Dimension: A New Way of Thinking About Time and Space.
This video (from Rob’s website) simplifies the multi dimensional theory in an almost cartoonic way. Just a note, it’s 11 minutes long. It’s a feat in itself to concise what has baffled scientists for generations in 11 minutes and getting the point across (without being too technical). Great stuff!
If there’s one thing computers don’t do well, it’s matching your home decor. Wood Contour may change all that.
These beauties are made from one piece of wood, and you get to choose from 29 wood varieties - Mahogany, Beech , Oak, Ash , Birch and others. Hand crafted and custom made, the company guarantees that no two items will be exactly alike given the nature of wood.
I wonder what it would feel like using a wooden keyboard and mouse. I’m not quite ready to find out, as a set of keyboard, mouse and monitor costs about $2950 (or more depending on the type of wood I get).
J gets a kick out of me pointing out a “mancar” and a “womancar” while driving on the road. Sounds like caveman talk, doesn’t it? Me drive “mancar”, you drive “womancar”.
Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not in anyway being sexist. I’m just thinking in terms of how one perceives a driver and the car he is driving. My explanation is simple, there are masculine and feminine cars — regardless of who drives it. Then there is the car that is neither masculine or feminine, a unisex type car that can go both ways.
For example, a Dodge Charger, Chrysler 300M, Chevy Suburban or a Hummer shows the rude, bold in-your-face, imposing character that has male traits and a Jeep Liberty/ Compass shows more of a sleek, elegant contemporary styled SUV indicative of a woman. A Hummer is more like a ruff-n-tuff bull in a china shop knocking everyone out of the way and imposing its presence. A Jeep liberty or Toyota Rav4 is more like a dainty elegant woman gliding onto the scene. The unisex type car would probably be a Mercedes, BMW, Jetta or the Beetle. I would probably class a Mini in that category too.
Also, have you ever noticed that cars/ car styles resemble the owner and his character? You would think that I am nuts but the next time you are on the road, look at the front of the car and look at the person driving it, you may see the resemblance. For example, you’ll see a rough and tough bouncer having an imposing Ford truck or a nerdy guy driving a small Geo Metro. It’ll never be the other way round. The tough bouncer wants a car that projects his tough image and the nerdy guy has a car that is as small as his ego. The happy surfers dudes or girls love the Jeep Wrangler as it is a happy go lucky car with a cool appeal — which directly matches their character. The man or woman that drives the Dodge Charger is likely to be strong willed and confident.
So the question is, do you drive a “mancar” or a “womancar”? Does your car resemble you?
