Very Funny Christmas Commerical

The past few weeks have been loaded with final projects, final exams, and my qualifying exam. Now, it's time to kick-back for a few weeks and enjoy the mild winter. Ithaca has not even had a substantial snow this year. I realize today is the first day of winter, but Albuquerque had a ton of snow over the past few days. The weather machine is totally out of order.

Is anyone going anywhere exciting over the holidays? We're traveling down to NC over New Year's. It will be a short trip, but it should be tons of fun. Did I mention we're taking the mini-van! Oh yeah, I know everyone is jealous now. Honestly, I'm scared. A minivan has tons of cargo space. On the other hand our apartment does not, and I fear that we might be returning with stuff from NC that might otherwise find its way at the landfill. Even worse, did you know Ithaca has no decent stores at the mall? Oh, and the Syracuse mall is hardly worth a 20 minute drive--we are an hour away! So, I'm certain that we'll find ourselves at SouthPark to replace our tattered clothes.

What did you ask Santa for this year? (I'll be shocked if one person actually posts a comment answering this question.) Whatever you asked for, if it smells like beef and cheese (and it isn't actually beef and cheese) consider yourself cheated! If the last sentence made no sense to you, you have missed the movie Elf with Will Ferrell. Should you find yourself watching this film, notice how the elves are modeled from Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (see a funny critique of the film here). It looks like Buddy the Elf wears the same clothes as Papa Elf.

Finally, check out the video shown below. A friend of mine emailed this clip to me a week ago. It's pretty clever.

Definitions to order coffee

Recently, I have started reading the Language Log. One of the older articles is a commentary on the sizes offered by Starbucks. While the commentary is pretty funny, what caught my attention was the reference to the Latte Lingo page from Starbucks. I'll immediately note that this particular link to the Latte Lingo is found on the Japanese version of the Starbucks site. However, a Latte Lingo page also exists for Hawaii here. Seems like Starbucks may sense some tension with customers in the Pacific. Anyway, check out this list. One of my favorites is Whip, which is listed as

Short for "whipped cream." Want to save a few calories in your Caffè Mocha? Order it "no whip."

This is pretty dumb. Why have the list in the first place? Are there people that feel afraid to tell someone what they want to drink and use the wrong words? Do we enter another country when we pass through the doors of Starbucks? C'mon! And why do paying customers need too use the lingo that the coffee servers use. I refuse to call them Baristas (except this one time)! You're paying money for coffee! Let them do the translation of your order and condense the language if they need to do so.

Starbucks makes pretty good coffee beans, but the stores are ridiculous! Enjoy your experience the next time you order a pint of coffee at your local Starbucks, right around the corner.

A George in a Christmas Tree

Julia and I bought a Christmas tree last week. We had so many ornaments that we could not put them all on the tree (unless we bothered putting them on the back side of the tree). Even better, we put the remaining boxes for the ornaments under the tree as wrapped boxes--disguised ornaments! That's what you do when you have a small placed to live. Check out the pictures!

Flanders Meets His Canadian Counterpart

Flurries!

This morning we are having a few snow flurries pass through the area. When I woke up, I took the picture to the right. A few small waves of flakes have fallen since then. In addition to the flakes, it's cold! The temperature is below 30! That's nothing, because in January it's likely to be in the single digits! Winter is coming!

DooDoo Nickelback

Frank reads digg.com daily, and he found a posting about the band Nickelback. Check out this website:

http://www.thewebshite.net/nickelback.htm

The link simultaneously plays two Nickelback songs. The best part is that blending the two songs sounds like a new Nickelback song. Pretty funny. Even better, the songs are two years apart, so Nickelback made no progress in two years!

"Woo-hah!! I got you all in check"

"...And you know we come through to wreck the discotheque! . . . I got that head nod snapping and then you break your neck!"

"

Toshiba has made a new, smaller (ha!) VR helmet. Check out the CNN article about the device here.

Nik and Erin are Married!

This weekend, I went to help Nik and Erin celebrate their wedding in Cincinnati. Nik and Erin are on their way to Paris for the week. An early morning CNN news story scared the newlyweds with reports of blackouts sweeping across France and other European countries. It seems that the blackouts are getting resolved, so I expect that Nik and Erin will not be affected by their trip. I wish them the best, and I hope they enjoy their honeymoon!

Now, for my day. Can you think of a better way to spend about 7 hours than in Cincinnati's airport? I can. How about not spending those hours in Terminal 1. CVG punished US Airways Express flights by sequestering them to the most boring terminal at the airport. Get this, Terminal 1 has no food other than vending machines. Sure, you can leave for another Terminal to get some grub, but when you're departure time is 8pm and you want to make another connection, the last connection, to Ithaca, NY leaving the terminal isn't at the top of your list--stand by means you need to hang around, especially when the flights begin to have delays. Anyway, the good news is that it's 7:35pm, and I am in Philadelphia. The sort-of bad news is that the next flight to Ithaca is still at 10:40, so I have to wait it out. The up side is that I won't miss my connection--I'm already here! Better yet, I just had a Cuban sandwich and a Yuengling. A quick check on my originally scheduled flight, leaving Cincinnati at 7:44pm, and I see that it's on its way here--on time. So, I could have stuck it out, but a good beer washes away the bad taste of Terminal 1; that's totally the better end of the stick. I'm glad I made to Philadelphia early! One more flight, and I'll be home to Julia! Hooray!

Snow!

Today, I saw the first flakes of snow for the season. Apparently, there was some snow earlier in the week, but I wasn't there to see (so it never happened--you know the tree falling thing). Of course, the snow is not going to accumulate; it is still to warm for that.

Whenever the snow stays around long enough for me to take a picture, I'll post it to the blog.

By the way, no one indicated their toothpaste of choice for the last post. That says a lot for my readership.

All the leaves are...

Mama Cass said it best according to Denis Leary. The leaves they are a-changin'. At the same time, The Weather Channel keeps teasing Ithaca, NY with the possibility of snow in the near future. It seems that we may see a few flakes within the next week.

On a completely different note, when I flew to Atlanta a few weeks ago, Frank was asked to surrender his toothpaste because the container exceeded the allowed size. However, the security official acknowledged that the tube was less than half-full, an amount which is permissible. Meeting that criteria was apparently insufficient, and Frank was offered the option to check a bag or put it in my car. We declined both options and surrendered the tube toothpaste. What I want to know is who would take the option to check a bag to save a tube of toothpaste? First of all, if you can afford to fly, you probably can prematurely part with your favorite tube of toothpaste. I know, it would be a difficult farewell, but I believe that Rite-Aid probably has a close cousin available for purchase. Perhaps older passengers prefer not to discard perfectly useful tubes of toothpaste and follow the path of greatest work, checking luggage, on mere principle. The humor would emerge if the checked bag were lost, meaning far more useful items--clothes, shoes, etc.--have been lost. Nevertheless, we should remember that this heightened security was established because of an event that never saw the light of day. Trying to play the offense, imagined plans could rewrite the existing security protocol.

Speaking of toothpaste, look through the Wikipedia link for toothpaste. Near the bottom of the entry, the method to create striped toothpaste is given. Apparently, there was once a more elaborate design with the tube that would mix two colors of toothpaste. It seems that filling the tube with striped toothpaste is more common.

What is your favorite type of toothpaste? Post a comment with your response.

Atlanta, GA for ICIP 2006 and more...

For the first part of the week, I attended the International Conference on Image Processing in Atlanta, GA. Tuesday night we went to the Georgia Aquarium before the conference banquet. The aquarium was opened to conference attendees for an extra hour, so we had free reign of the exhibits. It's quite an amazing place. I have included a few pictures that I took with my cell phone. Unfortunately, I did not have my regular digital camera; there were plenty of opportunities for some wonderful photographs.

Frank and I found a pretty good local beer called SweetWater. Specifically, we had the 420, a pale ale. Luckily, the banquet had an open bar, so we were able to try the beer for free! Since the banquet was at the aquarium, there was a special drink called a Tidal Wave offered for the first 30 minutes. The bartenders did not reveal what was in the drink other than vodka--but you could not taste the vodka. Anyway, it was a pretty good "tasty drink." Several Tidal Waves presumably would knock you out, but the opportunity to find out was not given. I found a recipe for a Tidal Wave that sounds pretty good, but I doubt it is the same drink.

Many posts back I mentioned that I submitted an abstract to HVEI 2007, which is a conference for Human Vision and Electronic Imaging. The conference accepted my abstract, and I will be presenting my research as a poster. In the past, I had the mentality that poster presentations were less impressive than lecture presentations. However, attending ICIP last week changed my perspective. The lectures tend separate the presenter from the audience. This is probably due to the poor quality of many presentations--several presenters just read the slides to the audience. Posters, on the other hand, offer a more personal discussion with the authors. So, I will just have to see how this perspective fares for HVEI in January.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I was presented an award for my presentation at the Western New York Image Processing (WNYIP) workshop in Rochester, NY. This was quite a shock, since it was nearly the eleventh hour when I finally understood my own research. The reward for my presentation is a textbook, which I have yet to receive. However, I will be sure to say something in the future about it when I do actually get it.

By the way, Ithaca, NY did not get a flake of snow yesterday unlike Buffalo and Rochester. Nevertheless, the temperature is dropping very fast, and I am sure that the snow is just around the corner.

Apple Harvest Festival

The annual Apple Harvest Festival was held last weekend in Ithaca, NY. We made the long, ten minute journey to the Commons for the celebration. Check out Julia with Nora, Frank and Mary's 4 month old, in the picture to the right.

One vendor offered "Hot Cider" without the "Hot." Apparently, the power to his heater was sporadic. But, rather than remove the false advertising, he shared the information while you pulled out your cash. No surprise--we all know that people in Ithaca are a different breed!

Another guy was using a chainsaw to carve sculptures into logs. One of his interesting pieces is pictured to the right. In addition, I have included a picture of "Jason" practicing his art, but that doesn't really fit well into this short note. Maybe he'll creep in at a later date, but probably not!

The weather was a little cool, and the sky was not really clear. A couple of pints of beer cured that ailment. By the way, the Ithaca Ale House is a great place to grab a beer. They have quite a large selection of beers on tap, and they seem to do a great job of rotating beers for the different seasons.

Pittsburgh, PA

We travelled to Pittsburgh, PA this weekend. What a boring ride! Luckily, the destination was worth the long drive.

How sad is this--one of the few motivations for the trip was to visit Ikea. Admittedly, Ikea was very exciting. Of course, when you live in Ithaca, you lose touch of having loads of stores within 30 minutes. Check out the map, particularly the route we travelled.

We stayed with Julie's uncle's family. Saturday night, we had dinner at Atria's, which is where Julie worked to create their awesome dishes. By the way, if you ever find yourself eating at Atria's, you should definitely order the chopped salad. It's amazing!

Cool Shirt

Frank's wife Mary found this shirt this morning which reads "I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself." Now, for those of you who a unfamiliar with the Emo music genre, check out the Wikipedia entry. Emo is short "emotional hardcore," which means that the music contains emotional outbreaks during the performance.

The concept of a music genre is becoming quite blurry as time passes. The rise of so many genres is probably due to people trying to define a new style to distinguish themselves from the crowd.

Anyway, check out the picture of the shirt.

Engaged!

Last night, I asked Julia the BIG question and handed her a wicked awesome rock. No, it's not a cracker jack ring--it's the real deal, believe me. She said yes, so keep Memorial Day weekend free! Mark your calendars.

It turns out that Julie is a closet-Trekkie at heart. A few days ago, I was flipping through the channels and Star Trek: TNG was on G4TV. I expected to hear "NO! Change it!" Instead, she started rattling off the characters names! Halfway through the episode, she acknowledged that she had seen this particular episode--"The Wounded". Anyway, so now you can figure the picture out for yourself.

Do you know Borat?

Borat is a character created by Sacha Baron Cohen. He is a reporter from Kazakhstan sent to the "US and A" to learn about American culture. His adventures are hilarious!

Borat originally had a segment from Da Ali G show on HBO. This November a full feature movie will be released--see the trailer below.

living in a fish tank

Do you have any pets living at your house? We have two cats, George and Seamus, who share the house with us. Yes, if you have pets you understand--you live in your pets' home, not the other way around. By the way, George is orange and white, and Seamus is black and white. The picture to the side was taken last fall. They rarely sleep like this anymore--cooties or soemthing might be the deterrent.

The other day, I was sitting on the floor, and George and Seamus were walking around me. It was like having sharks swimming around you in the water. Anyway, I started to think that having indoor pets is like choosing to live inside a fish tank. If you think about it, it's a pretty good analogy. Now, if I could only find the equivalent of algae-eaters. Oh wait! Julie mentioned that for cats, the algae-eaters are dogs. Yeah, pretty gross.

Here's a picture of a well-known "cat" algae-eater. His name is Bobski. I have spent a couple of weekends with him. If anything, a visit with him is memorable. He specializes in unexpected funiture modfication and occasionally shares his remodelling ideas to his owners while they are away at work. What an amazing animal! He's also had an eye-lid lift. That's right ladies, Bob's had some cosmetic surgery!

Now, I'm not certain if one could say that living with Bob is like living in a fish tank--a little more like a whale tank. But, it is a little amazing to watch animals roam around you while you're sitting still.

Democracy Now! Notes Environmental Damage Attributed to Israel

Today's news summary on Democracy Now! included the following:

Greenpeace: Lebanese Oil Spill Spreads Into the Seabed of Mediterranean
Greenpeace Lebanon has revealed that the oil spill off the Lebanese coastline has spread into the seabed and could threaten marine life for years. Oil on the seabed is so thick that it can be physically picked up by divers. The spill occurred six weeks ago when Israel bombed an electric power plant. Up to 15,000 tons of fuel oil leaked out but the Israeli military blocked any cleanup for a month. Zeina Al-Hajj, Greenpeace coordinator in Beirut: "What we have seen is miles and miles of oil suffocating the seabed. This is an indication that the contamination from the oil spill has spread beyond the shore and beyond the water coastline and into underwater. And that is an indication of the urgency needed to deal with this disaster."

The fact that Israel's blockade prevented any possibility of a cleanup campaign is quite discomforting. Another news brief in the same report indicated that Israel has several nuclear centers capable of enriching uranium, as well. Given the reported destruction of Lebannon, it does not appear that Israel was severely threatened by Hezbollah.

A News Story Unfolds and a Good Laugh

Today, I was reading through my RSS feeds for the Guardian Unlimited News Network based out of the UK. A story caught my attention merely by its headline: "Transatlantic flight in emergency diversion." Reading the story was even more interesting. Apparently, FOX News reported that a female passenger (reported by a US Transportation Security Administration official to be 60 and suffering from claustrophobia and an anxiety attack) "brandished a screwdriver and matches and had a note referring to al-Qaida in her possession." CNN reported that she had two notes--one in English and one in Arabic--and was being questioned by the FBI. At the time of writing this entry, CNN and FOX News were reporting that the possession of a screwdriver, matches, two notes, AND vaseline has been refuted by US officials.

Now, what I want to know is that if she in fact did not have the screwdriver, matches, notes, and vaseline, then who introduced this collection of items? What would the vaseline do? Quite interesting.

Finally, my friend Frank found a video of Stephen Colbert interviewing Eleanor Holmes Norton on the top list from digg.com. After watching the video, I have decided to embed it in this post. It's very amusing--probably the best interview to this day. However, I must admit that the power of editing is likely the key to the humor. Enjoy the video.

Bush and Blair Talking at the G8 Summit

By now, most people have heard or seen George Bush say "shit" to Tony Blair at the G8 Summit. That's pretty passe, but I doubt you have heard or read the exchange before that. It isn't surprising or uncouth. but it's very funny. In the very least, it is interesting to hear the candid exchange between two prominent world leaders.

Read the transcript from the Washington Post below.

President Bush was caught on an open microphone talking with other leaders at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg as they ate lunch before adjourning on Monday. At times the television camera was on Bush, at times it was panning the room. Some of the exchange was hard to hear over the clinking of plates and pouring of drinks. Here's a transcript by The Washington Post:

Someone, probably an aide, asks Bush something, evidently whether he wants prepared closing remarks for the end of the summit:

Bush: No. Just gonna make it up. I'm not going to talk too damn long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long.

The camera is focused elsewhere and it is not clear whom Bush is talking to, but possibly Chinese President Hu Jintao, a guest at the summit.

Bush : Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?

Bush : This is your neighborhood. It doesn't take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?

Reply is inaudible.

Bush : "Eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country."

At this point, the president seems to bring someone else into the conversation.

Bush : It takes him eight hours to fly home.

He turns his attention to a server.

Bush : No, Diet Coke, Diet Coke.

He turns back to whomever he was talking with.

Bush : It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair approaches.

Bush : Blair, what are you doing? You leaving?

Blair : No, no, no, not yet.

Blair, standing over Bush as the president eats, tries to engage on the stalled global trade negotiations.

Blair : On this trade thing . . .

Some of the ensuing conversation is inaudible. Blair evidently wants Bush to make a statement on the talks.

Bush : If you want me to. I just want some movement. Yesterday, I didn't see much movement. The desire's to move.

Blair : No, no there's not. It may be that it's impossible.

Bush : I'll be glad to say it. Who's introducing me?

Blair : Angela. [German Chancellor Angela Merkel ]

Bush : Tell her to call on me. Tell her to put me on the spot.

Bush then changes the subject, presumably to a gift Blair must have given him for his recent 60th birthday.

Bush : Thanks for the sweater. Awfully thoughtful of you. I know you picked it out yourself.

Blair : Oh, absolutely.

Both of them laugh. Then Bush turns serious, asking Blair about comments apparently made about the Middle East crisis by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, another guest at the summit.

Bush : What about Kofi? That seems odd. I don't like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically ceasefire and [then] everything else happens. You know what I'm saying?

Blair : Yeah. No, I think -- the thing that's really difficult is we can't stop this unless you get this international presence agreed. Now, I know what you guys have talked about but it's the same thing.

The next remarks are i naudible, but the conversation turns to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

Blair : . . . see how reliable that is. But you need that done quickly.

Bush : Yeah, she's going. I think Condi's going to go pretty soon.

Blair : Right. Well, that's, that's, that's all that matters. If you -- see, it'll take some time to get out there. But at least it gives people a --

Bush : A process, I agree. I told her your offer too.

It's unclear what offer he means, but apparently Blair offered to make some sort of public statement.

Blair : Well, it's only if it's -- I mean, you know, if she's gotta -- or if she needs the ground prepared, as it were. Obviously, if she goes out, she's got to succeed, as it were, whereas I can just go out and talk.

Bush : See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over.

Blair : Who, Syria?

Bush : Right.

Blair : I think this is all part of the same thing. What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he's [inaudible ] . That's what this whole thing's about. It's the same with Iran.

Bush : I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We're not blaming Israel. We're not blaming the Lebanese government."

At this point, Blair notices the microphone and turns it off.

So Much Things to Say

Where to begin? For starters, if you've kept up (which I doubt you have), you are now mildly familiar with Yogi Laser and the Orange Mime, two of NYC's finest. Apparently, YouTube has videos of both cretins in action. Rather than embed the videos, I'll just provide direct links:

Yogi Laser
Orange Mime

I didn't have the opportunity to see Yogi Laser in action, but this 30-second video captures the main event. I'm happy I didn't waste my time. As for the Orange Mime, I was never close enough to hear the robot sounds that you hear in the video. That's even dumber!!! So, if you need a laugh, check out the clips. It's pretty amazing that these people sustain themselves by peddling money on NYC streets.

Finding these two videos on YouTube enticed me to look for more NYC shenanigans. There appear to be a few other regulars showcased on YouTube (if you search for them). There's a midget Michael Jackson. He sucks. I won't even include the link--search for him yourself.
In addition, I found a magician with a cart of tricks on a subway car (click here). That was kind of neat, but his tricks were canned, especially the coloring book one. Notice where he places his hand when he flips through the book. That's no David Blane!

Now for the funny stuff. Have you read the blog WOW! ithaca? or List-en Up? These are the writings of twin sisters--twin sisters who proofread documents on the side. Why mention this? Well, you might notice a trend in both blogs: the occasional "THe" or "THat's" or "LUckily" decorate their rants and raves. You may say, "Oh, well they are twins! What's the big deal?" It's not a twin thing, the older sister does it too in emails. It's pretty funny, but worrysome, as well, and I know why it happens, at least for our WOW! ithaca? author. She never looks that the monitor while she types. She watches her fingers and occasionally checks for errors, but I think this proofreading is limited to the last couple of words. So, obvious typos at the beginning of the sentence are often overlooked. Quite hilarious! Now, I've probably let quite a few typos slip by in this note, but my bigger problem is exluding words. The best part, it's usually the crucial words, like "not." I suppose we all have our idiosyncrasies that we never realize ourselves. The world just watches and laughs, unless there is money involved.

(By the way, the picture shown above is my first encounter with Times Square a few weeks ago. I'm ready to return to NYC.)

Glorified Panhandlers in NYC

While waiting for the water taxi from Seaport to Red Hook, we watched some pretty stupid street performers. Luckily, these performers have their own websites, so I had no need to waste pictures to hold on to the memories.

The first moron was Yogi Laser. At first, I thought his shtick was doing yoga moves--sun salutations and downward dogs. This is the warm up to his main event: folding his ass up into a clear box. Check out his website. He has photos, too. There were two people recording videos of his routine while we watched, but the website does not appear to have these films.

The second guy is really pathetic. He calls himself the Orange Mime. He is mostly (I'll get to this) covered with the color orange, and, for money, he will change his pose. Otherwise, he stands still. You might expect that he would be totally orange. No, not at all! He uses face paint, but he does not completely cover his skin. His hair has not been dyed. I think his shoes were black. It is pretty sad. I saw much better street statues in Amsterdam. Of course, this idiot has a website, too. It screams I am a moron, especially when he claims that "Orange you going to feed the bucket" is a clever used of the the word orange. Is this guy serious? The worst part is that little kids find him fascinating, so he gets all this money from stupid parents hoping to entertain their children. Folks, keep your money and do not support this worthless behavior.

The last two beggers were on the subway--big surprise. The first was a homeless man claiming to collect money for the homeless, not necessarily himself. I find it hard to believe that there is a coalition task-force seeking to help the fellow homeless. However, I could be wrong. He managed to collect a little bit of money from a few passengers. Then, he moved on to another car.

The final beggers were little kids selling candy. Get this, they were doing this as an alternative to selling drugs. They actually claimed this!! That was their ploy to get suckers to shell out a few bucks for underground chocolate bars. Maybe they do the honor of lacing the bars to hide the goods they intend to sell. Doubtful, since they would certainly see losses when they add up their sales for the day.

Sorry, these last two didn't announce a web address. That would be pretty cool if they did, especially the first one!

Anyway, NYC is full of different people, mostly stupid people. It's quite amusing. Perhaps, I will mention the purse peddlers that sell authentic Coach bags.

and now for something completely different

places to go if you visit NYC

Magnolia Bakery
401 Bleaker St
New York, NY 10014
The best cupcakes in the world!

Chumley's
86 Bedford St
New York, NY 10014
An old Greenwich Village speakeasy with its own brews.

Bar 288
288 Elizabeth St
New York, NY 10012
Nice place to take shelter from the rain.

Lil' Frankie's Pizza
19 First Ave
New York, NY 10003
Interesting Italian restaurant. They have a website, too. Find the URL yourself.

Bar Veloce
175 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
Primarily a wine bar but other beverages are available. See the website.

NYC and HVEI

Two acronyms sum up my last two weeks quite well. A little over a week ago, I was in NYC--two blocks from Times Square. It was my first trip to NYC, and I had an incredible time! We walked all over Manhattan, and it was worth it.

Just about an hour ago, I submitted an extended summary of a paper that doesn't exist to HVEI 2007. If it is accepted, I'll be heading to California at the end of January 2007 for a few days!

That's it for now. Look at the right-hand column, a list of my radio stations from pandora.com are listed. It's worthwhile checking out that website. No worries, it's free!

$50 or More for the Beautification of God's House

Below, I have embedded a music video by DHS that I saw years ago on MTV's late night techno video show Amp. That show is long gone, but the videos are still around. The video embedded below is particularly amusing. Enjoy.

Punishment for Early Rising TV Viewers

With the common adage "the early bird gets the worm," one tends to believe that the "worm" is a special treat. Not true in the case of early morning television programs. It seems that if you rise too early, you're unlikely to find "worm" worthy television programs.

This morning (Saturday) I caught the end of a few paid programs airing at 8:30am. Of course, 8:30am hardly constitutes early morning, but I noticed that most cable stations refrain from decent broadcasting before 9am. This is a pretty clear indication that cable stations recognize that people sleep later on the weekends, so they resort to paid programs to fill these times.

My favorite early morning paid program concerns colon cleasing. What a wonderful topic to discuss first thing in the morning. I love to sip my coffee and listen to all the things trapped in my colon. In addition, I feel at ease learning about parasites growing in my gastrointestinal tract. The solution is simple: buy this powder that mixes with liquid for consumption. Drink this concoction and wait. Soon this mix will push parasites and tape worms right out of your colon, because we all know that our friends judge us based on the cleanliness of our colons! You would have to make a weekend out of this, because you really never know when suddenly you'll have "fire in the hole!" That's just not something you want to happen during the week, especially at work.

This refreshing feeling will be something that I'll just have to imagine. I am an impoverished college student who is unwilling to spend money to get stuff out of my body I paid for in the first place.

You Tube Sightings and Music

popular:
Lewis Black Interview on CNN


not so popular:
Aphex Twin's Ventolin Music Video

Tom Jenkinson Interview (Part 1) and (Part 2)
A new album is to be released in October. See http://www.warprecords.com/.

Listen to tracks from the album Smash by Jackson and His Computer Band. You can hear music from this artist and many others at http://www.bleep.com/.

Meet Sexual Chocolate!

You may have never seen this car before, unless you knew me in high school or during my first two years of college. A brown Ford Taurus stationwagon was driven by my brother's bestfriend. He aptly named the car "Sexual Chocolate," after the band that performs in the movie Coming to America. However, it was not until the time that the car in the photograph became my main mode of transportation that the name "Sexual Chocolate" was applied to a more suitable car, the bronze 1979 Buick Regal.

While this car made all of my friends laugh, girls did not find the car very appealing. The smoothest ride in the world wasn't enough to attract women. In addition, I failed to have the ride pimped out properly. So, you might expect to find a senior citizen at the helm, not me. When I moved into Avent Ferry my sophomore year, my parents quickly observed that I drove the only pre-1980s American sedan in the dorm.

The following year, I upgraded to a 1996 Honda Accord. Sexual Chocolate was sold to Percy, who was very excited about finding this car. It sold for about $1000, which is pretty impressive. To this day, Julia wishes that I still had this car, for she never had the priviledge to ride in this fabulous car! Someday, I'll find an equivalent car to fill this void in her life.

Recommended Blogs

So, it appears that the Raelian Movement has had some obstacles. Check out this blog for a review of recent events. Read a little more about Rael and links to Eminem here.

Here are a few other recommend blogs:
http://juliatroy.blogspot.com/
http://list-enup.blogspot.com/
http://thunderlip.blogspot.com/

Could Monkeys Type the Bible?

Apparently, a brown haired Fox News reporter claimed that a monkey placed before a typewritter would actually type the entire Bible given adequate time. This statement followed a story about a dog that is reported to have dialed 911 when the owner was injured. See a video of this as aired on the Colbert Report by clicking here.

My New Cloak

Greetings fellow readers! Welcome to the first installment of several parchments from the dainty village of Ithaca. Behold the magical waters that breathe life into the extraordinary landscape!

As for myself, those who do not know me should call me Daviticus the Daring with his Diamond Diadem. In time you may refer to me as Dave. Be wonderful to all my committed readers! Look forward to more commentary from this amazing village as time passes.

Until then, eat your greens, ride the TCAT bus, take out the trash, eat leftover foods, drink milk with your eyes closed, and read about the Raelians and our glorious Prophet!