It is not the case that 50% of people are above average and 50% of people are below average.

Stop saying this, it makes me want to kick puppies owned by orphans. 

Please, think of the puppies.  (The orphans, whatever)

"She placed her hand over her son's mouth and nose and suffocated him. She had second thoughts about what she did. She performed CPR on her son, brought him back to life and then decided to go forward with that original act she had started to commit," Schultz said.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/21/nm.buried.boy/index.html

Did you ever have a week that went so badly you couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous it is rather than be upset by it?

Yea, that's me right now.  :P

One question: "Do you think Texas would be better off as an independent nation or as part of the United States of America?" The top-line number is United States 61%, independent nation 35%. Among Republicans, it's a dead-even tie at 48%-48%.

And then there's this one: "Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Rick Perry's suggestion that Texas may need to leave the United States?" The top-line is only 37% approval to 58% disapproval -- but among Texas Republicans, it's 51% approval to 44% disapproval.

Sigh, my back is acting up again.  I'm not in pain thankfully but I'm definitely achy in the same area that was killing me a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately I've been pretty active recently (which supposedly is the best treatment) so I have no idea what caused it. 

I guess I need to be careful the next couple of days. :(

I might actually be doing actual programming sometime soon.  That's crazy talk.  I'm also going back to running tabletop RPGs this weekend after a couple of years haitus. 

Aaand of course this is the same week my allergies decide to kick in, which seriously screws with my head.  It'll be interesting.

So a while back I had a big whiny emo post about school-related nightmares 5 years after graduation.

Then someone asked on an MIT chat if the following comic has happened for anyone else:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/students.png

And there was an overwhelming reply that, yes, a lot of us still do have nightmares about missing classes/homework/projects/etc.  (Some of them are 40+ years old)

I feel better now.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1158451&srvc=home&position=emailed

"A Pittsfield woman who attacked her wife with a 'turkey baster' and her brother’s semen in a bid to inseminate her has been charged with domestic assault and battery, the Berkshire Eagle reported."

For you D&D nerds (4th edition)

Any suggestions for a home-brew Orc racial power?  For some odd reason I have interesting ideas for all other races that need them other than Orcs. 

The Monster's Manual has something to the effect of "Encounter Power:  make a melee attack for [W]+Str damage, and spend a healing surge if you hit."  That's just flat out for two reasons:  It's essentially useless if you're not a melee class (STR at that) where as I'd like it to be mostly class and role independent, and if possible I'd like it to be something that could be some day maybe useful not in combat.

Everytime I try I come up with something, it's either incredibly flavorless or it starts feeling like the Munchkin card "Monster The GM Made Up Himself".

Card Name: Monster The GM Made UP Himself(Level 7)
Card Text: +4 against Dwarves, +2 against females, -3 against wizards, -2 if it's saturday.
Bad Stuff: Halflings lose 1 level. Elves lose 2 levels. Males lose 1 extra level and must discard one card. Those who don't fall into the above categories must discard two cards. No really! It's for game balance!

I'm going to stop getting involved with discussions on internet forums.  I live in some delusion that people are rational and looking for a better understanding of something, which just isn't true in that context.

I'll jump on the bandwagon here.  The onset of warmer weather is making me feel acutely chubby and gross.  The weird thing is that I've actually -lost- weight overall.  I maxed out at about 225 and I'm down to 195 (though up from 190 since November).

The good news is that, since I was already on my way back down from the post-cruise/thanksgiving/christmas/winter bulge, this new feeling will give me the extra oomph to really make this happen.  I'm shooting for at least 175 (the mathematical upper bound on "average" weight for my height, though that's probably still high since I don't have muscle/fitness on my side yet).

If work would calm the fuck down I might even end up going to the gym.  Mindblowing!

Obama rap lyrics to the tune of Fresh Prince of Bel Air

http://bayimg.com/image/kanplaabb.jpg

With an awesome typo in paragraph 3:

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2008/12/18/if_youd_like_to_smell_like_burger_king/

The combination of being bored and having no interest in doing any one particular thing that I can think of is irritating to no end.  While this has always been an occassional problem for me, it is starting to become the rule rather than the exception.

In the past I've been able to waste copious amounts of time playing world of warcraft (and before that, any number of other video games), planning tabletop RPG stories/settings/characters and whatnot, watching movies, walking around and listening to music, etc.  Hell, I was even taking art classes at night for a while and doing a little drawing in my spare time.

Nope, nothing.  I'd ask for any bright ideas, but really I have plenty of things I -could- be doing.  I just can't get myself to want to do them.. at least, not more than half an hour at a time.  And, if you know me at all, it's very unlikely that something I can do in half an hour is going to count as worthwhile. 

The closest thing I can come to progress on this issue is that I've notice it's mostly weeknights that I have this problem.  Also, that I have in the past managed to fill up time with food, which of course I put a stop to a few weeks ago.

Grrr... the movie Wanted has really made me want to play Mage again.   Got storytellers?  Anyone?  Bueller?

(If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it  :P)

Weight:  206.5
Body fat:  29

Not much to say here, just chugging along.

Who could resist eating here??



http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/07/then-well-grab.html

I love it, I really do. As silly as it sounds, sometimes I have to remind myself that it's weird I'm checking my email on my phone while at my computer. It's not just convenient, it's actually fun which is a lot coming from a guy who didn't even want to get a cellphone just a few years ago.

But, I have found some shortcomings I'm not overly fond of:

1) The alerts and such are way too quiet. I pretty much can't hear it at all in outdoor settings if it's in my pocket. My RAZR could wake the dead if I maxed it out.

2) The lack of flash support is noticeable and odd. Homestar Runner, for example, would be perfect to watch on the iPhone at random downtime / at the gym / etc. There are plenty of worthwhile flash games that are pointless to play on a desktop but would be perfect for a phone game. And let's not forget all the non-youtube sites that have video content.

3) I can't change my text message alert sounds beyond what the phone came with? Really? *REALLY*? What an odd limitation. That's not even getting into the idea of having text sounds for specific people, or being able to change other notifications like email or voicemail (No I will not jailbreak my phone just so I can change the text message sound). I mean, for god's sake, it's a phone based on an iPod; I should have as many audio-features as I can imagine.

As a bonus gripe (not the iPhone's fault), I'm really irritated that gmail's "create a contact whenever you email a new address" feature cannot be turned off. Furthermore, currently you can't sync by group with google contacts. I'm not going to have my 40 or so phone contacts get lost in a sea of hundreds of random mailing lists and duplicate entries.

Weight: 209.5
Body fat: 29

Well, bad news and good news. An active social calendar and a busy work week made this weekend a dud. I didn't get to the gym nearly as much as I should have and ate out more than I would have liked.

But interestingly enough, my weight mostly stayed the same. I would have expected it to go up from regaining some amount of water (and fat for that matter). I consider this a win. Yea yea it's a little bit of a cop out, but when I started this I was 221. Yes, I started before I made it known to LJ. Big whoop, wanna fight about it? :)