Saturday, March 28, 2009

Card Check

You better listen... He's got a bat.

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Thursday, March 26, 2009

F1 Season Opener



Well boys and girl, Mike is truly stoked today as the opener of the 2009 F1 season is this weekend. Being a west coast guy, the timezones work out so the start of the race is 10:30 at night local time. Bonus! Hopefully I'll have a few friends over to watch it live while downing some Fosters oil cans. Have I mentioned that I am stoked?

This year will be fascinating for me. The slicks are back, the aero is way different, and the cars now run kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS), giving them a 'boost' when they need it. The front wings are huge to hopefully keep the front tires planted better when following another car, hopefully promoting a little more passing.

I say 'a little' more passing because I don't want the move cheapened. NASCAR has a thousand passes in a race... whoop-de-doo! I pass a thousand cars in my commute to work every day, It's only slightly less thrilling than NASCARs passing. How thrilling would Mike Hakkinen's pass of Schumacher at Spa been if it was one of a hundred? Or Lewis taking Kimi at the same track last year?

[sidebar] It is utter crap that LH's win at Spa was taken away from him because of cutting that corner. Sure he came out on the straightaway ahead of Kimi, but he let him by... Hell, he crossed over behind him before he took the next corner. How is that an advantage? The only advantage he gained is that he didn't end both their races buy trying to make it stick in the first.


My prediction for this year? Brawn GP will jump up to a top tier team this year, maybe even bettering McLaren. The best thing that happened for Ross, Rubens, and Jenson was for Honda to drop out F1. So instead of running the dog of a Honda engine, they were able to get a Mercedes, which happened to do alright last year... I think that they will at least go head to head with the BMW and Renaults, picking up some podiums and hopefully a few wins.

Ferrari will probably take both titles this year, hopefully Kimi comes back alive this year, I can't stand Massa. That is like picking the Patriots to win the Super Bowl in years past, a safe bet, but it makes it even more fun when they fall.

I think the new rules will tighten up the pack a bunch and we all win with that.

Here is my uneducated guess on how the constructors championship will end up...
  1. Ferrari
  2. McLaren
  3. Brawn GP
  4. Renault
  5. BMW
  6. Williams
  7. Toyota
  8. Red Bull
  9. Toro Rosso
  10. Force India

I would not be surprised if this list was flipped at the end of the year so don't take that to Vegas... I think we are in for an exciting year!

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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Beat Up

I am out of shape and I will not join a health club. Why? Because there is no way that I'll get my money worth out of it. I'd go once or twice and that would be it. It is just too easy to not go.

So, I have been on a quest to find a workout that I can do from home. I am not vain, I have no desire for the 'look'. I just want to be able to do any activity, within reason, without worry. A hike, bike ride, jog, spontaneous football game, etc...

Wednesday I started my new workout, the prison workout... The workout can be done in a cell, so I am pretty sure that I can find a place to do it around the house.

Here, let my good friend Mike Rowe show you how it's done...


Knowing that I am a out of shape slob, I started at 8 and went down from there (doing 36 reps instead of 55). He isn't kidding about getting the ticker ticking, I was going pretty good. That was Wednesday. Thursday I had a bit of sore coming on, and buy Friday I felt like the 'dementors' had beat me up in the yard. Putting on my jacket was painful, hell, scratching my head was painful.

Basically everything is sore from my elbows up to my shoulders and my gut. I slept in to ten, a rarity for me, and that seemed to help today, but there still is some soreness left over.

This, is the only problem I have with getting older.... Even when I was twenty something, I could sit on my ass all winter and play dodge ball, capture the flag (I helped out with a youth group), or ride my mountain bike up and down a mountain with no issues. Not so today. If I want to do any of that I have to prepare!

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Amen.



[h/t Ace of Spades]

I couldn't have said it any better myself (which is why you'll never see me run for office).

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Saturday, March 14, 2009

Pi Day Opinion

In my quest to learn more about pi today I came across this opinion that π is wrong, the number should be 2π. The guy makes many good and obviously educated points but in my opinion, is wrong. π is fine the way it is.

Why?

Well I'm glad you asked!

The reason is simple. π is fine the way it is because of the relationship between the diameter and circumference of a circle. A circle with a diameter of 1 has a circumference of π.

Why diameter and not radius? Because diameter is a lot easier to measure. It is as simple as that. I bet that 90% of the use of π is in the formula c=πd. Sure when you get into science and engineering 2π make more sense, but if anyone can handle multiplying π time two, it would be the people in those fields. Plus, if you look at 99.9% of the equations that 2π would simplify, the 2 is the least of the things making the equation complex.

My truck has tires that are 31 inches in diameter. How far does it go with one rotation? 31π inches. Simple.

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Happy Pi Day!

3.1415927 (as far as I can go from memory). The number is actually closer to 3.
14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494
45923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066
47093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105
55964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678
31652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491
41273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892
59036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575
95919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518
85752724891227938183011949129833673362440656643086021394946
39522473719070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846
76694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371787
21468440901224953430146549585371050792279689258923542019956
11212902196086403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999
83729780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223
08253344685035261931188171010003137838752886587533208381420
61717766914730359825349042875546873115956286388235378759375
19577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989, but for what I use it for, that kind of accuracy is overkill. Actually I'd be fine with 3.14 but that's not how I roll (pun intended).

Also, today is the birthday of Albert Einstein... Hmmmm, coincidence?

[edit] Had to put some breaks in pi so you could see all one thousand digits that I posted. Without, it shot off the screen so you couldn't see it in its full glory.

[woot!] More fun with pi... My birthday occurs at the 41,497,311 digit of pi. Find yours here. Use the full mmddyyyy to be fair! Eight digits are harder to match than six. Also someone born on 1/1/1973 if expressed as 111973 would share that number with someone born on 1/11/973, 11/1/973 and 11/19/73. My birthday occurs four times in the first two hundred million digits.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

My Favorite Things...


A neat little viral ad that contains quite a few things right off the top of Mikes cool list.

  • RC cars
  • Smart Phones
  • McLaren MP4-24
  • F1
  • V8 engines reving past 18,ooo RPM
  • F1
  • Bug-eyed blokes
  • People debating whether a YouTube video is fake or not (It's as real as Top Gun)

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YEAH!!



FANTASTIC! Goosebumps watching this simple little video.

Less than three weeks to go! I'll be staying up late, downing Fosters oil cans in celebration of the start to the F1 season!

I think Brawn GP (the ex-Honda team) is the underdog that I will be pulling for. It's going to be really interesting with all the new aero...

Giddy like a schoolgirl!!!!!

I'm off to watch the video montage of last years Brazil race for the hundredth time.... I clap like a 2-year old every time!

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Monday, March 09, 2009

I was thinking....

A comment I made in my last post (read post here) got me thinking...

Consider this a small glimpse into how my brain works.

Why is a W called 'double-you'? Wouldn't 'double-vee' be more fitting?

My guess is that the bottom of the 'W', instead of pointy, used to be round, fitting of the 'double-you' moniker. This offended people because it looked too much like a bottom or perhaps boobs. So they left the name put changed it to pointy.

Prudes!

Or perhaps Volkswagen had something to do with it because 'vee-double-vee', 'triple-vee' or 'double sandwich on vee' all sound dumb.

There you go, a little free-association in Mike's head... This is going on 24/7, but not 365 because that is dumb.

Would you think I take a day off sometime during the year if I don't write the 365? What about leap years? 24/7/366? Why do you need the 7? To me 24 hours a day implies every day of the year, leap or not. Is this just a way of proving that you know how many days there are in a week or year?

How about 24/7/31, 28(29), 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31/365(366)?

Or... 60/60/24?

Now that I think more about it, I don't like 24/7 either.

This is what goes through my head 24 hours a day. I'll leave it at that.

EDIT:
Crap, it's in my head deep now.... Howabout calling the 'W' an 'inverted M'?

Or better yet, a 'we'. Why 'we'?

I'm glad you asked!

We call a M, 'em', so if you flip it on its 'z-axis' (I do CAD) your M becomes a W and 'em' turns into 'we' (the 'e' is round and can roll). It is either that or call it 'ew' (flipped about the x-axis).

Really, I'll stop now.

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Sunday, March 08, 2009

Ice Eater

You know what bothers me about the snow and ice? Not the cold in general or the driving. Not the high risk of slipping... The thing that bothers me most is that my dog feels the need to digest every bit of it.

Often, if left unattended for a bit he'll do it until he hurls. Fun.



So far today we have avoided that.



A haiku...

ice coats the cold deck
lab, eyes too big for stomach
where's the vomit scoop?


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Saturday, March 07, 2009

Day Light Savings

Woot! Don't forget to set your clocks ahead an hour at precisely 2am Sunday morning!

I'd be happy if daylight savings stuck all year around. Having it lighter later is best. There is nothing more depressing (other than a family decimated by wolves) than going to work and coming home in the dark.

In my world the sun will set no earlier than 7pm. Meaning that here in Seattle We'd have to set our clocks ahead three hours for winter. Sunrise in late December/ early January would be at 11am. Just in time for me to take my lunch. Perfect!

I am pretty sure that this will solve the majority of funk that we NWers seem to fall into every winter. Sunset at 4:30? Whether the weather (heh) is for shorts or parka, that is depressing.

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More Snow.

Backed the V8 Dodge out in the driveway and let it idle all day. Trying to warm up the atmosphere... It's not working.

Shoulda saved some gas to get back to the 76.

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Wednesday, March 04, 2009

You're Sitting in a Chair... In the Sky!

Louis CK [h/t Blackfive]



Good stuff... (Let him get rolling)

How inconvenient are our inconveniences really?

BTW, nothing frustrates me more than people bitching about technology... I hear it all day at work. So your computer is taking a little long to start up. I had to wait until I was 13 before I had one. Now the phone in my pocket does everything that old computer could do 100x better and more.

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Monday, March 02, 2009

New Hobby

I'm loving it!

Check this out...


Three days with my new toy and I can tell that I am hooked. I can't wait to go camping this summer... There will be rocks there.

BTW, A little NZ hip-for you there.... You want more?

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