Rants

Seven Weeks

That is exactly how long it took for the ice maker in our new refrigerator to stop working. FUCK! There are cubes in the tray that feel frozen, but they haven’t been ejected. After reading the troubleshooting section of the “manual” we got with the unit I have cranked the temperature knob up one, it has been warm around here the last couple of days. Plus I removed the refrigerator’s built in water filter as that was listed as a probably cause. SHIT!

Lets hope one of those things fix this. Although I don’t hold out much hope, it is obviously cold enough in there as the ice cubes that were already made are still ice and if the filter was clogged there wouldn’t be any frozen water in the ice maker right now. DAMN!

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Mars Attacks!

My boss at work is forever forwarding emails to the group.He is an internet newbie, so most of the stuff is recycled chain stuff. But I don’t tell him to stop because sometimes the jokes or pictures of scantily clad women brighten up my day. Plus I also get a chance to debunk them to the group by using a couple of the hoax/urban legend sites I keep bookmarked.

Today I got one that shouted at me in various colors and fonts that Mars will be passing the closest ever to Earth this August. Be sure and tell your kids and grandkids because it won’t get this close for another thousand years. Well, I remember that this actually happened 2 years ago, so I replied all asking where did I sign up for the time travel trip and linking to a page describing that this was an event that occurred in 2003.

After I sent that back, I starting reading the whole email and near the bottom was two pictures, one of the Moon and one of Mars about the same size. Underneath were words to the effect, “Starting at the beginning of the month you will be to watch Mars grow in the sky until it is the same size as the Moon to the naked eye, so enjoy the show.”

A little more research and I just had to sent out another email to the group addressing this statement. Mars is roughly twice the diameter of the Moon, 6878km vs. 3476km. For them to appear the same size to the naked eye Mars would have to be roughly twice as far from Earth as the Moon. The Moon is 368,500km from Earth, so doubling that (let’s round up a bit) gives us 800,000km. Lets switch to something we can grasp and convert the 800,000km to 500,000 miles. Mars would have to be 1/2 million miles away to appear the same size in the sky as the moon to the naked eye. Now 1/2 million miles sounds pretty far away, but at Mar’s closest approach to Earth two years ago, it was 35 million miles away. If the red planet finds a way to get that close to us, something is seriously wrong with our solar system. Nobody will be enjoying the show, they will be preparing to die.

Actually this October there will be another close approach. Mars will be a mere 43 million miles away and it will appear in the sky to be the size of a quarter viewed from an 1/8 of a mile away.

My cubical neighbors got to talking about what kind of effect the Martian gravity would have on Earth if it got as close as stated n that email. Back to the web for more research. The mass of Mars is 6.4219e23kg. The mass of the Moon is 7.35e22kg. That is a lot of zeros to try and type into Windows calculator, so seeing as we are just after the ratio, let’s divide 64.219 by 7.35. This gives the answer that the mass of Mars is 8.73 times that of the Moon. For Mars to look the same size in the sky as the moon it has to be twice as far away as the Moon. Because the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two objects, the force of gravity of the Moon would be ? of what it is if it was twice as far away. So if it Mars that same twice as far away it’s effect would be 2.18 time stronger than that of the moon. I suppose that would make the tides twice as high. And if the Moon and Mars got close to aligning in the sky the tides would be 3 times as high as they are now.

Any Planetary Physicists out there feel free to chime and let me know how far off my calculations are.

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I’ve Lost The Will To Blog

And here is why: Feeling ‘blogged down’ on the Internet

And because Matt DiFebo is the managing editor of The Daily Tribune News in Cartersville, GA. and probably has several Pulitzer Prizes on the rickety pine shelf behind his desk, if I ever do blog again I’ll be sure it is about politics or education and that it will “incite discussion on these very important topics.”

Oh yeah, did I mention that we went to Kroger’s tonight and that I couldn’t get any luncheon meat for next week’s sandwiches because the Deli Counter was closed. No? Good, I wouldn’t want to bother Matt with that…

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PAH-Leese!

There is an SUV commercial that I see quite often during the viewing of the Tour de France. It shows someone driving a SAAB 9-7x around town, filmed from the drivers point of view, and all they see is people doing SUV things, like shopping, buying gas, washing it, buying gas, putting a dog in the back, buying gas, etc. The gimmick is, all the SUVs are invisible. Finally as we cut to the outside view, the announcer intones (might not be the exact wording,) “Far from the ordinary,” just as we are getting a glimpse of the most ordinary looking vehicle on the planet. This thing makes the Ford Explorer look like it was designed by Pininfarina.

The only car commercial possibly more oxymoronic than that, sorry DJ, is the one from several year’s back for the Toyota Camry where they play Right Said Fred’s song “I’m Too Sexy” in the background…

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That’s Ugly

Last Sunday while sitting in front of the PC I felt an itch on my inner right forearm. Looking down I noticed a little bump, dang a mosquito got me. Twice, as now the outside of my left ankle is itching. If I can avoid the first scratch I can tolerate the urge pretty well, but if my guard drops the scratching feels so good that it is hard to stop.

Monday morning while mousing at work, because of the location of the one on my arm, I notice that the itch is worse and I have got a little seepage from the bite. I head on over to the nurse’s station and get one of those little dots to cover it up. Monday night at shower time the bite has turned red. So too has the one on my ankle, might not have been a mosquito.

By Tuesday night it is ugly, pencil eraser sized and raised about 1/16 of an inch. My wife tells me that I better go see the nurse again tomorrow.

Wednesday morning our nurse gets our her little scalpel, picks away for awhile and squeezes out a bit of ooze. She then gets out her cauldron and mixes up some hydrocortisone and a little antibiotic cream to apply over the top, then covers my little red mesa with a 2″ x 4″ bandage. She tells me to come back tomorrow and if it is any bigger I will have to go to the doctor.

Thursday I report in for boo-boo inspection. It doesn’t look any worse, but it doesn’t look much better either. Then she tells me why I would have had to go to the doctor if it was bigger, she at first suspected it was a Brown Recluse Spider that bit me. I get another coating of duo-cream (patent pending) Because I whined some when about 50 hairs were yanked out by the roots during bandage removal, now I graduate to a folded 4×4 gauze pad held in place by a 3″ wide magic wrap thing that feels like rubber coated gauze that stretches and adheres to itself by molecular adhesion. She wants to see it again tomorrow.

This morning when the dressing is removed it now looks like a small red mole with a black dot in the middle. Better. More cream and a rewrap. Good thing as I was worried where we were going with the ever escalating bandage size…

I guess I got lucky and it wasn’t a Brown Recluse, maybe just a Tan Hermit Spider or something. If you ever want to get scared about spiders, forget Tarantulas or Black Widows, do a little Googling for Brown Recluse and read some. I’m warning you though, don’t ever click on any of the picture links, because seeing as the Brown Recluse can’t bite through clothing, you will never get naked again.

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Be Careful What You Write, No Matter How Inane, It Might Be Permanent

You cannot put the same shoe on every foot.
Publilius Syrus (c.42BC)
Writer

My manager at work has subscribed to a little monthly motivational handout called Bits & Pieces. The above quote came from the July 2005 issue he handed out today, it was the second bit, or piece if you will, in the magazine, right there on page 1.

My question is why was this particular piece of “wisdom” saved? Did someone other than Mr. Syrus hear him say those words and instantly think, “Ooooh, I’d better save that, it sounds like it will be inspirational in about 2,047 years?” Well, here’s hoping that the July 4052 issue of Bits & Pieces includes this:

Be careful what you write, no matter how inane, it might be permanent.
Brian the Red (c.2005AD)
Blogger

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Gameday Audio

This is the last time you hear me bitch about listening to the Red Sox on MLB.com. I tried listening to the Sox -Reds game last night and I couldn’t take it, the sound randomly cutting out was too much to bear. I then took a shot at listening to the Cincinnati broadcast of the game, but while it wasn’t cutting out, the announcers sounded like they were moving closer then further away from the mikes, The volume was up and down and about as distracting as the WEEI sound drop outs. For a second I thought maybe all this was me, but funny thing though, the volume of the commercials was perfect.

Tonight, I tried to listen to the Red Sox broadcasters again, and the game sounded fine. Might have been because there were some different people in the booth. One of the regular announcers was out because of a sick relation or something and that changed something just enough that there were almost no sound cut outs.

Next time the broadcast gets crappy I’m going to call and cancel even if there is no refund. If I keep the service I will be tempted to try and listen and then just be pissed at the quality.

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