My Sick Mind

I was watching "How it's Made" last night, and the topic was thermometers. It's a complicated process of welding glass tubes. The crux of the issue is in calibrating the thermometers. They pull the air out of the tubing with a vacuum, and fluid is left inside. The thermometers travel down a conveyor of chilled alcohol. A heat gun drives the liquid up tubing. They then plunge the thermometers into a bath of ice-water to calibrate the freezing point. A notch is made in the glass where the liquid is. They are next set into a bath of liquid set at 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Another scratch is made in the glass at that point, and the two marks are aligned on a grid and set to a calibration scale. My question: How did they make the first thermometer? If they had to place it in a bath of water at 200 degrees Fahrenheit to calibrate it, how did they know what 200 degrees Fahrenheit was without a thermometer? This whole temperature thing sounds like a big scam. How cold is ...

Ascend with us now, to the neighborhood supermarket, where our hero (me, in a relative sense) ventures into the great void of his neighborhood supermarket in search of sustenance and a little blog material. It usually works for both. Tonight's episode is entitled: "Express -- or Not." With a scant few items in his hand-held cart, our hero wanders into the so-called "Express Lane" at the supermarket, proceeds to lay his (less than 15) items on the conveyor, only to be delayed by another shopper. His arch rival, Coupon Bitch has an issue with some chicken stock she purchased almost a week ago. A discussion with the cashier (who we will call Express Queen) hears her contention of how the chicken stock she purchased last week should have come with a cents-off coupon, but she was instead charged the regular price. The cashier sent her to the nearby Courtesy Desk, where Express Queen's super-friends (now known as the Coupon League) have come to the aid of Coupo...

"You got to stay young, keep yourself young. And she helps me to that." - Pete Rose, talking about his girlfriend This hot little number is Kiana Kim . Who is Kiana Kim, you might ask? She is a former flight attendant from South Korea who moved to America with her parents when she was 5. She currently operates a hair salon in Los Angeles and appeared in Playboy magazine in April. Kiana Kim is also Pete Rose's girlfriend . That's right, Pete Rose. The All-Time Hit King. (Also the All-Time Out King) The 17-time all star and convicted tax evader. The Pete Rose who was born before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Pete Rose who has 2 daughters older than his girlfriend. The Pete Rose who ... ah, you get it. Anyway, the point is the strange attraction of this 20-something hottie to a troll. At his best, Pete was short and stocky. Now, he makes short and stocky look like Larry Bird. It's what Colonel Potter on M*A*S*H used to call "one of those dome s...

When Forbes magazine first began [sic] compiling its lists of the 400 richest Americans back in 1982, just 13 of those people were billionaires. In 2010, every person on the list was worth at least a billion dollars, and the highest-ranked person, Bill Gates, was worth $54 billion. Forbes' 2010 list of the world's billionaires includes a whopping 1,011 entries. Of those, 75 people are tied for last place with a net worth of $1 billion. First of all, the original article contained the phrase "first began," hence the sic ("Intentionally so written") which is not only redundant but inexcusable from someone who calls himself a professional writer. But I digress. The point of putting that blurb at the top was to point out how quickly a million dollars has been devalued. It ain't what it used to be, which I can say because I'm not a professional writer. Up until a short time ago, having saved a million dollars was not only something of an accomp...

I'm still trying to figure out the deal with the Kardashian's. They're all over the Internet and TV, and yet I don't know what they have ever done to entertain us other than being on television. What a sorry state of affairs where all you have to do is get on TV to stay on TV. I'm hearing a lot of stuff about WikiLeaks. It's a web site, I presume, but I've never been on it and I don't know what they offer, other than news stories. It's the Kardashian of web sites. From what I can figure out, they tell us things that the government doesn't want us to know. If we're taking a vote, I vote YES. Dane Cook's half-brother and sister-in-law were ordered to repay $12 million they had embezzled from him while his half-brother was his business manager. What I find amazing is that Dane Cook has made so much money doing his crap comedy act that somebody could steal $12 million from him. To me, comics like Cook represent the current lousy state of ...

I have just returned from a short business trip to Newark, New Jersey. If you know anything about Newark, you'll know how happy I am to have returned. This is the view out my hotel window, which explains why I got such a good rate on the room. Part of the trip included a visit to New York City and a performance of Cosi fan tutti at Lincoln Center. I didn't take my camera to New York, since you've probably seen countless photos of the city, and why would I bore you with that? You're much less likely to have seen photos of downtown Newark at night, so here are a few that I worked up for your entertainment. Downtown Newark at night. After a brief rain, the streets took on an eerie glow that was second only to the eerie glow of the people on the streets. I'm not sure where I was, but I know you'll recognize the name on that big building in the background. I think they sell insurance. I think sometimes people have low standards. This is a stairway up to a tatto...

Occam's Razor is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae (translating to the law of parsimony , law of economy or law of succinctness). The principle is popularly summarized as "the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one". I do almost all my banking on the Internet. Aside from a stray institution that "needs" a paper billing statement returned to them, I write almost no checks. Like everything else, there is good and bad to that. Most of the bad lies in the future, with the potential for Internet fraud. The good lies in the present. One thing that is particularly frustrating - until you stop and think about it - is the transfer of money from one account to another. When I pay a bill from my checking account, it takes between 2 and 5 days for the payment to reach the payee. That makes it necessary to do some actual financial planning, or else the bills will be late. It frustrated me until I figured out a viable alternative. I now pay m...

A haiku over on Howard's page started me thinking. I'm not sure what makes me think, but generally reading something of his starts me on an internal dialogue that I sometimes take external. A brief exchange in his comments section lit the fuse. The haiku goes: thank you for the things none of us will ever need that draw us in like sheep (reprinted without permission) The object, of course, hinges on the annual Christmas shopping frenzy that retailers call Black Friday. I've written about it enough to qualify me as a nuisance, and one more essay isn't going to help anybody. During our comment/dialogue, (which you can read by clicking here ) Howard posed the question: I wonder how stunted our entire society would be if we suddenly had to do without cell phones or our online infrastructure for a few days, or a few hours? That brought to mind the great sacrifice (the word "sacrifice" was used in the press release) of several celebrities who are going withou...

Just when you think society has sunk as low as it can, somebody figures out a way to dig the hole a little deeper. E! has developed a television program called " Bridalplasty " (that's right) where new brides compete for (among other things) a wish list of plastic surgery. I suppose there is no shortage of people who feel lousy about themselves to the point that they would go on television to tell friends, family and strangers about it, and television is always there for them. The "winner" gets to change the way she looks right before her big day. I suppose, at that point she's stuck with the groom and his flaws while he gets the "hot wife" he's pining for. I have no idea (nor do I want to know) what the "challenges" are. I can imagine. Perhaps a "biggest nose" competition where the girls try out various odors and the first one to recognize the smell wins. Or "smallest boobs," where the winner is the girl who ca...

HARPER WOODS, Mich. – Police say two men have been critically injured in shootings inside a suburban Detroit shopping mall. The mall has been closed as police search for whoever fired the shots. Harper Woods deputy police chief Jim Burke tells The Associated Press the shootings happened around 6 p.m. when a group of teenagers fired on a rival group at Eastland Mall east of Detroit. Burke says the men were taken to St. John's Hospital in Detroit, and both were expected to survive. He says an 18-year-old was shot in the chest, and an employee at a clothing store was shot in leg. He says there had apparently been a long-running dispute between the two rival groups. I don't have a detailed list, but I can tell you that there have been a lot of shootings at shopping malls over the years. There was the the Tacoma Mall and Hudson Valley Mall shootings in 2005, the Oak View Mall shooting in 2006, the Westroads Mall murder/suicide and the Trolley Square Mall shootings in 2007, ...

A complete lack of enthusiasm for contributing anything meaningful to my life has led me here. Do you think cross-dressers and transvestites wear a tampon once a month? They seem to want all the fun things about being a woman (like looking pretty and teasing stupid men) but none of the bad things. That realization has caused me to lose respect for them. . We had a parade in the city yesterday. I'm surprised that we still have parades, and I'm especially intrigued about their purpose and why people seem to enjoy them so much. It's a series of non-sequitors interspersed with music. A float with two celebrities followed by a marching band followed by a float with flowers and cartoon characters followed by kids dancing ... And people stand in the cold to watch. I think we have them because we have always had them. If the idea of a parade was broached today as a new concept, it would be rejected because they produce no profits. It's all about advertising and filling TV t...

We love our holidays. We're into a big one now, and even bigger ones to follow. This one, we are told, is all about giving thanks for something and realizing how fortunate we are to live when we do - or to live at all. Nice and schmaltzy, as the holidays were intended. But, we don't just like a holiday. We like a holiday with something substantial attached to it. I'm not talking about remembering war veterans, giving thanks or celebrating America. I'm talking about big sales at a store, eating and drinking. The eating thing is attached to this one, to the point that we wish people a "Happy Turkey Day" instead of using the more traditional Thanksgiving name. When I go back to work on Monday I'll be asked what I had for dinner on Thursday. When I say I had chicken, I'll get that quizzical look and the "What, no turkey?" question, which implies that I violated some sacred holiday tradition. In fact, the tradition is the holiday, and we have ch...

I usually ignore those "Caution: DO NOT EAT" packets that come in products that are impossible to eat. That's easy. I'm not going to eat something that comes out of a packet of air fresheners, but to ignore one that comes packed in actual food is a bit more difficult. This Caution: DO NOT EAT packet came in a package of Harry & David Dark Chocolate Butter Pecan Moose Munch, which by the way, contained way more Munch than Moose, and precious few pecans. We need more Moose and pecans, please. Anyway, there it was as I opened the package and dispensed it in a bowl. But avoid it I did. The stores, however, are more difficult to ignore. Salespeople stand outside the store and entice those of us with few resistance skills with samples of their munchable snack foods. I think it's one of those places where you think you're eating something wholesome, when in fact, it is candy. I don't think we would want to know the calorie and fat content of this stuff,...

They say Rome wasn't built in a day. They could also say that Philadelphia's Spectrum wasn't torn down in a day - or month - or a year. In the longest-scheduled demolition in modern architecture, it is rumored that The Spectrum will finally succumb to the wrecking ball Tuesday at noon. By then, I suspect that everything inside the building (including the parts of the building itself) will have been sold - or at least they would try to sell it. It was closed on October 31, 2009. Since then, several schemes have been hatched by the owners to systematically both sell everything that wasn't nailed down and rid the public of some more of their money. I'm not sure if their shameless sales say more about corporate greed or the public's willingness to spend their money on crap. Maybe both. A match made in heaven. They have been marketing Spectrum seats for at least a year. You can buy a pair for your - living room? I suppose die-hard's are putting them in thei...

Nothing spectacular. Just another autumn Saturday in Philadelphia. That's a look down the big spiral staircase at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, looking down toward the pendulum. Next is nearby Logan Circle, with City Hall in the background, to the right. The last one is inside the lobby at the Franklin Institute , looking at the statue of Ben and the shiny floor. The Four Loko experiment was kind of a fizzle. It doesn't taste very good, and it left me feeling more buzzed than drunk. I was supposed to experience a big letdown, as the sugar and caffeine wore off, but it just faded out. They can go ahead and take the stuff off the shelves, if it will make them happy. There isn't anything that would make me want to go out and buy a case of the stuff so I'd have a stash. Just as well. There is a big Eagles game on tonight, and I didn't want to sleep through it. I'm not sure I'm human. At the Institute, there was an electricity display where we were...

Saying that we aren't allowed to do something is the best way to get us to do something. Prior to a couple of weeks ago , I would have passed by the Four Loko display at my local liquor store without a sideways glance. Tonight, however, I glanced directly at it and brought home a couple of cans of the stuff to sample over the weekend. Thanks, FDA, for drawing attention to a potentially death-inducing drink. You're doing your job. I waited until the weekend because I figured, if the stuff is going to cause me a near-death experience (as the FDA would have us believe) then I'd have at least 24 hours to recover before I had to go back to work on Monday. That should leave enough time to get the breathing tube out of my throat, transfuse my blood and discharge me from the hospital. I need a couple of hours to pack my lunch and do some laundry. So, there it is, on the top shelf of the fridge. Lemon lime and Orange blend. Between the Almond Breeze and the Cod Liver Oil....

I stopped watching Dancing with the Stars a few years ago, when they ran out of stars. I'm still fascinated by the concept, however, and I follow the show in absentia by reading the news stories that circulate after each results show. I notice that Sarah Palin's devil spawn, Bristol is still on the show in spite of being given low scores by the show's judges, to the point of having to defend herself for being there. Rational thinking people say she is a bad dancer, yet she continues on the show, presumably because of the votes she gets from the viewers. She gets tons of them, no doubt from the Tea Baggers that support her mother. Somebody should check to see whom the show's producers supported for president in 2008 and where their money goes. It says here that they are probably big supporters of the Republican party and have figured out a way to use their television show to put their favorite candidate front and center. I smell a conspiracy. Sarah's new book, ...

One of the great things about great things is not letting anybody in on the greatness. Usually, some professional buzz killer gets wind of it and snuffs it out in a wave of government legislation or a massive lawsuit that renders the greatness ... well, not so great. The latest, greatest product that is destined to meet its governmental doom is Four Loko , a blend of 12% alcohol and the caffeiene equivalent of about 5 cups of coffee. Like Buzz Beer in the old The Drew Carey Show , it's designed to let you get drunk and stay up so you can get drunk again. Quite a concept. Lately, some stupid college kids have OD'ed on the stuff and have been injured and/or carted off to local hospitals with dazed expressions and the confusion of a person who doesn't know whether to pass out or go bowling. It's a strange sensation, and the youth of America apparently do not know how to deal with the miracles of modern alcoholic science. There are plenty of high-alcohol beers around. We...

I'm fond of telling people that I've lived long enough to have endured every incarnation of audio and video since the dawn of the stuff. I'm not sure it's a proud accomplishment, rather something borne of longevity rather than some special skill. The video history arc is significantly smaller, having only brought about video tape and DVD. Although, we were faced with the initial choice of VHS or Betamax - at the time a startlingly difficult one. The choice involved a significant monetary expense, and we thought at the time that it would be one from which there would be no escape. Then, along came the DVD, and life got a little more complicated. As with the last incarnation, it required more expensive equipment, but the bigger outlay would be the replacement of all the stuff we bought on video tape a scant 20 years earlier. That's generally the problem. Now, we are faced with the Blu Ray disc - the younger, smarter sibling of the DVD - but at least the trans...

She has been lurking around, griping and yelling about things she doesn't understand , giving speeches and getting her face on TV. Now, she's invading our homes (well, maybe your home ) on a weekly basis with the latest in a seemingly endless stream of so-called reality shows. Sarah Palin. The TV show is called " Sarah Palin's Alaska ," and it features her and her clan of cave bears and illigitimate children hunting, fishing, boating and doing all those things that Alaskans are famous for. It's all designed to show what a "real person" Palin is, and how back-woodsy and interesting she is. That is, it's designed to make us forget what she is really like. As if that wasn't enough (and it isn't) she has written another book (which no doubt, outnumbers the ones she has read) that is coming out on November 23. This one is called " America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag " where she manages to get all 4 key catch wo...