Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Around quarter to seven tonight I’d just left the parking garage. I had to turn left instead of my usual right. The left was necessary, you see, because I had to go to the grocery. It occured to me I had no beer, no soda, and only one slice of bread - a heel nonetheless. Traffic around campus can get pretty bad during the rush hours. It’s a lot like Clemson was before they got 93 widened out. I was waiting in long line to turn left onto the main road. I was far enough back that the actual color of the signal meant nothing to me, and for clarification this is a turn signal, not just a general green light. I heard someone honk up ahead and realized the light has turned green. As I keep my eyes on the intersection, hoping I can make it through, some old-ass hippy on a cell phone rolls up to the intersection from the other direction. He wants to make a right turn. One person from my lane, which had the right-of-way honked him to a stop. Everyone was being a little cautious and going little slower than usual. Old-ass Hippy decided that he should again attempt to make his turn. Another car aims for him making him stop. Upon realizing that his strategy was too timid, the Old-ass Hippy didn’t give the third car a chance to stop him because he wasn’t going to stop. It turns out he was in no hurry, but according to one of his many bumper stickers, “Think Peace.” I was thinking about shoving a piece of my foot up his ass. Perhaps that explains why I’m not a hippy.

Extra note, after checking dictionary.com on my spelling of hippy (hippie is also acceptable) I found the definition to be more telling than I had anticipated:

A person who opposes and rejects many of the conventional standards and customs of society, especially one who advocates extreme liberalism in sociopolitical attitudes and lifestyles.

Apparently that means ignoring traffic laws… and being dirty and stinky must be understood and unstated.

At twelve-thirty this afternoon I had class. I didn’t go.

Otherwise, from about 6AM this morning until 4:52PM today I wrote a report. At 4:55 I went to the class in which it was due.

On my way to the grocery, after I had the chance to flip off the hippy, I felt pretty damn good about myself.

It was a good day, Tater.

Addendum: What is the “think peace” advice if you’re personally attacked by someone? Are you supposed to try to run away? Do you throw your hands above your head and proclaim, “Je me rends”? Or is violence an acceptable means of self-preservation?

After watching basketball for most of the day yesterday, I finally got back to my office this morning to update my brackets. I have 4 brackets, 2 of which have money on them.

First, is the Craig Warner bracket. There are 61 people in at $5 each with updated scoring via the internet. As of this moment, I’m in dead last. I went 19 for 32 in the first round. I’m 3 for 8 so far in the 2nd round. My final four is alive, but 3 of my elite 8 are gone and/or long gone (ie. Stanford and Alabama). My eventual champion is Kentucky. If my remaining picks can hold, I can make up a lot of ground later on, but I still think I’m dead in this one. Now I’m rooting more for my other bracket.

I had a pretty good start in the Wha invitational. 33 people are in for $5 a piece. I hit 25 of 32 in the first round. Unfortunately 5 of those misses were all in the Austin bracket. I went 5 for 8 yesterday. 3 of 4 Final Four teams remain. The painful losses were Syracuse (a F4 team) and Stanford who I had picked to upset Duke in today’s game. Today’s games can have a serious impact on the rest of my bracket. I have Ok. St. as my final champion.

In the just for fun category, I’m in an ESPN bracket with about 20 people from the Tigernet Lounge. I went 23 of 32 in the first round. Yesterday I hit 6 of 8. I’m in 2nd place in this bracket, mostly because of hitting more 2nd round games. My losses were more evenly spread here. The Kansas lost hurts the most. Duke is my eventual champion. In all, I’m ranked in the 93rd percentile in this one.

And in the Tigernet Donor Board contest, I’m not doing so well. I only went 20 of 32 infirst round action. And I only hit 3 games right yesterday. 3 E8 teams and 1 F4 team are gone.

One of the most important things right now for for Illinois to lose to UW-Milwaukee in the 3rd round. Tons of people have the Illini picked to take the whole thing, and I seriously doubt anyone has UWM picked to advance as far as they have. Otherwise, I pretty much need good runs by UConn, Ok. St., and Louisville.

Unfortunately, I still probably won’t win. Having multiple brackets also cheapens each game. Instead of having to pull for only one team, I have to take a more middle of the road type approach. So I’m pretty much giving up on my first, and most potentially lucrative bracket in the hopes that my entry into the Wha invitational can pan out. As for bragging rights? Who cares. I just want to win some money.

Update: I’ve always hated UConn. They did not redeem themselves this year. I’m now miss 4 E8 teams and 2 F4 teams. Duke really needs to lose tonight, even though that will take me out of both my free contests. Since I’m really not sure which bracket I have the best chance with now, I don’t know if I want GT or Louisville to win. A Wisconsin win would be very good, though.

While walking to my office this morning, I saw the license plate “I SHARTED.”

Well, actually that’s only what I thought it said. So note to you potential vanity plate owners, if you want to own “I SHAREIT”, people may accidently make bad assumptions about you.

Well the weather Gods decided to give Charlottesville a nice day. It’s great to be able to move around outside in a t-shirt without people looking at you like you’re crazy.

I really want to call it quits for a while and leave work. However my dumb ass put samples into an oven to cure just before noon. They take 5 to 6 hours to cure. Given my stuckness, I’m left thankful for the internet.

There’s an interesting response to a recent report correlating obesity to a shorter life span. The Washington Post article begins with this:

Obesity has started to erode the gains Americans have made in extending their life spans and will stall the long trend toward increasing longevity unless the nation takes aggressive steps to slim down, researchers said yesterday.

Let me veer off on my own tangent. I do not understand the desire to continually increase lifespan. Increasing just to increase it seems quite vain.

The average lifespan now is somewhere around 77 years. Ergo a lot of people are easily living into their 80s and 90s.

Age is just a number. I don’t want to be 100 just to be 100. I’d hate to make that decision when I’m 80. I’d have 20 years ahead of me with nothing to do but hope I don’t die. The quality of life and happiness with that life are what I’m really after. I’d much rather die happy when I’m 50 than lonely, old, and miserable when I’m 97. Not that either extreme is a guarantee. I could probably die miserable at 50 just as I could go out on top of the world at 97.

Continued from the Post

Illnesses caused by obesity are already shortening the average U.S. life by at least four to nine months

Well excuse me while I freak out about losing 1% of my life expectancy. Unless someone “put a decimal point in the wrong place or something,” (ctd: “Shit, I always do that, I always mess up some mundane detail.”) then I’m not that concerned based on their report. I already pretend that I make 20-30% less than I really do. If my engineering calculations are within 10% of experimental I’m ecstatic. If 1% worried me, or most engineers, most projects would never get off the ground.

Of course if there was more analysis, things would appear a bit more gloomy. Consider that obesity contributes up to 9 months of average loss. Since only 1/3 of the population is obese, they’re actually losing a little more than 2 years. That’s still not huge, but it is a bit more telling.

Going back to my quality of life argument, what I’d like to see is the average number of years you can expect to be in horrible health before you die. Example: Fatty McHeffer can expect to spend the last 10 years of her life nearly hobbled by heart problems, severe joint pain, and horrible diarrhea. Whereas the Healthersons will probably be happily-senile and pain free until they accidently drive their Buick into a frozen pond. I’d rather go the frozen pond route, personally.

Heck, maybe shortened lifespans are just what we need to fix the social security dilemma. I guess that will have to be a post for another day.

I just don’t think it’s wise to create huge populations that cannot take care of themselves. Otherwise we’re begging for a disaster.

As many of my fellow mechanical and aerospace engineering grad students gathered for our weekly seminar, some of us got on the topic of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At which point I remembered something I had read some time ago (foregive me for not remembering where I found this link originally). So, if you want to know about the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow,here’s your chance. Engineers and Grail fans rejoice.

Also, as I was trying to clean up my bookmarks on my work computer, I ran across the linke to the Clemson Campus Album. This pretty much contains photos and brief descriptions of all the buildings on campus. In most situations, it looks like they posted the oldest possible photo of the buildings. Things sure look a lot different.

Ok, I may be stretching somewhat. But I found lead-in to a recent Cavalier Daily article to be quite telling:

Former University student discusses her successful granola company

Well it made me laugh anyway. Unfortunately they didn’t manage to link it to any actual article. I guess I’ll have to get off my lazy ass tomorrow and find a paper copy so that I can crack more jokes.

In the future, I believe I will refer to the Cav Daily whenever I need blog inspiration.

And I’m still glad I didn’t bother to apply to UC.

Update: I’m just too damn lazy to go find a paper copy of yesterday’s news. I’m sure you are pissed.

On the upside, there are actually some sensical op-eds posted today. Good for the Cav Daily.