"don't vote stupid" written by Zobar on estrip.org

11/02/08 10:05 - 42ºF - ID#46480

don't vote stupid

Don't just go in there and start flicking levers. Don't vote the straight ticket just because you think it looks nice when all the flags are lined up. Don't vote for John Doe (Democrat) if you should have voted for John Doe (Working Families). Don't give up the opportunity to have a say in your local government just because you don't recognize any of the names that aren't in Column A Rows 1 and 2.

There will be one proposal on the ballot. In addition, the following offices are also up for election. If you don't know which districts you live in, follow the links to find out.

United States President
United States Representative in Congress (districts 26-28)

New York State Supreme Court, (district 8 - all WNY)
New York State Senate (districts 58-62)

New York State Assembly (districts 142-146, 148)

Erie County Court Judge
Erie County Family Court Judge
Erie County District Attorney
Niagara County Sheriff

The League of Women Voters puts together an informative voters' guide for every election and makes it available for free

Read it to find out more information about the offices and candidates' experience, endorsements, and opinions.

You may be wondering what it means if a candidate is listed under more than one party. Suffice it to say that a vote for a candidate counts just as much on the Democrat line as it does on the Liberal or Working Families line. However if your beliefs are more aligned with a minor party, voting on their line will give them leverage with the candidate's platform. In close elections, endorsements by minor parties do make differences [in the opposite way of the Nader Effect] so most politicians are loathe to put third-party endorsements at risk. Here's kind of a long explanation

- Z

Permalink: don_t_vote_stupid.html
Words: 330
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: misc

10/29/08 09:40 - 36ºF - ID#46411

while we're on the subject

of prostatic massage... [Are we really on the subject of prostatic massage?]

What the fuck?! It's unavailable. It's Dr. Francis Fesmire, winner of the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine

for his medical case report 'Termination of Intractible Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage,' giving the scientific community waay too much information about how he cured his ex-wife's hiccups. And isn't he dishy.

Item two: I think I made up for not making (e:dragonlady7,46402) a sandwich last night by making us chicken fried steak with country gravy and tater tots for dinner. She's got pictures. I've got indigestion.

Item three: for those who are unfamiliar with Lemonade Stand, the intro and first day's worth of business:

Hi! Welcome to Lemonsville, California!

In this small town, you are in charge of
running your own lemonade stand. You can
compete with as many other people as you
wish, but how much profit you make is up
to you (the other stands' sales will not
affect your business in any way). If you
make the most money, you're the winner!!

To manage your lemonade stand, you will
need to make these decisions every day:

1. How many glasses of lemonade to make
(only one batch is made each morning)

2. How many advertising signs to make
(the signs cost fifteen cents each)

3. What price to charge for each glass

You will begin with $2.00 cash (assets).
Because your mother gave you some sugar,
your cost to make lemonade is two cents
a glass (this may change in the future).

Your expenses are the sum of the cost of
the lemonade and the cost of the signs.

Your profits are the difference between
the income from sales and your expenses.

The number of glasses you sell each day
depends on the price you charge, and on
the number of advertising signs you use.

Keep track of your assets, because you
can't spend more money than you have!

Lemonsville Weather Report
Hot and Dry

On day 1, the cost of lemonade is $.02
Lemonade stand 1 Assets $2.00

How many glasses of lemonade do you
wish to make ?50

How many advertising signs (15 cents
each) do you want to make ?5

What price (in cents) do you wish to
charge for lemonade ?10

Would you like to change anything?no

$$ Lemonsville Daily Financial Report $$

Day 1 Stand 1
50 glasses sold
$.10 per glass Income $5.00

50 glasses made
5 signs made Expenses $1.75

Profit $3.25
Assets $5.25

What a hoot, huh?

- Z

Permalink: while_we_re_on_the_subject.html
Words: 409
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: geeky

10/28/08 06:53 - 39ºF - ID#46394

i didn't need to see this

but Google News wanted me to.

I went down to the Apple Store this morning to finally fix my dang Airport card. I can only get reliable reception if I'm in the same room as the base station, which is seriously starting to cramp my style. (e:dragonlady7) came along to get her top case replaced since we discovered it was covered under warranty. While we were waiting for Geniuses [genii] I wandered around to the Edutainment department and picked up this gem

Wandering back to the Genius Bar I told her I needed it. She was like: ok honey if you want to. Then when I read the back of the box I said yo, this shit is like a total ripoff of LEMONADE.STAND.

And she was like, wut. And I was like yeah it was actually kinda difficult because you'd get different weather and stuff and then the genius who was serving someone else was like yeah and then your mom would cut off your sugar and your costs would go up. And then the other genius was like yeah and then your road would be closed for construction. And I know the other people who had serious problems were getting kind of annoyed but we were taking it back old skool. Long story short, they want my box for 24-48hrs for diagnosis. Not today.

Here's an image I drew yesterday for reasons that are not anywhere near interesting*. I thought it was funny but couldn't come up with anything to say about it. No you can't buy this cap.

- Z

_______________

We needed an image of a cap with a placeholder everywhere a logo would go.

Permalink: i_didn_t_need_to_see_this.html
Words: 296
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: geeky

10/26/08 01:29 - 57ºF - ID#46345

more vista

I think the thing about Mac OS X is it doesn't have the same sense of humor about itself that Windows does.

Like seriously what does this even mean? Does it go into a larger Recycle Bin? C:/Windows/Dumpster?

Maybe it puts the Recycle Bin into itself, and you get Mobius trash.*

- Z

_______________

For those who thought: 'wouldn't that make it Klein trash?' I bring you Acme Klein Bottles home of the Klein Stein and the Mobius Scarf

Permalink: more_vista.html
Words: 101
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

10/23/08 07:32 - 48ºF - ID#46285

what the fuck is this?

This is a jar of store-brand whole black pepper.

1. Why a shaker top? What kind of deranged individual shakes whole black peppercorns onto their food? I can think of two recipes* that call for whole black peppercorns, and when I make them I usually just pour them out of the top of the pepper grinder.

2. The copy on the label which is probably too blurry to read, says

These are the highly regarded Tellicherry peppercorns from India...

You don't mean the highly regarded Tellicherry peppercorns from India?! You mean the ones everyone has been talking about down at the Pepper Club? You mean the ones that won Pepper Spectator's most prestigious "Highly Regarded" award in 2003 and 2004? Wow, that must be some pepper.

- Z

_______________

Corned beef, and poached salmon.

tinypliny writes at 05:46:57 10/24/08 - Comment #40910: You're totally taking external help from a related (e:strip)per. For the record I don't think that's fair. Like, AT ALL.

- TP

zobar writes at 03:24:25 10/24/08 - Comment #40894: Oh right! I knew there was a point to this.

- Z

dragonlady7 writes at 01:12:53 10/24/08 - Comment #40888: But this is Wegman's brand pepper. The Wegmans target market shakes whole peppercorns, without grinding them, directly into their food? On a regular enough basis that they wouldn't bother with a dispenser or grinder, but would just shake it directly from the bottle?
Z had to come get me to pry the shaker top off so he could pour it into his pepper grinder, because I have fingernails and he doesn't.

ajay writes at 11:07:05 10/23/08 - Comment #40854: 1. Most Indian recipes call for whole peppercorns.

2. Grind up half of the peppercorns in that bottle. Sprinkle it all on top of 2 fried eggs, over hard. Add a little bit of salt. Make a sammich. That's how I eat my fried eggs every day.

zobar writes at 09:32:50 10/23/08 - Comment #40850: It took you nine seconds to type 'is?'

- Z

james writes at 09:16:40 10/23/08 - Comment #40849: whore

james writes at 09:16:30 10/23/08 - Comment #40848: comment

james writes at 09:16:19 10/23/08 - Comment #40847: a

james writes at 09:16:13 10/23/08 - Comment #40846: is

james writes at 09:16:04 10/23/08 - Comment #40845: Tiny

james writes at 09:15:52 10/23/08 - Comment #40844: yes

tinypliny writes at 08:34:55 10/23/08 - Comment #40842: Everything's fair in love and war. I am hard at both on (e:strip), so there!

Hehehehe, I got another one. 8-D

zobar writes at 08:30:59 10/23/08 - Comment #40841: You're doubling up on comments. For the record I don't think that's fair.

- Z

tinypliny writes at 08:18:27 10/23/08 - Comment #40838: BTW Tons of Indian dishes (and almost all South Indian dishes from this particular area) call for whole peppercorns. :)

tinypliny writes at 08:16:42 10/23/08 - Comment #40837: Hahahha... That made me snort tea up my nose.

But yeah, Thalassery is famous for its spices in Kerala. It's about 70 - 80 miles (I think) away from where I am originally from. :)

Permalink: what_the_fuck_is_this_.html
Words: 133
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

10/21/08 11:17 - 36ºF - ID#46242

bulletin!

You can make hot dogs in the Toast-R-Oven. If I'da known this ten years ago, college would have been very different.

- Z

Permalink: bulletin_.html
Words: 23
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: a series of tubes

10/20/08 09:19 - ID#46217

youtube roundup

...or, an easy way to waste one hour, three minutes, and 49 seconds of your life.

There's actually a lot of pretty cool stuff on YouTube. But how come when I'm bored all I can find is Japanese gameshows?

First we've got some Scottish dude with a pianozookelele singing Europe's 'The Final Countdown.'

Which led me to these Latvian dudes rocking out with their cellos out. [Yes I've heard of Apocalyptica.]

Here's some other Latvian dudes for whom walking is just too boring. [fast forward two minutes]

And then I spent like a couple hours watching Flight of the Conchords videos.

This guy over here isn't on YouTube but he listened to 'Dancing Queen' on Repeat One for an entire four-hour road trip -- and then got stuck in traffic for another hour. I don't know why.

- Z

_______________
You wanted Japanese gameshows? Like for reals? Fine, here's Marshmallow Eater, What a Cool We Are, Silent Library, cat weightlifting, Door Runner, and Brain Wall keeping the treadmill and ice water industries in business. I can only imagine what kind of poor life decisions turn you into a recurring character on these shows.

Permalink: youtube_roundup.html
Words: 219
Location: Buffalo, NY

10/19/08 11:36 - 43ºF - ID#46204

why don't i hate vista?

I was feeling adventurous last week so I managed to install Windows Vista Ultimate on my MacBook. It's certainly got its share of annoyances but I don't understand why everybody seems to hate it so much.

Installation was much less painful than xp. In particular, that first software update after a fresh install was a hundred times easier- only had to update & reboot once rather than a half dozen times.

Graphics performance: I've got a totally weak Intel 945 'integrated graphics chipset.' I'm running the full Aero interface and, weirdly enough, it hasn't exploded yet.

Memory consumption: I've got 1GB, the minimum recommended. Memory usage is pretty high but it seems roughly comparable to Mac OS X. If I were doing more than testing websites I'd probably be more concerned.

This is a weird one: it keeps 'asking for permission.' When you click 'more details' all it shows is a UUID. I know from context what it's doing, but seriously people. In general, though, I've noticed much fewer weird geeky error messages than xp.

Graphics design: one thumb up for improved controls and icons, one thumb down for the over-the-top window decorations. I like how the folder icons are stuffed with the actual icons of the folder's contents.

Graphics technology: much improved over xp. Text is super-crisp, and that frosted glass effect, while annoying, is pretty impressive.

Screen savers: What happened to the series of tubes?

- Z

Permalink: why_don_t_i_hate_vista_.html
Words: 240
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: not politics

10/12/08 09:09 - 66ºF - ID#46079

yeah i'm a dork

but I really like this houndstooth pattern.

Apparently 217 other people do, too. I guess it attracts the kind of person who would have the tenacity to look through sixty four pages of themes

but then totally just give up.

Last night, it was potatoes. Tonight, my nonpartisan campaign coverage hits musical endorsements. At the event where John McCain brought out Daddy Yankee to announce his endorsement, somebody asked Mr Yankee what his song 'Gasolina' is about. His answer: 'energy independence.'

Meanwhile Barack Obama's got Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, and, depending on your interpretation of this runaway inflatable pig, Roger Waters.

But now that we've finally got a black guy from Chicago on the ticket, where's all the blues singers?

Wow, I wish I hadn't seen that. He's got Al Gore rhythm.

- Z