otohPhoto: Halloween

This was me at a Halloween party Saturday night. I was just going for a generic hippie look [and sort of a flashback to how I looked in high school, but that's for another day], but a couple people told me I looked like Howard Stern.

And, mustering all my self-control, I did NOT tell anyone this story that night:

I was test-driving a new car recently. In an effort to improve safety, certain features — like making phone calls and tuning radio stations — are now voice-activated. So as I tooled along I said, “Classic Rock,” and some Led Zeppelin started playing on the radio.

“Country,” I said. Kenny Chesney.

“No. REAL country” Johnny Cash. Oh yeah.

“Light jazz,” I ventured. Diana Krall. Cool.

Just then someone cut right in front of me. “Idiot!” I shouted. And the radio tuned in Howard Stern….

Yeah, you can tell the same joke and substitute Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, etc.

IE Tab

I’ve written before that I like using the Mozilla Firefox browser instead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. [I would say that all the cool kids are using it but, while that may well be true, I have never been one of the cool kids and I don't think we should do something just because they do anyway. In fact, that endorsement is usually reason enough for me not to do it. But I digress... to excess.] Web sites don’t always display the same way in Firefox as they do in IE. Sometimes this is just poor design, sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it’s so the site can use a non-standard feature of IE. [None of those reasons are mutually exclusive.]

There are a few sites I visit on a fairly regular basis that never display correctly in Firefox. Depending on how distorted they are or which features I’m trying to access I either put up with the distortion or I acquiesce and use IE. Until now, that is.

One of the cool things about Firefox is the wide variety of add-ons available — way more than I would ever want or need, which means there’s probably something for just about everyone. And one of the add-ons I just learned about is called IE Tab. This adds a button to my toolbar that, when clicked, reloads the page just as if I were looking at it in IE. I tried it on a couple of the sites I visit often and it worked like a charm.

This isn’t earth-shattering or life-changing, [well, I think my online life is a little better with this tool] but tools like this are why all the cool kids want to use Firefox. And all us geeks too….

3SP: Those Women

Continuing with a Halloweenish theme, here is a 3-Song Playlist of “those” women you may [or may not] want to avoid. If you think this represents my opinion of women in general, you may [or may not] be right. In either case, my opinion of women is generally higher than my opinion of men….

• Witchy Woman by Eagles
• Evil Woman by ELO
• Devil Woman by Cliff Richard

And since this is the week for tricks and treats, here’s a bonus track just because I like this song so much and it sorta fits the theme:

• Black Magic Woman by Santana

The song titles link to YouTube videos and the artist names link to their official web sites.

Well, That Explains a Few Things

Last night was a full moon.

You Creep

There is so much I don’t understand. Here’s another one. You stop at a red light. [And by "you" I don't necessarily mean YOU, of course. I'm giving YOU the benefit of the doubt....] And then, while the light is still red, while there are still half a dozen cars between you and the intersection, you creep forward. It’s just a few inches. After all, you can’t really GO anywhere what with the red light and all the other cars in front of you.

And then a few seconds later you inch up a little more. [Could we still inch up if we switched to the metric system?] The entire duration of the red light you creep forward a little at a time. Nowhere to really go and apparently oblivious to what a waste of gas it is. [Bet you'd sit still if you had to push the car those few inches instead of just easing the pressure under your foot!] If there was room for you stop up there, why didn’t you stop up there in the first place? And what have you really gained if you’re six inches closer to the bumper in front of you? [I'd have gotten home 0.2 seconds earlier, but there was a car in front of me with a bike rack....]

And you should know, If I’m sitting anywhere near you in traffic while you [not YOU] creep forward, I’m thinking, “What an idiot. Can’t you sit still for two minutes?”

And, when the light changes, may I [emphatically] suggest: hang up the freakin’ phone and drive….

Play It Again?

I’ve never been a sports nut. Maybe that’s why I don’t get it.

Some people can’t stand to watch a recorded game if they know the final score before they see the game.

I don’t watch a lot of sports to begin with. But either it’s a good game or it’s not. And since I’m not a sports nut, I rarely care much which side wins. Sure, it’s more entertaining when the sides are evenly matched — or if the underdog rises above expectations to make it an even match. Sure, well-officiated games are less frustrating.

But I’ll read good books more than once. I’ll watch good movies [and some not-so-good ones sometimes] more than once. I’ll listen to favorite songs over and over and over. Repetition in those forms of entertainment can enhance the experience. We can find nuances that we miss the first time through.

Sports professionals watch opponent’s games more than once to plan strategy. But the fans rarely watch more than once for any reason. More than that, they won’t watch once if they know the outcome first.

But wait — I kinda get that. There’s a tension — anticipation — in not knowing. Tension builds energy. I can see how that adds to their enjoyment. I get that. But those same people, the ones who won’t watch the game if they know the final score, those people will watch an instant replay of a part of that game repeatedly. And I hate to break it to them, but it’s gonna turn out the same way every time. They’ll even watch the highlights, which are typically those same replayed scenes, on the nightly news. And it’s gonna turn out the same way every time.

So is it some form of attention deficit? They won’t watch a game if they know the final score. But they’ll watch 30 seconds of the game several times. From different angles. In slow motion. In reverse. Computer enhanced. Hours or days later. Even though they know….

I don’t get it.

3SP: Halloween Nights

In honor of the Halloween season, here is a 3-Song Playlist for a windy, stormy, spooky night:

• Windy by The Association
• Stormy by Classics IV
• Spooky by Atlanta Rhythm Section

The song titles link to YouTube videos and the artist names link to their official web sites.

Note: Spooky was a hit for the Classics IV. A couple members of that band and one of their producers later joined Atlanta Rhythm Section and remade the song into a hit again. The ARS version on YouTube was better.

I’m so Dizzy….

OK. This is an interesting image, but I’m not convinced that it really is an indication of left/right brain dominance as claimed here. First of all, the left/right brain theory has been over-simplified in the popular press to the point of absurdity. [I have half a mind to complain, if I thought it would do any good....]

So, which direction is the woman spinning? Can you make her spin the other way? [And do you really believe that either is any indication of the way your brain works?]

Sum Numbers, Revisited

Here are numbers that boggle my mind:

I work in a very large school district. How large? According to the most recent stats, the fourth largest in Florida and 11th largest in the U.S. How big is that? We have over 176,000 students in 155 schools. [The high school where I teach has a little over 3,000 students and we don't come close to being the largest school in the district.] We [the district] are the second largest employer in Central Florida with over 23,000 administrative, instructional, and classified personnel. The House of Mouse Disney employs more.

The annual operating budget (used for salaries, benefits, utilities, maintenance, supplies, and equipment) is approaching $1.5 billion. [Yeah, that's really big. But teachers are still underpaid in my admittedly biased opinion.] The capital projects fund (used for construction, improvements, and remodeling) is nearly $1.7 billion. Since 2003, we have opened 24 new schools and as many more are being replaced, renovated, or enlarged.

Here are the numbers that I find most interesting though. Our students come from 179 different countries and speak 132 different languages and dialects. [Quick. Without looking at a reference source, how many countries and languages can you name?] Central Florida is WAY more diverse than where I grew up in Kentucky. [To be fair, many parts of Kentucky have gotten more diverse over the years too, but nothing on this scale.] It makes for more interesting challenges. But these are numbers that can leave you numb….

3SP: Walking

One of my favorite [but now defunct] local radio stations used to have a contest they called My Three Songs. The DJ would play three songs with something in common. Listeners called in to guess the theme and win some kind of crap. [I really don't remember what the prizes were but the odds are it was some kind of crap....]

Another of my favorite local radio stations used to feature what they called Select-a-Sets. Listeners could request three songs to be played back-to-back. The songs could just be three favorites, but they encouraged you to come up with a theme of some sort. I always liked that and I often jotted down set ideas even though I rarely requested them.

And I’ve been thinking about listing some of them here [because, really, my life is not interesting enough to write about...] but I didn’t like either of those names enough to want to steal them and didn’t like any of the names I came up with on my own. And then a couple weeks ago Meg Fowler, in one of her Love lists wrote that she loves 3-song playlists. And I thought, “Now there’s a name I could steal!”

Now I wish I had a 3-song playlist ready with the theme of stealing or taking, but I don’t. So here are three “walking” songs. The song titles link to YouTube videos and the artist names link to their official web sites.

• Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed
• Walking Man by James Taylor
• Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn

Wanna play?