WTF??

OK, I was doing, ahem, RESEARCH on amazon.com, and saw a link for a book quiz. Not really a quiz-taker, I was persuaded into taking this one. Just check off the things you have done, and it tells you "what kind of person you are." This struck me because, in the car yesterday, Joel asked what I was thinking about. "What kind of person I am," I said. Why waste my time with introspection?? Here was my answer! God, I love the internet.
So, I check off the things I have done, and this is what is says:

You are a Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager

0% of the 35785 people who have taken this quiz are like you.

Zero???? Out of over 35,000? I find this ridiculously supportive of individualism. I will have to ask Joel to do some math on this- out of 43 items, what are the odds that someone would get exactly the same things as you? Math is so tricky- maybe that is a very reasonable number. Anyway, here is their ad. Take it and see if you are the extreme individual that I (supposedly) am... lots of zeros would make more sense.

And, as a footnote, it didn't occur to me to wonder, "Am I a romantic, tree-hugging money manager?" in the car, I was actually thinking about consumerism and some of Joel's strong views about consumption, and wondering how far down the path I think I can go with him in this respect. Yes, DIY Christmas WAS awesome... but I would also like some power windows/locks on my next car, thank you very much.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager

***Joel's Math Update***

Jessica just pointed this out to me and wanted me to weigh in on the probability that another person would choose the same answers that you would on the 43 questions. It's actually pretty slim.

First of all, the questions are 'yes/no' types, where only a positive or negative response can be given. If there was only one question, there could be two possible ways for the test to be filled out; if there were two, four possible configurations; three questions, eight configurations; etc. etc. You can see where this is going. The possible unique ways that the test can be filled out grows exponentially with the arithmetic growth of the number of questions. If you crunch out the numbers, you'll see that for 43 questions you get 88,000,000,000,000 (that's trillions!) possible ways that the test could be filled out.

So the chances that one of the 35,000 that took the test filled it out the same way as you is almost statically impossible. And just to cover themselves, the folks that give the test tell you that "0%" scored the same as you. For this group of 35,000, 350 people would have to score the same as you to get even 1%.

Slim odds indeed.

But I'm sure you're really unique regardless.

It sounds better in German

I had the day off today as part of the Veteran's Day holiday. Aidan had pre-school this morning, so Jessica and I were able to go have a coffee and strudel at the mall with only Ava to watch. While we were there, I saw this cafe:



That's right, Wiener Cafe. No, it's not a gay coffee shop; Germans just like to put "wiener" into the titles of many different things. I submit for your approval: the wiener schnitzel.

They will greet us with candy and flowers

I know that Sarah Palin was on SNL last night, and I'm sure that's taking the lead story on most news outlets today. But did anyone catch the huge protest in Iraq against the "extension" of the US withdraw timeline? Probably not, since no US news outlet would cover such an "insignificant" story. Who do those Iraqis think they are? Telling us when to get out of their country? The nerve!

Thankfully, the BBC had camera crews there to catch the whole thing. I don't know about you, but when I see tens of thousands of angry, young men protesting in the streets, I get nervous. Why? A couple of reasons.

#1. If they are there protesting, that means that they probably aren't working and being productive members of society.

#2. If they're not contributing to society, then what are they doing all day? Most likely trying to figure out how they are going to support themselves and their families.

#3. If you have a large group of angry young men with no jobs, and no means with which to support themselves or their families, what do they do? They either turn to crime, or join the "freedom fighters" and attack our forces, thereby reducing security in the region and prolonging the conflict.

Sorry if this gets anyone down today. Go back to watching that hilarious Sarah Palin - SNL sketch! That'll cheer you up, you betcha!

I heart Sarah Palin

Ok, not really. I have to admit that the whole election was really set for me when Palin was named as the vice-presidential candidate. It's unconscionable that this dummy would be the #2 elected official in the nation. If that idea doesn't worry you, then you should seriously consider not voting this year. You may not, in fact, be qualified to be a citizen of the US.

Now this isn't anything groundbreaking. There's been plenty of press on how poorly qualified she is. Not to mention that ridiculous Katie Couric interview. PS - when you're running for VP, it would probably help to #1. know some reputable national newspapers, #2. know a little something about your running mate, and #3. maybe have a more than cursory knowledge of the branches federal government, like the Supreme Court for example. I don't think that interview could have had more softball questions, and Palin whiffed most of them.

"Hold on Joel," some of you might say, "everyone knows that these journalist aren't entirely objective in their covering of the news. There's all kinds of spin that they can place on her answers to make her appear less than qualifies." I will concede your point. After all, O'Reilly does his own share of news interpretation in his "No Spin Zone". So how do we measure the qualifications of Palin? Well, I think that standardized testing gives us a good starting point. A document was published that contains many publicly available documents all about Palin.

Here's Palin's SAT scores from 1982:

To sum it up, she scored a 841 (425V/416M). That places her in the 38-39% nationwide for high school students. Wow. That means that about 6 out of 10 kids scored better than she did. For a reference, I scored a 1420. I consider myself a pretty bright guy, but I don't think I'm presidential material. But apparently Palin does.

Hey, maybe the SAT was a little difficult for her. Maybe she was out flying her airplane hunting wolves the night before? What about her IQ? How does she stand up with the rest of the country?



An 83. Sweet Jesus. Let me be absolutely clear: I'm not saying that someone with an 83 IQ can't be a fully productive and happy member of society. Absolutely not. I do firmly believe that "all men are created equal" and everyone should be afforded the same rights and privileges under the Constitution. That being said, I think that the person holding the 2nd highest office in the land should be held to a little bit higher standard. If you look at the bell curve, the two segments of the graph on either side of the 100 mark represent one "standard deviation" from the national mean. This is where the bulk of the population will score. You can see that Palin's score falls outside that section. From the test info, it shows that her "National WIQ percentile (1982)" is 12.8357%. This means that roughly 87% of people scored higher than she did. Think about that. If you're reading this, odds are your IQ is higher than Palin's. Do you want to have her handling complex national issues and dealing with foriegn head's of state? BTW, she's rarely been outside the US except briefly to Canada and Mexico, and a trip to Iraq, Kuwait, Germany, and Ireland as part of a 2007 visit to the Alaskan National Guard troops over there. And the Ireland visit wasn't so much a visit as it was a refuel stop.

"But Joel," you may still ask, "she's just going to be the vice president. McCain brings plenty of experience to the ticket." While I'm not going to discuss the merits of McCain's experience in this post, I would like to point out that McCain's health is less than stellar. He's currently 72, and would be 76 at the end of his presidency if elected. FYI, the average life expectancy in the US is 77.8. That's the average. Now consider that McCain did undergo years of torture and has already had malignant melanoma removed. Would that have an effect on his life expectancy? What about the stress associated with the office of President? Would that contribute to lessening his life expectancy? Here's a study that connect stress to premature aging, and is there a more stressful job than president? McCain's doctor maybe?

So here's Palin, a documented dullard with no foreign policy experience who doesn't know "what exactly it is that the VP does everyday." If elected, this dummy is one 72 year old's heartbeat away from being the president of the US.

Are you worried now?

At these prices, I may reconsider rocking Fila...

I got this strange email message a couple of weeks ago, from harputs.com :

As a valued customer we're offering you the ulimate adidas Micropacer at $200.00 off
discount code :

Hamper

$200 off this week, come and get it

So, of course I'm thinking, what the hell would I buy that is $200 off??? From a shoe website??? Well, this is it:
Product DescriptionThis is the one. The ultimate shoe. Comes complete with: adidas branded miniature shoes in metal shoe box, memory card, action figure, laser trefoil projector, duct tape, pewter tennis racket bottle opener, large round trefoil belt buckle, key chain, lanyard, phone charm, roll of adidas stickers and an adidas originals balloon.
WTF?

Germans, worst dressers

These speak for themselves, although I just want to say that I'm sure I could fill the capacity of the internet with just bad pictures of people in my town, but it's hard to casually snap a picture of a mulleted kid in an acid-washed jean jacket when you're not in a touristy spot. So, these are from Rothenberg au der Taub, or something like that, which had lots of people taking lots of pictures, and I blended right in.
Again, not the worst offenders, but pretty bad... especially the last one.

These guys like hats:Black socks:Yes, those are elbow patches, and yes, that is a bow tie:

Copyright Infringement?

Today we were at MediaWorld (think German Best Buy) over in Mannheim, looking for someone to repair our camera. Jessica had accidentally dropped it on our trip to Burgundy and it broke. When I asked at the service counter, the the Germans said they could repair it, but to the tune of €150. Thanks, but no thanks Fritz.

Anyway, right next to the service counter at there was a life size cut out of this strange dude:



WTF, right? My german is a little rusty, but the phrase "Das kauf ich euch ab" translates to something like "I buy that you on". What does that mean? I have no idea.

Who's idea was this? Does this seem like it'd be a great ad campaign? But after looking at this guy for a while, it struck me that I've seen this guy's look before. Does this face ring a bell??



Napoleon Dynamite? Is that you? I guess that Napoleon Dynamite sequel never panned out like he'd hoped. At least he's working.

This Job Stinks

Alternate Title: "This Place is (near) the Dumps"

So I work in a dump. And by that I don't mean that things are worn and/or broken down around my office. I mean that there is a dump right outside the place that I work. It's not a straight up "landfill", but it's pretty close. Here's the bird's eye with my office in relation to the dump. My office is the helicopter, the dump is the red hazard sign. After that is a close-up of the dump itself. Pretty good resolution around here. You can almost see the rats.


View Larger Map


View Larger Map

Anyway, I'm about 3/4 of a mile from the dump and on a hot day (like today), you'd think it was right out my window. For some reason, the wind almost always blows northeast around here, placing us upwind from the stench.

Let's say you lived and worked in the dump, or perhaps a sewage treatment plant. So every minute of every living day you'd smell the unrelenting stink of decaying refuse and/or human feces. After a certain period of time, you've got to become immune to it, right? The same way that you don't notice the smell of your house unless you leave on an extended vacation, then come back to realize that your house has a particular odor that you've just gotten used to. In the same vein, the stench of crap and trash would just become part of your smell landscape. You'd stop noticing it. Assuming that to be the case, then would you every think anything smells bad? If you forget to take out your trash, or an egg rolls under your counter and starts rotting, would you notice the smell? Would a different kind of stench register with you, like a skunk? Or would your sense of smell just become dulled? Would you be able to enjoy a pleasant smell, like fresh baked bread or flowers, while living in the foul air everyday?

It doesn't smell bad enough here for me to conduct an objective observation, but maybe I can get the Germans who work at the dump to help me out.

Uncle Rico? Is that you?

How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?

I was riding my bike home when I passed this van. I got about 50 feet down the road before I realized that I had better take a picture or it was going to be near impossible to describe it properly. I mean, where do you even start?

"It's a purple van, but it's got this crazy custom paint job and it looks like it's busting through a wall. But for some reason there's a girl sprawled across the hood. Except she's a ghost or something, because she doesn't have any legs. Oh, and she's got claws like Wolverine. And then on the sides there's some graphic design like a blue lightning bolt mixed with a checkered flag, 'cause this sweet ride is taking the pole position."







I have no other explaination other than, "WTF Germany!"

Germany WTF??!?

So I've been thinking about splitting off and starting a new blog that focuses on the wacky and f-ed up things that we come across in Germany. Jessica talked me out of it, but I'd like to submit this finding to our audience.

We live in Mannheim and it's a good sized city. We get pretty big-name bands coming through here. REM, Linkin Park, Stevie Wonder. So there's no shortage of the band posters around the streets advertising the shows that are coming up. Now, every band that comes around can't be REM. There's got to be some B-listers that come through M-town too. And those B-listers have their own posters plastered around town as well. And this post is about one of them.

So apparently there's a German techno group floating around called Lexy and K-Paul. Let me start by saying that I'm not a "techno" guy. I don't really "get" it. I've tried to listen to it, and I enjoy it on a extremely superficial level. I can dance to it, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about house, jungle, drum & bass, trance, etc. I know there's supposed to be some sort of distinction between those, and even with the great B.K. trying to explain it to me, I'm totally at a loss to tell the difference. That being said, these two clowns may be the next greatest techno DJ group to come out of Germany. But I doubt it.

Anyway, they're coming to Mannheim soon. And there's these posters up all over town hawking their show. The picture on this poster has really bugged me for the last couple of days. I don't get what it is they're going for. I've got the picture, minus all the show data. I guess it came off their latest CD "Ponyboy".



Why are they in their underwear? Why are they wearing feathered headbands? Why (and this might be the part that I don't understand the most) are they in that ridiculous "prancing" pose? Are they gay? That would explain a lot, except that I don't think that's the case. I think the explanation is a little case of "WTF Germany"?!?!