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Showing posts with label stupidity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stupidity. Show all posts

May 8, 2013

logomachy



logomachy lo·gom·a·chy [loh-gom-uh-kee] noun, plural lo·gom·a·chies.

1. a dispute about or concerning words.

2. an argument or debate marked by the reckless or incorrect use of words; meaningless battle of words.

3. a game played with cards, each bearing one letter, with which words are formed.


I see the first definition all the time. Someone will make a spelling mistake or misuse a word in a post about a controversial subject and someone else will ridicule them for it, then someone else will defend the original poster and ridicule the ridiculer and others will chime in on one side or the other and sometimes the person who made the mistake will reply, either slamming the critics or laughing it off and the original contention will be forgotten.

Another argument I saw not long ago was in regards to the second definition. It was in a political forum and someone said "They just tow the party line." and a reply said it was "toe".  The first person came back and said no, it was "tow", as in pull behind them.  That went on for several dozen posts with both leaving links "proving" the other was wrong. 

Ah, such is the Internet, huh?  One big logomachy. 

March 14, 2013

There Are No Stupid Questions

I've heard that all my life, but earlier today on Facebook, I saw these questions posed by someone who was trying to be clever.  I decided I'd answer them.

If Mars had earthquakes would they be called marsquakes?

Yes, Wikipedia has an entry: Marsquake. Don't trust Wiki? Check out this article on the respected Space.com: Marsquakes: Red Planet May Still Rumble. It was even in the news a few months back: NASA wants to measure 'Marsquakes'

When lightening strikes the ocean, why don’t all the fish die?

First, it's spelled "lightning" and if fish were in the immediate vicinity of a lightning strike, they'd probably die, but fortunately for marine life, the electrical current spreads out and dissipates until it becomes too weak to do any harm.

How far away from the immediate strike do fish still die?  Ewen Thomson, an electrical engineer at the University of Florida says the "lethal distance,"  depends on (1) how much current there is in a lightning bolt and (2) how much current it takes to electrocute a fish. Ichthyologists (fish biologists) sometimes catch fish to study by zapping them with electricity. The best estimates are that lightning bolts probably don't kill fish more than 200 feet away in salt water, even less distance in fresh water. (because salt water conducts electricity better)

If there’s a speed of light and a speed of sound, is there a speed of smell?

The speed of an odor from source to the time your brain registers it depends upon the air currents and your own neural impulses.  So, there's no set speed of smell.

Can you cry underwater?

Of course you can.  The tears will rapidly dissolve into the surrounding water, but tears can be leaving the tear duct.  If you're wearing a mask, then it's feasible that you could cry enough to fill it up.  Doubtful, but feasible.  If you are in that much pain or having that much grief underwater, it's probably best to get to the surface ASAP...unless you're TRYING to drown yourself, then....

Does the postman deliver his own mail?

If his house is on his route he would.  Why wouldn't he? (or she - the proper term now is "letter carrier")  I was friends with my regular letter carrier and he told me routes are often rotated amongst all of them, with the more senior carriers getting their choice of the best routes. 

That said, I went to both the official USPS website as well as the one for the letter carrier's union and couldn't find anything.  I did see a phone number, so I dialed it and after FINALLY being transferred to a human, I asked the question.  She was taken aback and then looked through all of her "pat answers" and found nothing, but agreed with me there didn't seem to be any rules or regulations against it.  We both didn't think a carrier would be dispatched ONLY to deliver another carrier's mail.

Why is there a light in the refrigerator and not in the freezer?

The newer "side by side" fridges do have lights in both compartments.  Back in the days before the advent of LED lights and frost-free freezers, putting a light into the freezer compartment was an engineering challenge. An incandescent light globe in the freezer will generate heat while the door is open, and will be covered in frost soon after the door is closed.  The sudden temperature change and moisture could cause the bulb to shatter when the door is opened again.  In my search for the answer, I found several sites that sell add-on lights for freezers without lights.

Can crop circles be square?

If something is square, it can't be a circle, but there ARE squares that have been found inside the "mysterious" crop circles.   Google "crop circles with squares" images and you'll see them with not only squares, but triangles and other non-circle geometric shapes inside them.

Are eyebrows considered facial hair?

Eyebrows are on your face, therefore by definition they ARE facial hair. 

Is there ever a day mattresses aren’t on sale?

Well, the seemingly continuous sales aside, the answer has to be "Yes", simply due to the fact that most mattress stores aren't open every day.  Most are closed on Sundays and nearly all are closed on major holidays.  They can't have a sale if they're not open. Every store I've ever been to has sales on merchandise, even item specific businesses;   for example, tire stores have sales on the products that aren't selling well or tires they've got a deal on for buying in bulk and can offer them at a discount to their customers.  The same is true for places that sell stationery, liquor stores, clothing shops, etc.  

From my own short time spent working in a furniture store, I learned that mattresses have a huge mark-up in price and a "sale" might only mean the product is "marked down" to the store's regular profit margin.  Just a trick of the trade, used in many other businesses.  Other than that sneaky tactic, it's hard to begrudge them a good profit because a mattress store can have quite a bit of money tied up in inventory, what with different brands, styles, sizes, etc.  Also, if a customer buys a mattress, they probably won't be back for a replacement for at least four/five years or longer.

How come lemon washing up liquid contains real lemons but lemon juice has artificial flavorings?

The stupidest question of a stupid bunch.  How can a real lemon have artificial flavorings?

What's really stupid was me spending any amount of time finding the answers to these stupid questions.

January 11, 2013

The Oldest Woman in the World

Has a radio show.

Am listening to sports talk radio at the moment and the hosts are talking about the Academy Award nominations. They're raving about Lincoln, a movie I want to see but not enough to break down and go to the theater.  I'll wait until it comes out on video or go to one of those sites that doesn't much care about copyright infringement.



They're especially gushing over the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis and from the short trailers I've seen, he does resemble President Lincoln. One of the male hosts asked the woman on the show if the actor did a good job portraying Lincoln and she said "Spot on! Captures him perfectly!".

Uh, I can understand saying he LOOKS like Lincoln, but how the hell would she know anything else about the man?  Lincoln had his photograph taken several times, but there's no recordings of his speech or film of him.  Photography was still in its infancy;  there were certainly no movies, records or tapes then.

Aw, hell...these idiot talking heads don't know much about sports, why would I expect them to know much of anything about movies?

Yep, they're stupid...but maybe I'm more stupid for listening to them. 

December 5, 2012

Chick Bank Robber

There's stupid and there's STUPID.

Robbery suspect brags on YouTube



And this was posted under the vid:

I just stole a car and robbed a bank. Now I'm rich, I can pay off my college financial aid and tomorrow i'm going for a shopping spree. Bite me. I love GREENDAY!

I hope she gets a light sentence for stealing a car and robbing the bank, but I'd give her life for adding the Green Day tune to her video.

June 9, 2012

YOLO

YOLO= "You only live once." I saw this several years ago on a Facebook wall. The subject was the most daring things people had done and one guy said he and his girlfriend had climbed some mountain last summer and someone else said they thought that was crazy and the mountain climber replied "YOLO".

I wasn't familiar with that particular acronym, but it didn't take long to find out what it meant: You Only Live Once - Mainly used to defend doing something ranging from mild to extreme stupidity (That's from the website Urban Dictionary. I'm not linking to it because 90% of the definitions on the site contain some...or a lot...of profanity. I'm thinkin' it's more than fair that I cite the source even if I don't insert a hyperlink)

I don't think climbing a mountain is stupid;  I wouldn't do it, but I can think of a lot more stupid things there are to do.  The way YOLO is being used most of the time is stupid, though.

Since that time I've seen it hundreds of times on the 'net, on Twitter feeds and set as a Facebook status. It's becoming overused, much in the way Hotel California was played way too much on the radio. That song was great the first dozen times I heard it, but when it was played a dozen times a day....

It was like that with YOLO for a long while, then - thankfully - it fell into disuse. It wouldn't go away completely - there were the isolated incidents that would call attention to it again, such as when Zac Efron got a YOLO hand tattoo. It's making a comeback, though, and a search of the 'net will show that I'm not alone in thinking it's being used far too often and in the wrong context.

I was reminded of it again the other day when some doofus posted in a fan group something like "Me 'n a bud drank a fifth of vodka, polished off a case of malt liquor and smoked a whole oz. of some crazy kine. YOLO." Yeah, I thought. You only live once, but you'll also probably only live a short time.

I suppose you only live once, but I prefer to go by the haiku written by James Bond in Ian Fleming's novel You Only Live Twice:

You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face

I'm certainly not a spy nor a combat veteran, but I have looked death in the face, both literally and figuratively. That's for another blog post, though.

The following is from the 1967 James Bond thriller You Only Live Twice opening, sung by Nancy Sinatra. (The movie bears little resemblance to the novel, by-the-way) I love the opening bars of the tune.

January 26, 2012

So Far, a Lucky Week

This just hit my email inbox:


I forget why I entered the contest; I'm sure the Grand Prize was something I really wanted or I wouldn't have made the effort. A magazine subscription isn't too bad of a consolation prize - I love to get magazines and after reading, they're good to line my trashcan with or to tear pages out of and put under the Beej's water and feed bowls. I used to take my old magazines to the laundromat but they would get stolen within the day.

It's been a fairly lucky week for me; I won this magazine subscription, fifty extra points for correctly answering the movie trivia question at StartSampling and last night I won $12 on the Powerball lottery.

It was also a very lucky week for some young punk in a red car.  I was out earlier and about to turn onto a busy street.  The light was red and there was a car ahead of me.  I started slowing as I normally do, easing to a stop. (saves gas, saves brake wear) There wasn't but a few car lengths between me and the other vehicle when the red car zoomed around me and cut in front.  I had to slam on my brakes to avoid slamming into the car.  I saw him glancing in his rear-view mirror and I gave him the bird.  He didn't look back again.  I was itching for a fight- he had scared me and that just about makes me angrier than anything else.

As we sat there waiting for the light, I got more angry.  He wasn't saving any time, he had to wait anyway.  When the light changed, he sped off, zipping from lane-to-lane w/out signalling. He also ran a yellow light when he got to the next intersection and turned. 

I wasn't in a very good mood, anyway.  I had tried to drop off my vehicle insurance payment last week, but there was a sign on the office door "Be Back Soon". I went back by several times, but there was no one there.  I put the check and invoice on the passenger seat and forgot about it.  When I got in my truck earlier, I noticed it and remembered that it was due tomorrow.  I got to the insurance office and saw the same sign on the door.  I went to the Dollar Store, did a little shopping and dropped back by only to see the business was still closed.  I killed a little more time and went back - the sign was still up, the door still locked.

Fuming, I went home and called the after hours number listed on the door.  Nothing.  I then called the regular number and a woman answered.  I told her I had been trying to bring my payment by and wanted to make sure someone was there to take it.  "Oh, I stepped out for a little while." she told me.  Yeah, a week is a "little while" I thought, but didn't say it.  She then informed me that the boss was gone, had been for a week.  That made sense then - she was enjoying her four hour lunch breaks.   She's lucky I didn't lose my temper with her.  She's even luckier I didn't have to file a claim for rear-ending that red car.

I'm lucky to win the few things I have this week.  To be honest - I'm even more lucky I haven't stroked out.   I seem to be getting more and more angry at things here lately.  I got a little angry earlier at a reply to my license plate post on Facebook.  An old friend and schoolmate wrote "Why would I want a license plate with 'Mike' on it?"  It shouldn't have, but it hit me wrong.  I started to reply "Well, it would be just as well....'smartass' wouldn't fit."  I've been a little snarky on Facebook myself lately, though, and didn't want to be a hypocrite.

To top all that off, the stray cat I've been feeding has been in heat. (I thought she was pregnant, but she is just fat.  I've cut back on her food- all she gets is B's leftovers now) I love cats, but the only thing more disgusting than the smell of cat urine is a female cat in heat.  Thanks to her "condition", there has been a dozen tomcats hanging around.  I've been woken up a dozen times  this week by the caterwauling;  it's either her and a male cat or two males dueling for her affections.  I've discovered one thing about cats;  you can't tell whether they're fightin' or foolin' around by the sounds they're making. 

It would probably help a great deal if I quit frequenting political forums.  If the Republicans nominate Gingrich, then they will have to give up the "party of family values" label they brag about.  If they nominate Santorum, then they'll lose any chance of getting a gay person to vote for them ever again. Both of them are a little...let's say "ethically challenged".  The Republicans definitely need to stop touting that they're for limited govt. and need to quit pretending they're conservative. (and the TEA Party has allowed itself to be hijacked by the neocons) I'm lucky I'm too old for the draft, because we'll need one for the war machine if we take on Iran.

I know I lowered my blood pressure at least fifty points by not reading posts in Dallas Cowboy forums.  The "Tony Homo" posts infuriated me.  Probably Santorum supporters.

May 17, 2011

Dumb (Ass) Comment

I subscribe to the Amarillo Globe-News Facebook page. Recently they linked to an article on their website about the US Marines bringing home Smoke, a donkey that had been a mascot of the Marines in Iraq.

The comments on the FB page were mostly positive, except for some who griped that it wasn't news, and then there was this, a comment about education funding and a few posts later, another comment. (I put them together in order to save space.)  For privacy, I blacked out the names.


Education is very important and we need to fund it, but if our educational system is churning out functionally illiterate jackasses like that, then something has to change.

The donkey is probably smarter than that person.