Research and Dev-Hell-opment

"Annoying as Hell" seems like an understatement, what with the nasty reputation Satan has built up over the centuries.

Annoying? Hell is not supposed to be a nuisance; it's supposed to be agonizing! It's supposed to be, well, Hell.

But when you think about it, over time (and what is eternity if not lots and lots of time?) some annoyances become unbearably tortuous.

With the ever-growing numbers of people that seem to be on the eternal damnation fast-track nowadays, there are good reasons to believe that Hades Inc would have a vested interest in finding punishments that are more cost effective and environmentally friendly.

Besides, many of the more insidious tortures are labor intensive and Beelzebub is facing labor issues. Unlike the Screen Actors Guild, the Subterranean Brotherhood of Minions and Trolls Local 666 is not under Satan's direct control. They reportedly have connections with the Teamsters, and we all know that can't be good news for management.

Alternative methods are employed according to the extent of ones pre-mortem misdeeds. Murderers and lawyers get the Pit of Eternal Fire, while people who were more "naughty" than "evil" get less extreme punishments, like the Fly of Eternal Ear Buzzing or the Unending Unreachable Itch.

The research division of Hades Inc tends to be secretive, but every once and a while rumors slip out. Here are some of the recent projects "allegedly" in development.

The Perpetual Hold
(“Your call is important to us. Due to high caller volume, your call will be answered in approximately ten … thousand years”)

The Smoke Alarm
(Doesn’t sound bad, you say? Remember, where there’s eternal fire, there’s bound to be eternal smoke)

The Realm of Loud Cell Phone Talkers

The Infinite Download

The Endless Staff Meeting

The Never-Ending “Head On” Commercial
(Apply directly to your forehead)

The Self-Losing Car Keys

The Uncooling Coffee

The Mobius Memo

And of course the dreaded Middle Seat in Coach.

Half Glassed

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst"; that's my motto.

(Well, one of them, at least. "Buy low, sell high, collect early, and pay late" is another personal favorite. "I plan to live forever ... or die trying" is another, and it has the added benefit of being one to which I can claim ownership!)

But in practice, the words by which I live are more appropriately stated as: "Hope for the best, prepare for whatever requires the least preparation."

I've heard a tale told of a small farming town on the prairie that was suffering from horrible droughts. The townsfolk decided that with the help of the local pastor they would gather one day and pray their hardest for help from above; perhaps the Lord would answer their pleas with some much-needed rainfall.

On the prescribed day, the people gathered at the town square. Every single person showed up, but when the mass prayer was set to begin, the pastor looked disapprovingly at the crowd. "You people have no faith," he scolded, much to the astonishment of those there gathered. "Not one of you brought an umbrella."

It dawned on me that by observing the way in which someone prepares themselves, you might be able to discern that person's likely outlook on life. Preparation, after all, is a product of the expectation - or at least acknowledgment of the likelihood - of possible future events. Preparation is active risk management.

When the fire alarm goes off in many office buildings, the response of the employees is often less enthusiastic as it would be, say, in an elementary school. Teachers and school administrators have good reason to make sure that kids file out of the building in a somewhat orderly fashion, and kids usually would prefer being outside, anyways. Plus, those that evacuate to the front of the school get to see the fire truck.

Office workers, on the other hand, are less enthused about the fire truck, and often less excited about going outside. As adults, office workers are expected to handle their own evacuation. There's no lining up in single-file lines. Besides, years of experience have taught most office workers that there are far more sounding of the fire alarms than there are actual fires.

Where there's smoke, there's probably a frozen waffle jammed into a break-room toaster.

As a result, office workers are frequently non-plussed about the whole alarm-thing, and often take a moment or five to prepare themselves and their work area before actually attempting to leave the building.

A fire alarm, therefore, presents the possibility for a sociological experiment. Theoretically, the extent to which an office worker prepares him- or herself for a building evacuation could correlate to that worker's general perspective on life. An optimist and a pessimist would presumably have a different outlook on the alarm, and thus would respond differently.

One may feel that the alarm is just another in a string of false alarms. If so, this person would gather very little - perhaps their purse, keys, or cell phone. It seems reasonable to assume that the person who evacuates the office empty handed is expecting to return to the office in short time and to find his work waiting for him just like he left it.

Some people, however, leave the office during the alarm looking as if they were leaving for the day. This type of person is anticipating that his work may not be as he left it; that this alarm may be real and that their office may be at risk of being engulfed in the blaze. (Bull manure is flammable, after all)

This person, laden with shoulder bags, laptops, coats, boots, and possibly even family photos and coffee mugs, is ready to not only evacuate the building, but to leave the area altogether if that is required.

Next time your building's alarm goes off, think about how you respond, and how your coworkers respond. Who's expecting to come back and who's thinking the building might burn to the ground? Makes for interesting musing.

My own experience is that people do respond differently. The problem, though, is now one of definition. Take the guy who evacuates with all of his personal effects and car keys in hand and compare him to the guy who is just waiting to head back up and return to his work ...

Which one's the optimist?

Is your day complete yet?

They say you should learn something new every day. Since it will probably be Monday by the time you read this, and since nobody learns anything new on Mondays on their own, here's a something that came from (or at least through) the, ahem, great center of learning that is Pennsylvania State University.

(Unofficial motto: "You can't spell 'Penn State' without B-I-N-G-E")

Surprisingly, this PSU contribution to mankind's collective intelligence does not involve the consumption of alcohol. (At least not directly. I'm sure a lot of alcohol was involved indirectly!)

I'd present it without further ado, but I recently received this cool You-Tube video that I found really cool. So here is the further ado:

And now back to our story.

If you're a fan of baseball, you may think of an "upper decker" as a home run ball hit so hard that it lands in the upper tiers of seats. Well, the guys (and I am quite sure this was figured out by guys) at Penn State determined that upper deckers can involve a pastime other than our national one.

You see, there comes a time when a guy may feel a need - a really pressing need at that - to torment some other person in an unpleasant manner. It may be an act of vengeance, or it may be an act of social acceptance (sometimes it's hard to tell whether you get treated worse by guys who are friends or those who are foes). Either way, a prank is an important ritual in the life of a collegiate male.

But to be effective, a prank has to be memorable.

Of course, one way to make something memorable is to make it disgusting. And one seemingly endless source of disgusting material is the human digestive system, specifically in its final stages. In terms of disgustingness, number two is number one on most lists.

Odds are, you've used (or even owned) a toilet that is filled with blue water. That color comes from a cleaning solution that is placed in the tank. On each flush, the bowl is emptied and replenished with tinted tank water. This is typically a cleansing process.

The guys at Penn State came up with a new way to use a toilet in a prank, and it involved no cellophane whatsoever.

See, cleaning solution is not the only thing that can color the toilet water. In fact, virtually anything water soluble in the tank will wind up in the bowl on the next flush. (If you really want to confuse someone, sneak into their bathroom with a packet of Kool-Ade. You don't need college football to have an orange bowl.)

Without getting too crass, we'll explain the upper decker as such: "the deposit, usually as a prank, into a toilet tank of that which would normally be deposited into the bowl."

A poo bomb.

And now you know something you didn't know before. Your day is complete.

There's always a catch

It wasn't my favorite, but it will do.

The greatest play in Super Bowl history now joins the ranks of the Immaculate Reception, the Catch, the Holy Roller, the Music City Miracle, the Miracle at the Meadowlands, the Hail Mary, Ghost to the Post, Wide Right, and several others (See: NFL Lore). The play now has a name:

Catch 42.

Of the other suggestions that received mention, my personal favorite was "The Boston Strangler". But I can see how that one could draw some criticism, what with the trivialization of mass murder and all.

I found another one to be incredibly funny, but it would never have worked as a play name. More likely, we'll see this on You-Tube soon. Imagine if you will three replays of that final catch - one from each angle - timed to match the audio from everybody's least favorite commercial. (You know the one where the woman just repeats the product name and slogan three times in a row.)

Head On:
Apply directly to the forehead.

My entry, "The Maracle" failed to earn any mention, which is about as much mention as it deserved. I'm like that guy in Not Another Teen Movie who's lifelong ambition was to inspire group applause by being "The Guy" who starts clapping slowly in those first moments after somebody has borne their soul to someone else in a public setting when the bystanders are too stunned by what has just transpired that they don't know how to react. Three or four times during the movie he starts it up - clap ... clap ... clap - only to be told that it was not the time. Finally, when the time does come, he gets all excited, readies his hands, and then gets upstaged by some other guy who starts the slow clapping.

The point of that rambling analogy was to say that I'm a pretty creative guy until there comes a time when creativity is needed. Oh well, I guess there's worse things than not getting the clap.

So I missed getting to name the play ... at least my list of titles for the Patriots season got read on NYGiantscast, which means I get some street cred out of this!

One-derful

As a numbers guy, I notice when certain patterns emerge in seemingly random numbers.

For example, I found it quite memorable when my purchase at a convenience store, after sales tax, wound up being exactly $10.00. I also found it amusing when, after my winnings were applied, I wound up with 666 credits on a slot machine in Atlantic City.

I used to happen to glance at clocks at 11:56 (both am and pm) a statistically improbable number of times. Any '80s Giants fan recognizes those numbers ... Phil Simms and LT.

Needless to say, I found it notable that the last time I glanced at my watch, it was 1:11.

But there's a difference between notable and blogworthy, and three ones on a watch are not blogworthy. Unless, of course, you consider the last time I looked at my watch, which was 120 minutes earlier ... 11:11.

Lunatic Eclipse

This morning we were watching the early, early news - you know, the news they show before sane people wake up. The anchor, when covering last night's lunar eclipse, gave a somewhat unexpected analysis.

"An eclipse occurs when a giant dragon in space swallows the moon," he said, "or whenever the moon passes through the shadow of Earth, whichever you choose to believe."

Fit to be tied

OK, so this is not the final tally, and this doesn't count mailed ballots, disputed ballots, hanging chads, or any of the other things that alter the vote total, but it's fun none-the-less. The initial results from the Democratic Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious Tuesday primary vote in Syracuse, NY was:

Barack Obama	6,001
Hillary Clinton	6,001

Yep. A tie.

Close, but no Super Bowl ring

Possible titles
for the story of the
2007 Patriots:

Eighteen Wins and One Giant Loss
(Seen on T-Shirt)

Eighteen and D'oh!
(NFL.com)

Path to Perfection
- The Patriot's Journey to the 2007 AFC Championship

Eighteen and Uh-oh

Eighteen and Oops

Eighteen and Oh-F@&#!

Perfuct

One-defeated

Eighteen and Uh-Oh

The Giants won Super Bowl 42 XVII to XIV! In the process, they knocked off the golden boys of football, the previously undefeated New England Patriots. The much-maligned Eli Manning became Super Bowl MVP, the all-but-anointed Tom Brady became very well acquainted with the turf.

Shortly after the win in Green Bay, a friend of mine sent me an email saying he was seriously considering not attending our Super Bowl party. With my passion for the G-Men, he reasoned, regardless of who won the game, I would be insufferable. I am happy to report that I was, indeed, sufferable.

Well, I did get wrapped up in the game a little bit ...

Like in the fourth quarter, when the lead changed three times. My foot was twitching throughout, turning my sofa into the vibra-couch.

In the Giants drive following their first touchdown, Manning broke out of the pocket on third down and, while scrambling, tossed the ball over a defender to Plaxico Burress. The throw was off and Plax couldn't bring it in.

"Oh, deary me," I said.

My buddy, an Eagles' fan, tried to assure me. "What are you so concerned about?" he asked. "They've got the lead. All they have to do is keep up what they're doing."

"You don't know those Patriots," I said, "and you obviously don't know the Giants."

Sure enough, after the G-Men punted, the Brady Bunch proceeded to march all the way down the field and score, putting the Pats up 14-10.

But then, with just over two and a half minutes left, Eli and the Giants' offense began their drive into history.

SEE ITAn integral part of that drive was a play that will go down in Giants and Super Bowl lore. A furious Patriot pass rush came crashing through the Giant offensive line. The pocket collapsed around Eli, engulfing him. Yet somehow he managed to break free from the grip of a would-be sacker and he scrambled to the right. Looking downfield, he found David Tyree, a special teamer who fills in on certain passing plays. He threw a high pass Tyree's way. A Patriot defender leaped for the ball as well, and the two players each fought for the pass.

In what can only be described as indescribable, Tyree trapped the ball against his helmet with one hand long enough to get his other hand up there. Then, as they fell to the ground, he tightened his grip on the ball, maintaining possession and securing a key first down.

"Jolly good show," I said.

Saturday, Ms N and I decided to do our part to stimulate the economy; we bought a 42" LCD HDTV. Watching the Super Bowl on a screen like that is just shy of heavenly. Of course, it made for an interesting predicament towards the end of the game. I surprised everyone in the room on the final play of that Giant drive when I yelled "Touchdown!" as Manning took the snap from Shawn O'Hara. Sure enough, Eli lofted a beautiful 13 yard pass over Hobbs and into the sure hands of Plaxico.

"How did you know that?" I was asked.

"I heard the kids going 'Wooo!'" I replied.

Comcasts' HD signal is about 6 seconds behind the regular feed. The kids were in the other room watching on a regular TV; they saw the end of the play as we saw the beginning of it. I "banished" them into the living room with the rest of us for the remainder of the game.

The Giants went up 17-14, but they still left the Boys of Beantown 35 seconds and 3 timeouts, which is exactly the type of scenario that wannabe legends dream of. The defense still needed to hold one more time. In a game that is played six seconds at a time, 35 seconds is a long time for a storybook team playing out a storybook season.

Fortunately, the Giants defenders don't spend much time reading storybooks.

On that final drive, which featured three wonderfully defensed passes, unharolded Giant Jay Alford made a play on second down that seemed to be a tribute to all the teams that tried and failed to bring down the Patriots during the season. He broke through the middle of the offensive line and hammered into Tom Brady, lifting the hapless quarterback off his feet and pummeling him into the turf. It was the fifth sack for the Giants and the 14th time that Brady was knocked down during the game.

"That must smart," I said.

So now the Giants are Super Bowl Champions, the '72 Dolphins are still the only undefeated team in history, and the Patriots are now the "other guys".

Even worse (from their perspective - better for the rest of us), they become the answer to all sorts of trivia questions with negative connotations. And being that Giants fans tend to be Yankee fans while Patriots fans tend to be Red Sox fans, there is in some sense a feeling that the G-Men helped avenge those whose hearts were crushed in the 2004 ALCS, when Boston came back from a 3-game deficit to win the best-of-seven series 4-3.

In the grand scheme of things, losing after winning the first three games is not nearly as painful as losing after winning the first eighteen. The Yankees now have the second-biggest choke in recent sports history.

The Patriots are not the first team to go plus-17. The '72 Dolphins were the first to do that. They were not the first team to go 18-1. The '85 Bears did that. The difference, of course, is the Bears' loss came in the regular season (to Miami).

The Bears won their Super Bowl ... against the Patriots.

"Life with disgrace is dreadful."
- Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson

"Ha-HA!"
Nelson (from the Simpsons)

Tastier than kissing everyone in the room ...

... Just not nearly as fun.

Remember George Costanza's infamous double-dip debacle? Well that led to some honest-to-goodness scientific study on the health ramifications of double-dipping.

Thanks to Clemson University Professor Paul L. Dawson, the guy who debunked the mythological "five-second rule", we now know that double-dipping does indeed transfer microbial bacterium from mouth to dip.

So this Super Sunday, make sure you practice safe dipping habits and hope that your fellow partygoers do not suffer from Costanzitis.