Zobar's Journal

09/05/2007 16:07 #40950

cootie catcher
Category: a series of tubes

Emergency Bulletin! Jon Spencer at Mohawk Place next Tuesday

Now on with our regularly-scheduled post:

OK, I was discussing cootie catchers/fortune tellers with (e:dragonlady7). She said she didn't know how to make one, so I Googled it. It is not surprising to me that I found instructions for making a cootie catcher on the Internet. You may follow the link

but the URL itself is more interesting than the page.

girlpower.gov/girlarea/gamespuz/cootiecatcher.htm

How wrong is this URL? Let me count the ways:

1: There are instructions on a US Government [.gov] website for making a cootie catcher.

2: There is a website called girlpower.gov at all.

3: I just visited a website's girl area.

Now I feel dirty.

- Z

tinypliny - 09/05/07 23:23
Wow. I just expanded my vocabulary with the myriad members of the cootie world.
:::link:::

Where I come from, that particular contraption is called "Din-Raat" (Day-Night).

carolinian - 09/05/07 22:03
The first time I read your post, I misread it and thought it was titled "coochie catcher". :)

lauren - 09/05/07 18:22
Yes indeed, cootie catcher is a new one on me also.

theecarey - 09/05/07 17:07
Cootie Catcher? I made millions of those things as a kid- I dont think I ever knew it had a name.

08/27/2007 14:45 #40757

flip flop
Category: politics

1: Facebook is quite addictive

2: Usually I stay away from politics, but here's something to chew on.

Both major political parties have diverse, complex, and often contradictory platforms that go far beyond the simplistic conservative/liberal split. What is interesting is how they take sides when an issue is not addressed by the traditional party platform.

To whit: the electoral college. Republicans typically support it, and Democrats typically oppose it. Both sides can come up with long lists of lofty ideals that support/oppose it, but what it comes down to for both sides is that the electoral college elected a Republican twice in a row.

In the electoral college, most states use the Winner Takes All method but two states [Maine (D x4) and Nebraska (R x5)] use an alternate approach that arguably gives better direct representation. The Democratic Party proposed switching Colorado (R x9) to the new system in 2004, and failed.

Now it seems Republicans are all about more direct representation in the electoral college, but only in California (D x55). And who is defending the status quo? Yeah, the Democrats.

Conclusion: Only losers want election reform, but only the winners have the power to do it.

- Z

joshua - 08/29/07 12:24
Actually the irony is that if GWB hadn't won Ohio, he would have lost the electoral college but won the popular vote by 3.5 million. I can't recall how large of a difference was represented in the popular vote in 2000 but I don't remember it being larger than 3.5 million on Gore's side.

This is the major problem - its obvious, and we've spoken about this plenty of times, that when there is a big discrepency between the popular vote and the electoral college the entire system's credibility is called into question, and rightly so.

I think elimination of the electoral college, or modifications of the rules, would make things very interesting. After all, in 2004 40% of NYS voted for President Bush. Being one of the states with the largest number of electoral votes, distributing these votes in proportion to the popular vote would make things very, very interesting indeed.

I'd be interested in reading a study, if there was one out there, that would determine the outcome of the presidential elections in the past had the electoral college votes been in proportion to the percentage of the popular votes, state by state.

metalpeter - 08/27/07 20:20
The thing about this country is we are not a democrocy we are a representive democrcy. Basiclly the people have no control we pick people to have control for us and then they do what ever they want. If they have morals then they try to get done what the people who elected them elected them for, but often they follow who paid for them to run or even special interest groups. The electoral college is an example of indirect Democraticy but I can understand why people want it. It helps fight fraud. Say I'm running and in Buffalo, New York, Albany and Rochester I get the votes of everyone who died in that year then it doesn't matter that I got 100,000 (or any number) more then my enemy because I only get so many points. But I'm sure there are better ways to stop illegal votes.

But here is one of the problems with it. Lets say (e:josh) was running for president and in NY he is leading and people on TV see that so they don't vote cause it doesn't matter since there guy say (e:ajay) can't win so josh gets all the points an ajay gets nothing. But if those people would have voted then the proportion the ajay would have been behind josh would be much lower and he would be closer. Just the opposite is true also if someone gets 99% of the votes in a state it doesn't matter how many more people voted for them cause the only get the points. That is why you can win the popular vote and not become president it doesn't make any sense.

There is another reason why it should be gotten rid of and that is so you can have more then 2 people running for president. Currently all 3rd party people do is take voters away form some one else and cause them to lose states that the 3rd party can't win. I will use my self as an example Yes I liked Ross Perot and voted for him but all that did was take votes away from someone else and I'm sure a lot of people did that (i hope I'm remembering right that he was 3rd party). But if it is most votes wins then a 3rd party guy or gal could win because they could get the most votes. I'm not saying it would happen but it sure seems like a much more fair way of doing things.

jason - 08/27/07 16:24
Yes, yes, it's about the time to let the gamesmanship begin! The most important thing, and the only real important goal is to attain and keep power.

The thing I find most insulting is that the parties pretty much proudly out themselves as hypocrites, using each others' arguments depending on their relative strength. You see it all the time nowadays, and we will continue to see it. Turnabout is fair play, it seems, and the fanbois pile right on top of it.

I agree that doing this proportional electoral college vote thing state-by-state is just not a good idea, but I'm also not a lawyer and can't say what the recourse is. Maybe it's time to relegate "flyover" country to the worthless status everyone on the coasts wants for it. That certainly would ensure that one party ruled from now until the end of time. Depending on who we root for, that is either a no brainer or an outrage, damn the hypocrisy.

james - 08/27/07 15:25
No, this has nothing to do with direct representation or popular elections or real election reform. This has to do with which party wants to be in power in 2008. California will not go for any of the GOP candidates in 2008. But in this new system 20 of CA's 55 electoral votes will go to the Republicans. That is one hell of a deficit for the Dems to make up and probably would not win the election. This is just a power grab, knocking out the biggest bloc of voters for Dems.

The electoral collage has to go, but doing it state by state is a stupid way to do it. If they do it and Mitt Romney is President there sure as hell wont be any movement to split Texas or other large GOP strongholds.

And Governor Schwartzeneger, a Republican, opposes this reform as well. So it isn't GOP vs. Dems on this issue as a rule.

08/20/2007 23:02 #40645

headhunt'd!
Category: misc

Item! It feels nice to be wanted. More details later, or not.

Item! My buddy and his wife ended up in Cancun this weekend. I can only hope they got a hurricane-season discount. They ended up 'finding' plane tickets out at $600 a pop, which was still better than sticking around at the hotel that made no evacuation plans and had been wiped out by another hurricane a couple years ago.

Item! (e:dragonlady7) was out of town this weekend so I got some quality fucking-off done. I did some housework but more importantly I totally found the best article on Wikipedia: (WIKIPEDIA - Voynich manuscript). This is the coolest fucking thing, and it creeps the shit out of me.

Item! What do you do with a bored Norwegian in Buffalo? Take him to the Pirate Festival for "Adult Night!"

I can't really explain why.

- Z

jenks - 08/21/07 10:58
woohoo! beinecke library is awesome! :)

carolinian - 08/21/07 09:19
The difficult part of being head-hunted, I find, is when you get offers of three times what you're making to go to an area of the country where houses cost three times as much as they do in Buffalo. I realize I'd gain little or nothing by the enormous salary increase, and this fucks with my mind.

james - 08/21/07 00:43
That was super interesting to read.

The theory about Enochian doesn't seem credible at all, considering you can google Enochian and come up with a variety of 'angelic' scripts, which, while fitting in with the whole John Dee still doesn't match the text at all.

The wiki mentioned the Codex Seraphinianus. There is a fantastic site you can read about it here :::link::: it has illustrations from the text. It is really difficult to come across a published copy but UB has one and I am determined to make my way over there and read it.

You should to, it is a treasure.

fellyconnelly - 08/21/07 00:34
i love the voynich manuscript. after i first read about it i spent a good month trying to make my own crazy book of weird writing and drawings.
yeah that didn't work much.

tinypliny - 08/20/07 23:33
Fascinating! It seems like the document is discussing otters, crows and the crops these plants destroy. :)

I think the hoax theory is the most feasible. From the sketches and diagrams, it is apparent that the author is an artist. So it is entirely possible that the "text" is merely a pseudo-alphabetical design to accompany the sketches.

08/14/2007 11:50 #40534

and when i awoke i was alone
Category: weird

The other night I had a weird dream. (e:dragonlady7) 's Norwegian cousin Aleksander was visiting us, and someone suggested that we should take him to a community ed. class about Norwegian Culture & Language. We showed up and there were maybe 100 people in the classroom, mostly just shooting the bull and eating the fruit & cheese trays. The teacher didn't really know anything about Norway and didn't bother to teach the class. I guess it was mostly just a social night called Community Ed. So Aleksander goes up to the front of the class and starts talking about what Norway is like, and some people are listening and some people are not, and nobody's being rude or anything, but really he could really have been talking about anything at all.

He kinda thinks this is totally lame, and there's all these people eating cheese and crackers, and so he says, you know, Norway's very similar to the United States in a lot of ways, except that when we eat cheese and crackers, we don't eat cheddar, we eat havarti.

And you know how in elementary foreign-language classes, when they teach you new vocabulary, the teacher says the word and the students repeat it? Everybody stopped what they were doing, said "HAVARTI!" in unison, and went back to chatting.

I split a gut and had to leave the room I was laughing so hard. Aleksander had half an idea of what was going on so he went on to explain that in Norway the cheese and fruit trays would be called a smörgåsbord [laying on the accent real thick-like]. And the entire class stopped, replied "SMORGASBORD!" and went back to doing whatever it was they were doing.

Laughing, Aleksander came out to join me in the hallway and asked me what the Hell was going on. I was laughing so hard I woke up.

Turns out neither havarti nor smorgasbords are particularly Norwegian.

- Z

tinypliny - 08/14/07 17:48
I think I just spat a mouthful of coffee on my keyboard - and ew, my fingers are now sticky,
but LOL LOL LOL.

leetee - 08/14/07 11:55
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

08/13/2007 15:13 #40515

lulz! [edited]
Category: lol

My kitty Chita Rivera is such a spaz, a product of her surroundings I suppose.

Also, see my previous post if you want to hear all the stupid details about my living room. Here's a pretty decent color sample

- yellow living room to the right, blue stairwell to the left, [future] orange hallway in the center. The old color

is so bleh, especially when compared with the new color at sunrise

- Z

_______________
Edited to add 'invisable microphone:' damn this is addictive.

tinypliny - 08/13/07 22:26
I LOVE the room at sunset. It's so vibrant!

lizabeth - 08/13/07 19:40
invisable microphone = teh awesomenest :D

leetee - 08/13/07 19:00
Chita is adorable. And a spaz as only kittens can be! :O)

Love the colours you chose. The yellow looks kinda orangey in some shots. Which, if you ask me, is a bonus.

jason - 08/13/07 16:35
Haha. Well done, Z.

fellyconnelly - 08/13/07 15:41
those are exciting colors~!