Movember Approaches

All of you fans of the most amazing facial hair creation in the history of man, should know that the month of Movember is fast approaching. Here are the rules of the game:

• On day "Mo-1" (October 31), the complete moustache region, including the entire upper lip and the handlebar zones, must be completely shaved.

• For the entire duration of Movember (Movember 1 - 31 inclusive), no hair shall be allowed to grow in the goatee zone - being any facial area below the bottom lip.

• There is to be no joining of the moustache to sideburns.

• Failure to conform to all of these rules may, at the discretion of the official Movember Committee, result in instant blacklisting and may void invitation to the Mo Ball.

• Movember Committee accepts no responsibility for lost jobs, rashes, food/beer encrustments or any other such mishaps caused to the wearer (or his partner) of a Movember Moustache. You grew it yourself.

Find these rules and much more at the fantastic web site: http://movember.org/

- Seth

What To Do If You Blank During A Test

Check out these gems.

-Seth

Check This Out

Right now I'm reading "Failure Is Not An Option" by Gene Krantz of NASA. He's the guy played by Ed Harris in Apollo 13. In the book he talks all about the space program from Mercury through Gemini to Apollo. It is really interesting and I recommend it to everyone but the part I really wanted to share was the image below. Look at the difference in size between the rockets for Mercury or Gemini and the Saturn rockets for the Apollo program. I can't believe how much bigger the Saturn rocket was. There is a full scale model of a Saturn V standing erect in Huntsville, Alabama and if you ever find yourself in Huntsville (god forbid) you should really check it out.


Matt

P.S. I've been reading a lot about the space race and I just learned two more interesting things.
First off, during the Apollo 12 launch the spacecraft was struck by lightning twice. More specifically they created such a static charge from the thrust of liftoff that they created a discharge down the rocket's plume. Wild.
Second, and perhaps more interesting, the Soviet space program was not a coordinated effort like NASA. Instead it was done as competition between several design teams at once. What this means is that the US was using a planned model while the Russian's were using a free market model but in the end the US victory in the space race served to validate the free market economy of the US as opposed to the planned economy of the Soviet Union. Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think.

Two things from Slash Dot

These were two very cool things posted on slash dot today.
The first are these kickin' maps of the internet.
The second was this video of a crow using tools in the wild.

Matt

In Response to Adam's Comment on the Pee Pee

I feel it is time that I tell the world something I realized many years ago. We men spend too much time standing in front of toilets while not peeing. Clearly, each trip to the rest room only contains a couple of seconds of wasted time, but if you start trying to pee a couple seconds before you "free yourself," you can start peeing immediately. Do that a few thousand times, and think, how many more burritos could you noooook? The most important thing about this strategy is to not piss yourself. If you screw up, just once, it will take months to make up for all the time that you'll spend cleaning those pants. If you're lucky, you'll have your microwave and washing machine on different circuits, so you can cook burritos while you clean the pee out of your pants. In closing, I am not a woman, but my small knowledge of the gender that is women leads me to believe that this strategy should work wonders for them also.

- Seth

Need your ass kicked?

This guy needs your help. If you don't volunteer quickly, I'm going to nominate the entire Philadelphia pitching staff.

Link

-Seth

It's Amazing...

It's amazing how slowly time goes when you are waiting on a frozen burrito to cook.

Phourteen Phuckin' Years Later

For those oblivious few of you, I should report that the Philadelphia Phillies have made it into the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. Coincidentally, it has been 14 years since I cried because of a baseball game.  I won't bore you with too many stats, for if baseball stats are the type of thing that excited you, you'll already know them all.  I should mention, however, that the Phillies comeback (7 games back, on Sept 12) represents the largest last month comeback in baseball history, tying two other comebacks, each taking place in the 1930s.  Also, the Phillies pitching is so bad, they have a higher team ERA than any NL playoff bound team in history.  Naturally, they've scored more runs this year than any other NL team.  They also have more comeback wins, 48, than any team in MLB.  Yes, with only 89 wins, that means their starting pitching had to be bailed out more than half the time.  But they got it done Sunday after scaring the bejezus out of my on Saturday.  

They were helped, of course, by Tom Glavine's laughable performance for the Mets.  Glavine, who should be barred from the Cooperstown after his poor excuse for pitching Sunday, gave up 7 runs and only recorded one out in the top of the first inning before he was pulled.  For those of you keeping track at home, that's a single game ERA of 189, which is only two orders of magnitude off of being quite respectable.

I should mention that Matt has two reasons to be proud.  First, his lifelong dream to see his hometown Cubs go to the playoffs will also be realized this year.  I'll be rooting for them until they beat the D-Backs after which the Phillies will be forced to end Matt's phantasies in the NLCS.  Second, Matt will be proud, of course that his other hometown team, The Nationals, did their part to help the Phillies to a divisional title.  They kindly beat them Mets many times and lost to the Phillies many times, all within the last couple weeks.  So,  GoNats!

The only sad thing about Sunday's baseball, is that, if only the Mets had won, we would have a simultaneous tie for the NL East and 4-way tie for the NL wild card, which would have led to playoff games until Wednesday, an unprecedented scenario.  Doesn't this all make the AL seem quite lame?  Who wants a league where you know the playoff teams in July?

Okay, folks, the postseason starts in just a couple days.  Get ready!

- Seth